KENTUCKY IN THE REVOLUTION
History was fast being made in Kentucky when the Revolutionary struggle
reached the crisis in 1775 at Concord and Lexington. South of the Ohio
River Virginia's new empire was filling with the conquerors of the West.
The Mississippi Valley counted a population of thirteen thousand, three
thousand being the population of New Orleans. St. Louis, in Spanish
possession, was carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians on the
Missouri. Vincennes, the British port on the Wabash, had a population of
four hundred whites. Detroit, the metropolis of the West, numbered
fifteen hundred inhabitants, more than double the number in the dashing
days of Gladwin only a decade before. The British flag also waved at
Kaskaskia on the Mississippi, and at Sandusky. This fringe of British
forts on the north was separated from the American metropolis of the
West, Pittsburg, and from the first fortresses built in Kentucky, by
leagues of forests, dark as when Bouquet pierced them; and filled with
sullen Indian nations, awed for the time being by Dunmore's invasion,
but silently biding their time to avenge themselves for the loss of the
meadow lands of Ken-ta-kee.
Such was the condition of affairs when, in April 1775, the open struggle
for independence of the American colonies was roughly precipitated at
Lexington. It might seem to the casual observer that the colonists, who
were now hastening by way of Boone's Wilderness Road into the Virginian
Kentucky, could not feel the intense jealousy for American interests
which was felt by the patriots in the East. On the contrary, there is
evidence that these first pioneers into the West had a profound
knowledge of the situation; and a sympathy for the struggling patriots,
which was enhanced even by the distance which separated them, and the
hardships they had endured. Not a few of them, too, had known personally
of the plundering British officials and the obnoxious taxes. It is the
proud boast of Kentuckians that in the center of their beautiful Blue
Grass country was erected the first monument to the first dead of the
Revolution. A party of pioneers heard the news of the Battle of
Lexington while sitting about their camp fire. Long into the night the
rough men told and retold the news, and before morning named the new
settlement they were to make, Lexington, in honor of New England's dead.
It was not at all evident at first what the war was going to amount to
in the West. Scarcely more was known in the West of the Revolutionary
War than had been known two decades before of the French and Indian War.
But at the outset it was plain that there was to be a tremendous
struggle on both sides to gain the allegiance, as the British desired,
of the Indian nations which lay between the Ohio River and the Great
Lakes. For two years the struggle in the East went on, engrossing the
entire attention of both parties. During 1776 and 1777 the history of
the West is merely the continuation of the bloody story of the years
which led up to Dunmore's campaign, like the savage attack on Wheeling,
in September, 1777. Slowly the Indians forgot Lewis's crushing victory
at Point Pleasant, and their solemn pledges at Camp Charlotte; and were
raiding the feeble Kentucky posts with undiminished relish, or giving
the Long Knives plenty of provocation for the barbarities of which the
latter are known to have been guilty.
The opening scene of the Revolutionary War in the West was the most
important phase of the war in the history of Boone's Wilderness Road;
for at the very outset the question was decided once for all whether or
not that thin, long, priceless path to Kentucky through the Watauga
settlement was to be held or lost. If it could not be held, there was no
hope left for the brave men who had gone to found that western empire
beyond the Cumberland Mountains. With their line of retreat cut in two
by the southern Indians, they were left without hope of succor or
success: for the success of their enterprise depended upon the
inspiration their advance gave to those behind them. None would come if
the Wautauga settlement did not survive.
The British agents among the Southern Indians--the Cherokees, Creeks,
Choctaws and Chickasaws--precipitated a quick and early struggle along
this historic pathway by goading the Indians into a murderous attack
upon the Watauga settlement. The Cherokees who had sold the Transylvania
Company its lands, were the most easily incited to war, and fifty
packhorse loads of ammunition scattered through their towns in those
deep mountain valleys where the two Carolinas and Georgia meet,
determined an outburst in July, 1776. Straight north from them lay the
rude beginnings of civilization on the headwaters of the Tennessee, and
further "in" was the frontier line of Virginia. The headquarters of the
Watauga settlement may be said to have been Fort Watauga, commanded by
the heroes Robertson and Sevier; here Boone had made the treaty with the
Cherokees for Richard Henderson, a trifle over a year ago. Eaton's, Evan
Shelby's, John Shelby's, Campbell's, and the Wommack forts were the
important way stations on this path from Virginia to Kentucky. Two
Indian parties larger than the others made for Fort Watauga and Eaton's
Station, and the defenders of the latter post, learning from their
scouts that a formidable array under the notorious Dragging Canoe was
coming, resolved to give them a hot, unexpected welcome. Accordingly, on
the morning of July twentieth nearly two hundred brown forms could have
been seen stealing away from the fort in two thin lines half lost in the
fog toward the open land known as "the Flats" near the "Long Island" of
the Holston. In the march an advance party of a score of savages was met
and put to flight. No other signs of the enemy could be discovered and
the men started back to their fort at the end of the day.
