No man can pass through such years and remain what he was born. No man can regret them; none can dare wish to live through such days again; none would shun them. And how many months, or years, maybe, of fighting still remain before us, no man can foretell. But the grim men in their scare-crow regimentals who today, in the present year of 1780, are closing ranks to prepare for future battles, even in the bitter aftermath of defeat, seem to know, somehow, that this nation is destined to survive. * * * * * From the month of August in 1777 to May, 1780, I had not seen Penelope; I had asked for no leave to travel, knowing, by reason of my confidential office and better than many others, how desperate was our army's plight and how utterly every able-bodied man was needed. In consequence, I had not seen my own Northland in all those months; I had not seen Penelope. Letters I wrote and sent to her when opportunity offered; letters came from her, and always written from Caughnawaga. For it appeared that Douw Fonda had never consented to return to Albany; but, by some miracle of God, the Valley so far had suffered no serious harm. Yet, the terrible business at Wyoming renewed my every crudest fear for the safety of Caughnawaga; and when, in the same year, a Continental regiment of the Pennsylvania Line marched out from Schoharie to destroy Unadilla, I, who knew the Iroquois, knew that their revenge was certain to follow. It followed in that very year; and Cherry Valley became a bloodsoaked heap of cinders; and there, under Iroquois knife and hatchet, and under the merciless clubbed muskets of the _blue-eyed_ Indians, many of my old friends died--all of the Wells family save only one--old and young and babies. What a crime was done by young Walter Butler on that fearful day! And I sometimes wonder, now, what our generous but sentimental young Marquis thinks of his deed of mercy when he saw and pitied Walter Butler in an Albany prison, sick and under sentence of death, and procured medical treatment for him and more comfortable quarters in a private residence. And Butler drugged his sentry and slipped our fingers like a rat and was off in a trice and gone to his bloody destiny in the West! Lord--Lord!--the things men do to men! * * * * * When Brant burned Minnisink I trembled anew for Caughnawaga; and breathed freely only when our General Sullivan marched on Tioga with six thousand men. Yet, though he cleaned out the foul and hidden nests of the Iroquois Confederacy, I, knowing these same Iroquois, knew in my dreading heart that Iroquois vengeance would surely strike again, and this time at the Valley. Because, out of the Mohawk Valley, came all their chiefest woes; Oriskany, which set the whole Six Nations howling their dead; Stillwater; Unadilla; Tioga; The Chemung--these battles tore the Iroquois to fragments.