“Honour to whom honour is due.”
James Dodson
HONOUR TO THE MEMORY OF OUR REVOLUTIONARY HEROES.
[from The Evangelical Witness, Vol. I., No. IV., November, 1822. p. 154-166.]
The respectable editor of the Freeman’s Journal, who republished the following Elogium, suggests that the author had not probably seen the correspondence between the poet [Thomas] Campbell, and a descendant of Col. [Joseph] Brandt, in Britain. It is possible he may not, though we are inclined to think he is not ignorant of the defence set up by the son of the savage Colonel. Nor are we surprised that Campbell, who caricatures the manners of our country, in his Magazine, should be willing to flatter the British government by softening a little the character of one of its savage officers. But it is too late to make the attempt. He was the “monster Brandt” after all. We add the following anecdote of him. Major [John] Wood, of Orange county, (N.Y.) was made a prisoner at the battle of Minisink [New York], because Brandt, from an accidental sign, mistook him for a Free Mason. On the evening after the battle, when the “monster” was about to tie him, he remonstrated, said he was a gentleman, and promised not to escape. He was not tied, but laid between two Indians, and told that should he attempt to escape he should be tomahawked. The blanket on which he lay took fire in the night and he dare not move, lest the tomahawk might sink into his head, until the fire reached his feet, when he kicked it out. It was Brandt’s blanket. Brandt treated him very harshly ever after, and when Major Wood asked him the reason, he replied, “D—n you, you burnt my blanket.” Major Wood was for many years after the peace a resident of Orange county, and one of its most respectable citizens. After all this will anyone say Brandt was not a savage—at least half-blooded?
Funeral Eulogium delivered at the Interment of the Bones of those who fell in Battle of Minisink.
Who has read, without disgust, the recommendation of Dr. [Erasmus] Darwin [in Phytologia] that the sanctuaries of the dead should be violated to furnish manure for the fields? It is the common, had there never been such men as Darwin, I should say the universal, sentiment of humanity, that our mortal remains should be disposed of with respectful funeral rites. This sentiment gathers strength with the progress of civilization and refinement. Egypt, the most learned and polished of all the ancient nations of the east, embalmed, at great expense, the bodies of her dead, and deposited them in structures which have excited the admiration of the world. The mausoleums, the repositories of the dead, were the proudest monuments of Babylon, of Greece, and of Rome.
It is a sentiment sanctioned and consecrated by the Bible. Abraham purchased the cave with the field of Machpelah, “to bury the dead out of his sight.” The body of the patriarch Jacob, at the command of Joseph, “was embalmed and put in a coffin in Egypt,” and, by his own command, conveyed to the promised land, and interred in the burying place of his fathers. Joseph’s bones, more than two hundred years after his decease, were carried, in the long procession of forty years, through the deserts of Arabia and buried in Shechem. Thirty-five years alter the disastrous battle of Mount Gilboa, the bones of Saul, and Jonathan his son, were brought up from Jabesh Gilead to Zelah, sixty miles, and deposited in the sepulchre of Kish his father; David, the greatest and the best of the kings of Israel, superintending the splendid procession.
The funeral obsequies, with which the remains of Saul and Jonathan were honoured by the monarch of Israel, bear a striking resemblance to those which we are assembled to solemnize this day. The choice men of Israel fell by the swords of the heathen, who were victorious in battle; and those who survived, long after, did honour to the bones of the valiant men who sacrificed their lives upon the high places of the field in defense of their country.
Forty-three years ago this day, and at this very hour of the day, the brave men, whose bones are enclosed in these coffins, were not only hazarding, but sacrificing their lives for the protection of their wives, their children, their homes, and their country. You have before you, fellow-citizens, the remains of some of those heroes whose blood paid the price of our freedom and independence; for they fell in battle at that period, when this nation, through perils the most tremendous, was struggling into existence—at a time when an old and gigantic monarchy, in the true spirit of despotic power, was putting forth all her energies to hold us in a state of vassalage, and destroy forever the cause of liberty, at the moment of its dawn on the New World. But I do not now recount the deeds of valour, nor the counsels of wisdom, which were made the means of procuring for our country all those blessings which she now enjoys in such profusion. On this topic a thousand tongues were eloquent on the late anniversary of our independence. Nor do I now call your attention to the benign providential administration of “the Prince of the kings of the earth,” whose arm wrought for us deliverance, though an ample theme that well deserves to occupy more of the public attention, and to awaken more gratitude in the celebration of our great national festival.
