LITTLE BEARD'S TOWN
The trumpets called early the next morning, and the five rose, refreshed, ready for new labors.The fires were already lighted, and breakfast was cooking.Savory odors permeated the forest.
But as soon as all had eaten, the army marched, going northward and westward, intending to cut through the very center of the Iroquois country.Orders had come from the great commander that the power of the Six Nations, which had been so long such a terrible scourge on the American frontier, must be annihilated.
They must be made strangers in their own country.Women and children were not to be molested, but their towns must perish.
As Thayendanegea had said the night before the Battle of the Chemung, the power beyond the seas that had urged the Iroquois to war on the border did not save them.It could not.British and Tories alike had promised them certain victory, and for a while it had seemed that the promises would come true.But the tide had turned, and the Iroquois were fugitives in their own country.
The army continued its march through the wilderness, the scouts in front and heavy parties of riflemen on either flank.There was no chance for a surprise.Henry and his comrades were aware that Indian bands still lurked in the forest, and they had several narrow escapes from the bullets of ambushed foes, but the progress of the army was irresistible.Nothing could check it for a moment, however much the Indian and Tory chiefs might plan.
They camped again that night in the forest, with a thorough ring of sentinels posted against surprise, although there was little danger of the latter, as the enemy could not, for the present at least, bring a sufficient force into the field.But after the moon had risen, the five, with Heemskerk, went ahead through the forest.The Iroquois town of Kanawaholla lay just ahead, and the army would reach it on the morrow.It was the intention of the scouts to see if it was still occupied.
It was near midnight when the little party drew near to Kanawaholla and watched it from the shelter of the forest.Like most other Iroquois towns, it contained wooden houses, and cultivated fields were about it.No smoke rose from any of the chimneys, but the sharp eyes of the scouts saw loaded figures departing through a great field of ripe and waving corn.It was the last of the inhabitants, fleeing with what they could carry.
Two or three warriors might have been in that group of fugitives, but the scouts made no attempt to pursue.They could not restrain a little feeling of sympathy and pity, although a just retribution was coming.
"If the Iroquois had only stood neutral at the beginning of the war, as we asked them," said Heemskerk, "how much might have been spared to both sides! Look! Those people are stopping for a moment."The burdened figures, perhaps a dozen, halted at the far edge of the corn field.Henry and Paul readily imagined that they were taking a last look at their town, and the feeling of pity and sympathy deepened, despite Wyoming, Cherry Valley, and all the rest.But that feeling never extended to the white allies of the Iroquois, whom Thayendanegea characterized in word and in writing as "more savage than the savages themselves."The scouts waited an hour, and then entered the town.Not a soul was in Kanawaholla.Some of the lighter things had been taken away, but that was all.Most of the houses were in disorder, showing the signs of hasty flight, but the town lay wholly at the mercy of the advancing army.Henry and his comrades withdrew with the news, and the next day, when the troops advanced, Kanawaholla was put to the torch.In an hour it was smoking ruins, and then the crops and fruit trees were destroyed.
Leaving ruin behind, the army continued its march, treading the Iroquois power under foot and laying waste the country.One after another the Indian towns were destroyed, Catherinetown, Kendaia, Kanadesaga, Shenanwaga, Skoiyase, Kanandaigua, Honeyoye, Kanaghsawa, Gathtsewarohare, and others, forming a long roll, bearing the sounding Iroquois names.Villages around Cayuga and other lakes were burned by detachments.The smoke of perishing towns arose everywhere in the Iroquois country, while the Iroquois themselves fled before the advancing army.They sent appeal after appeal for help from those to whom they had given so much help, but none came.
It was now deep autumn, and the nights grew cold.The forests blazed with brilliant colors.The winds blew, leaves rustled and fell.The winter would soon be at hand, and the Iroquois, so proud of what they had achieved, would have to find what shelter they could in the forests or at the British posts on the Canadian frontier.Thayendanegea was destined to come again with bands of red men and white and inflict great loss, but the power of the Six Nations was overthrown forever, after four centuries of victory and glory.Henry, Paul, and the rest were all the time in the thick of it.The army, as the autumn advanced, marched into the Genesee Valley, destroying everything.Henry and Paul, as they lay on their blankets one night, counted fires in three different directions, and every one of the three marked a perishing Indian village.It was not a work in which they took any delight; on the contrary, it often saddened them, but they felt that it had to be done, and they could not shirk the task.
