THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT KANAWHA; AND LOGAN'S SPEECH, 1774.
Meanwhile Lord Dunmore, having garrisoned the frontier forts, three of
which were put under the orders of Daniel Boon, was making ready a
formidable army with which to overwhelm the hostile Indians. It was to
be raised, and to march, in two wings or divisions, each fifteen hundred
strong, which were to join at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. One wing,
the right or northernmost, was to be commanded by the earl in person;
while the other, composed exclusively of frontiersmen living among the
mountains west and southwest of the Blue Ridge, was entrusted to General
Andrew Lewis. Lewis was a stalwart backwoods soldier, belonging to a
family of famous frontier fighters, but though a sternly just and
fearless man,[1] he does not appear to have had more than average
qualifications to act as a commander of border troops when pitted
against Indians.
The backwoodsmen of the Alleghanies felt that the quarrel was their own;
in their hearts the desire for revenge burned like a sullen flame. The
old men had passed their manhood with nerves tense from the strain of
unending watchfulness, and souls embittered by terrible and repeated
disasters; the young men had been cradled in stockaded forts, round
which there prowled a foe whose comings and goings were unknown, and who
was unseen till the moment when the weight of his hand was felt. They
had been helpless to avenge their wrongs, and now that there was at last
a chance to do so, they thronged eagerly to Lewis' standard. The left
wing or army assembled at the Great Levels of Greenbriar, and thither
came the heroes of long rifle, tomahawk, and hunting-shirt, gathering
from every stockaded hamlet, every lonely clearing and smoky hunter's
camp that lay along the ridges from whose hollows sprang the sources of
the Eastern and the Western Waters. They were not uniformed, save that
they all wore the garb of the frontier hunter; but most of them were
armed with good rifles, and were skilful woodsmen, and though utterly
undisciplined, they were magnificent individual fighters.[2] The
officers were clad and armed almost precisely like the rank and file,
save that some of them had long swords girded to their waist-belts; they
carried rifles, for, where the result of the contest depended mainly on
the personal prowess of the individual fighter, the leader was expected
literally to stand in the forefront of the battle, and to inspirit his
followers by deeds as well as words.
Among these troops was a company of rangers who came from the scattered
wooden forts of the Watauga and the Nolichucky. Both Sevier and
Robertson took part in this war, and though the former saw no fighting,
the latter, who had the rank of sergeant, was more fortunate.
While the backwoods general was mustering his unruly and turbulent host
of skilled riflemen, the English earl led his own levies, some fifteen
hundred strong, to Fort Pitt.[3] Here he changed his plans, and decided
not to try to join the other division, as he had agreed to do. This
sudden abandonment of a scheme already agreed to and acted on by his
colleague was certainly improper, and, indeed, none of the earl's
movements indicated very much military capacity. However, he descended
the Ohio River with a flotilla of a hundred canoes, besides keel-boats
and pirogues,[4] to the mouth of the Hockhocking, where he built and
garrisoned a small stockade. Then he went up the Hockhocking to the
falls, whence he marched to the Scioto, and there entrenched himself in
a fortified camp, with breastworks of fallen trees, on the edge of the
Pickaway plains, not far from the Indian town of Old Chillicothe. Thence
he sent out detachments that destroyed certain of the hostile towns. He
had with him as scouts many men famous in frontier story, among them
George Rogers Clark, Cresap, and Simon Kenton--afterwards the bane of
every neighboring Indian tribe, and renowned all along the border for
his deeds of desperate prowess, his wonderful adventures, and his
hairbreadth escapes. Another, of a very different stamp, was Simon
Girty, of evil fame, whom the whole west grew to loathe, with bitter
hatred, as "the white renegade." He was the son of a vicious Irish
trader, who was killed by the Indians; he was adopted by the latter, and
grew up among them, and his daring ferocity and unscrupulous cunning
early made him one of their leaders.[5] At the moment he was serving
Lord Dunmore and the whites; but he was by tastes, habits, and education
a red man, who felt ill at ease among those of his own color. He soon
returned to the Indians, and dwelt among them ever afterwards, the most
inveterate foe of the whites that was to be found in all the tribes. He
lived to be a very old man, and is said to have died fighting his
ancient foes and kinsmen, the Americans, in our second war against the
British.
But Lord Dunmore's army was not destined to strike the decisive blow in
the contest. The great Shawnee chief, Cornstalk, was as wary and able as
he was brave. He had from the first opposed the war with the whites;[6]
but as he had been unable to prevent it, he was now bent on bringing it
to a successful issue. He was greatly outnumbered; but he had at his
command over a thousand painted and plumed warriors, the pick of the
young men of the western tribes, the most daring braves to be found
between the Ohio and the Great Lakes. His foes were divided, and he
determined to strike first at the one who would least suspect a blow,
but whose ruin, nevertheless, would involve that of the other. If Lewis'
army could be surprised and overwhelmed, the fate of Lord Dunmore's
would be merely a question of days. So without delay, Cornstalk, crafty
in council, mighty in battle, and swift to carry out what he had
planned, led his long files of warriors, with noiseless speed, through
leagues of trackless woodland to the banks of the Ohio.