Dragging Canoe, not less audacious than his foes, awaited his time, and
when the whites were marching homeward, came down upon them, his savages
forming a wedge-shaped line of battle. Instantly the borderers fell back
to the right and left, and with a desperate quietness awaited the
onslaught. The Indian plan of rushing the whites off their feet by an
overwhelming charge failed; the borderers settled deeper into the
ground and met the rush and dashed the savage line into fragments. One
charge--and all was over. There was no recovering from this form of
attack for untrained soldiery, and the assaulting band instantly broke
and fled. This battle of Long Island Flats was the first of the series
of victories for the Watauga pioneers; its importance can hardly be
measured today.
Its best fruit was that it brought other victories to the encouraged
Wataugans. On the same day the other Indian horde invested and assailed
Fort Watauga at dawn. Only about two score men were at home to defend a
large number of women and children, but they were fully equal to the
emergency and with a frightful burst of fire drove back the line of
savages which could just be seen advancing at that hour when Indians
invariably made their attacks--the early dawn. Robertson was senior
officer in command, and Sevier his brave assistant. The latter, having
learned of the Indian uprising, characteristically wrote a message to
the people far away on the Virginia border to look well to their
homes--never even asking that assistance be sent to the much more feeble
and vastly more endangered Watauga settlement on the Kentucky road.
Elsewhere the border warfare was being waged with varying fortune; a
small band of Georgian frontiersmen invaded the Cherokee country[20*] in
the hope of capturing a notorious British agent, Cameron; it suffered
heavily through the faithlessness of the Cherokees. The whole southern
frontier was aroused, and plans for dashes into the Cherokee country
were made but could not be forwarded simultaneously. Yet Cameron and his
Tories and Indians acted in unison and brought sudden desolation into
South Carolina. The force of the blow was broken by the brave Colonel
Andrew Williamson, who, gathering over a thousand volunteers near the
end of July began the first important invasion of the Cherokee country.
Near Eseneka, the Cherokee town, the Carolinians found Cameron and won a
costly victory. After some internal dissensions the little army got on
its mettle and went steadily forward to wipe out the lower Cherokee
towns, which was completely accomplished by the middle of August.
Scarcity of ammunition, only, kept Williamson from attacking the middle
towns.
This task fell to the lot of the second expedition into the Cherokee
country. This was a joint campaign waged by North and South Carolina,
and Virginia, each to furnish two thousand men. The North Carolinians
under Rutherford were earliest in the field. This officer with
twenty-four hundred men left the head of the Catawba and opened
"Rutherford's Trace" leading to Swananoa Gap in the Blue Ridge and on to
the middle Cherokee towns by way of Warrior's Ford of French Broad and
Mount Cowee. The middle towns were destroyed, and, uniting with
Williamson, the two bodies of men swept over the Cherokee valley towns
until "all the Cherokee settlements west of the Appalachians had been
destroyed from the face of the earth, neither crops nor cattle being
left."
While the Carolinians had been sweeping into the lower Cherokee country,
the Virginia troops had been assembling at the Long Island of the
Holston under their leader Colonel William Christian. Their campaign
against the Overhill towns was slowly formed here on the little westward
pathway, and it was not until the first of October that all the
contributions of men and arms from the settlements between Fort Watauga
and the Virginia frontier were received. The advance, by way of Big
Island of the Holston, was slow but determined--each encampment being
made absolutely secure against surprise. The Indians, learning of the
strength of Christian's army, knew better than to resist. They retired
without a struggle and the borderers reached the heart of the Overhill
country on the fifth day of November. Here they ravaged, burned, and
razed to their hearts' content, until a deputation imploring peace came
from the broken tribes. In this action old Dragging Canoe would have no
part but stole away with a few followers toward the Chickamauga.
