philanthropy fell away. These men were leading down to their old home an
army of savages and alien soldiers; they were boasting that we, their
relatives or whilom school-fellows, neighbors, friends, should be
slaughtered like rats in a pit; their commander, St. Leger, published at
their instigation general orders offering his Indians twenty dollars
apiece for the scalps of our men, women, and children! How could one
pretend not to hate such monsters?

At least I did not pretend any longer, but worked with an enthusiasm I had
never known before to marshal our yeomanry together.

Under the pelting July sun, in the saddle from morning till night--to
Cherry Valley, to Stone Arabia, to the obscure little groups of cabins in
the bush, to the remote settlements on the Unadilla and the East
Creek--organizing, suggesting, pleading, sometimes, I fear, also cursing a
little, my difficult work was at last done. The men of the Mohawk district
regiment, who came more directly under my eye, were mustered at
Caughnawaga, and some of the companies that were best filled despatched
forward under Captain Adam Fonda, who was all impatience to get first to
Fort Dayton, the general rendezvous. In all we were likely to gather
together in this regiment one hundred and thirty men, and this was better
than a fortnight ago had seemed possible.

They were sturdy fellows for the most part, tall, deep-chested, and hard
of muscle. They came from the high forest clearings of Kingsland and
Tribes Hill, from the lower Valley flatlands near to Schenectady, from the
bush settlements scattered back on Aries Creek, from the rich farms and
villages of Johnstown, and Caughnawaga, and Spraker's. There were among
them all sorts and conditions of men, thrifty and thriftless, cautious and
imprudent, the owners of slaves along with poor yokels of scarcely higher