It was believed for many years that Brant and his Mohawk warriors were engaged in the invasion of Wyoming. Historians of established reputation, such as Gordon, Ramsey, Thacher, Marshall, and Allen, assert that he and John Butler were joint commanders on that occasion, and upon his memory rested the foul imputation of being a participant in the horrid transactions of Wyoming. Misled by history, or rather "historical imagination," Campbell, in his "Gertrude of Wyoming," makes the Oneida say:
"This is no time to fill the joyous cup; The mammoth comes--the foe--the monster Brant, With all his howling, desolating band."
"Scorning to wield the hatchet for his tribe, 'Gainst Brant himself I went to battle forth; Accursed Brant! he left of all my tribe Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth. No! not the dog that watched my household hearth Escaped that night of blood upon the plains. All perish'd. I alone am left on earth! To whom nor relative nor blood remains-- No, not a kindred drop that runs in human veins."
Brant always denied any participation in the invasion, but the evidence of history seemed against him, and the verdict of the world was that he was one of the chief actors in that horrible tragedy. From this aspersion Mr. Stone vindicated his character in his "Life of Brant." A reviewer, understood to be Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, disputed the point, and maintained that Stone had not made out a clear case for the sachem. Unwilling to remain deceived, if he was so, Mr. Stone made a journey to the Seneca country, where he found several surviving warriors who were engaged in that campaign. The celebrated Seneca chief, Kavundvowand, better known as Captain Pollard, who was a young chief in the battle, gave Mr. Stone a clear account of the events, and was positive in his declarations that Brant and the Mohawks were not engaged in that campaign. The Indians were principally Senecas, and were led by Gi-en-gwa-tah, as before mentioned. John Brant, a son of the Mohawk sachem, while in England in 1823, on a mission in behalf of his nation, opened a correspondence with Mr. Campbell on the subject of the injustice which the latter had done the chief in his "Gertrude of Wyoming." The result was a partial acknowledgment of his error by the poet in the next edition of the poem that was printed. He did not change a word of the poem, but referred to the use of Brant's name there in a note, in which he says: "His son referred to documents which completely satisfied me that the common accounts of Brant's cruelties at Wyoming, which I had found in books of travels, and in Adolphus's and other similar histories of England, were gross errors. . . . The name of Brant, therefore, remains in my poem a pure and declared character of fiction." This was well enough, as far as it went; but an omission, after such a conviction of error, to blot out the name entirely from the poem, was unworthy of the character of an honest man; and the stain upon the poet's name will remain as long as the blot upon a humane warrior shall endure in the epic.