The backwoodsmen who were to form the army of Lewis had begun to gather
at the Levels of Greenbriar before the 1st of September, and by the 7th
most of them were assembled. Altogether the force under Lewis consisted
of four commands, as follows: a body of Augusta troops, under Col.
Charles Lewis, a brother of the general's;[7] a body of Botetourt
troops, under Col. William Fleming;[8] a small independent company,
under Col. John Field; and finally the Fincastle men, from the Holston,
Clinch, Watauga, and New River[9] settlements, under Col. William
Christian.[10] One of Christian's captains was a stout old Marylander,
of Welsh blood, named Evan Shelby; and Shelby's son Isaac,[11] a
stalwart, stern-visaged young man, who afterwards played a very
prominent part on the border, was a subaltern in his company, in which
Robertson likewise served as a sergeant. Although without experience of
drill, it may be doubted if a braver or physically finer set of men were
ever got together on this continent.[12]
Among such undisciplined troops it was inevitable that there should be
both delay and insubordination. Nevertheless they behaved a good deal
better than their commander had expected; and he was much pleased with
their cheerfulness and their eagerness for action. The Fincastle men,
being from the remote settlements, were unable to get together in time
to start with the others; and Col. Field grew jealous of his commander
and decided to march his little company alone. The Indians were hovering
around the camp, and occasionally shot at and wounded stragglers, or
attempted to drive off the pack-horses.
The army started in three divisions. The bulk, consisting of Augusta
men, under Col. Charles Lewis, marched on September 8th, closely
followed by the Botetourt troops under Andrew Lewis himself.[13]
Field, with his small company, started off on his own account; but after
being out a couple of days, two of his scouts met two Indians, with the
result that a man was killed on each side; after which, profiting by the
loss, he swallowed his pride and made haste to join the first division.
The Fincastle troops were delayed so long that most of them, with their
commander, were still fifteen miles from the main body the day the
battle was fought; but Captains Shelby and Russell, with parts of their
companies, went on ahead of the others, and, as will be seen, joined
Lewis in time to do their full share of the fighting. Col. Christian
himself only reached the Levels on the afternoon of the day the Augusta
men had marched. He was burning with desire to distinguish himself, and
his men were also very eager to have a share in the battle; and he
besought Lewis to let him go along with what troops he had. But he was
refused permission, whereat he was greatly put out.
Lewis found he had more men than he expected, and so left some of the
worst troops to garrison the small forts. Just before starting he
received a letter from the Earl advising, but not commanding, a change
in their plans; to this he refused to accede, and was rather displeased
at the proposal, attributing it to the influence of Conolly, whom the
backwoods leaders were growing to distrust. There is not the slightest
reason to suppose, however, that he then, or at any time during the
campaign, suspected the Earl of treachery; nor did the latter's conduct
give any good ground for such a belief. Nevertheless, this view gained
credit among the Virginians in later years, when they were greatly
angered by the folly and ferocity of Lord Dunmore's conduct during the
early part of the Revolutionary war, and looked at all his past acts
with jaundiced eyes.[14]
Lewis' troops formed a typical backwoods army, both officers and
soldiers. They wore fringed hunting-shirts, dyed yellow, brown, white,
and even red; quaintly carved shot-bags and powder-horns hung from their
broad ornamented belts; they had fur caps or soft hats, moccasins, and
coarse woollen leggings reaching half-way up the thigh.[15] Each carried
his flint-lock, his tomahawk, and scalping-knife. They marched in long
files with scouts or spies thrown out in front and on the flanks, while
axe-men went in advance to clear a trail over which they could drive the
beef cattle, and the pack-horses, laden with provisions, blankets, and
ammunition. They struck out straight through the trackless wilderness,
making their road as they went, until on the 21st of the month[16] they
reached the Kanawha, at the mouth of Elk Creek. Here they halted to
build dug-out canoes; and about this time were overtaken by the
companies of Russell and Shelby. On October 1st[17] they started to
descend the river in twenty-seven canoes, a portion of the army marching
down along the Indian trail, which followed the base of the hills,
instead of the river bank, as it was thus easier to cross the heads of
the creeks and ravines.[18]
They reached the mouth of the river on the 6th,[19] and camped on Point
Pleasant, the cape of land jutting out between the Ohio and the Kanawha.
As a consequence the bloody fight that ensued is sometimes called the
battle of Point Pleasant, and sometimes the battle of the Great Kanawha.
Hitherto the Indians had not seriously molested Lewis' men, though they
killed a settler right on their line of march, and managed to drive off
some of the bullocks and pack-horses.[20]
The troops, though tired from their journey, were in good spirits, and
eager to fight. But they were impatient of control, and were murmuring
angrily that there was favoritism shown in the issue of beef. Hearing
this, Lewis ordered all the poorest beeves to be killed first; but this
merely produced an explosion of discontent, and large numbers of the men
in mutinous defiance of the orders of their officers began to range the
woods, in couples, to kill game. There was little order in the camp,[21]
and small attention was paid to picket and sentinel duty; the army, like
a body of Indian warriors, relying for safety mainly upon the
sharp-sighted watchfulness of the individual members and the activity of
the hunting parties.
