CHERRY VALLEY MASSACRE

The 'Cherry Valley massacre' was an attack by British and Seneca Indian forces on a fort and village in eastern New York on November 11, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War.
Captain Walter Butler (the son of Colonel John Butler) led two companies of Butler's Rangers along with about 300 Seneca. Mohawk chief Joseph Brant was also present, but with his forces seriously reduced because of contention with Butler. The Senecas were angered over the burning of Tioga by forces under Colonel Thomas Hartley.
The fort, actually a palisade around the village meeting house, could not be taken, but the town was destroyed. Sixteen of the defenders were killed, including garrison commander Ichabod Alden; Lt. Col. William Stacy was taken prisoner. Despite the efforts of Butler and Brant to stop it, more than thirty women and children and several Loyalist townspeople were killed and scalped. This, together with the massacre at Wyoming Valley, helped pave the way for the Sullivan Expedition, commissioned by commander-in-chief General George Washington and led by Major General John Sullivan, which destroyed over 40 Iroquois villages in their homelands of central and western New York.

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Further reading

External link

Further reading

★ Williams, Glenn F. ''Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois.'' 2005: Westholme Publishing, ISBN 1-59416-013-9.

★ Young, Edward J.: ''Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. II – Second Series, 1855-1886'', University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1886) section entitled Journal of William McKendry, pg 436-478. This historical book is available online via the Google Books Library Project at Young (1886).

External link

★ Sullivanclinton.com - historic context