Mrs. Campbell was detained a year as a prisoner in the fort; but had the solace of her children, all except one of whom Butler obtained from the Indians and restored to her. She associated freely, too, with the wives of the officers of the garrison. In the summer of 1780 she received the first letter from her husband, sent by a friendly Oneida Indian. In June, she was sent to Montreal, where she recovered her missing child--a boy seven years old, whom she had not seen since the day after the massacre at Cherry Valley. He had been with a branch of the Mohawk tribe, and had forgotten his native tongue, though he remembered his mother, whom, in the joy of seeing her, he addressed in the Indian language.
At Montreal the exchange of prisoners was effected. In the fall, Mrs. Campbell and her children reached Albany, escorted into that city by a detachment of troops under the command of Colonel Ethan Allen. Here Colonel Campbell awaited their arrival, and the trials of a two years' captivity were almost forgotten in the joy of restoration. They remained there till the close of the war, and in 1783, returned to Cherry Valley, and literally began the world anew. Their lands had gone to waste, and were overgrown with underbrush; all besides was destroyed; and with no shelter save a small log-cabin hastily put up--they felt for a time that their lot had been a hard one. But the consciousness of having performed the duty of patriots, sustained them under misfortune. By the close of the following summer a more comfortable log-house was erected on the ruins of their former residence, and the farm began to assume the aspect of cultivation. Here General Washington was received and entertained on his visit to Cherry Valley, accompanied by Governor George Clinton and other distinguished officers. It was on this occasion that Mrs. Campbell presented her sons to Washington, and told him she would train them up to the service of their country, should that country ever need their services.
From this time Mrs. Campbell was eminently blessed in all things temporal; being permitted in old age to see around her a large and prosperous family. Her oldest son was the Hon. William Campbell, late Surveyor general of the State of New York. Her second son, James S. Campbell, though educated as a farmer--inheriting the "old homestead"--was for many years a magistrate, and one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas in Otsego; while the youngest son, the late Robert Campbell, of Cooperstown, an able and eminent lawyer, enjoyed in a high degree the confidence of the people of that county. Colonel Campbell, after an active life, died in 1824, at the age of eighty-six. His wife lived, in the enjoyment of almost uninterrupted health, to the age of ninety-three, and died in 1836--the last survivor of the Revolutionary women in the region of the head waters of the Susquehanna. All her children but two have followed her to the grave.