On the 9th Simon Girty[22] arrived in camp bringing a message from Lord
Dunmore, which bade Lewis meet him at the Indian towns near the Pickaway
plains. Lewis was by no means pleased at the change, but nevertheless
prepared to break camp and march next morning. He had with him at this
time about eleven hundred men.[23]
His plans, however, were destined to be rudely forestalled, for
Cornstalk, coming rapidly through the forest, had reached the Ohio. That
very night the Indian chief ferried his men across the river on rafts,
six or eight miles above the forks,[24] and by dawn was on the point of
hurling his whole force, of nearly a thousand warriors[25] on the camp
of his slumbering foes.
Before daylight on the 10th small parties of hunters had, as usual, left
Lewis' camp. Two of these men, from Russell's company, after having gone
somewhat over a mile, came upon a large party of Indians; one was
killed, and the survivor ran back at full speed to give the alarm,
telling those in camp that he had seen five acres of ground covered with
Indians as thick as they could stand.[26] Almost immediately afterwards
two men of Shelby's company, one being no less a person than Robertson
himself and the other Valentine, a brother of John Sevier, also stumbled
upon the advancing Indians; being very wary and active men, they both
escaped, and reached camp almost as soon as the other.
Instantly the drums beat to arms,[27] and the backwoodsmen,--lying out
in the open, rolled in their blankets,--started from the ground, looked
to their flints and priming, and were ready on the moment. The general,
thinking he had only a scouting party to deal with, ordered out Col.
Charles Lewis and Col. Fleming, each with one hundred and fifty men.
Fleming had the left, and marched up the bank of the Ohio, while Lewis,
on the right, kept some little distance inland. They went about half a
mile.[28] Then, just before sunrise, while it was still dusk, the men in
camp, eagerly listening, heard the reports of three guns, immediately
succeeded by a clash like a peal of thin thunder, as hundreds of rifles
rang out together. It was evident that the attack was serious and Col.
Field was at once despatched to the front with two hundred men.[29]
He came only just in time. At the first fire both of the scouts in front
of the white line had been killed. The attack fell first, and with
especial fury, on the division of Charles Lewis, who himself was
mortally wounded at the very outset; he had not taken a tree,[30] but
was in an open piece of ground, cheering on his men, when he was shot.
He stayed with them until the line was formed, and then walked back to
camp unassisted, giving his gun to a man who was near him. His men, who
were drawn up on the high ground skirting Crooked Run,[31] began to
waver, but were rallied by Fleming, whose division had been attacked
almost simultaneously, until he too was struck down by a bullet. The
line then gave way, except that some of Fleming's men still held their
own on the left in a patch of rugged ground near the Ohio. At this
moment, however, Colonel Field came up and restored the battle, while
the backwoodsmen who had been left in camp also began to hurry up to
take part in the fight. General Lewis at last, fully awake to the
danger, began to fortify the camp by felling timber so as to form a
breastwork running across the point from the Ohio to the Kanawha. This
work should have been done before; and through attending to it Lewis was
unable to take any personal part in the battle.
Meanwhile the frontiersmen began to push back their foes, led by Col.
Field. The latter himself, however, was soon slain; he was at the time
behind a great tree, and was shot by two Indians on his right, while he
was trying to get a shot at another on his left, who was distracting his
attention by mocking and jeering at him.[32] The command then fell on
Captain Evan Shelby, who turned his company over to the charge of his
son, Isaac. The troops fought on steadily, undaunted by the fall of
their leaders, while the Indians attacked with the utmost skill,
caution, and bravery. The fight was a succession of single combats, each
man sheltering himself behind a stump, or rock, or tree-trunk, the
superiority of the backwoodsmen in the use of the rifle being offset by
the superiority of their foes in the art of hiding and of shielding
themselves from harm. The hostile lines, though about a mile and a
quarter in length, were so close together, being never more than twenty
yards apart, that many of the combatants grappled in hand-to-hand
fighting, and tomahawked or stabbed each other[33] to death. The clatter
of the rifles was incessant, while above the din could be heard the
cries and groans of the wounded, and the shouts of the combatants, as
each encouraged his own side, or jeered savagely at his adversaries. The
cheers of the whites mingled with the appalling war-whoops and yells of
their foes. The Indians also called out to the Americans in broken
English, taunting them, and asking them why their fifes were no longer
whistling--for the fight was far too close to permit of any such music.
