the effrontery to enter in
broad daylight. But we failed to come up with him, and to this day I do
not know whether any of this information we received was indeed correct.
It was the first day of August when we heard of Butler's presence near
Johnstown; we had been lying at a tavern called "The Brick House," a
two-story inn standing where the Albany and Schenectady roads fork near
Fox Creek, and there had been great fear of McDonald's renegades that
week, and I had advised the despatch of an express to Albany asking for
troops to protect the valley when I chanced to overhear a woman say that
firing had been heard in the direction of Stanwix.

The woman, a slattern, who was known by the unpleasant name of Rya's
Pup, declared that Walter Butler had gone to Johnstown to join St. Leger
before Stanwix, and that the Tories would give the rebels such a
drubbing that we would all be crawling on our bellies yelling for
quarter this day week. As the wench was drunk, I made little of her
babble; but the next day Murphy and Elerson, having been in touch with
Gansevoort's outposts, returned to me with a note from Colonel Willett:

"FORT SCHUYLER (STANWIX),
"August 2d,

"DEAR SIR,--I transmit to you the contents of a letter from
Colonel Gansevoort, dated July 28th:

"'Yesterday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, our garrison
was alarmed with the firing of four guns. A party of men was
instantly despatched to the place where the guns were fired,
which was in the edge of the woods, about five hundred yards
from the fort; but they were too late. The villains were
fled, after having shot three young girls who were out
picking raspberries, two of whom were lying scalped and
tomahawked; one dead and the other expiring, who died in
about half an hour after she was brought home. The third had
a bullet through her face, and crawled away, lying hid until
we arrived. It was pitiful. The child may live, but has
lost her mind.

"'This was accomplished by a scout of sixteen Tories of
Colonel John Butler's command and two savages, Mohawks, all
under direction of Captain Walter Butler.'

"This, sir, is a revised copy of Colonel Gansevoort's letter
to Colonel Van Schaick. Permit me to add, with the full
approval of Colonel Gansevoort, that the scout under your
command warns the militia at Whitestown of the instant
approach