John Brick, a twentieth-century native of the region and a career historical novelist, researched and wrote novels from both sides of the loyalists-rebels division. In his 1954 novel "The King's Rangers"—after extensive research in Canadian archives—Brick reported that the savagery at Cherry Valley was done under direction of two sub-chiefs of Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief; and that Brant, by dint of negligence or worse, abandoned his promise to Walter Butler to control the Indians' fighting so as to prevent attacks on women and children, the defenseless and captured. Butler died in a skirmish on October 30, 1781. The telling of the details was of apparent great interest to his contemporaries; perhaps no other Loyalist in upstate New York was as hated as Walter Butler. Several men who were present during the event or shortly thereafter testified to the specifics in their (Revolutionary War) pension applications [RWPA]. No word is recorded as to the disposition of Butler's body and it is doubtful that the Rebel forces did him the honor of burying him, Ross' men being actively pursued by them. Writer Stephen Vincent Benét listed Butler as one of the villainous jurymen, brought back from the dead to help Satan, in the 1936 short story The Devil and Daniel Webster.