Their headmen walked up and down behind their warriors, exhorting them
to go in close, to shoot straight, and to bear themselves well in the
fight;[34] while throughout the action the whites opposite Cornstalk
could hear his deep, sonorous voice as he cheered on his braves, and
bade them "be strong, be strong."[35]
About noon the Indians tried to get round the flank of the whites, into
their camp; but this movement was repulsed, and a party of the
Americans[36] followed up their advantage, and running along the banks
of the Kanawha out-flanked the enemy in turn. The Indians being pushed
very hard now began to fall back, the best fighters covering the
retreat, while the wounded were being carried off; although,--a rare
thing in Indian battles--they were pressed so close that they were able
to bear away but a portion of their dead. The whites were forced to
pursue with the greatest caution; for those of them who advanced
heedlessly were certain to be ambushed and receive a smart check.
Finally, about one o'clock, the Indians, in their retreat, reached a
very strong position, where the underbrush was very close and there were
many fallen logs and steep banks. Here they stood resolutely at bay, and
the whites did not dare attack them in such a stronghold. So the action
came almost to an end; though skirmishing went on until about an hour
before sunset, the Indians still at times taunting their foes and
calling out to them that they had eleven hundred men as well as the
whites, and that to-morrow they were going to be two thousand strong[37]
This was only bravado, however; they had suffered too heavily to renew
the attack, and under cover of darkness they slipped away, and made a
most skilful retreat, carrying all their wounded in safety across the
Ohio. The exhausted Americans, having taken a number of scalps, as well
as forty guns, and many tomahawks[38] and some other plunder,[39]
returned to their camp.
The battle had been bloody as well as stubborn. The whites, though the
victors, had suffered more than their foes, and indeed had won only
because it was against the entire policy of Indian warfare to suffer a
severe loss, even if a victory could be gained thereby. Of the whites,
some seventy-five men had been killed or mortally wounded, and one
hundred and forty severely or slightly wounded,[40] so that they lost a
fifth of their whole number. The Indians had not lost much more than
half as many; about forty warriors were killed outright or died of their
wounds.[41] Among the Indians no chief of importance was slain; whereas
the Americans had seventeen officers killed or wounded, and lost in
succession their second, third, and fourth in command. The victors
buried their own dead and left the bodies of the vanquished to the
wolves and ravens. At midnight, after the battle, Col. Christian and his
Fincastle men reached the ground. The battle of the Great Kanawha was a
purely American victory, for it was fought solely by the backwoodsmen
themselves. Their immense superiority over regular troops in such
contests can be readily seen when their triumph on this occasion is
compared with the defeats previously suffered by Braddock's grenadiers
and Grant's highlanders, at the hands of the same foes. It was purely a
soldiers' battle, won by hard individual fighting; there was no display
of generalship, except on Cornstalk's part.[42] It was the most closely
contested of any battle ever fought with the northwestern Indians; and
it was the only victory gained over a large body of them by a force but
slightly superior in numbers.[43] Both because of the character of the
fight itself, and because of the results that flowed from it, it is
worthy of being held in especial remembrance.
Lewis left his sick and wounded in the camp at the Point, protected by a
rude breastwork, and with an adequate guard. With the remainder of his
forces, over a thousand strong, he crossed the Ohio, and pushed on to
the Pickaway plains. When but a few miles from the earl's encampment he
was met by a messenger informing him that a treaty of peace was being
negotiated with the Indians.[44] The backwoodsmen, flushed with success,
and angry at their losses, were eager for more bloodshed; and it was
only with difficulty that they were restrained, and were finally induced
to march homewards, the earl riding down to them and giving his orders
in person. They grumbled angrily against the earl for sending them back,
and in later days accused him of treachery for having done so; but his
course was undoubtedly proper, for it would have been very difficult to
conclude peace in the presence of such fierce and unruly auxiliaries.
The spirit of the Indians had been broken by their defeat. Their stern
old chief, Cornstalk, alone remained with unshaken heart, resolute to
bid defiance to his foes and to fight the war out to the bitter end. But
when the council of the headmen and war-chiefs was called it became
evident that his tribesmen would not fight, and even his burning
eloquence could not goad the warriors into again trying the hazard of
battle. They listened unmoved and in sullen silence to the thrilling and
impassioned words with which he urged them to once more march against
the Long Knives, and if necessary to kill their women and children, and
then themselves die fighting to the last man. At last, when he saw he
could not stir the hearts of his hearers he struck his tomahawk into the
warpost and announced that he himself would go and make peace. At that
the warriors broke silence, and all grunted out approvingly, ough! ough!