Christian agreed to a treaty which definitely marked out the boundary
line between the Indians and the whites, and then returned home leaving
a garrison near the Kentucky path by the Holston. In the words of
Roosevelt, who of all writers has done this campaign most justice: "The
Watauga people and the westerners generally were the real gainers by the
war. Had the Watauga settlements been destroyed, they would no longer
have covered the Wilderness Road to Kentucky; and so Kentucky must
perforce have been abandoned. But the followers of Robertson and Sevier
stood stoutly for their homes; not one of them fled over the mountains.
The Cherokees had been so roughly handled that for several years they
did not again go to war as a body; and this not only gave the settlers a
breathing time, but also enabled them to make themselves so strong that
when the struggle was renewed they could easily hold their own. The war
was thus another and important link in the chain of events by which the
west was won; and had any link in the chain snapped during these early
years, the peace of 1783 would probably have seen the trans-Alleghany
country in the hands of a non-American power." If the holding of this
pathway was of such moment the value of the pathway is plainly
understood.
Turning now to the end of Boone's Road, it will be necessary to review
briefly the Revolutionary War in the "far" West; though in many of the
campaigns the road itself played no part, in a large and genuine sense
it was the pilgrims of Boone's Road who fought the most important
battles of the Revolution in the West.
Early in the struggle in the West, far-sighted ones saw signs of the
growing despicable alliance of the savages to British interests; and
before the bloody year of 1778 opened, it was only a question of how
much England wanted of the savage allies who were crowded about their
forts along the lakes. It is a terrible blot on the history of British
rule in America, that when driven to face the same situation, English
officers in the West used every means of retaliation for the use of
which they so roundly condemned French officials a quarter of a century
before. American officers employed Indians as guides and scouts, and
were guilty of provoking inter-tribal war; but they did not pay Indians
for bringing in British scalps, or praise them for their murderous
successes and equip them for further service. As a brave American
officer said, "Let this reproach remain on them"--and the people of the
West will never forget the reproach, nor forgive! They remember, and
always will remember, the burning words of Washington written more than
ten years after the close of the Revolution: "All the difficulties we
encounter with the Indians, their hostilities, the murder of helpless
women and children along all our frontiers, results from the conduct of
the agents of Great Britain in this country." There are today, in
hundreds of homes of descendants of the pioneers in Kentucky, memories
of the inhuman barbarities of British officers during the Revolution;
these will never be forgotten, and will never fail to prejudice
generations yet unborn. The reproach will remain on them.
At the outbreak of the war, chiefs of the Indian nations were invited to
Pittsburg, where the nature of the struggle was explained to them in the
following parable:
"Suppose a father had a little son whom he loved and indulged while
young, but growing up to be a youth, began to think of having some help
from him; and making up a small pack, he bid him carry it for him. The
boy cheerfully takes this pack up, following his father with it. The
father finding the boy willing and obedient, continues in this way; and
as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion
larger; yet as long as the boy is able to carry the pack, he does so
without grumbling. At length, however, the boy having arrived at
manhood, while the father is making up the pack for him, in comes a
person of an evil disposition, and, learning who was to be the carrier
of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for surely the son
is able to carry a larger pack. The father, listening rather to the bad
adviser than consulting his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness,
follows the advice of the hard-hearted adviser, and makes up a heavy
load for his son to carry. The son, now grown up, examining the weight
of the load he is to carry, addresses the father in these words: 'Dear
Father, this pack is too heavy for me to carry, do pray lighten it; I
am willing to do what I can, but am unable to carry this load.' The
father's heart having by this time become hardened, and the bad adviser
calling to him, 'Whip him if he disobeys,' and he refusing to carry the
pack, the father orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off or
he will whip him, and already takes up a stick to beat him. 'So,' says
the son, 'am I to be served thus for not doing what I am unable to do?
Well, if entreaties avail nothing with you, Father, and it is to be
decided by blows, whether or not I am able to carry a pack so heavy,
then I have no other choice left me, but that of resisting your
unreasonable demand by my strength, and thus by striking each other
learn who is the strongest.'"
The Indians were urged to become neutral in the struggle that was
opening. Impossible as such a course would have been to men who loved
war better than peace, certain tribes promised to maintain neutrality.