There is one feature of the policy of our enemy in managing her most unjust and unnatural warfare against us which merits special notice, as immediately connected with the disastrous event over which we are now called to mourn—I mean the more than inhuman employment of the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savages to butcher our peaceful citizens.—A policy which stains forever the pride of British glory. In ancient times, when war was waged against any nation, hoary age, women and children, were equally the objects of its destructive fury with the warriour in the field of battle. This cruel feature of war has been softened, or rather obliterated, by the progress of civilization; and, by the common consent of civilized nations, the soldier in arms only is the object of attack, while the unarmed citizen, of every class, remains unmolested—a law of nations which divests war of half its horrors.[1] But this amelioration in the laws of war had not reached the savages of our wilderness, who spare no age, nor sex: all are the subjects of their indiscriminate butchery. Their tomahawk sinks into the head of the sucking child, while reeking with the blood of the mother. Such was the warfare to which the British cabinet allied itself, “shaking hands with the savage scalping-knife and tomahawk.” Notwithstanding the loud remonstrances of its most enlightened statesmen, the parliament of Great Britain employed the savage hordes to murder, in cold blood, the unoffending women and children of our western frontiers. All that the most sanguinary tyrant could have desired did the savage allies of our enemy perpetrate.[2] The blood of murdered thousands yet cries for vengeance upon the crown of England. Who can imagine, much less recount the terrors and the sufferings of our western people, while the Indian tomahawk was raised over their head or bathed in their blood? Even now, me thinks I see the pillars of smoke ascend from their burning cottages along our western border, from the plains of Kentucky to the mountains of Minisink—the flames of their houses glaring on the darkness of midnight; And what are those sounds which I hear! the screams of women and children, awaked from their slumbers by the blaze of their dwellings and the war-whoop of the savage. Yes, all this was more than realized.
One chieftain was distinguished, above all others, in this murderous carnage—I mean Colonel Joseph Brandt. His father was a German, and his mother a Mohawk Indian.[3] He was, at an early age, placed in Dartmouth college, where he received many kind attentions, and, possessing no ordinary powers, acquired a good education; and thus he was dandled on the knees, and sucked the breasts of that country, whose sons and daughters he was, by British cruelty, commissioned to massacre. In the revolutionary war he received, from George III. a colonel’s commission, appointing him to the command of the Six Nations, in the northern and western parts of the state of New-York. It is he who is styled by [Thomas] Campbell, in a note to his “Gertrude [of] Wyoming,” the “monster Brandt,” and who was a leader in the dreadful massacre which desolated the blooming fields of fair Wyoming, in the autumn of 1778.[4] The ferocity of his savage nature was not tamed by education—in him the blood of the barbarian extinguished every spark of civilization that might have been kindled in his constitution. He was more cunning than the fox, and fiercer than the tiger
With a band of his warriours, he set out from Niagara in June 1779, to fall upon the western frontiers of this state. There were also under his command, painted like Indians, a large body of Tories, whom through courtesy, we often now hear called “the disaffected,” “the friends of the British government,” &c. but I prefer to call them by the good old revolutionary name of “Tories.” After the middle of July they appeared on the west of Minisink, like a dark cloud hanging on the mountain top, ready to break upon the plain below in thunder and lightning, tempest and hail. On the morning of the 20th the inhabitants were awaked from their slumbers by the flames of their dwellings, and fled in consternation. Their farms were laid waste, and their cattle and other property plundered by a detachment of this execrable band, whom Brandt had sent out for this work of robbery and murder. On the evening of the same day, Col. [Benjamin] Tusten, of Goshen, received by express, intelligence of the events of the morning, and issued orders to the officers of his regiment, to meet him on the morning of the 21st, with as many volunteers as they could raise, at Minisink, which he had fixed as the place of rendezvous. The officers generally, with the small force which they could raise and equip on so short a notice, met the colonel at the place appointed, where they held a council of war, and discussed the question, whether they should pursue the savages or not. Col. Tusten wisely opposed the pursuit, as Brandt, a skillful warriour, was probably the commander, as the enemy’s force appeared to be much superiour to theirs, and as they had with them many Tories, who were well acquainted with the woods; while they had only a small force, were ill supplied with ammunition, and at the same time expected re-enforcements. The majority, however, were for pursuing the Indians, who they said would not fight, and from whom they should endeavour to recover the plunder. In the midst of these deliberations, Major Meeker mounted his horse, flourished his sword, and said “let the brave men follow me, the cowards may stay behind.” As may be readily thought, this decided the question; they all took up the line of march, proceeded that evening seventeen miles, and encamped for the night. On the next morning they were joined by a small re-enforcement, under Col. [John] Hathorn of the Warwick regiment, who being an older officer than Col. Tusten, took the command. When they had advanced a few miles, to Halfway Brook, they came upon the place where the Indians had encamped the preceding night; and another council was held there. Cols. Hathorn, Tusten, and others whose valour was governed by prudence, were opposed to advancing farther, as the number of Indian fires, and the extent of ground occupied by their encampment, removed all doubt as to the superiority of the force of the enemy. The same scene which broke up the former council was re-acted there, and with the same effect.