ough! and then they instantly sent runners to the earl's army to demand
a truce.[45]
Accordingly, with all his fellow-chiefs, he went to Lord Dunmore's camp,
and there entered into a treaty. The crestfallen Indians assented to all
the terms the conquerors proposed. They agreed to give up all the white
prisoners and stolen horses in their possession, and to surrender all
claim to the lands south of the Ohio, and they gave hostages as an
earnest of their good-faith.[46] But their chief spokesman, Cornstalk,
while obliged to assent to these conditions, yet preserved through all
the proceedings a bearing of proud defiance that showed how little the
fear of personal consequences influenced his own actions. At the talks
he addressed the white leader with vehement denunciation and reproach,
in a tone that seemed rather that of a conqueror than of one of the
conquered. Indeed, he himself was not conquered; he felt that his
tribesmen were craven, but he knew that his own soul feared nothing. The
Virginians, who, like their Indian antagonists, prized skill in oratory
only less than skill in warfare, were greatly impressed by the
chieftain's eloquence, by his command of words, his clear, distinct
voice, his peculiar emphasis, and his singularly grand and majestic, and
yet graceful, bearing; they afterwards said that his oratory fully
equalled that of Patrick Henry himself.[47]
Every prominent chief but one came to the council. The exception was
Logan, who remained apart in the Mingo village, brooding over his
wrongs, and the vengeance he had taken. His fellows, when questioned
about his absence, answered that he was like a mad dog, whose bristles
were still up, but that they were gradually falling; and when he was
entreated to be present at the meeting he responded that he was a
warrior, not a councillor, and would not come. The Mingos, because they
failed to appear at the treaty, had their camp destroyed and were forced
to give hostages, as the Delawares and Shawnees had done,[48] and Logan
himself finally sullenly acquiesced in, or at least ceased openly to
oppose, the peace.
But he would not come in person to Lord Dunmore; so the earl was obliged
to communicate with him through a messenger, a frontier veteran[49]
named John Gibson, who had long lived among the Indians and knew
thoroughly both their speech and their manners.[50] To this messenger
Logan was willing to talk. Taking him aside, he suddenly addressed him
in a speech that will always retain its place as perhaps the finest
outburst of savage eloquence of which we have any authentic record. The
messenger took it down in writing, translating it literally,[51] and,
returning to camp, gave it to Lord Dunmore. The earl then read it, in
open council, to the whole backwoods army, including Cresap, Clark, and
the other scouts. The speech, when read, proved to be no message of
peace, nor an acknowledgment of defeat, but instead, a strangely
pathetic recital of his wrongs, and a fierce and exulting justification
of the vengeance he had taken. It ran as follows:
"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin
hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked and he
clothed him not? During the course of the last long and bloody war,
Logan remained idle in his camp, an advocate for peace. Such was my love
for the whites that my countrymen pointed as I passed and said, 'Logan
is the friend of the white man.' I had even thought to have lived with
you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring,
in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not
even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in
the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have
sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my
country I rejoice at the beams of peace; but do not harbor a thought
that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on
his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one."
The tall frontiersmen, lounging in a circle round about, listened to the
reading of the speech with eager interest; rough Indian haters though
they were, they were so much impressed by it that in the evening it was
a common topic of conversation over their camp fires, and they
continually attempted to rehearse it to one another.[52] But they knew
that Greathouse, not Cresap, had been the chief offender in the murder
of Logan's family; and when the speech was read, Clark, turning round,
jeered at and rallied Cresap as being so great a man that the Indians
put every thing on his shoulders; whereat, Cresap, much angered, swore
that he had a good mind to tomahawk Greathouse for the murder.[53]
The speech could not have been very satisfactory to the earl; but at
least it made it evident that Logan did not intend to remain on the
war-path; and so Lord Dunmore marched home with his hostages. On the
homeward march, near the mouth of the River Hockhocking, the officers of
the army held a notable meeting. They had followed the British earl to
battle; but they were Americans, in warm sympathy with the Continental
Congress, which was then in session. Fearful lest their countrymen might
not know that they were at one with them in the struggle of which the
shadow was looming up with ever increasing blackness, they passed
resolutions which were afterwards published. Their speakers told how
they had lived in the woods for three months, without hearing from the
Congress at Philadelphia, nor yet from Boston, where the disturbances
seemed most likely to come to a head. They spoke of their fear lest
their countrymen might be misled into the belief that this numerous body
of armed men was hostile or indifferent to the cause of America; and
proudly alluded to the fact that they had lived so long without bread or
salt, or shelter at night, and that the troops they led could march and
fight as well as any in the world. In their resolutions they professed
their devotion to their king, to the honor of his crown, and to the
dignity of the British empire; but they added that this devotion would
only last while the king deigned to rule over a free people, for their
love for the liberty of America outweighed all other considerations, and
they would exert every power for its defence, not riotously, but when
regularly called forth by the voice of their countrymen.
They ended by tendering their thanks to Lord Dunmore for his conduct. He
was also warmly thanked by the Virginia Legislature, as well as by the
frontiersmen of Fincastle,[54] and he fully deserved their gratitude.
