| Show WALTER B af A E acance amance 0 4 h ay iy aw A BUTLER 4 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON I 1 OR a century and a half he has akk been written down in presumably accurate historic as the arch fiend lend f of the revolution with simon girty the notorious renegade he has shared the unenviable deputa tion of being the words are those of a well known historian mis who present no redeeming quality to plead for excuse still another hig historian torian characterizes him as a man of enterprise enter pris ng bold ness wl ose heart was a compound of fero ferocious clous hate bate cruelty and unappeasable revenge but the no novelists elises more than the historians his bistor ans have made mide his name a word of loathing almost as much as ti tie e name of benedict arnold one of them writes of cherry N alley where through the wintry dawn young walter butler damned his soul for all eternity while men women romen and children old and youn died horribly amid the dripping knives and bayonets baronets of his piloted fiends or fell under the butchering hatchets of his senecar so after reading for so long that walter but ler was a villain of the deepest dye it Is all the more amazing to pick up a book and read that obviously he was no scoundrel and certainly no murderer of women and children as all the books have said ile Is the typical proud rest less unhappy luckless figure of romance who throw s away his I 1 fe for a lost cause bously the stuff of which heroes are made the book bool Is war out of niagara walter butler and find the tory rangers published recent recently lv by the columbia university press for the new york state historical association and the man who has painted a new portrait of the infamous walter butler Is howard author of a care fully documented y based upon source material hitherto untouched by the historians why has the name of walter butler for so long been tarnished with ill fame there are two reasons closely associated even before the outbreak of the revolution there was en mity between some of the half halt feudal ar stoc stoe racy of the mohawk valley notably the sons eons and the butlers and the ditch and ger man peasantry of that region so when the conal ct et came and walter butler cast his fortunes with the logical cause for him to espouse it is small wonder that these commoners should refuse to cred t him with be ing actuated by as much sincerity and high prin ciple as they were in making tl e r choice his batler john butler was as an assistant to the great sir william johnson the king s su perlia of indian affairs in the northern de pa apartment part r ment and a I 1 eu tenant colonel in a colonial militia regiment brought up in the bel ef that the greatest chance for honorable advancement lay in the kings king s service what more natural than that this youn aristocrat sheild choose the side of his majesty rather than that of the rebels it must be remembered that the revolution was more than a conflict between a stubborn foreign king and bis his rebel ous subjects it was also a civil war in which one group of native americans called patriots was pitted against 0 another group of native americans called tories or loyalists there Is no war more bitter than civil war and no crime too black for one side to charge against the other when families are divided among themselves and friend turns against friend so the legends of tory infamy began growing early among the patriots and the first history ans who gathered their material among the sur livors of the revolution and who do not seem to have been animated by any too scrupulous regard for accuracy accept el most of these leg ends as facts then too they seem to have had the quite understandable desire a desire still in evidence among some americans of today even though it Is not so understandable to try to make the patriots and their cause seem all the wh ter and purer by pl painting inting the tones tories and the r cf e all the blacker and more infamous U thina nathly tely for walter butler they made lit 7 for most of their tory ha freds no doubt the particular reason for this was that the butlers father and son were in in winning the iroquois indians to i the british side and became leaders of the par cisan forces with which these indians cooper oper abed so tl ey were ere b litterly hated because they enl sted red za savages ages as their allies loosed them on the frontier frontiers and encouraged their atrocities by im tation and a horrible commerce in scalps of men women and children but the ind agnation of the e early irly historians against the use of the indians by the british and the tor es would be more convincing if they did not overlook or ignore these acts nets that these same patriots as english colonists during the ars with the t b rei ch eb h had hid id been glad enough to I 1 lave ai e tl tie e iraq io 10 s as all es against the french that early in the devol it on they had tried to in the v rr or ors f the long house to THEIR ide an I 1 tl t d r ng the revolution some of the cont nent il ion on manders wanders as well a the brit ih d id d sp p Ind indians lins as all el MARINUS WILLETT WILLE TT BRANT mill in lot 4 THE CASTLE AT A ka 01 0 1 V CO TH E BEGE THE BUTLER HOME AT BUTLERS BURY N Y since walter butler was the apotheosis of the worst type of enemy to the cause of liberty it would seem natural that our information about him should be fairly complete and yet as the author of war out of niagara says there Is an absorbing mystery about his I 1 fe and char acter the date of his birth Is unknown there Is no physical description of him except in fiction letters about him in catalogues even of the schuyler papers the gates cates papers the library of congress and many other papers are mysteriously marked missing timothy dwight the president of yale university invented