Western news and the Libby times. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1920-1933, 1933-05-04

as "A man of enterprisng bold
ness, whose heart was compound OF feroeious
nate, Unsuitable cruelty and unappeasabe re-
venge."
But the n0yelsts more than the historians
have made his name word of loathng almost
as much as the name Of Benedict Arnold. One
of them writes of Cherry Valley, where, through
the wintry dawn. young Walter Butler damned
9 his soul for oil eternity while men women and
Children old and young died horribly amid the
dripping knives and bayonets of his painted
hends, or fell under the butchering hatchets of
his Seneeas.
50. after reading for SO long that Walter But
Ter was villain of the deepest dye 1t Is all the
more amazing to pick up book and read that
obviously he was no scoundre1. and certainly
no murderer OF women and children as all the
books have said. lie Is the TYPICAL proud rest
less, unhappy. luckless figure of romance who
throws away his life for lost causen--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 portrait OF the Infamous Walter
Butler is Howard Swggett, author OF care
fully-documented biography, based upon source
material hitherto untouched By the historians
Why has the name OF Walter Butler for so
long been furnished with iii 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, 1t Is small wonder that these
commoners should refuse to credit him with be-
Ing actuated by as much sincerity and high prin-
ciple as they were In making their choice His
father, John Butler an assistant to the
great Sir William Johnson. the Kings supern
tendent of Indian affairs In the Northern de-
partment and Northumberland In 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'7
II must be remembered that the Revolution
was more than conflict between stubborn
foreign king and his rebelous subjects 1t was
also a civil war In which one group Of native
Americans, called Patriots, was pitted against
another group OF native Americans, called Tories
or Loyaists 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 historl-
ans who gathered their material among the sur
vivors of the Revolution and who do not seem to
have been animated by any tooscrupulous re-
gard for accuracy, accepted most of these leg
ends as facts. Then too they seem to have had
the MISUNDERSTANDING desire Ca desire still
IN evidence among some Americans OF today,
even though 1t is not SO understandable to try
to make the Patriots and their cause seem all
the winter 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
strumental In winning the Iroquois Indians to
the British side and became leaders of the par
tlsan forces with which these Indians cooper
ated. So they were bitterly hated because they
enlisted red savages as their allies, loosed them
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 II they
did not overlook or ignore these facts. that these
same Patriots. as English colonists during the
wars with the French had been glad enough to
have the Iroquos 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 well as the Brit
18th did usa Indians as allies