Captain [Bazaliel] Tyler, who had some knowledge of the woods, was sent forward at the head of a small scouting party, to reconnoitre the movements of the enemy and give notice of the best ground for attacking him; but he had not advanced far until he was killed, a circumstance which created considerable alarm. As our troops were marching north on the hills east of the Delaware, about nine in the morning, they discovered the Indians advancing leisurely along the bank of the river, about three quarters of a mile distant.
Brandt had sent forward the plunder under an escort, to a fording place of the Delaware, near the mouth of the Lakawack, where he intended to cross the river. Col. Hathorn wished to intercept him before he reached the fording place. Owing to intervening woods and hills, the two armies soon lost sight of each other, and Brandt, instead of advancing along the bank of the Delaware, wheeled to the right and passed up a deep ravine, over which our troops had marched, and thus crossing our line of march, shewed himself on our rear, about two o'clock- By this skillful maneuver, he not only took us by surprise, but chose his own ground for commencing the attack. Col. Hathorn, as his men were ill supplied with ammunition, issued an order like that of General [Israel] Putnam, at Bunker’s hill, not to fire a single shot, until the enemy was near enough to make it take effect.[5] Just at that moment, an Indian was seen riding a horse which had been stolen from Minisink on the 20th, and was known to one of our men, who instantly fired on him and killed him. The fire soon became general. At its commencement, about fifty of Col, Hathorn’s men were cut off from the main body, and could not be brought into the engagement, having between eighty and ninety men only, to contend with the whole force of the enemy, five times their number. Everything that the most determined bravery could effect, was effected. Soon after the commencement of the battle, they were completely surrounded by the savages, on the summit of a hill, descending on all sides, and the ground which they occupied among the rocks and bushes, was about the extent of an acre, which they maintained in an obstinate conflict, from between ten and eleven in the morning, until late in the afternoon. The wounded were collected in a secure place, under a rock, to the number of seventeen, where Col. Tusten, who was a skillful surgeon, dressed their wounds. So deadly was our fire, that had it not begun to slacken on account of the failure of ammunition, Brandt afterwards admitted he would soon have been compelled to retreat. Several attempts to break into our lines had failed, but just as the fire began to slacken, one man, who at the north east angle of the hollow square had kept up from behind a rock, a destructive fire on the enemy, fell, and the Indian, Tory, crew broke in upon our troops, like a resistless deluge. The yell of the savages, the screams of the wounded calling upon their companions not to forsake them, and the groans of the dying, presented a scene of horror, that beggars all description. Col. Tusten probably fell, determining not to abandon the wounded. All the rest fled in every direction, and more were killed in the flight, than fell in the battle. Some swam over the Delaware, while others were shot in attempting to cross.
Out of eighty, who were in the engagement, forty-four were killed, chiefly militia officers, the most respectable citizens, who had offered themselves willingly, before their men could be equipped. Some who were wounded died by a lingering and protracted death, whose wounds may not have been of themselves mortal, by wounds inflamed with the heat of the weather, and for want of dressing, while they were distressed with hunger and burning fever, no one to administer to them a drop of cool water, or cheer the protracted agonies of death by a sympathetic word or look. Thus died a father, a brother, or a husband, far from his home, in the cheerless, the sad solitudes of the mountains.
“Sternitur infelix, alieno vulnere, cœlumque
“Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur argos.”
[“Now falling, by another’s wounds, his eyes
“He casts to Heaven, on Argos thinks, and dies.” Virgil. Æneid, lib. X. 781.]
“Hapless he falls by wounds which the cruel foe inflicted, looks to heaven for aid, and dying remembers his sweet native plains.”[6] What horrors surround such a death! How ungrateful that they should thus be permitted to perish for want of aid! For fifty-three years, too, their bones were permitted to whiten among the rocks of the mountains, after their flesh had been devoured by the wild beasts. It was not that their widows, of whom it is said, there were thirty-three in one congregation, disregarded their remains, for they engaged and paid a man to conduct them to the wood of slaughter; where they intended to collect and bury them. They set out on horseback, but had not proceeded far until they were forced to return. How could females ride over the rugged and pathless mountains? The man went on, promising to perform the duty which they had piously attempted, but he violated his promise. In the country it has been long known that the bones of these heroes were thus ungratefully neglected.[7] Were their sufferings, their agonies, their deaths, for the protection of their wives, their children, their homes, their country, forgotten? This day we mourn their death, and acknowledge our ingratitude. O! ye spirits of the brave who fell in defense of our liberty, our land, too long have we neglected your remains, too long we have been ungrateful, we acknowledge But Oh! my voice cannot reach you, you do not hear me, I ought not thus, to address you. The living, my voice can reach. You, fellow citizens, will permit me to address the nobler sentiments of your souls, and invite you to emulate the example of these heroes, in deeds of noble daring, should your country ever call. The young especially, and those now around me under arms, may see our country involved in dangers, that will require even the sacrifice of life for her safety.
