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The Wyoming Valley "massacre" was an encounter during the American Revolutionary War between American Patriots and Loyalists accompanied by Iroquois raiders that took place in Wyoming Valley , Pennsylvania , on July 3 , 1778 . More than three hundred Patriots were killed in what was branded a " Massacre ", although historians now generally believe it was primarily a battle. The aftermath, however, in which the Iroquois raiders hunted and killed fleeing Patriots before torturing the thirty to forty who had surrendered to death, is considered a massacre. BACKGROUND In 1777, after a British army surrendered at Saratoga in Upstate New York , Loyalists and their Iroquois allies in the region turned to Hit-and-run tactics, raiding American Patriot settlements as well as the villages of American-allied Iroquois. Based at Fort Niagara , these raids were led by commanders such as Colonel John Butler , the Mohawk captain Joseph Brant and the Seneca chief Cornplanter ENCOUNTER The Wyoming Valley encounter occurred when Colonel Butler, leading his s had been killed, despite widespread rumors to the contrary. Survivors' accounts indicate that the movement to contact conducted by the Patriots was followed by a sharp battle lasting around forty-five minutes. An order to reposition the Patriot line turned into a frantic route when the inexperienced Patriots panicked. This ended the battle and triggered the Iroquois hunt. Reports of the massacre enraged the American public and they demanded retribution. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition methodically destroyed at least forty Iroquois villages throughout what is now upstate New York. The massacre was famously depicted by the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell in his 1809 poem ''Gertrude of Wyoming''. Because of the atrocities involved, Campbell described Joseph Brant as a "monster" in the poem, but it was later determined that Brant had not been present. REFERENCES
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