In early August 1777, Colonel Barry St. Leger led a force of 1,600 British and Tory regulars, German light troops and Indian allies to besiege Fort Stanwix, a key American fort that controlled a major transport network in the Mohawk Valley, in upper New York. Although St. Leger's ultimate target was Albany, New York, his expedition was primarily intended to serve as a diversion to attract attention away from a much larger British army under Lieutenant General John Burgoyne that was moving southwards from Canada along the Lake Champlain-Lake George route to attack Albany.

Learning of the siege, Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer gathered 800 militiamen from Tryon County and nearby counties at Fort Dayton, 45 miles from Fort Stanwix, on August 4 in order to relieve the fort. The little army camped for the night after having marched roughly ten miles but it was a very disorderly camp with few pickets. Although Herkimer was technically in command, his senior officers had little desire to follow his orders and simply wanted to go straight towards the enemy. They refused to wait for additional reinforcements and only grudgingly agreed to follow his preferred route. The next day they covered twelve miles and when they camped for the night, they were joined by 60 Oneidas, who warned that there were hostile Indians waiting ahead.

Herkimer decided that if the garrison made a sortie from the fort it would distract the British, thus increasing the militia’s chances of getting through safely. As a result, messengers were sent to tell Gansevoort that they would try to break through the British lines at dawn and Gansevoort should signal that he would sortie by firing three cannon shots. However, the messengers only made it to the fort by late morning but the troops had been ready to go since daylight and their patience quickly ran out. Very few of the men had fought in the Seven Years’ War so the commonly held view was that the British force was made up of weak-kneed Tories who would be easily smashed. Most of the men had rarely seen so many militia gathered in one place so it was natural for them to be over-confident. Herkimer resisted his officers as long as he could, trying to get them to wait for the signal, but he eventually gave in. While it would have seemed sensible to have the force preceded by Oneida scouts, most of the men distrusted the natives so picked militia were sent in advance. Anyway, the majority of the militia had little fear that Indians would dare ambush such a large force. They would soon learn the danger of over-confidence since an ambush was already in place.

Late in the afternoon of August 5, St. Leger had been warned by the sister of Indian leader Joseph Brant of the approaching militia but he had few troops to spare since the rest were busy working on roads or watching the fort. Therefore, he told Sir John Johnson to lead 55 infantry and 500 natives, including Brant’s men, to ambush the militia far away from the fort in order to prevent the garrison from supporting them with a sortie. The men left at 5PM and spent the night without fires in order to avoid warning the militia. The next day, they were reinforced by a unit of Jagers and additional Indians, and the leaders selected a roadway between two ravines as the ambush site.

That part of the road passed through an area filled with trees uprooted by a storm, and only a narrow roadway had been cleared so the flankers had to pull back onto the road and join the advance van. The men in the main column were filled with good cheer since they were only a short march away from the fort, which would undoubtedly prove simple to relieve, so the unending din of shouting voices, drums and marching feet made it virtually impossible for the scouts to hear themselves talk, never mind notice concealed Indians. Once the scouts had passed, the Indians snaked their way to positions near the road and prepared to spring the trap. The Jagers and the Royal York light infantry waited at the second ravine to prevent the militia from breaking through and escaping.

The militia were strung out along the road when a flanker saw an Indian and sprung the trap early, so that while the van and flankers were instantly cut to pieces,  the main force was given some warning. The officers on horseback who tried to restore orders were natural targets and several were shot off their horses, including Herkimer, who was badly wounded in both legs but continued to direct his forces. The Indians would have been even more effective if they had remained hidden and just poured a steady fire into the militia, who were standing out in the open, but many of them were young and filled with bloodlust. As it was, a charge would be met by one volley but then the untrained militia would have to look down to reload their muskets and when they next looked up the Indians would be among them chopping and slashing. At the same time, the rangers were picking off the officers and NCOs.

Since the ambush had started earlier than planned there was a delay before the Jagers and light infantry could reach the battle. Although trained marksmen, they were less effective than expected because the battle had degenerated into a melee where it was difficult to tell friend from foe. A number of militia simply ran into the woods and fled the battle but most stood their ground, following Herkimer’s order to remain in the road if attacked, which proved to be a deadly killing ground. Within half an hour men had abandoned the road and were seeking cover in the trees, where the more experienced survivors gradually formed them into defensive groups.

