Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois Book

With the entry of France on the American side, the War for Independence moved from a regional conflict to a global war. To offset this new alliance, Britain devised a bold new strategy. Turning its attention to the colonial frontiers, especially those of western New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, Britain enlisted its Provincial Rangers, Tories, and allied warriors, principally from the Iroquois Confederacy, to wage a brutal backwoods war in an attempt to cut the colonies in half, divert the Continental Army, and weaken its presence around British-occupied New York City and Philadelphia. Moving quickly, British forces under the direction of Colonel John Butler and the charismatic Mohawk leader, Joseph Brant, unleashed a terror campaign, but following massacres at the well-established colonial settlements of Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and Cherry Valley, New York, the Continental Congress persuaded General George Washington to conduct a decisive offensive to end the threat once and for all. Brewing since 1777, the "Year of the Hangman," the conflict between the Iroquois and colonists would now reach its deadly climax. Charging his troops "to not merely overrun, but destroy," Washington devised a two-prong attack to exact American revenge. The largest coordinated American military action against Native Americans in the war, the campaign shifted the balance of power in the east, ending the political and military influence of the Iroquois, forcing large numbers of loyalists to flee to Canada, and sealing Britain?s fateful decision to seek victory in the south. In Year of the Hangman: George Washington?s Campaign Against the Iroquois, historian Glenn F. Williams recreates the riveting events surrounding the action, including the checkered story of European and Indian alliances, the bitter frontier wars, and the bloody battles of Oriskany and Saratoga, in order to tell the tale of the campaign that changed the outcome of the American Revolution.Read More