Wyoming Valley battle and massacre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Wyoming Valley massacre)

Date	July 3, 1778
Location	Pennsylvania
Result	British victory

Combatants

Britain

United States

Commanders

Colonel John Butler

Colonel Zebulon Butler

Strength

900 regulars and Native American warriors

360 milita

Casualties

3 killed
8 wounded

300+ killed and captured
(164+6 known dead)

Northern theater after Saratoga, 1778–1781
Rhode Island – Wyoming Valley – Carleton's Raid – Cherry Valley – Stony Point – Penobscot expedition – Sullivan expedition – Newtown – Springfield – Groton Heights

The Wyoming Valley battle and massacre was an encounter during the American Revolutionary War between American Patriots and Loyalists accompanied by Iroquois raiders that took place in Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, on July 3, 1778. More than three hundred Patriots were killed in a battle followed by a massacre, in which the Iroquois raiders hunted and killed fleeing Patriots before torturing to death the thirty to forty who had surrendered.

1 Background
2 Encounter
3 Aftermath
4 Legacy
5 References
6 Further reading

[edit] Background

In 1777, after a British Army surrendered at Saratoga in upstate New York, Loyalists and their Iroquois allies in the region turned to hit-and-run tactics, raiding American Patriot settlements as well as the villages of American-allied Iroquois. Based at Fort Niagara, these raids were led by commanders, such as British Colonel John Butler, the Mohawk captain Joseph Brant and the Seneca chief Cornplanter.

[edit] Encounter

The Wyoming Valley battle occurred when Colonel John Butler, leading his Rangers accompanied by a force of Cayugas and Senecas led by Cornplanter, made a surprise attack on the 360 armed Patriot defenders of Forty Fort beside the Susquehanna River (near present-day Wilkes-Barre). The Patriots were virtually annihilated and around 1,000 homes in the area were burned.

After the battle, some of the victorious Loyalists and Indians began to harass prisoners and fleeing settlers, killing and torturing an unknown number. All of the Patriots who had been captured while fighting were executed. Butler reported that 227 American scalps had been taken [1]. He also insisted that no non-combatants had been killed, despite widespread accounts to the contrary.

Survivors' accounts indicate that the moment of contact was followed by a sharp battle lasting about forty-five minutes. An order to reposition the Patriot line turned into a frantic rout when the inexperienced Patriot militia panicked. This ended the battle and triggered the Iroquois hunt for survivors.

[edit] Aftermath

Reports of the massacre of the prisoners enraged the American public, and they demanded retribution. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition methodically destroyed at least forty Iroquois villages throughout upstate New York.

[edit] Legacy

The massacre was depicted by the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell in his 1809 poem Gertrude of Wyoming. Because of the atrocities involved, Campbell described Joseph Brant as a "monster" in the poem, though it was later determined that Brant had not actually been present.

The western state of Wyoming received its name from the U.S. Congress when it joined the Union in 1890, much to the puzzlement of its residents. An Ohio Congressman suggested the name because he liked the poem by Campbell.^{[citation needed]}

The massacre is commemorated each year by the Wyoming Commemorative Association, a local non-profit organization, which holds a ceremony on the grounds of the Wyoming Monument. The Monument is a mass grave containing the bones of the many of the victims of the massacre. The commemorative ceremonies began in 1878, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Massacre. The principal speaker at the event was President Rutherford B. Hayes. The annual program has continued each year since then on the grounds of the Wyoming Monument.

[edit] References

Boatner, Mark M. (1966). Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. New York: D. McKay Co.
Graymont, Barbara (1972). The Iroquois in the American Revolution. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-0083-6.
Williams, Glenn F. (2005). Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois. Yardley, Pa.: Westholme. ISBN 1-59416-013-9.