a great myth about him that got into every amer lean ican history in the nineteenth century lafay ette Is said to haie hane been his friend but there is no authority for it HaIdl haldimand mand british corn com mander in canada Is said to have refused to receive him after cherry valley and this S book contains an original letter from hald mind mand ap proving of h s conduct that november day he appears plainly to have broken his parole as a prisoner but with every horror of massacre and rapine laid at his door for some reason that seems to have escaped notice brant the in dian dlan is portrayed aled as a noble paladin horrified at butlers excesses yet simms the gossip of the revolution in the frontiersmen of new york tiresome in the multiplicity of its detail never places walter butler at the scene of any of the atrocities in the north thousands of men are mentioned by name but young butler Is mentioned only at cherry valley but thanks to the researches of this fistori an some of the mystery of walter butler Is dissolved and we see him not as the bloody mon ster painted by the early historians instead there stands forth an amazing figure a young man who could pot have been over twenty eight when he was killed to the rejoicing of all new york a most dauntless and enterprising leader eager amb bious tireless offering to cover albany fort pitt and detroit for hiedl mand wand grasping early in the war the grand strat egy of the long northwestern flank impatient of older men defending I 1 Is every action at cher ry N valley alley scorning to make war on women and children while pointing out the treatment of h s mother and sister held as hostages in al bany he Is condemned for his red allies and was himself killed and scalped by an ind an ally of the continental army and the newspapers an bouncing noun cing bis his death say the oneida ind ans behaved well in the action and deserve much cred t so in war out ot niagara we see walter butler as a boy at seeing his fa ther and sir william jol ilson returning in tri un ph at the head of colonial troops from the wars with the french we see him busy at his law st id ides es in albany and as a rising young lawyer at the outbreak ik of the revolution then when the break comes in 1775 and those who live in new york province must choose between king and their native land he casts his lot with the loval ats who were nere decidedly in the ma jonty in that province but the patriot forces under general schuyler gain temporary ascend ancy and guv johnson and S r johnson nephew and son of sir william and his s access ors in chare of indian affairs col john B atler and walter putter and joseph brant of the U hawks hanks gt go to next we find walter butler as an ensign in the eighth regiment the kings own in the fighting around montceil Mont reil and quebec from there he goes to fort niagara which is to be his principal headquarters as leider of the but ler ringers from that time on in 1777 he ac companies st leger in the expedition which with burgoyne coming down from the north and howe coming up from the south is to end the war in one campaign at old fort stanwix renamed fort rort schuyler the stubborn defense of colonels gansevoort and marinus willett hold up st leger legers s advance and the bloody battle of oriskany Oris kany results finally in its defeat soon afterwards walter butler starts down the mohawk river toward german flats to raise recruits for the british army ile Is captured tried as a spy before a court martial over which colonel willett sits as judge advocate and is sentenced to be hanged but general schuyler intercedes for him and he is taken talen to the al bany jail from which he soon escapes to quebec the next year he goes again to niagara and leads the expedition against cherry valley from which he is to return with the most hated name in new york tor for a hundred and fifty years most of the historians who have written of this affair making butler the villain and brant the protector of the captured women and ahli dren lay emphes s upon the 31 people who were killed in the massacre but brings out the fact that it was butler who protected seven eg eighths I 1 hahs of the inhabitants the survivors and offers strong evidence that it was brant who incited the ind ans to the killing of at least a part of the 31 the next two years find walter butler as cap tain of the corps of rangers fighting in the bat ties against general sullivan whom washing ton has sent to smash the power of the long house going on a mission to detroit and main kalning the post of a cold and lonely outpost in the wilderness far west of detroit but in 1780 he is back in montreal and again at niagara and from there the next year he sets out upon his last expedition As second in corn com mand under major boss ross the ra ding force of about 00 is within 12 miles of schenectady on october 25 1781 they have left a trail of burn ing farmhouses mills and gra granaries narles behind them as they turn to retreat toward johnstown but marinus willett and his continentals are hot on their trail and in the battle of johns town ross and butler are defeated the raiders must retreat through the wilder ness toward the north they reach canada creek and at a ford there walter butler is covering the retreat when he Is shot down and an onelda oneida scout in willett s command takes his scalp visit the city of schenectady today and they will take you to historic old st george georges s church and tell you that the dust of walter butler lies under its floor even pointing out the very pew under which his body brot secretly by the tories from the ford at canada creek Is sup posed to have been buried bat If doubts this it seems unlikely he says wolves 0 were closing in on the army and on that grisly note tl e tragedy and the mystery of wal ter butler ends Q by western newspaper union |
