To George Washington from Colonel Zebulon Butler, 15 May 1780
From Colonel Zebulon Butler
Wyoming [Pa.] May 15th 1780
May it please your Excellencey
Your order of the 7th April Came safe to hand I shall wait your excellencys further Orders,1 Nothing Matirael has happend since my last, only the men Mentioned in my last Being taken at fishing Creek &c. Came in with The Indian guns Tomhocks &c. as the first party Did, and Actually Brought in Two Indian Scalps,2 I have Heared of Late Mischiefs being done one the West brance of Susqh. and on Delewair3 but None in this Quarter, I have orders from the Board of war to Engage Thirty of the Militia Which I have done for the Defenc of this Frontier4 Capt. Seeling the Bearrer will hand this to your Excellency he is A Gentlemen of the Free Core That is stationed at this post and has Leave of Absince to wait on your excellency as he says on Business Respecting the Core5 he Expects To Return to this post Immediately. I have the Honour to be your Excellencys Most obt Humbe Servt
Zebn Butler Col.
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. On 7 April, GW ordered Butler to remain at Wyoming and to report all enemy depredations (see GW to Butler, 2 April, n.4).
2. In his 2 April letter to GW, Butler gave an account of recent Indian raids in the Wyoming Valley and reported the capture of three settlers on Fishing Creek. These prisoners escaped on 3 April near Tioga Point (now Athens, Pa.) and purportedly attacked their Indian captors with tomahawks: “The Indians made a desperate, but unavailing effort for the mastery, but were overpowered. … After scalping the dead, recovering the scalps of those of our people whom the Indians had slain, making a hasty raft, the party, taking the guns, tomahawks, spears, and blankets of the foe, descended the Susquehanna, and on the evening of the 5th of April arrived with their spoils in triumph at Wyoming” ( , 278–81).
3. The New-Jersey Gazette (Trenton) for 3 May reported a skirmish: “About the 17th ult. a party of Indians were discovered at Minisink, in Pennsylvania, and on Thursday following some of the Jersey militia passed the Delaware and engaged them; a very severe conflict ensued, which ended in a total defeat of the Indians.”
4. The orders from the Board of War to Butler have not been identified, but they may have pertained to Lt. Col. Ludwig Weltner’s request to the board on 9 April for reinforcements “to man the West Branch” of the Susquehanna River to deter Indian depredations ( , 1st ser., 8:171).
5. Capt. Anthony Selin commanded an independent company eventually incorporated into the German Battalion (see Weltner to GW, 16 May, and n.1 to that document; see also GW to the Board of War, 27 April).