Oriskany, Battle of

The Battle of Oriskany, fought on August 6, 1777, is one of the bloodiest battles in the North American theater of the American Revolutionary War and a significant engagement of the Saratoga campaign.

An American party trying to relieve the siege of Fort Stanwix is ambushed by a party of Loyalists and allies of several Native American tribes, primarily Iroquois.

This is one of the few battles in the war in which almost all of the participants are North American: Loyalists and allied Indians fight against Patriots and allied Oneida in the absence of British regular soldiers.

Early in the siege of Fort Stanwix, an American relief force from the Mohawk Valley under General Nicholas Herkimer, numbering around eight hundred men of the Tryon County militia, and a party of Oneida warriors, approach in an attempt to raise the siege.

British commander Barry St. Leger authorizes an intercept force consisting of a Hanau Jäger (light infantry) detachment, Sir John Johnson's King's Royal Regiment of New York, Indian allies from the Six Nations, particularly Mohawk and Seneca; and other tribes to the north and west, and Indian Department Rangers, totaling at least four hundred and fifty men.

The Loyalist and Indian force ambush Herkimer's force in a small valley about six miles (ten kilometers) east of Fort Stanwix, near the present-day village of Oriskany, New York.

During the battle, Herkimer is mortally wounded.

The battle costs the Patriots approximately four hundred and fifty casualties, while the Loyalists and Indians lose approximately one hundred and fifty dead and wounded.

The result of the battle remains ambiguous.

apparent Loyalist victory is significantly affected by a sortie from Fort Stanwix in which the Loyalist camps are sacked, spoiling morale among the allied Indians.

For the Iroquois nations, the battle marks the beginning of a civil war, as Oneida warriors under Colonel Louis and Han Yerry ally with the American cause.

Most of the warriors of other Iroquois nations, especially the Mohawk and Seneca, ally with the British.

Each nation is highly decentralized, and there are internal divisions among bands of the Oneida, some of whom also migrate to Canada as allies of the British.

The site is known in oral histories of the Iroquois nations as "A Place of Great Sadness."

The site will be designated by the United States as a National Historic Landmark and marked by a battle monument at the Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site.

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