Further resistance was impracticable and Colonel Dennison proposed terms of capitulation which were granted to the inhabitants. It being understood that no quarter would be allowed to the Continental troops Colonel Butler with his few surviving soldiers fled from the valley. The inhabitants generally abandoned the country and, in great distress, wandered into the settlements on the Lehigh and the Delaware. The Indians, according to their usual practice, destroyed the houses and improvements by fire and plundered the country. After laying waste the whole settlement they withdrew from it before the arrival of the Continental troops, who were ordered to meet them. On the 11th of November (1778) 500 Indians and Loyalists, with a small detachment of regular troops, under the command of the notorious John Butler, made an irruption into the settlement at Cherry Valley, in the State of New York, surprised and killed Colonel Allen, commander of the American force at that place, and ten of his soldiers. They attacked a fort erected there, but were compelled to retreat. Next day they left the place, after having murdered and scalped thirty-two of the inhabitants, chiefly women and children. On the first intelligence of the destruction of Wyoming the regiments of Hartley and Butler with the remnant of Morgan's corps, commanded by Major Posey, were detached to the protection of that distressed country. They were engaged in several sharp skirmishes, made separate incursions into the Indian settlements, broke up their nearest villages, destroyed their corn, and, by compelling them to retire to a greater distance, gave some relief to the inhabitants. While the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania were thus suffering the calamities incident to savage warfare, a fate equally severe was preparing for Virginia. The western militia of that State had made some successful incursions into the country northwest of the Ohio and had taken some British posts on the Mississippi. These were erected into the county of Illinois, and a regiment of infantry with a troop of cavalry was raised for its protection. The command of these troops was given to Col. George Rogers Clarke, a gentleman who courage, hardihood, and capacity for Indian warfare had given repeated success to his enterprises against the savages. This corps was divided into several detachments, the strongest of which remained with Colonel Clarke at Kaskaskia. Colonel Hamilton, the Governor of Detroit, was at Vincennes with about 600 men, principally Indians, preparing an expedition, first against Kaskaskia and then up the Ohio to Pittsburgh, after which he purposed to desolate the frontiers of Virginia. Clarke anticipated and defeated his design by one of those bold and decisive measures, which, whether formed on a great or a small scale, mark the military and enterprising genius of the man who plans and executes them.