The war had been ended in less than six months' time; and its results
were of the utmost importance. It had been very successful. In
Braddock's war, the borderers are estimated to have suffered a loss of
fifty souls for every Indian slain; in Pontiac's war, they had learned
to defend themselves better, and yet the ratio was probably as ten to
one;[55] whereas in this war, if we consider only males of fighting age,
it is probable that a good deal more than half as many Indians as whites
were killed, and even including women and children, the ratio would not
rise to more than three to one. Certainly, in all the contests waged
against the northwestern Indians during the last half of the eighteenth
century there was no other where the whites inflicted so great a
relative loss on their foes. Its results were most important. It kept
the northwestern tribes quiet for the first two years of the
Revolutionary struggle; and above all it rendered possible the
settlement of Kentucky, and therefore the winning of the West. Had it
not been for Lord Dunmore's war, it is more than likely that when the
colonies achieved their freedom they would have found their western
boundary fixed at the Alleghany Mountains.[56]
Nor must we permit our sympathy for the foul wrongs of the two great
Indian heroes of the contest to blind us to the fact that the struggle
was precipitated, in the first place, by the outrages of the red men,
not the whites; and that the war was not only inevitable, but was also
in its essence just and righteous on the part of the borderers. Even the
unpardonable and hideous atrocity of the murder of Logan's family, was
surpassed in horror by many of the massacres committed by the Indians
about the same time. The annals of the border are dark and terrible.
Among the characters who played the leaders' parts in this short and
tragic drama of the backwoods few came to much afterwards. Cresap died a
brave Revolutionary soldier. Of Greathouse we know nothing; we can only
hope that eventually the Indians scalped him. Conolly became a virulent
tory, who yet lacked the power to do the evil that he wished. Lewis
served creditably in the Revolution; while at its outbreak Lord Dunmore
was driven from Virginia and disappears from our ken. Proud, gloomy
Logan never recovered from the blow that had been dealt him; he drank
deeper and deeper, and became more and more an implacable, moody, and
bloodthirsty savage, yet with noble qualities that came to the surface
now and then. Again and again he wrought havoc among the frontier
settlers; yet we several times hear of his saving the lives of
prisoners. Once he saved Simon Kenton from torture and death, when
Girty, moved by a rare spark of compassion for his former comrade, had
already tried to do so and failed. At last he perished in a drunken
brawl by the hand of another Indian.
Cornstalk died a grand death, but by an act of cowardly treachery on the
part of his American foes; it is one of the darkest stains on the
checkered pages of frontier history. Early in 1777 he came into the
garrison at Point Pleasant to explain that, while he was anxious to keep
at peace, his tribe were bent on going to war; and he frankly added that
of course if they did so he should have to join them. He and three other
Indians, among them his son and the chief Redhawk, who had also been at
the Kanawha battle, were detained as hostages. While they were thus
confined in the fort a member of a company of rangers was killed by the
Indians near by; whereupon his comrades, headed by their captain,[57]
rushed in furious anger into the fort to slay the hostages. Cornstalk
heard them rushing in, and knew that his hour had come; with unmoved
countenance he exhorted his son not to fear, for it was the will of the
Great Spirit that they should die there together; then, as the murderers
burst into the room, he quietly rose up to meet them, and fell dead
pierced by seven or eight bullets. His son and his comrades were
likewise butchered, and we have no record of any more infamous deed.
Though among the whites, the men who took prominent parts in the
struggle never afterwards made any mark, yet it is worth noting that all
the aftertime leaders of the west were engaged in some way in Lord
Dunmore's war. Their fates were various. Boon led the vanguard of the
white advance across the mountains, wandered his life long through the
wilderness, and ended his days, in extreme old age, beyond the
Mississippi, a backwoods hunter to the last. Shelby won laurels at
King's Mountain, became the first governor of Kentucky, and when an old
man revived the memories of his youth by again leading the western men
in battle against the British and Indians. Sevier and Robertson were for
a generation the honored chiefs of the southwestern people. Clark, the
ablest of all, led a short but brilliant career, during which he made
the whole nation his debtor. Then, like Logan, he sank under the curse
of drunkenness,--often hardly less dangerous to the white borderer than
to his red enemy,--and passed the remainder of his days in ignoble and
slothful retirement.
1. Stewart's Narrative.
2. "Am. Archiv." Col. Wm. Preston's letter, Sept. 28, 1774.
3. _Do_., p. 872.
4. Doddridge, 235.
5. See _Mag. of Am. Hist._, XV., 256.
6. De Haas, p. 161. He is a very fair and trustworthy writer; in
particular, as regards Logan's speech and Cresap's conduct. It is to be
regretted that Brantz Mayer, in dealing with these latter subjects,
could not have approached them with the same desire to be absolutely
impartial, instead of appearing to act solely as an advocate.
7. His eight captains were George Matthews, Alexander McClannahan, John
Dickinson, John Lewis (son of William), Benjamin Harrison, William Paul,
Joseph Haynes, and Samuel Wilson. Hale, "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers," p.
181.
8. His seven captains were Matthew Arbuckle, John Murray, John Lewis
(son of Andrew), James Robertson, Robert McClannahan, James Ward, and
John Stewart (author of the Narrative).
9. As the Kanawha was sometimes called.
10. Whose five captains were Evan Shelby, Russell, Herbert, Draper, and
Buford.
11. Born December 11, 1750, near Hagerstown, Md.
12. Letter of Col. Wm. Preston, September 28, 1774. "Am. Archives."
13. Letter of one of Lord Dunmore's officers, November 21, 1774. "Am.
Archives," IV., Vol. I., p. 1017. Hale gives a minute account of the
route followed; Stewart says they started on the 11th.