Seeing that the Indians were having trouble now that the militiamen were in better positions, Johnson ordered the light infantry to fix bayonets and charge. The men made a valiant effort and were initially successful but a bayonet charge is hard to sustain when men are hiding among trees and the infantry were too few to dislodge the militia. Sir John realized that they had accomplished their objective, the militia had taken enough losses that they would not be able to relieve the fort. However, the militiamen were now too dug in for his small number of infantry and Brant’s men were off chasing the rearguard, so he decided to return to the camp to obtain more infantry.

Shortly after he left, a powerful thunder storm forced an hour long pause in the battle and the rain refreshed the militiamen, as well as gave them a much needed opportunity to regroup into a better defensive position. The Royal Yorkers and Jagers had protective covers for their muskets but many of the militia did not, which was a problem when the battle restarted. However, the militiamen had prepared a position in the area where the trees had been blown down and the enemy would have to attack uphill.

Johnson had reached the main camp by this time and obtained an additional 70 reinforcements from the Royal Yorkers, but the rest of the army was still busy working on the roads. The Tories, Jagers and Indians had so far failed to penetrate the defensive circle, but prisoners had been interrogated so it was known that the militia expected to be helped by a sortie from the fort, so Johnson had the fresh Royal Yorkers reverse their jackets since the white linings of their jackets resembled the clothes worn by the Massachusetts Continenatals in the fort. A suspicious captain saw through the disguise but the Tories were close enough to the perimeter to charge with bayonets, and while the charge was fiercely resisted by the militia, the effort to push back the penetration weakened the defense of the other areas and the steady pressure caused the defense to collapse.

With only 150 men still able to fight the militia were facing complete defeat when the sound of heavy guns was heard from the fort and an Indian arrived saying that the rebels in the fort had made a sortie and were attacking the undefended camps. The last troops left to guard the camp had been sent to reinforce the ambush force, but it is unknown why Leger had not called back the men from road construction work. The Indians immediately left the battle to return to the camp to protect their women and possessions. Without the Indians, the Jagers and Tories knew that they could not handle the surviving militia so they quickly gathered their wounded and prisoners, and retreated. It was 3PM.

The surviving militiamen were exhausted so they were only able to transport 50 of the badly wounded and the rest had to walk or be left behind with the dead. With so many dead and wounded, they abandoned their attempt to relieve the fort and concentrated on making their way back to their homes. The majority of the survivors made their way back to Old Fort Schuyler and people brought boats to take away the worst of the wounded.

The Jagers, rangers, and Tories suffered roughly 27 casualties but among the 450 Indians, 65 were casualties, including a number of key chiefs. The precise number of militia casualties is still unknown today because no detailed report was made following the battle or it was suppressed in the interest of public morale. Contemporary accounts vary between the 200 claimed by Whig writers and the 500 claimed by the British. It seems likely that the militia force of roughly 800 to 1,000 men suffered causalities of 300 to 400 men, which explains why Tryon County refused to field more troops for Major General Benedict Arnold when he marched to relieve Fort Stanwix two weeks later. In the space of a single afternoon, almost every single family in the county had lost a relative.

Herkimer died on August 20 in his home, smoking his pipe as he literally bled to death.

Related Movies:

Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
Directed by John Ford, starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert
A young couple lose their farm in the Mohawk Valley during an Indian raid at the beginning of the American Revolution. When the British and their Indian allies invade the valley, the community is forced to seek shelter in the local fort. (please click here to read the review)

Further Reading:

Rebellion in the Mohawk Valley: The St. Leger Expedition of 1777-Gavin K. Watt, research assistance by James F. Morrison, Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2002.

The author spent twenty-five years researching the topic and the book contains a wealth of information. Watt provides a helpful comparative chronology that shows what was happening simultaneously at Fort Stanwix and in both the St. Leger and the Burgoyne expeditions. In addition, the book offers a plethora of engravings and portraits of the leading actors and locations, as well as an impressive number of maps. Unfortunately, the narrative is slowed down by an overabundance of passages from orderly books, journals and orders of march. Used judiciously, these passages would provide a flavor of the period but there are far too many of them.

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