the Genesee. This
he made 'a scene of drear and sickening desolation. The
Indians were hunted like wild beasts, till neither house
nor fruit-tree, nor field of corn, nor inhabitant, remained
in the whole country.' One hundred and twenty-eight houses
were razed in the town of Genesee. Sullivan became known
to the Indians as the 'Town Destroyer.' 'And to this
day,' said Cornplanter, in a speech delivered many years
afterwards, 'when the name is heard, our women look behind
them and turn pale and our children cling close to the
necks of their mothers.'

The War Chief had, indeed, been beaten on the Chemung
river. And yet, in the hour of defeat, he had added lustre
to his name. In the annals of the forest there are few
incidents as glorious as this Spartan-like struggle on
the frontiers of the Indian country. Points of similarity
can be traced between this battle and another which was
waged, in 1813, by the great Shawnee warrior Tecumseh,
at Moravian Town, on the Canadian Thames. Like Brant,
Tecumseh was allied with a force of white men, and, like
the chief of the Mohawks in the struggle on the Chemung,
Tecumseh played the leading role in the battle of the
Thames. In each engagement the fight was against an army
much stronger in numbers; in each the defeat was not
without honour to the Indian leader.

CHAPTER XI

OVER THE BORDER

Instead of proceeding to attack the strong loyalist fort
at Niagara, General Sullivan re-crossed the Genesee on
September 16. Lack of provisions, he asserted, was his
reason for turning back. Before this, Brant had frustrated
a plot which was afoot among the Indians to desert the
British cause. Red jacket, an influential chief of the
Senecas and a very persuasive orator, had suggested that
the Six Nations should negotiate a permanent peace with
the colonists. 'What have the English done for us,' he
exclaimed, as he pointed in the direction of the Mohawk
valley, 'that we should become homeless and helpless for
their sakes?' A considerable following embraced the view
of the Seneca chieftain, and it was agreed that a runner
should be sent to the camp of General Sullivan to acquaint
him with their desire to come to terms. If Sullivan was
prepared to negotiate with them, he was to be asked to
send his proposals under a flag of truce. These proceedings
came to Brant's knowledge and, whether his act may be
justified or not, he adopted probably the only means of
preventing a wholesale de