William Stacy - Cherry Valley Massacre, and Prisoner of War

Cherry Valley Massacre, and Prisoner of War

Stacy served as lieutenant colonel in Colonel Ichabod Alden's 7th Massachusetts Regiment during 1777 and 1778. The regiment was sent to Cherry Valley, New York to protect the local population from Loyalists and American Indians. The Loyalists were organized as Butler's Rangers, a Loyalist militia in the British Army, led by Colonel John Butler and his son, Captain Walter Butler. The Loyalists operated together with American Indians, including some who were under the leadership of Joseph Brant, a Mohawk leader also known as Thayendanegea.

While serving with Colonel Alden at Cherry Valley during October 1778, William Stacy was transferred to the 4th Massachusetts Regiment, though remaining with Colonel Alden. During that time period, Lieutenant William McKendry, a quartermaster in Colonel Alden's regiment, kept a journal with firsthand accounts of the actions at Cherry Valley. One of his lighter notes concerning Colonel Stacy was a journal entry for October 6, 1778: "Col. Stacy and Capt. Ballard had a horse race. Col. Stacy won the bet." However, one month later, Cherry Valley experienced the ravages of war.

On November 11, 1778 a mixed force of Loyalists, British soldiers, Mohawk and Seneca under the command of Walter Butler descended on Cherry Valley. Colonel Alden had been warned of their approach, but had dismissed the warnings. He and his command staff, including Stacy, were stationed in a house some 400 yards (370 m) from the fort. McKendry described the attack in his journal: "Immediately came on 442 Indians from the Five Nations, 200 Tories under the command of one Col. Butler and Capt. Brant; attacked headquarters; killed Col. Alden; took Col. Stacy prisoner; attacked Fort Alden; after three hours retreated without success of taking the fort." McKendry identified the fatalities of the massacre as Colonel Alden, thirteen other soldiers, and thirty civilian inhabitants. It became known as the Cherry Valley massacre and noted as one of the most horrific frontier massacres of the Revolution. Three months later, in his journal entry for February 12, 1779, McKendry describes receiving a report from an Indian of William Stacy in captivity; Stacy was apparently concerned to reassure his fellow soldiers: "the last he knew of Col. Stacy he was well and in good spirits, and told him not to mind it for it was only the fortune of war."

Several accounts indicate that during the Cherry Valley massacre or thereafter, Colonel Stacy was stripped naked and tied to a stake, and was about to be tortured and killed, but was spared by Joseph Brant. William Stacy was a Freemason; Joseph Brant was an educated American Indian, and had also become a Freemason. It is reported that Stacy made an appeal as one Freemason to another, thus saving his life. Colonel Stacy was subsequently taken to Fort Niagara, the Loyalist base in New York and held prisoner under Colonel Butler during the summer of 1779. At Fort Niagara, Molly Brant, the sister of Joseph Brant, was hostile toward Stacy, and wanted Colonel Butler to return custody of Stacy to the Indians. She proclaimed dreams of her and the Indians using Stacy's head in an Indian football game. Colonel Butler placated Molly Brant with rum and protected his prisoner. Subsequently, from late-1779 through mid-1782, Colonel Stacy was held prisoner at Fort Chambly near Montreal.

As a prisoner-of-war, Colonel Stacy was the subject of high level correspondence and actions of General George Washington and other leaders of the Continental Army. During April 1780, General Lafayette, who fought with the Americans during the Revolution, hand-carried a letter from General William Heath to General Washington, describing a reported Loyalist and British strategy concerning Stacy. The strategy was to continue holding Colonel Stacy as a prisoner-of-war, and to use Stacy in a prisoner exchange, should Colonel Butler or another ranking Loyalist officer, Sir John Johnson, be captured by the Continental Army. During September 1780, General Washington attempted to orchestrate a prisoner exchange for Colonel Stacy, but was unsuccessful. On November 1, 1781, the General Assembly of Massachusetts passed a Resolve urging Governor John Hancock to encourage General Heath to pursue a prisoner exchange for Stacy.

Colonel Stacy was not released from captivity until the end of the war, during August 1782. General Washington reportedly gave Stacy a gold snuff box as a personal memento after the war. William Stacy's nephew, Nathaniel Stacy, writes that his first memory of childhood was the return of Col. William Stacy to New Salem after the war.