Cherry Valley massacre

The Cherry Valley massacre occurred on November 11, 1778, when a mixed force of Loyalists, British soldiers, Senecas, and Mohawks attacked the fortified settlement of Cherry Valley in central New York during the American Revolutionary War. The raiders were under the overall command of Captain Walter Butler, though historian Barbara Graymont has described his command of the expedition as "criminally incompetent," and he had only tenuous authority over the Indigenous warriors involved. The attacking force included 300 Senecas, a number of Cayuga led by Fish Carrier, two companies of Butler's Rangers, and 50 British soldiers from the 8th Regiment of Foot, along with Mohawk leader Joseph Brant.

Cherry Valley was defended by 300 soldiers of the 7th Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army under Colonel Ichabod Alden. Despite being warned by Oneida spies of the approaching force by November 8, Alden failed to take basic precautions, continuing to headquarter at a settler's house roughly 400 yards from the fort. The attack began after some Native warriors prematurely fired on settlers cutting wood nearby, alerting the town. Attackers surrounded both Alden's headquarters and the fort. Alden was killed while trying to flee to the fort, struck by a thrown tomahawk after his pistol misfired. Lt. Col. William Stacy, second in command, was taken prisoner; accounts state Brant intervened to spare his life. The household at the Wells house, where Alden and Stacy had been quartered, was entirely killed — twelve people in total — after Senecas gained entry following hand-to-hand combat.

The raiders were unable to breach the fort's stockade due to a lack of heavy weapons. While Loyalists guarded the fort, Native warriors continued through the rest of the settlement, and reports state that no house was left standing. Quartermaster Lt. William McKendry's journal recorded the fatalities as Colonel Alden, thirteen other soldiers, and thirty civilian inhabitants. Butler and Brant reportedly attempted to restrain the violence but were unsuccessful, and Brant was said to be dismayed that families he counted as friends, including the Wells, Campbell, Dunlop, and Clyde families, suffered heavily.

In the aftermath, raiders took approximately 70 captives, mostly women and children; about 40 were released by Butler, while the rest were held among the captors' villages until exchanged. Stacy was taken to Fort Niagara as a British prisoner. Quebec Governor Frederick Haldimand expressed strong disapproval of Butler's failure to control his forces. The massacre, along with accusations of atrocities at the Battle of Wyoming, contributed to the 1779 Sullivan Expedition, commissioned by General George Washington and led by Major General John Sullivan, which destroyed more than 40 Iroquois villages in central and western New York. A monument to the massacre was dedicated at Cherry Valley in 1878, marking its centennial.