The dwellings or long houses were made of wooden framework covered with bark and built in the form of a modern compartment house. Each had a long hall or passageway through the middle, with rooms on either side, one for each family, with a fireplace in the center and the sleeping bunks against the wall. The walls of these rooms were decorated with bows and arrows, guns and equipments, and the prizes of the chase, which all hunters love, and of war, over which warriors gloat. They had also more horrible ornaments in the scalps of their enemies, both white and red. These, stretched and dried on hoops, were often painted and decorated with feathers and strings dyed in bright colors which had symbolic significance. Many of Sullivan’s soldiers, who enlisted hoping to rescue white captives, often their own relatives, were able to recognize in the Iroquois houses the hair and scalps of fathers, brothers, wives, children, neighbors or friends. In the case of women, it was especially easy to do this. At several places where hill and ravine, or the situation of the rivers and the inclosed land made natural fortresses, the Iroquois had “castles.” These were made by driving three rows of young trees, sharpened at the ends, into the ground to form a palisade which was fastened at the top. Inside of these were platforms, on which warriors could stand and shoot arrows or balls against besiegers. Besides barring the gate tightly, they had heaps of stones ready to throw on the heads of near assailants and tubs of water prepared to put out fires. It was expected that the artillery would have to be used against these. The orders were to burn all the Indian houses and utterly destroy the crops so that the country would be left uninhabitable. There was no mistake about the orders of Washington on this point. While the army was assembling and the stores, boats and horses were in preparation, other expeditions on a smaller scale had been attempted. The State of New York, in the autumn of 1778, attempted to send an expedition among the Mohawks and Onondagas, but on account of the lateness of the season it was abandoned. In the following year, however, on April 19, Colonel Van Schaick leading, 558 men of the First New York regiment made a forced march of 180 miles in six days against the Onondagas. He burned three of their towns with their storehouses of food, slew twelve and took prisoners thirty-three of the savages. With the Onondagas was the hearthstone of the confederacy, and a terrible humbling done to the Iroquois pride was the extinguishing of the council fire.