In a few months, however, most of the nations were in open or secret
alliance with British officers. Only the better element of the Delaware
nation, led by Captain White Eyes, became attached to the American
cause. England was always handicapped in her use of the American Indian,
because of the want of men who could successfully exert control over
him. Even when the forts of the French in the West passed into British
possession, Frenchmen were retained in control, since no Englishman
could so well rule the savages who made the forts their rendezvous. The
beginning of the successful employment of the Indians against the
growing Virginian empire south of the Ohio, and against the multiplying
cabins and forts of the Long Knives, may loosely be said to have begun
in the spring of 1778 when three northern renegades, Simon Girty,
Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee, eluded the continental General
Hand at Pittsburg and took service under Lieutenant-governor Hamilton at
Detroit. Bred to border warfare, and well known among the Indians from
the Susquehanna to the Missouri, these three men were the "most
effective tools for the purposes of border warfare" that the British
could have secured. Hamilton immediately began to plan the invasion of
Pennsylvania and the conquest of Pittsburg. The campaign was condemned
by his superiors in the East, and was forgotten by its originator--when
the news of a bold invasion of his own territory by a Virginian army
suddenly reached his ears.
The Transylvania Company came silently but suddenly to an end when the
Kentuckians elected George Rogers Clark and Gabriel John Jones members
of the Virginian assembly, for the assembly erected the county of
Kentucky out of the land purchased by Henderson at Fort Watauga in 1775.
Upon bringing this about, Clark, a native of Virginia and a hero of
Dunmore's War, returned to Kentucky nourishing greater plans. With clear
eyes he saw that the increasing affiliation of Indian and British
interests meant that England, even though she might be unsuccessful in
the East, could keep up an interminable and disastrous warfare "along
the rear of the colonies," as long as she held forts on the northern
edge of the Black Forest. Clark sent spies northward, who gained
information confirming his suspicions; and then he hurried eastward,
with his bold plan of conquering the "strongholds of British and Indian
barbarity"--Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit.
He came at a fortunate time. The colonies were rejoicing over the first
great victory of the early war, Saratoga. Hope, everywhere, was high.
From Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, Clark received two orders, one
of which was to attack the British post Kaskaskia. He at once set out
for Pittsburg to raise, in the West (where both Dunmore and Lewis raised
their armies), troops for the most brilliant military achievement in
western history. Descending the Ohio to Kentucky, where he received
reënforcements, Clark marched silently through the forests--with one
hundred and thirty-five chosen men--to Kaskaskia, which he took in utter
surprise July 4, 1778. "Keep on with your merriment," he said to
revelers whom he surprised at a dance, "but remember you dance under
Virginia, not Great Britain." Clark brought the news of the alliance
recently made between France and the United States into the Illinois
country and used it with telling effect. A French priest at Vincennes
raised a Virginian flag over that fort, telling the inhabitants and the
Indians that their "French Father had come to life." In October Virginia
incorporated the "County of Illinois" within her western empire--the
first portion of the land north of the Ohio River to come under the
administration of one of the states of the Union.
Contemporaneously with Clark's stirring conquest, an expedition was
raised at Pittsburg to march against the Indians in the neighborhood of
the British fort at Sandusky--possibly to counteract the rumored attempt
to invade Pennsylvania, by Hamilton at Detroit. Troops and supplies were
to be assembled at Fort Pitt, where the famous route of Bouquet was to
be followed toward the lakes. The expedition was put in charge of
General Lachlan McIntosh. Distressing delays made the half-hearted
Indians who were to guide the army, chafe; and McIntosh started before
his stores arrived, fearing that longer delay would alienate his
friendly Indians, among whom was the Delaware, White Eyes, now turned
from a neutral course. At the mouth of the Beaver River McIntosh built
the fort which bears his name--the first fort built by the Americans on
the northern side of the Ohio. Advancing westward over Bouquet's
tri-trail track with twelve hundred men, he reached the Muskingum
(Tuscarawas) River in fourteen days, arriving November 19, 1778, where
he erected Fort Laurens.
But Lieutenant-governor Hamilton, learning of Clark's seizure of
Kaskaskia and the treachery of the fickle inhabitants of Vincennes, set
about to reconquer Illinois. Departing from Detroit on a beautiful
October day, the expedition descended the Detroit River and entered the
Maumee. The weather changed and it was seventy-one days before the
American Captain Helm at Vincennes surrendered his wretched fort and
became a prisoner of war. Hamilton was unable to push on to Kaskaskia
because of the lack of provisions, and sat down to watch the winter out
where he was. Thus the spectacular year 1778 closed--Clark at
Kaskaskia, watching his antagonist feasting at Vincennes; McIntosh's
little guard at Fort Laurens undergoing continual harassing and siege.
In the East the evacuation of Philadelphia, the battle of Monmouth, and
the terrible Wyoming massacre were the events of the year.
