"On the morning of the 4th, the day after the battle, Colonel John Butler, with the combined British and Indian forces, appeared before Fort Wyoming and demanded its surrender. 'The inhabitants, both within and without the fort, did not on that emergency sustain a character for courage becoming men of spirit in adversity. They were so intimidated as to give up without fighting; great numbers ran off; and those who remained all but betrayed Colonel Zebulon Butler, their commander' (Col. Z. Butler's letter). 'The British Colonel Butler sent several flags, requiring an unconditional surrender of his opposing namesake and the few continental troops yet remaining, but offering to spare the inhabitants their property and effects. But with the American colonel the victor would not treat on any terms; and the people thereupon compelled Colonel Dennison to comply with conditions which his commander had refused.' The consequence was that Colonel Zebulon Butler contrived to escape from the fort with the remains of Captain Hewett's company of regulars (_Idem._), and Colonel Dennison entered into articles of capitulation. 'By these it was stipulated that the settlers should be disarmed, and their garrison demolished; that all prisoners and public stores should be given up; that the property of the people called Tories should be made good, and they be permitted to remain peaceably upon their farms. In behalf of the settlers it was stipulated that their lives and property should be preserved, and that they should be left in the unmolested occupancy of their farms' (Chapman's History).

"Unhappily, however, the British commander either could not or would not enforce the terms of capitulation (see page 91, where Mr. Hildreth says that 'Colonel Butler, desirous to fulfil these terms of capitulation, presently marched away with his Tories, but he could not induce the Indians to follow. They remained behind, burned the houses, ravaged the fields, killed such as resisted, and drove the miserable women and children through the woods and mountains to seek refuge where they might.'), which were to a great extent disregarded as well by the Tories as the Indians. Instead of finding protection, the valley was again laid waste, the houses and improvements were destroyed by fire, and the country plundered. Families were broken up and dispersed, men and their wives separated, mothers torn from their children and some of them carried into captivity, while far the greater number fled to the mountains, and wandered through the wilderness to the older settlements. Some died of their wounds, others from want and fatigue, while others were still lost in the wilderness or were heard of no more. Several perished in a great swamp in the neighbourhood, which, from the circumstance, acquired the name of 'the Shades of Death,' and retains it to this day. These were painful scenes. But it does not appear that anything like a massacre followed the capitulation." (Life of Joseph Brant, and Border Wars of the American Revolution, Vol. I., Chap. xv., pp. 334-336.)]

The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 — Part 106