The rebels were not slow to seek retribution for their losses at Wyoming. Aided by a party of Oneidas who lent themselves to the rebels, “Colonel Wm. Butler with a Pennsylvania regiment, entered the towns of Unadilla and Oghkwaga, and burned and destroyed the buildings, together with large stores of provisions intended for winter use.” In turn, Walter Butler led a party of 700, a large number being Indians under Brant, to attack a fort at Cherry Valley which was “garrisoned by troops under Colonel Ichabod Alden.” It will be seen that the Indians and loyalists did not enter an unprotected place to burn and destroy. They attacked a garrison of troops. But the Indians exasperated by the cruel procedure at Oghkwaga, became ungovernable, and about fifty men, women and children fell by the tomahawk. This was the retaliation which the Indian had been taught to regard as justifiable for the wrongs which had been inflicted upon his own tribe—his little ones; yet be it remembered, and later American writers admit it, that the commanders, Butler and Brant, did all they could to restrain the terrible doings of the exasperated men. “Specific instances are reported in which the Mohawk Chief interfered, and successfully, to avert the murderous tomahawk.” And now begins the bloody revenge which the rebels determined to inflict upon the Indians, without respect to tribes. In April, 1779, Colonel Van Schaick was despatched with a sufficient force for the purpose, with instructions “to lay waste the whole of their towns, to destroy all their cattle and property.” “The Colonel obeyed his orders to the letter, and left nothing but blackened ruins behind him.” It was merely a march of destruction, for the Indians were not there to oppose their steps. The villages and property that were destroyed belonged to the Onondagas, although they had not taken a decided stand with the loyalist party. It was enough that they were Indians, and would not join the rebels. But this was merely a prelude to what was preparing, in pursuance of a resolution of the rebel congress. The infamous duty of commanding this army of destruction, town destroyers the Indians called them, was entrusted to General Sullivan, whose nature was adequate to the requirements of the command. On the 22nd August, 1779, five thousand men were concentrated at Tioga, upon the Susquehanna. The men were prepared for their uncivilized duty by promises of the territory over which they were about to sow blood and fire. The Indians had no adequate force to oppose their march westward over the Six Nations territory. Brant with his warriors, with the Butlers and Johnsons made a gallant resistance upon the banks of the Chemung, near the present town of Elmira. But, after suffering considerable loss, the vastly superior force compelled them to flee, and there remained nothing to arrest the devastating rebel army, and during the whole month of September they continued the work of despoliation.