Wyoming Valley Massacre
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Wyoming Valley Massacre. Among the Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley were some Scotch and Dutch families from the Mohawk Valley. About thirty of them, suspected of being Tories, were arrested at the beginning of the war, and sent to Connecticut for trial. They were released for want of evidence, returned to the Mohawk, joined the Tory partisan corps of Johnson and Butler, and waited for a chance of vengeance on their persecutors. In June, 1778, a motley host of Tories and Indians, under the general command of Colonel Butler, gathered at Tioga, on the Susquehanna River. They entered the Wyoming Valley July 2. Among them were the vengeful Scotch and Dutch. Butler made his headquarters at the fortified house of Wintermoot, a Tory. Two full companies, out of 3,000 inhabitants, had been raised in the valley for the Continental army, and its only defenders were old men, brave women, tender youths, and a handful of trained soldiers. These, 400 in number, Colonel Zebulon Butler, assisted by Colonel Denison, Lieutenant-colonel Dorrance, and Major Garratt, led up the valley (July 3) to surprise the invaders at Wintermoot's. They were terribly smitten by Tories and savages in a sharp fight, and more than one-half were killed. Very soon 225 scalps were in the hands of the Indians.
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