The Battle of Oriskany was a significant engagement of the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War, and one of the bloodiest battles in the conflict between Patriot forces and those loyal to Great Britain. On August 6, 1777, several hundred of Britain's Indigenous allies, accompanied by Loyalists of the King's Royal Regiment of New York and the British Indian Department, ambushed a Patriot militia column which was marching to relieve the siege of Fort Stanwix. This was one of the few battles in which the majority of the participants were American colonists. Patriots and allied Oneidas fought against Loyalists and allied Iroquois and Mississaugas. No British regulars were involved; however, a detachment of Hessians was present.
Herkimer at the Battle of Oriskany Painting by Frederick Coffay Yohn, c. 1901
The site of the ambush at Bloody Creek, New York
Lt. Col. Marinus Willett, a 1791 portrait by Ralph Earl
Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant, 1776 portrait by George Romney
The Saratoga campaign in 1777 was an attempt by the British high command for North America to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River valley during the American Revolutionary War. It ended in the surrender of the British army, which historian Edmund Morgan argues, "was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory."
Surrender of General Burgoyne a portrait by John Trumbull
General John Burgoyne, portrait by Joshua Reynolds
Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, portrait by Antoine-François Callet
Fort Ticonderoga from Mount Defiance