On August 6, 1777, Sir John Johnson and Joseph Brant prepared an ambush along the military road to Fort Stanwix where it passed through a ravine. When most of the militia had entered the trap, hidden Mohawk and Seneca warriors attacked while Johnson's Royal Greens blocked the road to the fort. A sudden volley killed hundreds in an instant, and the attackers then charged with tomahawks and knives in close, savage fighting. Survivors of the initial strike regrouped on higher ground west of the ravine and mounted a more organized defense, fighting in pairs so one man reloaded his musket while the other fired. The battle at Oriskany lasted over four hours, and as the afternoon wore on, the Mohawk and Seneca grew discouraged and eventually left. Johnson's Royal Greens also retired, leaving the militia badly damaged but not destroyed. Afterward, the few devastated militiamen and the Oneida left standing could care for only a few wounded, though oral tradition holds that the Oneida saved many wounded militiamen by hiding them until they could be removed under cover of darkness. Most of the dead were left on the battlefield, Loyalist, rebel colonist, and Native American warrior tangled together, and early historians suggest that some bodies were buried in a series of mass graves, some as early as 1795. The outcome remains a matter of perspective: although the Tryon County militia held the battlefield at day's end, they failed to relieve Fort Stanwix, suffered 500+ casualties, and lost most of their commanders, including General Nicholas Herkimer; the British failed to regain the valley or move on to support General Burgoyne's army at Saratoga; Sir John Johnson and other Loyalists became refugees and never recovered their homes in New York; and the Mohawk, Seneca, and Oneida suffered losses of life and property along with a lasting rift in the Iroquois Confederacy of the Six Nations.