CHAPTER IV.

CONTINUANCE OF THE STRUGGLE IN KENTUCKY AND THE NORTHWEST, 1779-1781.

Clark's Conquests Benefit Kentucky.

Clark's successful campaigns against the Illinois towns and Vincennes,

besides giving the Americans a foothold north of the Ohio, were of the

utmost importance to Kentucky. Until this time, the Kentucky settlers

had been literally fighting for life and home, and again and again their

strait had been so bad, that it seemed--and was--almost an even chance

whether they would be driven from the land. The successful outcome of

Clark's expedition temporarily overawed the Indians, and, moreover, made

the French towns outposts for the protection of the settlers; so that

for several years thereafter the tribes west of the Wabash did but

little against the Americans. The confidence of the backwoodsmen in

their own ultimate triumph was likewise very much increased; while the

fame of the western region was greatly spread abroad. From all these

causes it resulted that there was an immediate and great increase of

immigration thither, the bulk of the immigrants of course stopping in

Kentucky, though a very few, even thus early, went to Illinois. Every

settlement in Kentucky was still in jeopardy, and there came moments of

dejection, when some of her bravest leaders spoke gloomily of the

possibility of the Americans being driven from the land. But these were

merely words such as even strong men utter when sore from fresh

disaster. After the spring of 1779, there was never any real danger that

the whites would be forced to abandon Kentucky.

The Land Laws.

The land laws which the Virginia Legislature enacted about this time

[Footnote: May, 1779; they did not take effect nor was a land court

established until the following fall, when the land office was opened at

St. Asaphs, Oct. 13th. Isaac Shelby's claim was the first one considered

and granted. He had raised a crop of corn in the country in 1776.] were

partly a cause, partly a consequence, of the increased emigration to

Kentucky, and of the consequent rise in the value of its wild lands.

Long before the Revolution, shrewd and far-seeing speculators had

organized land companies to acquire grants of vast stretches of western

territory; but the land only acquired an actual value for private

individuals after the incoming of settlers. In addition to the

companies, many private individuals had acquired rights to tracts of

land; some, under the royal proclamation, giving bounties to the

officers and soldiers in the French war; others by actual payment into

the public treasury. [Footnote: The Ohio Company was the greatest of the

companies. There were "also, among private rights, the ancient

importation rights, the Henderson Company rights, etc." See Marshall,

I., 82.] The Virginia Legislature now ratified all titles to regularly

surveyed ground claimed under charter, military bounty, and old treasury

rights, to the extent of four hundred acres each. Tracts of land were

reserved as bounties for the Virginia troops, both Continentals and

militia. Each family of actual settlers was allowed a settlement right

to four hundred acres for the small sum of nine dollars, and, if very

poor, the land was given them on credit. Every such settler also

acquired a preemptive right to purchase a thousand acres adjoining, at

the regulation State price, which was forty pounds, paper money, or

forty dollars in specie, for every hundred acres. One peculiar provision

was made necessary by the system of settling in forted villages. Every

such village was allowed six hundred and forty acres, which no outsider

could have surveyed or claim, for it was considered, the property of the

townsmen, to be held in common until an equitable division could be

made; while each family likewise had a settlement right to four hundred

acres adjoining the village. The vacant lands were sold, warrants for a

hundred acres costing forty dollars in specie; but later on, towards the

close of the war, Virginia tried to buoy up her mass of depreciated

paper currency by accepting it nearly at par for land warrants, thereby

reducing the cost of these to less than fifty cents for a hundred acres.

No warrant applied to a particular spot; it was surveyed on any vacant

or presumably vacant ground. Each individual had the surveying done

wherever he pleased, the county surveyor usually appointing some skilled

woodsman to act as his deputy.

