Battle of Minisink
From Freepedia
The Battle of Minisink, which commenced on July 22, 1779 at Minisink Ford in Orange County, New York during the American Revolution was one of the most bloody and decisive battles of the War where Loyalists and Iroquois under the leadership of Joseph Brant, a Mohawk who was a Colonel in the British army, secured a major victory against the Colonial American forces under the command of Colonel Benjamin Tusten of Goshen, Orange County, New York.
The battle itself is well described by both sides including a written account by the Colonel Joseph Brant himself who not only could read and write English fluently, but had actually translated the English Bible into his own Mohawk language.
It is thought that some 150 men were killed that day, with a separate company of 50 men completely being cut off and killed and scalped by Brant and his men according to his own account (though he said that there were some 40 men).
The town of Goshen, New York itself was all but completely dessimated, and it is said that some 33 women were left as widows on that day. Brant said that he would have done more damage, but that there were too many houses for him to burn.
Strangely, the town of Minisink and Goshen did not seek to bury the bones of their own dead until 1822, possibly due to feelings that the English victory was retribution for the killing of Claudius Smith, the notorious "outlaw" loyalist, whom they had hanged for supposed terroristic acts in the town of Goshen on January 22, 1779 – exactly six months to the day prior to their own judgement.
The people of Orange County still, and at the time, maintain that only 44 men were killed that day because they had only found the bodies of 44 people in 1822. But given the fact that what they found had been there for an entire 43 years, doesn't give much credibility to this assertion.
Immediate estimates at the time of battle by the Continental Army were that at least 110 individuals were killed in the battle. Thirty men were said to have actually returned, but of them, it isn't certain as to how many died as a result of their wounds.
