Date: August 6, 1777.
Region: Middle Colonies, New York.
Opposing Forces: British: 2,000; American: 1,550.
British Perspective: On June 23, 1777, Lt. Col. Barry St. Leger departed Canada with a 2,000-man British force. His command was an integral part of Gen. John Burgoyne’s grand three-pronged campaign to crush the rebellion in western New York.
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St. Leger’s force was comprised of 340 British soldiers, 650 Canadians and Tories, and 1,000 Indians.
His men hauled with them four small cannons and four mortars. St. Leger’s column began moving by boat southwest from Montreal into Lake Ontario, landed at Fort Oswego, and began a 75-mile trek east toward the Patriot outpost at Fort Stanwix.
For the next week, his troops traveled an average of ten miles per day and arrived outside the walls of Stanwix on August 4.
American Perspective: Fort Stanwix was a strong frontier guard post designed to slow down or stop the British from entering western New York through the Mohawk River Valley.
Originally built by the British in 1758, the bastion was allowed to deteriorate after 1763 until Continental troops rebuilt it thirteen years later (initially naming it Fort Schuyler).
By April 1777, it was defended by 600 New York Continental soldiers under Col. Peter Gansevoort.
The fort had undergone substantial improvements just that spring and was well prepared for defensive warfare. Friendly Indians in the region informed New York militia Gen. Nicholas Herkimer that the British had invaded the Mohawk Valley and were marching east.
To meet this threat, the New York militia rallied an additional 800 men and 60 Oneida Indians and marched to aid their comrades at Fort Stanwix. By August 5, the relief column was in camp ten miles from the fort. A messenger was sent to let Gansevoort know of their pending arrival.
The Battle
The British did not expect Fort Stanwix to be more than a small outpost and so were surprised to find a stronghold in good condition and well-manned. St. Leger failed when he attempted to intimidate the defenders by parading his troops before the American fort.
Realizing his command was too small for a direct assault, he undertook siege operations by surrounding the fort in a rough triangular formation.
The British regulars took up a position about one-quarter of a mile northeast of the fort on commanding ground. A large contingent of Indians and Tories were about double that distance from the fort, southwest of it near the west bank of the Mohawk River.
Other outfits of Tories and Indians cordoned off the balance of the siege line. Because St. Leger did not have enough men to seal every avenue of escape tightly and still detach enough men to cut a 16-mile supply track, his siege line was not tightly drawn.
Sharpshooters picked off curious defenders while St. Leger’s remaining troops manned the lines and cut his supply trail. On August 5, St. Leger learned that rebel reinforcements were just 10 miles to the east.
He dispatched Joseph Brant and 400 Indians (and a few white troops) to attack the marching Americans.
It was a major gamble because the besiegers were already thinly deployed. When dawn rose on August 6, General Herkimer was looking for a Patriot detachment from Fort Stanwix to act as a guide for his American relief column. He was not aware that sympathetic informers had already warned the British of his approach.
Six miles from the fort at Oriskany, St. Leger’s men arranged an ambush with the British and Tories aligned to strike the front of Herkimer’s command, and the Indians arrayed to attack its flanks and rear.
Herkimer’s men were stretched out in a column about one mile long and did not detect the ambush in time to avoid it or take proper defensive action.
Exactly how the battle unfolded and how long it lasted will never be known. After the initial surprise attack (about 10:00 a.m.), the Americans probably formed a defensive perimeter and fought off attacks for the first hour of the action.
Herkimer was badly wounded in the leg early in the fight but is said to have sat on the saddle removed from his dead horse, smoking his pipe and directing his men to fight on.
The combat was a gruesome, often hand-to-hand brawl with clubbed muskets, tomahawks, knives, and bare hands. It dribbled to a close under a torrent of blinding rain that may have saved Herkimer’s command from annihilation.
The Indians withdrew into the forest to regroup, leaving the German-American commander to pull back his men. After rearranging the militia, the fighting began anew once the rain stopped.
At one point, the Tories turned their coats inside out in an effort to deceive Herkimer’s militia into thinking they were a relief force from the fort, but someone recognized his Tory neighbor, and more bloody hand-to-hand fighting broke out.
Indians were not trained or accustomed to fighting sustained engagements and, by the middle of the afternoon, were more than willing to break off the fighting. Unable to eliminate Herkimer’s command, the Indians and Tories withdrew and made their way back to British lines.
Herkimer and his few remaining soldiers withdrew to Fort Dayton, 23 miles to the southeast. After suffering for ten days, the general’s infected leg was amputated by a French surgeon.
He did not survive the surgery. While the Oriskany battle raged, the Americans at Fort Stanwix sortied beyond the walls and destroyed the Indian and Tory encampments south of the fort.
The offensive strike demoralized many of the enemy when they returned from the Oriskany combat. They had been sent by the British commander, had suffered the bulk of the casualties, and their camps had been sacked during their absence.
For the next two weeks, a standoff ensued before the walls of Fort Stanwix, during which Colonel Gansevoort sent off messengers to the east requesting assistance.
On August 10, Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler, stationed at Stillwater, New York, dispatched Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold with 800 men to assist Gansevoort’s beleaguered defenders.
Arnold’s approaching reinforcements prompted St. Leger’s Indians to desert (they were so frustrated they killed a few British soldiers before departing). Arnold arrived at Fort Stanwix on August 23 without incident in the wake of St. Leger’s withdrawal.
After a brief pursuit, he left about 700 men to man the fort and marched east with 1,200 to join Horatio Gates’s army as it prepared to battle Burgoyne at Saratoga. St. Leger’s expedition, part of Burgoyne’s New York campaign, ended with a retreat back to Canada.