The Wyoming Military Establishment. A History of the Twenty-fourth Regiment of Connecticut Militia: An Address Before the Tioga Point Historical Society, Delivered December 3rd, 1901Tubbs, Charles
History
The Wyoming Military Establishment. A History of the Twenty-fourth Regiment of Connecticut Militia: An Address Before the Tioga Point Historical Society, Delivered December 3rd, 1901
Tubbs, Charles
Connecticut. Militia. Regiment, 24th; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Regimental histories; Wyoming Valley (Pa.) -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
The result was that on the night following the battle, and on the two
or three succeeding days and nights, the 3,000 inhabitants of the
Wyoming Valley fled, some by boats and rafts down the river, but by
far the greater number through the wilderness, and over the mountains
to the settlements beyond. It was not a planned and orderly hegira, in
which provision was made for necessary wants, but a hurried, hasty,
precipitate flight, urged on to desperation by every element of real
and imaginary danger. Their houses, furniture, household utensils,
crops, flocks, farming implements, provisions, papers, clothing,
horses, wagons,--all left behind. And it was all utterly destroyed or
carried off. Of the delicate women and tender children, not less than
200 perished by the way. In the battle, the massacre, and the flight
it is probable that 500 persons lost their lives. In a memorial to
the Connecticut legislature, the survivors stated that their property
losses amounted to 38,308 pounds, 13s.[46]
In the Articles of Capitulation signed at Forty Fort was this: "Art.
7. That the inhabitants Col. Denison capitulates for, together with
himself, do not take up arms during the present contest." Some
undoubtedly considered themselves bound by this article. Colonel
Denison for one is no longer heard of in our military annals,
although Westmoreland remained more than four years longer under
the jurisdiction of Connecticut. The Twenty-fourth regiment was
never reorganized. It was overwhelmed on the field of battle; it was
surrendered in sections, by the terms of four military conventions.[47]
Of this sort of glory it had a monopoly. As a regiment its story is
told.
On the other hand many of the men considered themselves absolved from
the terms above recited. The party that imposed the conditions, did
not themselves observe them. Lieut. Col. Zebulon Butler, one month
from the day of surrender, returned to the valley at the head of some
Continental soldiers and 40 militiamen and went into garrison at
Wilkes-Barrie. A muster roll of these men is extant. Many of them were
men who had been surrendered. Captain John Franklin, with a company of
Wyoming militia, went out in Hartley's expedition the same year, and in
Sullivan's expedition the next year, and on other occasions.
In an upper chamber of this building is an original pay roll of one of
these companies. Many of its names are identical with those who served
in the Twenty-fourth regiment.
After the flight of the people from the valley the dead lay unburied on
the plain where they fell for nearly four months. On the twenty second
day of October a detail of thirty men was sent from the garrison at
Wilkes-Barre as a guard to protect those of the inhabitants that had
returned, in performing that solemn duty.[48]
A granite monument suitably inscribed now marks the place of sepulchre.
Engraved upon it is a very inaccurate list of those "slain in battle"
and of "survivors."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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