Battles of the Revolution
- November 5, 2025: Cherry Valley: A Massacre of the Revolution
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Veteran’s Day, once Armistice Day, is this coming Tuesday. But the armistice that ended the Great War is not the only thing that happened on November 11 in our history. Among the most barbaric was the 1778 massacre by English troops at Cherry Valley, a village now in Otsego County, New York.
A Sestercentennial Year
- Battle of Bennington
- Upside Down Yorktown
- Cherry Valley Massacre ⬅︎
- Battle of the Kegs
- Sestercentennial Cookery
- The New Colossus
The Cherry Valley massacre is an obscure part of the American Revolution to anyone but the residents of Cherry Valley, who remembered it at least up to the release of The Patriot in 2000.
The English employed Iroquois—in this location, Seneca and Mohawks—in their attempts to quell the American rebellion. The Iroquois were paid to attack under the direct command of British officers as well as to attack independently of English control. In response mostly to those independent raids, Continental soldiers had destroyed several Iroquois towns, hoping to end the many raids that had come from them earlier in the year. All accounts that I’ve seen say that the Continentals destroyed lodgings and provisions—not people. The direct antecedent to the massacre, the destruction of the Iroquois villages of Unadilla and Onaquaga, had by all accounts been empty at the time of the Continental raids.
- August 13, 2025: Our lot is cast in this happy land…
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While researching the origin of The Rifleman’s Song of Bennington I ran across this 1819 speech on the occasion of the Battle of Bennington. It appeared in The Pittsfield Sun of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, November 10, 1819 and was given by Samuel B. Young on August 16 of the same year.
A Sestercentennial Year
- Battle of Bennington ⬅︎
- Upside Down Yorktown
- Cherry Valley Massacre
- Battle of the Kegs
- Sestercentennial Cookery
- The New Colossus
Since Saturday is the anniversary of the battle, I thought I’d reproduce it here. It’s a fine argument for commemorating Independence Day as well as the sacrifices made for Independence.
An Oration
Pronounced at Bennington, August 16, 1819, in commemoration of the Battle of Bennington, fought August 16, 1777, by Samuel B. Young.
“Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty.”
“Live free or die;” death is better than slavery.
Fellow-Citizens—Commemoration of events like the present are too frequently esteemed as days of merriment. If we have assembled here to make this a day for feasting our appetites only, we lose all the solid benefits of the occasion.
Let us reflect that forty-two years ago this day, an adjoining Hill was wet with the blood of our Patriots; let us reflect that the semi-paradise below us (had it not been for the victory we celebrate) might have been the residence of our invaders; let us reflect that five thousand acres, now in sight, cultivated like a garden might have been the abode of Hessians and Indians; and we shall want nothing more to induce us to render praise to God for our success, and to render solemnity to the festivities of the day.
More American Revolution
- Cherry Valley: A Massacre of the Revolution
- Mel Gibson’s The Patriot is disparaged for the ruthlessness it portrays among the British. But such barbarity certainly did exist. One massacre by British troops is still remembered by the residents of Cherry Valley, New York.
- The World Turned Upside Down
- The legend of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis to Washington at Yorktown says that the band played “The World Turned Upside Down”. It probably didn’t. But we’re going to print the legend anyway.
- Songs of the American Revolution
- Various songs, and the history of the songs, that made the Revolution—sometimes decades later.
- Our lot is cast in this happy land…
- Samuel B. Young’s August 16, 1819, Oration to commemorate the 1777 Battle of Bennington.