_Colonel Harper’S Charge._

As eastward the shadows were steadily creeping, Fair wives were at spinning, stout husbands at reaping.

Loud chattered the children with no one to hush them; None knew that the thunder was stooping to crush them.

But soon from the forest, the hill, and the dingle, Came footmen and horsemen, in bodies and single.

Wild, painted Cayugas, relentless and fearless, More barbarous Tories, black-hearted and tearless.

To hearth-stone and roof-tree destruction to carry, The cruel M’Donald came down on Schoharie.

No mercy was offered, no quarter was given; The souls of the victims departed unshriven.

Their requiem only the shrieks of the flying, The yells of the slayers, the groans of the dying.

Too weak in our numbers to venture a sally, We sat in our fortress and looked on the valley.

We heard the wild uproar, the screaming and yelling, The firing and crashing, of butchery telling.

No tiger imprisoned in iron-bound caging Felt half of our fury or equalled our raging.

Yet what could we hinder? Revenge was denied us, While ten times our number to battle defied us.

Though wild was our anguish and deep our despairing, With three hundred to fight would be imbecile daring.

But Colonel John Harper, who chafed at the ravage, The pillage and murder, by Tory and savage,

Urged us on to the combat, and angrily showered Hot words on our chief as a cold-blooded coward.

We heard all his raving of anger in sadness; We never resented, but pitied his madness.

John Harper looked round him, and said he scorned favor, He’d seek for assistance from men who were braver.

He called for his horse, and defied us to stay him, And scoffed at the cowards who dared not obey him.

His foot in the stirrups, he hearkened to no man, Sank spurs to their rowels, and charged through the foeman.

He scattered them fiercely, and, ere they could rally, Away like an arrow he shot through the valley.

He broke through the circle created to bound him; The bullets they showered fell harmlessly round him.

When fair in the saddle, he never was idle; He rode through the darkness, and kept a loose bridle.

On, on through the darkness, till daylight was o’er him, And Albany’s houses rose proudly before him.

We heard the shots rattle, we saw his foes rally, And thought that his life-blood had moistened the valley.

Meanwhile in the fortress, through all the night dreary, We watched till the sunrise, disheartened and weary.

Noon came in its splendor; we saw them preparing To storm our rude ramparts, and laughed at their daring.

For we were in shelter, and they were uncovered— There was work for the buzzards that over us hovered.

Each step they took forward, with eagerness timing, We handled our rifles, and looked to the priming.

But, stay! is this real, or only delusion? What means their blank terror, their sudden confusion?

The whole of the foemen seem stricken with one dread— ’Tis Colonel John Harper, with horsemen a hundred!

We gaze but a moment in rapture and wonder— Rides Harper like lightning, we fall like the thunder.

To saddle, M’Donald! your doom has been spoken; The tigers are on you, the bars have been broken.

Whose horse is the swiftest may ride from the foray; No hope for the footman if savage or Tory.

The heart shuts on pity when vengeance is portress; And husbands and fathers came forth from the fortress.

As the wails of our wives and our babes we remember, The bright fire of mercy goes out—the last ember.

They meant but a visit, we forced them to tarry; But few of the foemen went back from Schoharie.

ORISKANY.

The battle at Oriskany is one of the many instances during the Revolutionary contest where disaster resulted through the rashness and insubordination of inferior officers. A lack of discipline continually placed the cause in peril, and success was frequently won at a cost which might have been avoided. The enemy, under the command of Johnson and Brant, were, fortunately for their antagonists, troubled with the same fault. Had it been otherwise, the Americans would have been exterminated.

The enemy had laid siege to Fort Schuyler, where Gansevoort lay with a small garrison. General Herkimer, though without much pretensions to military science, was a brave and prudent officer, and perfectly fitted for the occasion. He had called out the militia of Tryon County to the number of eight hundred. His plan was to make an attack upon the enemy simultaneously with a sortie from the fort, and he sent a messenger to effect that arrangement with Gansevoort. The signal for Herkimer’s advance was to be a single gun from Fort Schuyler. It was some time before the scout could make his way safely through the investing force. In the mean while some of the men grew impatient, and clamored for an immediate advance. Colonels Cox and Paris headed this party, and when Herkimer refused they denounced him as a coward. At length he submitted to a precipitous movement, at the same time saying that these very bold gentlemen would be the first to run. And so it proved.

The incidents of the fight are so minutely given in the ballad that no further explanation is needed. The Americans remained masters of the field, but at a fearful loss, of which that of Herkimer was not the least. Had the original plan been followed, much of the slaughter would have been spared.

There is no portrait of Herkimer in existence; all that we learn of his appearance was that he was short, stout, and full-faced. He was a man of ability, and, had he survived, from his character and courage he would doubtless have figured creditably in the partisan warfare waged in Eastern and Northern New York, if not in a wider sphere of action.