Evidently the only safety was to join all forces. At a great council of Tories and Iroquois, held where Geneva now stands, it was decided to send wampum belts again to every and all tribes and bands of the Iroquois, and bid them assemble to oppose the invaders in the Chemung valley. Some of the parties that started in response to this call arrived too late. The notorious John Butler, who had led the expedition against Wyoming, was in command of the mixed forces of King George, red, black, and white, and the strategy and tactics employed by him showed the combination of the crafts of both savage and civilized man. On Saturday evening, August 28, Sullivan’s advance pickets heard the sound of axes and saw many fires brightly burning along the hills just beyond Baldwin’s Creek. A scout sent out a day or two before, reported that the enemy were fortified just beyond the creek and west of the Indian village of Newtown. The march must now be made with a constant reference to ambuscade and with the greatest wariness. “Above all, no Braddocking.” On Sunday, August 29, the day broke with every indication of very hot weather. The air was close and heavy. The army moved at nine o’clock, the riflemen being well scattered in front of Hand’s light corps, so as to act as scouts and skirmishers, while every man in the brigade moved with the greatest caution. Hardly had they gone a mile, before they discovered several Indians in front. One of these fired and then all fled. Going forward still further a mile, the riflemen found the ground low, marshy and well fitted for the shelter of hiding Indians. Moving slowly and alertly, they discovered another party of Indians, who as before, fired and retreated. Evidently their purpose was to lure the Americans into ambush. Major Parr, commander of the rifle corps, now determined to advance no further without reconnoitering every foot of the ground. Ordering his men to halt, he sent one of them to climb the highest tree and survey the whole situation. The scout was unable at first to discover anything peculiar, but peering intently ahead, he made out a line of brushwood artfully concealed with green boughs and trees. Starting from near the Chemung river on the left, it ran up the slope of a high hill to the right, for possibly half a mile. Here had been the Indian village of Newtown, consisting of twenty-five or thirty bark houses, but most of the houses had given way to timber entrenchments and to the camp inside of them, though two or three were left so as to form, as it were, bastions for the newly-built fort. Here the enemy had gathered to make their determined stand. Their force, numbering about nine hundred warriors from five tribes, had been reinforced by between two and three hundred white men, Tories and Canadians, drilled and aided by fifteen regular soldiers of the British army, and commanded by Butler, McDonald, and Brant, while two or three hundred more warriors were soon expected.