The year 1779 was to see as brilliant an achievement in the West, as the
East was to see in the capture of Stony Point. This was the recapture of
Vincennes by Clark. Joined by an experienced adventurer, Colonel Francis
Vigo, formerly of the Spanish service, Clark was persuaded that he must
capture Hamilton or Hamilton would capture him. Accordingly, on the
fifth of February, Clark set out for Vincennes with one hundred and
seventy trusty men. In twelve days they reached the Embarras River,
which was crossed on the twenty-first with great bravery, the men wading
in water to their shoulders. On the twenty-fifth, Hamilton, the most
surprised man in the world, was compelled to surrender. Within two weeks
he was on his way to Virginia; where, being found guilty of buying
Virginian scalps from the Indians, he was imprisoned, but was exchanged
the year following.
In July, while returning from New Orleans with supplies; Colonel Rogers
and his party of Kentuckians were overwhelmed by Indians, under Girty
and Elliott, on the Ohio River. In a terrible running battle sixty
Kentuckians were killed. The sad news spread quickly through Kentucky
and a thousand tongues called loudly for revenge. In response Major
Bowman led three hundred volunteers up the Scioto Valley and attacked
the Shawanese capital. There was bungling somewhere and a retreat was
ordered before victory was achieved.
During this summer the conqueror of Illinois expected to complete his
triumph by the capture of Detroit. A messenger from Thomas Jefferson,
Governor of Virginia, brought tidings that troops for this expedition
would be forthcoming from Virginia and Kentucky, and rendezvous at
Vincennes in July. When the time came, Clark found only a few soldiers
from Kentucky and none at all from Virginia. The Detroit expedition
fell through because of Virginia's poverty in money and in men; though
artillery, ammunition, and tools had been secured for the campaign from
Fort Pitt, at Washington's command. But with masterly foresight Governor
Jefferson secured the establishment of a fort on the Mississippi River
in the Illinois country. During this summer the little garrison which
General McIntosh left buried in the Black Forest at Fort Laurens fled
back over the trail to Pittsburg. Nowhere north of the Ohio were the
scenes frequently enacted in Kentucky reproduced so vividly as at little
Fort Laurens, on the upper Muskingum. At one time fourteen of the
garrison were decoyed and slaughtered. At another time an army numbering
seven hundred warriors invested the little half-forgotten fortress and
its intrepid defenders. A slight embankment may be seen today near
Bolivar, Ohio, which marks one side of the first fort erected in what is
now Ohio, those near the lake shore excepted. Thus closed the year 1779:
Clark again in possession of Vincennes, as well as Kaskaskia and
Cahokia, but disappointed in the failure of the Detroit expedition;
Hamilton languishing in a Virginia dungeon, twelve hundred miles from
his capital--Fort Detroit; Fort Laurens abandoned, and the Kentucky
country covered with gloom over Rogers's terrible loss and Bowman's
inglorious retreat from the valley of the Scioto. On the other hand, the
East was glorying in Mad Anthony Wayne's capture of Stony Point,
Sullivan's rebuke to the Indians, and Paul Jones's electrifying victory
on the sea.
In 1780 four expeditions set forth, all of them singular in character,
and noteworthy. The year before, 1779, Spain had declared war upon
England. The new commander at Detroit took immediate occasion to regain
control of the Mississippi by attacking the Spanish town of St. Louis.
This expedition, under Captain Sinclair, descended the Mississippi from
Prairie du Chien. The attack was not successful, but six whites were
killed and eighteen taken prisoner.
At the time of Bowman's expedition against the Shawanese, in the
preceding year a British officer, Colonel Bird, had assembled a
noteworthy array at Sandusky preparatory to the invasion of Kentucky.
News of the Kentucky raid up the Scioto Valley set Bird's Indians to
"cooking and counselling" again, instead of acting. This year Bird's
invasion materialized, and the fate of the Kentucky settlements trembled
in the balance. The invading army of six hundred Indians and Canadians
was armed with two pieces of artillery. There is little doubt that this
army could have battered down every "station" in Kentucky and swept
victoriously through the new settlements. Ruddles's station on the
Licking was first menaced, and surrendered quickly. Martin's fort also
capitulated. But here Bird paused in his conquest and withdrew
northward, the barbarity of the Indian allies, for once at least,
shocking a British commander. The real secret of the abrupt retreat lay
no doubt in the fact that the increasing immigration had brought such
vast numbers of people into Kentucky that Bird dared not penetrate
further into the land for fear of a surprise. The gross carelessness of
the newly arrived inhabitants, in not taking the precaution to build
proper defenses against the Indians, undoubtedly appeared to the British
commander as a sign of strength and fortitude which he did not have the
courage to put to the test. As a matter of fact, he could probably have
annihilated every settlement between the Ohio River and Cumberland Gap.
