To the colonials this seemed a stroke of good fortune.  They would dash down the hill and dispute Brant’s passage of the river.  Acting on the impulse, they swung confidently along, only to find themselves outgeneralled.  No sooner had they sunk from sight in the forest than Brant had artfully changed his march.  He slipped through a deep ravine and came out on the enemy’s rear.  Then he chose his own position for an ambush.  The Orange county men, looking high and low for the Indians, at length came to a halt, when to their dismay they found that the enemy were posted in an unlooked-for quarter.  There, in concealment behind them, lay Brant’s force.  The War Chief now issued from among his redskins, and made overtures to the opposing force.  He advised them to surrender without offering resistance; if they did so he would see that no harm befell them.  Should the battle begin, he added, he might be unable to restrain his followers.  The only answer which came was a hurtling bullet that clipped a hole through the covering of his belt.  In an instant Brant had faced about and disappeared under cover.  Straightway the enemy bore down at break-neck speed upon the tree-sheltered lair of the Indians.  In wading through a narrow brook that obstructed their advance, their ranks became disordered, and Brant made effective use of the situation.  His voice rose in a war-whoop and his warriors sprang into motion.  After delivering one sharp, destructive volley, they seized their tomahawks and surged into the midst of their foe.  From an hour before noon until sundown, sheltered by trees and rocks, both sides fought stubbornly.  At last the whites gave way, and the battle closed with appalling slaughter.  Of the retreating remnant thirty survived, while the bodies of many of their comrades were left upon the field of battle.  Of those who sought safety by swimming the Delaware, a number were killed in the water by the Indians, who fired upon them as they struggled towards the opposite bank.

After the fight, as Brant traversed the blood-stained field he bent over the wounded form of Gabriel Wisner, who was a magistrate of Orange county.  The fallen man, though suffering excruciating pain, was still able to speak, but the chieftain saw that he was dying.  There were wolves in the forest, and these would soon visit the scene of carnage.  To bear Wisner from the field would avail nothing.  For a moment the War Chief debated what he should do.  Then, turning the attention of the wounded man in another direction, he poised his hatchet.  In a flash it had smitten the skull of the dying magistrate and his misery was at an end.  In this act as in others Brant showed that his contact with civilization had not freed him from the basic instincts of his savage nature.  Few white men could have performed such a deed even on the field of battle with so much calmness.