In the end the natural result of all this was to involve half the people

of Kentucky in lawsuits over their land, as there were often two or

three titles to each patch, [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] and the surveys

crossed each other in hopeless tangles. Immediately, the system gave a

great stimulus to immigration, for it made it easy for any incoming

settler to get title to his farm, and it also strongly attracted all

land speculators. Many well-to-do merchants or planters of the seaboard

sent agents out to buy lands in Kentucky; and these agents either hired

the old pioneers, such as Boon and Kenton, to locate and survey the

lands, or else purchased their claims from them outright. The advantages

of following the latter plan were of course obvious; for the pioneers

were sure to have chosen fertile, well-watered spots; and though they

asked more than the State, yet, ready money was so scarce, and the

depreciation of the currency so great, that even thus the land only cost

a few cents an acre. [Footnote: From the Clay MSS. "Virginia, Frederick

Co. to wit: This day came William Smith of [illegible] before me John A.

Woodcock, a Justice of the peace of same county, who being of full age

deposeth and saith that about the first of June 1780, being in Kentuckey

and empowered to purchase Land, for Mr. James Ware, he the deponent

agreed with a certain Simon Kenton of Kentucky for 1000 Acres of Land

about 2 or 3 miles from the big salt spring on Licking, that the sd.

Kenton on condition that the sd. Smith would pay him £100 in hand and

£100 more when sd. Land was surveyed,... sd. Kenton on his part wou'd

have the land surveyed, and a fee Simple made there to.... sd. Land was

first rate Land and had a good Spring thereon.... he agreed to warrant

and defend the same ... against all persons whatsoever.... sworn too

before me this 17th day of Nov. 1789." Later on, the purchaser, who did

not take possession of the land for eight or nine years, feared it would

not prove as fertile as Kenton had said, and threatened to sue Kenton;

but Kenton evidently had the whip-hand in the controversy, for the land

being out in the wilderness, the purchaser did not know its exact

location, and when he threatened suit, and asked to be shown it, Kenton

"swore that he would not shoe it at all." Letter of James Ware, Nov. 29,

1789.]

Inrush of Settlers.

Thus it came about that with the fall of 1779 a strong stream of

emigration set towards Kentucky, from the backwoods districts of

Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. In company with the real

settlers came many land speculators, and also many families of weak,

irresolute, or shiftless people, who soon tired of the ceaseless and

grinding frontier strife for life, and drifted back to the place whence

they had come. [Footnote: Thus the increase of population is to be

measured by the net gain of immigration over emigration, not by

immigration alone. It is probably partly neglect of this fact, and

partly simple exaggeration, that make the early statements of the

additions to the Kentucky population so very untrustworthy. In 1783, at

the end of the Revolution, the population of Kentucky was probably

nearer 12,000 than 20,000, and it had grown steadily each year. Yet

Butler quotes Floyd as saying that in the spring of 1780 three hundred

large family boats arrived at the Falls, which would mean an increase of

perhaps four or five thousand people; and in the McAfee MSS. occurs the

statement that in 1779 and 1780 nearly 20,000 people came to Kentucky.

Both of these statements are probably mere estimates, greatly

exaggerated; any westerner of to-day can instance similar reports of

movements to western localities, which under a strict census dwindled

wofully.] Thus there were ever two tides--the larger setting towards

Kentucky, the lesser towards the old States; so that the two streams

passed each other on the Wilderness road--for the people who came down

the Ohio could not return against the current. Very many who did not

return nevertheless found they were not fitted to grapple with the stern

trials of existence on the border. Some of these succumbed outright;

others unfortunately survived, and clung with feeble and vicious

helplessness to the skirts of their manlier fellows; and from them have

descended the shiftless squatters, the "mean whites," the listless,

uncouth men who half-till their patches of poor soil, and still cumber

the earth in out-of-the-way nooks from the crannies of the Alleghanies

to the canyons of the southern Rocky Mountains.

In April, before this great rush of immigration began, but when it was

clearly foreseen that it would immediately take place, the county court

of Kentucky issued a proclamation to the new settlers, recommending them

to keep as united and compact as possible, settling in "stations" or

forted towns; and likewise advising each settlement to choose three or

more trustees to take charge of their public affairs. [Footnote: Durrett

MSS., in the bound volume of "Papers relating to Louisville and

Kentucky." On May 1, 1780, the people living at the Falls, having

established a town, forty-six of them signed a petition to have their

title made good against Conolly. On Feb. 7, 1781, John Todd and five

other trustees of Louisville met; they passed resolutions to erect a

grist mill and make surveys.] Their recommendations and advice were

generally followed.