But you will suffer me to remind you, that in order to sacrifice life rationally, though in our country’s righteous cause, requires more than what is called patriotism and heroism. To meet death boldly, in any cause while the soul is in its state of natural enmity against Heaven, is no better than the rashness of the madman: it is rushing upon misery unutterable and eternal, from some blind impulse, and for the light applause of an hour. It is only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for the salvation of sinners, that any human being can face death calmly, collectedly, and rationally. Who can tell what consolations religion may have ministered to some who expired in the long agonies of death, after the battle of Minisink, without any human aid? None other they could have. Great as their bodily sufferings must have been, future prospects may have imparted much alleviation. How intense would the anguish have been, had the prospects beyond the hour of death, been only dark and alarming.
Fellow citizens, though you should never be called to expose your lives in the field of battle, though you should continue to the close of life, amidst scenes of peace, in the bosoms of your families, and die having your cheeks bathed with the sympathetic tears of the most affectionate, the most tender hearted friends and relatives, yet all these are poor and frigid consolations for a dying man, if he has none other. Whether then, Heaven has destined your country to peace or war, in your days, it is wise to be prepared for death, by applying to the atoning blood of the Son of God for redemption, and the sanctification and consolation of the Eternal Spirit, to carry you in triumph through death—yes, “for it is appointed to all men once to die.” In a few years those thousands who now stand around me, shall all sink into the earth on which you now stand; the clods of the valley shall cover you, and not one be left alive. While, this day, it is your duty to show by your gravity, your sobriety, your temperance, your decorum, that you remember with sympathetic emotions the fall of the excellent citizens, whose bones you now inter; remember yourselves.
You know that when you die, your souls shall survive, and that your bodies too shall live again. These dry bones can live, they will live again. They await, and your remains, soon to follow into the tomb, shall await there the call of that Creator who formed the soul and the body, to “stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” While we look back to their death, let us also look forward to our own, and to their and our resurrection on that day, “for which all other days were made.” It is hastening; we must witness its awful solemnities, not like those of this day. It will not be ushered in by the sound of such artillery as you have today heard; but by the trump of God, the voice of the Archangel, reaching the depths of the ocean, and the solemn silence of the grave, whose tenants shall all start into life, raised by the omnipotent energies, that shall descend in the voice of the trumpet. Then shall
“Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play
Their various engines; all at once disgorge
Their blazing magazines.”
You shall not then, as today, be called to attend on the interment of a few bones, but to wait on the funeral of the material universe—the interment of the world we now inhabit—the interment of her attendant moon—the interment of yonder sun now shining gloriously in mid heaven—and the interment of every star that burns by night in the vault of heaven. Secured in the favour of the Almighty Creator, by the Redeemer of man, may we all be prepared for waiting upon the funeral obsequies of the earth and the heavens, in peace and safety.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Turks are savages—witness Scio.
[2] We have employed them, as auxiliaries, in war against our enemy, in whose ranks many of their warriours fought; but never to murder women and children.
[3] Those American soldiers who saw Brandt in the time of the revolutionary war think he was not a half blood, but an entire savage. Gordon, Marshall, and Campbell, all represent him as we do. He was certainly recognized, after the peace, as a relative, by the descendants of Sir William Johnstone, in Schenectady.
[4] “The mammoth comes—the foe—the monster Brandt,
“With all his howling, desolating band.”
[5] Putnam’s orders was:—“Don't fire, boys, till you see the white of their eyes.”
[6] This is not fancy. The bones of one man were found, who had crept in between two rocks after he was wounded.
[7] It was the following circumstance that led to the funeral obsequies of the 22d. The Medical Society of Orange county, holds its annual meetings on the first Tuesday of July, which two-years ago, was the anniversary of our Independence. Dr. D[avid] R. Arnell, the president of the society, read before it on that day, an elegant biographical sketch of Dr. Tusten, whom we have mentioned as Col. Tusten, and he gave an outline of the battle of Minisink, in which he fell. The biographical sketch was published and awakened the interest which has led to the interment of the bones.