The Coolidge examiner., 1933-05-05

"a man OF enterprisng bold
ness whose heart was compound of ferocious
hate, Unsuitable cruelty and unappeasable re
venge"
But the novelists more than the historians
have made his name a word of loathing almost
much as the name of Benedict Arnold. One
OF them writes of Cherry Valley. where. through
the wintry dawn. young Walter Butler damned
his soul for all eternity while men, women and
children, old and young. died horribly amid the
dripping knives and bayonets OF his painted
fends. fell under the butchering hatchets of
his Senecas"
So. after reading for so long that Walter But
Ter villain OF the deepest dye It is all the
more amazing TO pick up book and read that
obviously he was no scoundrel. and certainly
no murderer OF women and children as all the
books have said He Is the typical proud, rest
less, unhappy. luckess figure OF romance, who
throws away his life for a lost cause"-obvi-
ously the stuff OF which heroes are made. The
book is War Out OF Niagara-Walter Butler
and the Tory Rangers published recently by
the Columbia University Press for the New York
State Historical association, and the man who has
painted a new portrait OF the Infamous Walter
Butler is Howard Swiggett, author OF a care
fuly-documented biography, based upon source
material hitherto untouched by the historians.
Why has the name OF Walter Butler for so
long been tarnished with I'll fame? There
are two reasons, closely associated. Even before
the outbreak OF the Revolution there was en-
nifty between some of the "half-feudal aristoc-
racy" of the Mohawk valley, notably the John
sons and the Buffers and the Dutch and Ger
man peasantry of that region.
So when the conflict came and Walter Butler
cast his fortunes with the logical cause for
him to espouse. It is small wonder that these
No,o n x-f.l,h
ing actuated by as much sincerity and high prin-
ciple as they were in making their choice His
father. John Butler, was assistant to the
great Sir William Johnson, the Kings superin-
tendent of Indian affairs in the Northern de-
partment and lieutenant-colone in a Colonial
militia regiment. Brought up In the belief that
the greatest chance for honorable advancement
lay in "the Kings service" what more natural
than that this young aristocrat should choose
the side OF His Majesty rather than that of the
rebels?
Il must be remembered that the Revolution
was more than a conflict between a stubborn
foreign king and his rebelious subjects. 1t was
also civil war in which one group OF native
Americans called Patriots was pitted against
another group Of native Americans called Tories
or Loyalists. There is no war more bitter than
civil war and no crime too black for one side
TO charge against the other when families are
divided among themselves and friend turns
against friend.
So the legends of Tory infamy began growing
early among the Patriots and the first histori-
who gathered their material among the sur
Fivors of the Revolution and who do not seem to
have been animated by any too-scrupulous re-
gard for accuracy. accepted most of these leg
ends facts. Then. too they seem to have had
the quiteunderstaudable desire "a desire still
In owl Arna of
even though it is not so understandable to try
10 make the Patriots and their cause seem all
the whittier and purer by painting the Tories and
their cause all the blacker and more infamous
Unfortunately for Walter Butler they made
him the scapegoat for most of their Tory ha-
treds No doubt the particular reason for this
was that the Buffers, father and son. were in
strumenta in winning the IroQuois Indians to
the British side and became leaders of the par
tisan forces with which these Indians cooper
ated. So they were bitterly hated because they
on the frontiers and encouraged their atrocities
by imitation and horrible commerce in scalps
of men, women and children"
But the indignation of the early historians
against the use of the Indians by the British
and the Tories would be more convincing If they
did not overlook ignore these facts: that these
same Patriots, as English colonists during the
wars with the French, had been glad enough to
have the Iroquois as allies against the French
that early in the Revolution they had tried to
win the warriors of the Long House to THEIR
side and that during the Revolution some of
the Continental commanders. as well as the Brit
ish did use Indians as allies.