Most of the Indians on the American side preserved, indeed, an outward neutrality.

There was no hostile population for them to plunder and the Indian usually had no stomach for any other kind of warfare.

The allies of the British, on the other hand, had plenty of openings to their taste and they brought on the British cause an enduring discredit.
When St.Leger was before Fort Stanwix he heard that a force of eight hundred men, led by a German settler named Herkimer, was coming up against him.

When it was at Oriskany, about six miles away, St.Leger laid a trap.

He sent Brant with some hundreds of Indians and a few soldiers to be concealed in a marshy ravine which Herkimer must cross.
When the American force was hemmed in by trees and marsh on the narrow causeway of logs running across the ravine the Indians attacked with wild yells and murderous fire.