Bowman Attacks Chillicothe.

During 1779 the Indian war dragged on much as usual. The only expedition

of importance was that undertaken in May by one hundred and sixty

Kentuckians, commanded by the county lieutenant, John Bowman, against

the Indian town of Chillicothe. [Footnote: MS. "Notes on Kentucky," by

George Bradford, who went there in 1779; in the Durrett collection.

Haldimand MSS., Letter of Henry Bird, June 9, 1779. As this letter is

very important, and gives for the first time the Indian side, I print it

in the Appendix almost in full. The accounts of course conflict

somewhat; chiefly as to the number of cabins burnt--from five to forty,

and of horses captured--from thirty to three hundred. They agree in all

essential points. But as among the whites themselves there is one

serious question. Logan's admirers, and most Kentucky historians, hold

Bowman responsible for the defeat; but in reality (see Butler, p. 110)

there seems strong reason to believe that it was simply due to the

unexpectedly strong resistance of the Indians. Bird's letter shows, what

the Kentuckians never suspected, that the attack was a great benefit to

them in frightening the Indians and stopping a serious inroad. It

undoubtedly accomplished more than Clark's attack on Piqua next year,

for instance.] Logan, Harrod, and other famous frontier fighters went

along. The town was surprised, several cabins burned, and a number of

horses captured. But the Indians rallied, and took refuge in a central

block-house and a number of strongly built cabins surrounding it, from

which they fairly beat off the whites. They then followed to harass the

rear of their retreating foes, but were beaten off in turn. Of the

whites, nine were killed and two or three wounded; the Indians' loss was

two killed and five or six wounded.

The defeat caused intense mortification to the whites; but in reality

the expedition was of great service to Kentucky, though the Kentuckians

never knew it. The Detroit people had been busily organizing expeditions

against Kentucky. Captain Henry Bird had been given charge of one, and

he had just collected two hundred Indians at the Mingo town when news of

the attack on Chillicothe arrived. Instantly the Indians dissolved in a

panic, some returning to defend their towns; others were inclined to beg

peace of the Americans. So great was their terror that it was found

impossible to persuade them to make any inroad as long as they deemed

themselves menaced by a counter attack of the Kentuckians. [Footnote:

Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, Nov. 20, 1779.]

Occasional Indian Forays.

It is true that bands of Mingos, Hurons, Delawares, and Shawnees made

occasional successful raids against the frontier, and brought their

scalps and prisoners in triumph to Detroit, [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. De

Peyster to Haldimand, Oct. 20, 1779.] where they drank such astonishing

quantities of rum as to incite the indignation of the British

commander-in-chief. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Haldimand's letter, July

23, 1779.] But instead of being able to undertake any formidable

expedition against the settlers, the Detroit authorities were during

this year much concerned for their own safety, taking every possible

means to provide for the defence, and keeping a sharp look-out for any

hostile movement of the Americans. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS., April 8,

1779.]

The incoming settlers were therefore left in comparative peace. They

built many small palisaded towns, some of which proved permanent, while

others vanished utterly when the fear of the Indians was removed and the

families were able to scatter out on their farms. At the Falls of the

Ohio a regular fort was built, armed with cannon and garrisoned by

Virginia troops, [Footnote: One hundred and fifty strong, under Col.

George Slaughter.] who were sent down the river expressly to reinforce

Clark. The Indians never dared assail this fort; but they ravaged up to

its walls, destroying the small stations on Bear Grass Creek and

scalping settlers and soldiers when they wandered far from the

protection of the stockade.

The Hard Winter.

The new-comers of 1779 were destined to begin with a grim experience,

for the ensuing winter [Footnote: Boon, in his Narrative, makes a

mistake in putting this hard winter a year later; all the other

authorities are unanimous against him.] was the most severe ever known

in the west, and was long recalled by the pioneers as the "hard winter."

