During the same week Brant with a party of warriors moved down the Wallkill valley, destroying the Minisink settlements in Orange county, New York, killing many and making many prisoners. They decoyed into an ambush more than 150 militia from Goshen, of whom over 100 were slain. Brant then moved on to the destruction of the settlement of Lackawaxen, which was laid in ashes and the inhabitants slain. All this was done to distract and scatter the avenging army, but every effort failed, and the Continentals moved steadily on. General Sullivan was implored, by messengers who brought him the terrible news, to march to the relief of the burned settlements. Wisely and firmly he refused to detach a single soldier from his column. He knew full well that advance into the enemy’s country would compel both red and white foes to draw away their forces and concentrate. This policy was really the best means of protecting the settlements. He therefore hastened his preparations, so as to move on at the first moment possible. On July 31, at 1 P. M., he broke camp at Wyoming. Determined not to be led into ambush or to be “Braddocked,” he threw out the riflemen in advance, to guard against surprise, and moved in line of battle. The flotilla of boats, the line of twelve hundred pack horses and seven hundred cattle, the park of artillery and the brigades of infantry being all ready, the signal was given by firing a cannon on the _Adventurer_, Proctor’s flagboat lying in the Susquehanna. The march from Wyoming to Tioga Point, through swamps and over frightful precipices, was safely made in good order. The procession of boats on the water and of soldiers on land were each several miles long. Reaching Sheshequin on the Susquehanna, the soldiers faced the flood, locked arms and forded the swiftly flowing river at where Milan, Pa., now stands, and then again crossed the stream to reach the peninsula at Tioga Point, where they encamped, awaiting the arrival of their right wing, Clinton’s New York brigade. CHAPTER IV THE MOVEMENT OF THE RIGHT WING The right wing of the expedition, consisting of the 3rd, 4th and 5th New York, the 6th Massachusetts, and 4th Pennsylvania, with four companies of riflemen and two pieces of artillery, was under the command of General James Clinton. This veteran officer gathered his forces at Schenectady. He encamped his regiments around this little palisaded frontier town, while his flotilla of over 215 boats was building in the boat yards that then lined the Mohawk river, between the stream and the town’s wooden walls on its north and west sides.