been courted by London fashion. He exerted a formidable influence
with his own people. The Indians were not, however, all on one
side. Half of the six tribes of the Iroquois were either neutral
or in sympathy with the Americans. Among the savages, as among
the civilized, the war was a family quarrel, in which brother
fought brother. Most of the Indians on the American side
preserved, indeed, an outward neutrality. There was no hostile
population for them to plunder and the Indian usually had no
stomach for any other kind of warfare. The allies of the British,
on the other hand, had plenty of openings to their taste and they
brought on the British cause an enduring discredit.

When St. Leger was before Fort Stanwix he heard that a force of
eight hundred men, led by a German settler named Herkimer, was
coming up against him. When it was at Oriskany, about six miles
away, St. Leger laid a trap. He sent Brant with some hundreds of
Indians and a few soldiers to be concealed in a marshy ravine
which Herkimer must cross. When the American force was hemmed in
by trees and marsh on the narrow causeway of logs running across
the ravine the Indians attacked with wild yells and murderous
fire. Then followed a bloody hand to hand fight. Tradition has
been busy with its horrors. Men struggled in slime and blood and
shouted curses and defiance. Improbable stories are told of pairs
of skeletons found afterwards in the bog each with a bony hand
which had driven a knife to the heart of the other. In the end
the British, met by resolution so fierce, drew back. Meanwhile a
sortie from the American fort on their rear had a menacing
success. Sir John Johnson's camp was taken and sacked. The two
sides were at last glad to separate, after the most bloody
struggle in the whole war. St. Leger's Indians had had more than