Cold weather set in towards the end of November, the storms following

one another in unbroken succession, while the snow lay deep until the

spring. Most of the cattle, and very many of the horses, perished; and

deer and elk were likewise found dead in the woods, or so weak and

starved that they would hardly move out of the way, while the buffalo

often came up at nightfall to the yards, seeking to associate with the

starving herds of the settlers. [Footnote: McAfee MSS. Of the McAfees'

horses ten died, and only two survived, a brown mare and "a yellow horse

called Chickasaw." Exactly a hundred years later, in the hard winter of

1879-80, and the still worse winter of 1880-81, the settlers on the

Yellowstone and the few hunters who wintered on the Little Missouri had

a similar experience. The buffalo crowded with the few tame cattle round

the hayricks and log-stables; the starving deer and antelope gathered in

immense bands in sheltered places. Riding from my ranch to a neighbor's

I have, in deep snows, passed through herds of antelope that would

barely move fifty or a hundred feet out of my way.] The scanty supply of

corn gave out, until there was not enough left to bake into johnny-cakes

on the long boards in front of the fire. [Footnote: _Do._] Even at the

Falls, where there were stores for the troops, the price of corn went up

nearly fourfold, [Footnote: From fifty dollars (Continental money) a

bushel in the fall to one hundred and seventy-five in the spring.] while

elsewhere among the stations of the interior it could not be had at any

price, and there was an absolute dearth both of salt and of vegetable

food, the settlers living for weeks on the flesh of the lean wild game,

[Footnote: McAfee MSS.] especially of the buffalo. [Footnote: Boon's

Narrative.] The hunters searched with especial eagerness for the bears

in the hollow trees, for they alone among the animals kept fat; and the

breast of the wild turkey served for bread. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.]

Nevertheless, even in the midst of this season of cold and famine, the

settlers began to take the first steps for the education of their

children. In this year Joseph Doniphan, whose son long afterwards won

fame in the Mexican war, opened the first regular school at

Boonsborough, [Footnote: _Historical Magazine_, Second Series, Vol.

VIII.] and one of the McAfees likewise served as a teacher through the

winter. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] But from the beginning some of the

settlers' wives had now and then given the children in the forts a few

weeks' schooling.

Through the long, irksome winter, the frontiersmen remained crowded

within the stockades. The men hunted, while the women made the clothes,

of tanned deer-hides, buffalo-wool cloth, and nettle-bark linen. In

stormy weather, when none could stir abroad, they turned or coopered the

wooden vessels; for tin cups were as rare as iron forks, and the

"noggin" was either hollowed out of the knot of a tree, or else made

with small staves and hoops. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] Every thing was of

home manufacture--for there was not a store in Kentucky,--and the most

expensive domestic products seem to have been the hats, made of native

fur, mink, coon, fox, wolf, and beaver. If exceptionally fine, and of

valuable fur, they cost five hundred dollars in paper money, which had

not at that time depreciated a quarter as much in outlying Kentucky as

at the seat of government. [Footnote: Marshall, p. 124.]

As soon as the great snow-drifts began to melt, and thereby to produce

freshets of unexampled height, the gaunt settlers struggled out to their

clearings, glad to leave the forts. They planted corn, and eagerly

watched the growth of the crop; and those who hungered after oatmeal or

wheaten bread planted other grains as well, and apple-seeds and

peach-stones. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.]

Many New Settlers Arrive in the Spring.

As soon as the spring of 1780 opened, the immigrants began to arrive

more numerously than ever. Some came over the Wilderness road; among

these there were not a few haggard, half-famished beings, who, having

stalled too late the previous fall, had been overtaken by the deep

snows, and forced to pass the winter in the iron-bound and desolate

valleys of the Alleghanies, subsisting on the carcasses of their

stricken cattle, and seeing their weaker friends starve or freeze before

their eyes. Very many came down the Ohio, in flat-boats. A good-sized

specimen of these huge unwieldly scows was fifty-five feet long, twelve

broad, and six deep, drawing three feet of water; [Footnote: Lettres

d'un Cultivateur Americain, St. John de Creve Coeur, Paris, 1787. p.

