About halfway between old Fort Schuyler, or Utica, and Fort Stanwix, which is now Rome, is the village of Oriskany. A mile or two west of this small town, in a field south of the Mohawk river, stands a monument raised in memory of a fierce battle fought on that slope in the year following the Declaration of Independence. On the pedestal are four tablets in bronze, one of which shows a wounded general sitting on the ground in the woods, with his hand raised, giving orders to his men. The time was 1777, the strife was the battle of Oriskany, and the brave and suffering general was Nicholas Herkimer. On another of the tablets is this inscription: HERE WAS FOUGHT THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY ON THE 6TH DAY OF AUGUST, 1777. HERE BRITISH INVASION WAS CHECKED AND THWARTED. HERE GENERAL NICHOLAS HERKIMER, INTREPID LEADER OF THE AMERICAN FORCES, THOUGH MORTALLY WOUNDED KEPT HIS COMMAND OF THE FIGHT TILL THE ENEMY HAD FLED. THE LIFE BLOOD OF MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED PATRIOT HEROES MADE THIS BATTLE GROUND SACRED FOREVER. After the battle Herkimer was carried down the valley to his home, where a few days later he died. On the field he had calmly lighted his pipe and smoked it as he gave his orders, refusing to be carried to a safe place and saying, “I will face the enemy.” If the battle has its monument, so the hero that won it has his, and the traveler on the New York Central Railway can see both, but thirty miles apart, the one at Oriskany, the other a short distance down the valley from Little Falls. [Illustration: FIG. 10. ORISKANY BATTLE MONUMENT, A FEW MILES WEST OF UTICA] Herkimer was not a trained soldier, but a plain farmer of the valley. His letters and military orders show us that he could spell as poorly as any of his neighbors, and that is saying a good deal. His army was made up of these same simple neighbors, who, though they did not know much about soldierly marching, were good shots and hard hitters, fighting not for pay but to save their liberty and to protect their homes from the cruel savages.