About ten o'clock
bang ! bang ! echoed the muskets , and the rifles spat flame into the deepening dusk and the dark woods rang with the war-yell of half a thousand Indians stripped for the last battles that the Long House should ever fight . About ten o'clock that night we met a regiment of militia on the Johnstown road , marching noisily north towards Whitestown , and learned that General Herkimer 's brigade was concentrating at an Oneida hamlet called Oriska , only eight miles by the river highway from Stanwix , and a little to the east of Oriskany creek . An officer named Van Slyck also informed me that an Oneida interpreter had just come in , reporting St. Leger 's arrival before Stanwix , and warning Herkimer that an ambuscade had been prepared for him should he advance to raise the siege of the beleaguered fort . Learning that we also had seen the enemy at Stanwix , this officer begged us to accompany him to Oriska , where our information might prove valuable to General Herkimer . So I and my three riflemen fell in as the troops tramped past ; and I , for one , was astonished to hear their drums beating so loudly in the enemy 's country , and to observe the careless indiscipline in the ranks , where men talked loudly and their reckless laughter often sounded above the steady rolling of the drums .