With the journal of Floyd's expedition, mentioned on a previous page, I
received MS. copies of two letters to Col. William Preston, both dated
at Camp Union, at the Great Levels; one, of September 8th from Col.
Andrew Lewis, and one of September 7th (9th?) from Col. William
Christian.
Col. Lewis' letter runs in part: "From Augusta we have 600; of this
county [Botetourt] about 400; Major Field is joined with 40.... I have
had less Trouble with the Troops than I expected.... I received a letter
from his Lordship last Sunday morning which was dated the 30th of August
at Old Towns, which I take to be Chresops, he then I am told had Col.
Stephens and Major Conolly at his Elbow as might easily be discovered by
the Contents of his Letter which expressed his Lordship's warmest wishes
that I would with all the troops from this Quarter join him at the mouth
of the little Kanaway, I wrote his Lordship that it was not in my power
to alter our rout.... The Indians wounded a man within two miles of
us ... and wounded another, from this we may expect they will be picking
about us all the March." He states that he has more men than he
expected, and will therefore need more provisions, and that he will
leave some of his poorest troops to garrison the small fort.
Col. Christian's letter states that the Augusta men took with them 400
pack-horses, carrying 54,000 pounds of flour, and 108 beeves, they
started "yesterday." Field marched "this evening", Fleming and his 450
Botetourt men, with 200 pack-horses, "are going next Monday." Field had
brought word that Dunmore expected to be at the mouth of the Great
Kanawha "some days after the 20th." Some Indians had tried to steal a
number of pack-horses, but had been discovered and frightened off.
Christian was very much discontented at being bidden to stay behind
until he could gather 300 men, and bring up the rear, he expresses his
fear that his men will be much exasperated when they learn that they are
to stay behind, and reiterates "I would not for all I am worth be behind
crossing the Ohio and that we should miss lending our assistance." Field
brought an account of McDonald's fight (see _ante_, p. 216), he
said the whites were 400 and the Indians but 30 strong, that the former
had 4 men killed and 6 wounded, the Indians but 3 or 4 killed and 1
captured, and their town was burnt. The number of the Shawnees and their
allies was estimated at 1,200 warriors that could be put into one
battle. The 400 horses that had started with the Augusta men were to
return as fast as they could (after reaching the embarkment point,
whence the flour was carried in canoes).
14. When the Revolutionary war broke out the Earl not only fought the
revolted colonists with all legitimate weapons, but tried to incite the
blacks to servile insurrection, and sent agents to bring his old foes,
the red men of the forest, down on his old friends, the settlers. He
encouraged piratical and plundering raids, and on the other hand failed
to show the courage and daring that are sometimes partial offsets to
ferocity. But in this war, in 1774, he conducted himself with great
energy in making preparations, and showed considerable skill as a
negotiator in concluding the peace, and apparently went into the
conflict with hearty zest and good will. He was evidently much
influenced by Conolly, a very weak adviser, however; and his whole
course betrayed much vacillation, and no generalship.
15. Smyth's "Tour," II., p. 179.
16. "Am. Archives," p. 1017.
17. _Do_. Stewart says they reached the mouth of the Kanawha on
Oct. 1st; another account says Sept. 30th; but this is an error, as
shown both by the "Am. Archives" and by the Campbell MSS.
18. Hale, 182.
19. Campbell MSS. Letter of Isaac Shelby to John Shelby, Oct. 16, 1774.
A portion of this letter, unsigned, was printed in "Am. Archives," p.
1016, and in various newspapers (even at Belfast; _see_ Hale, p.
187, who thinks it was written by Captain Arbuckle). As it is worth
preserving and has never been printed in full I give it in the Appendix.
20. Stewart's Narrative.
21. Smyth, II., p. 158. He claims to have played a prominent part in the
battle. This is certainly not so, and he may not have been present at
all; at least Col. Stewart, who was there and was acquainted with every
one of note in the army, asserts positively that there was no such man
along; nor has any other American account ever mentioned him. His
military knowledge was nil, as may be gathered from his remark, made
when the defeats of Braddock and Grant were still recent, that British
regulars with the bayonet were best fitted to oppose Indians.
22. Some accounts say that he was accompanied by Kenton and McCulloch;
others state that no messenger arrived until after the battle. But this
is certainly wrong. Shelby's letter shows that the troops learned the
governor's change of plans before the battle.
23. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. J., p. 1017; and was joined by Col.
Christian's three hundred the day after the battle.
24. Campbell MSS. Letter of Col. William Preston (presumably to Patrick
Henry), Oct. 31, 1774. As it is interesting and has never been
published, I give it in the Appendix.
25. Many of the white accounts make their number much greater, without
any authority; Shelby estimates it at between eight hundred and one
thousand. Smith, who generally gives the Indian side, says that on this
occasion they were nearly as numerous as the whites. Smyth, who bitterly
hates the Americans, and always belittles their deeds, puts the number
of Indians at nine hundred; he would certainly make it as small as
possible. So the above estimate is probably pretty near the truth,
though it is of course impossible to be accurate. At any rate, it was
the only important engagement fought by the English or Americans against
the northwestern Indians in which there was a near approach to equality
of force.