407. He visited Kentucky in 1784.] but the demand was greater than the

supply, and a couple of dozen people, with half as many horses, and all

their effects, might be forced to embark on a flat-boat not twenty-four

feet in length. [Footnote: MS. Journals of Rev. James Smith. Tours in

western country in 1785-1795 (in Col. Durrett's library).] Usually

several families came together, being bound by some tie of neighborhood

or purpose. Not infrequently this tie was religious, for in the back

settlements the few churches were almost as much social as religious

centres. Thus this spring, a third of the congregation of a Low Dutch

Reformed Church came to Kentucky bodily, to the number of fifty heads of

families, with their wives and children, their beasts of burden and

pasture, and their household goods; like most bands of new immigrants,

they suffered greatly from the Indians, much more than did the old

settlers. [Footnote: State Department MSS. No. 41, Vol. V., Memorials K,

L, 1777-1787, pp. 95-97, Petition of Low Dutch Reformed Church, etc.]

The following year a Baptist congregation came out from Virginia,

keeping up its organization even while on the road, the preacher holding

services at every long halt.

De Peyster at Detroit.

Soon after the rush of spring immigration was at its height, the old

settlers and the new-comers alike were thrown into the utmost alarm by a

formidable inroad of Indians, accompanied by French partisans, and led

by a British officer. De Peyster, a New York tory of old Knickerbocker

family, had taken command at Detroit. He gathered the Indians around him

from far and near, until the expense of subsidizing these savages became

so enormous as to call forth serious complaints from head-quarters.

[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to Guy Johnson, June 30, 1780.] He

constantly endeavored to equip and send out different bands, not only to

retake the Illinois and Vincennes, but to dislodge Clark from the Falls

[Footnote: _Do._ Haldimand to De Peyster, Feb. 12 and July 6, 1780.]; he

was continually receiving scalps and prisoners, and by May he had fitted

out two thousand warriors to act along the Ohio and the Wabash.

[Footnote: _Do._ De Peyster to Haldimand, June 1, 1780.] The rapid

growth of Kentucky especially excited his apprehension, [Footnote: _Do._

March 8, 1780.] and his main stroke was directed against the clusters of

wooden forts that were springing up south of the Ohio. [Footnote: _Do._

May 17 to July 19, 1780.]

Bird's Inroad.

Late in May, some six hundred Indians and a few Canadians, with a couple

of pieces of light field artillery, were gathered and put under the

command of Captain Henry Bird. Following the rivers where practicable,

that he might the easier carry his guns, he went down the Miami, and on

the 22d of June, surprised and captured without resistance Ruddle's and

Martin's stations, two small stockades on the South Fork of the Licking.

[Footnote: He marched overland from the forks of the Licking. Marshall

says the season was dry and the waters low; but the Bradford MSS.

particularly declare that Bird only went up the Licking at all because

the watercourses were so full, and that he had originally intended to

attack the settlements at the Falls.] But Bird was not one of the few

men fitted to command such a force as that which followed him; and

contenting himself with the slight success he had won, he rapidly

retreated to Detroit, over the same path by which he had advanced. The

Indians carried off many horses, and loaded their prisoners with the

plunder, tomahawking those, chiefly women and children, who could not

keep up with the rest; and Bird could not control them nor force them to

show mercy to their captives. [Footnote: Collins, Butler, etc. Marshall

thinks that if the force could have been held together it would have

depopulated Kentucky; but this is nonsense, for within a week Clark had

gathered a very much larger and more efficient body of troops.] He did

not even get his cannon back to Detroit, leaving them at the British

store in one of the upper Miami towns, in charge of a bombardier. The

bombardier did not prove a very valorous personage, and on the alarm of

Clark's advance, soon afterwards, he permitted the Indians to steal his

horses, and was forced to bury his ordnance in the woods. [Footnote:

Haldimand MSS. Letter of Bombardier Wm. Homan, Aug. 18, 1780. He speaks

of "the gun" and "the smaller ordnance," presumably swivels. It is

impossible to give Bird's numbers correctly, for various bands of

Indians kept joining and leaving him.]