In retaliation Kentucky sent an immense army north of the Ohio, a
thousand men volunteering under Clark, the hero of Vincennes. A large
Indian army was routed near the Shawanese town Pickaway. Many towns with
standing crops were burned. A similar expedition from Pittsburg under
General Brodhead burned crops and villages on the upper Muskingum.
In return for the attack on St. Louis, the Spanish commander at that
point sent an expedition against the deserted British post of St.
Joseph. Upon declaring war against England in the previous year, Spain
had occupied Natchez, Baton Rouge, and Mobile, which, with St. Louis,
gave her command of the Mississippi. But his Catholic Majesty was
building other Spanish castles in America. He desired the conquest of
the British northwest, to offset the British capture of Gibraltar. This
"capture" of St. Joseph led to an amusing but ominous claim on the part
of Spain at the Treaty of Paris: when, with it for a pretext, the
Spanish Crown claimed all lands west of a line drawn from St. Joseph
southward through what is now Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia,
Alabama, and Mississippi. The Mississippi River boundary was, however,
stoutly contended for and obtained by the American commissioners.
In this year the first "gunboat" to ply western waters was built under
direction of Brigadier-general Clark. It was a galley armed with light
artillery. This queer-looking craft soon fell into disuse, though it
became a terror to the Indians who continually infested the lower Ohio.
It was relished little better by the militia, who disliked service on
water. But it stands as a typical illustration of the enterprise and
devotion of the "Father of Kentucky" to the cause for which he had done
so much.
The year following, 1781, saw the termination of the Revolution in the
East, when Cornwallis's army marched down the files of French and
American troops at Yorktown to the melancholy tune "The World's Turned
Upside Down." The Treaty of Paris was not signed until 1783, and in the
meantime the bloodiest year of all the war in the West, 1782, was adding
its horrors to all that had gone before. While the East was rejoicing,
the central West saw the terrible massacre of Gnadenhutten--the more
terrible because committed by white men themselves.
In May, 1782, the atrocities of the savages (encouraged by the British)
along the Pennsylvanian and Virginian border were becoming unbearable,
and an expedition was raised in the Monongahela country to penetrate to
the Indian-infested country on the Sandusky River. Volunteers, four
hundred in number, all mounted, rendezvoused at the Ohio near Mingo
Bottom; they elected as commander Colonel William Crawford, an
experienced officer of the Revolutionary War, following Washington
faithfully through the hard Long Island and Delaware campaigns. Crawford
struck straight through the forests, even avoiding Indian trails, at
first, in the hope of taking his foe utterly by surprise. But his wily
foe completely outwitted him and the Indians and British knew well each
day's progress. The battle was fought in a prairie land near the
Sandusky River in what is now Crawford County, Ohio, and though not a
victory for either side, an American retreat was ordered during the
night following. Colonel Crawford was captured, among others, and
suffered a terrible death at the stake, perhaps the saddest single
atrocity committed by the redman in western history. This gray-haired
veteran of the Revolution gave his life to appease the Indians for a
massacre of Christian Indians perpetrated by savage borderers from the
Monongahela country the year previous.
Kentucky had witnessed minor activities of the savages during the
spring. In August a grand Indian army assembled on the lower Scioto for
the purpose of invading Kentucky. The assembly was harangued by Simon
Girty, and moved southward and invaded Bryant's Station, one of the
strongest forts in Kentucky. After a terrible day, during which
re-enforcements kept arriving, only to be compelled to fight their way
into the fort or flee, Girty attempted to secure capitulation.
Outwitted, the renegade resorted to a stratagem, as cunningly devised as
it was terribly successful. In the night the entire Indian army vanished
as if panic-stricken. Meat was left upon the spits. Garments lay strewn
about the encampment and along the route of the fugitive army. The more
experienced of the border army, which was soon in full cry on the trail,
scented the deception; but the headstrong hurried onward in hope of
revenge. At the crossing of the Licking, near the lower Blue Licks, the
Indian ambush received the witless pursuers with a frightful burst of
flame, and the battle of Blue Licks became a running fire, a headlong
rout and massacre.
A thousand men joined Clark for a retaliatory invasion of the north, and
the usual destruction of villages and crops was accomplished. This may
be considered the last military event in the Revolutionary War in the
West.