26. Campbell MSS. Shelby's letter. Their names were Mooney and Hickman;
the latter was killed. Most historians have confused these two men with
the two others who discovered the Indians at almost the same time.
27. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol, I., p. 1017.
28. _Do_., p. 1017. Letter from Stanton, Virginia, Nov. 4, 1774,
says 3/4 of a mile; Shelby says 1/2 of a mile.
29. _Do_., Letter of Nov. 17th.
30. The frontier expression for covering one's self behind a tree-trunk.
31. A small stream running into the Kanawha near its mouth. De Haas, p.
151.
32. Campbell MSS. Preston's, letter.
33. "Am. Archives." Letter of November 4, 1774.
34. Campbell MSS. Preston's letter.
35. Stewart's Narrative.
36. Led by Isaac Shelby, James Stewart, and George Matthews.
37. Campbell MSS. Preston's letter.
38. "Am. Archives" Letter of November 4, 1774. It is doubtful if Logan
was in this fight; the story about Cornstalk killing one of his men who
flinched may or may not be true.
39. Hale, 199, the plunder was afterwards sold at auction for L74 4s.
6d.
40. These are the numbers given by Stewart, but the accounts vary
greatly. Monette ("Valley of the Mississippi,") says 87 killed and 141
wounded. The letters written at the time evidently take no account of
any but the badly wounded. Shelby thus makes the killed 55, and the
wounded (including the mortally hurt) 68. Another account ("Am.
Archives," p. 1017) says 40 men killed and 96 wounded, 20 odd of whom
were since dead, whilst a foot-note to this letter enumerates 53 dead
outright, and 87 wounded, "some of whom have since died." It is
evidently impossible that the slightly wounded are included in these
lists; and in all probability Stewart's account is correct, as he was an
eye-witness and participant.
41. Twenty-one were scalped on the field; the bodies of 12 more were
afterwards found behind logs or in holes where they had been lain, and 8
eventually died of their wounds. (See "American Archives," Smith, Hale,
De Haas, etc.) Smith, who wrote from the Indian side, makes their loss
only 28; but this apparently does not include the loss of the western
Indians, the allies of the Shawnees, Mingos, and Delawares.
42. _Smyth_, the Englishman, accuses Lewis of cowardice, an
accusation which deserves no more attention than do the similar
accusations of treachery brought against Dunmore. Brantz Mayer speaks in
very hyperbolic terms of the "relentless Lewis," and the "great
slaughter" of the Indians.
43. Wayne won an equally decisive victory, but he outnumbered his foes
three to one. Bouquet, who was almost beaten, and was saved by the
provincial rangers, was greatly the superior in force, and suffered four
times the loss he inflicted. In both cases, especially that of Bouquet,
the account of the victor must be received with caution where it deals
with the force and loss of the vanquished. In the same way Shelby and
the other reporters of the Kanawha fight stated that the Indians lost
more heavily than the whites.
44. The stories of how Lewis suspected the earl of treachery, and of how
the backwoodsmen were so exasperated that they wished to kill the
latter, may have some foundation; but are quite as likely to be pure
inventions, made up after the Revolutionary war. In De Haas, "The
American Pioneer," etc., can be found all kinds of stories, some even
told by members of the Clark and Lewis families, which are meant to
criminate Dunmore, but which make such mistakes in chronology--placing
the battle of Lexington in the year of the Kanawha fight, asserting that
peace was not made till the following spring, etc.--that they must be
dismissed offhand as entirely untrustworthy.
45. Stewart's Narrative.
46. "Am. Archives," IV. St. Clair's letter, Dec. 4, 1774. Also Jefferson
MSS. Dep. of Wm. Robinson, etc.
47. See De Haas, 162.
48. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. I., pp. 1013, 1226.
49. John Gibson, afterwards a general in the army of the United States.
See Appendix.
50. Jefferson MSS. Statements of John Gibson, etc.; there is some
uncertainty as to whether Logan came up to Gibson at the treaty and drew
him aside, or whether the latter went to seek the former in his wigwam.
51. Jefferson Papers (State Department MSS.), 5-1-4. Statement of Col.
John Gibson to John Anderson, an Indian trader at Pittsburg, in 1774.
Anderson had asked him if he had not himself added somewhat to the
speech; he responded that he had not, that it was a literal translation
or transcription of Logan's words.
52. Jefferson MSS. Affidavits of Andrew Rogers, Wm. Russell, and others
who were present.
53. Clark's letter.
54. See De Haas, 167.
55. These are Smith's estimates, derived largely from Indian sources.
They are probably excessive, but not very greatly so.
56. It is difficult to understand why some minor historians consider
this war as fruitless.
57. John Hall; it is worth while preserving the name of the ringleader
in so brutal and cowardly a butchery. See Stewart's Narrative.