Clark Hears the News

Before this inroad took place Clark had been planning a foray into the

Indian country, and the news only made him hasten his preparations. In

May this adventurous leader had performed one of the feats which made

him the darling of the backwoodsmen. Painted and dressed like an Indian

so as to deceive the lurking bands of savages, he and two companions

left the fort he had built on the bank of the Mississippi, and came

through the wilderness to Harrodsburg. They lived on the buffaloes they

shot, and when they came to the Tennessee River, which was then in

flood, they crossed the swift torrent on a raft of logs bound together

with grapevines. At Harrodsburg they found the land court open, and

thronged with an eager, jostling crowd of settlers and speculators, who

were waiting to enter lands in the surveyor's office. Even the dread of

the Indians could not overcome in these men's hearts the keen and

selfish greed for gain. Clark instantly grasped the situation. Seeing

that while the court remained open he could get no volunteers, he on his

own responsibility closed it off-hand, and proclaimed that it would not

be opened until after he came back from his expedition. The speculators

grumbled and clamored, but this troubled Clark not at all, for he was

able to get as many volunteers as he wished. The discontent, and still

more the panic over Bird's inroad, made many of the settlers determine

to flee from the country, but Clark sent a small force to Crab Orchard,

at the mouth of the Wilderness road, the only outlet from Kentucky, with

instructions to stop all men from leaving the country, and to take away

their arms if they persisted; while four fifths of all the grown men

were drafted, and were bidden to gather instantly for a campaign.

[Footnote: Bradford MSS.]

His Campaign against Piqua.

He appointed the mouth of the Licking as the place of meeting. Thither

he brought the troops from the Falls in light skiffs he had built for

the purpose, leaving behind scarce a handful of men to garrison the

stockade. Logan went with him as second in command. He carried with him

a light three-pounder gun; and those of the men who had horses marched

along the bank beside the flotilla. The only mishap that befell the

troops happened to McGarry, who had a subordinate command. He showed his

usual foolhardy obstinacy by persisting in landing with a small squad of

men on the north bank of the river, where he was in consequence

surprised and roughly handled by a few Indians. Nothing was done to him

because of his disobedience, for the chief of such a backwoods levy was

the leader, rather than the commander, of his men.

At the mouth of the Licking Clark met the riflemen from the interior

stations, among them being Kenton, Harrod, and Floyd, and others of

equal note. They had turned out almost to a man, leaving the women and

boys to guard the wooden forts until they came back, and had come to the

appointed place, some on foot or on horseback, others floating and

paddling down the Licking in canoes. They left scanty provisions with

their families, who had to subsist during their absence on what game the

boys shot, on nettle tops, and a few early vegetables; and they took

with them still less. Dividing up their stock, each man had a couple of

pounds of meal and some jerked venison or buffalo meat. [Footnote:

McAfee MSS.; the Bradford MS. says six quarts of parched corn.]

All his troops having gathered, to the number of nine hundred and

seventy, Clark started up the Ohio on the second of August. [Footnote:

This date and number are those given in the Bradford MS. The McAfee MSS.

say July 1st; but it is impossible that the expedition should have

started so soon after Bird's inroad. On July 1st, Bird himself was

probably at the mouth of the Licking.] The skiffs, laden with men, were

poled against the current, while bodies of footmen and horsemen marched

along the bank. After going a short distance up stream the horses and

men were ferried to the farther bank, the boats were drawn up on the

shore and left, with a guard of forty men, and the rest of the troops

started overland against the town of Old Chillicothe, fifty or sixty

miles distant. The three-pounder was carried along on a pack-horse. The

march was hard, for it rained so incessantly that it was difficult to

keep the rifles dry. Every night they encamped in a hollow square, with

the baggage and horses in the middle.

Chillicothe, when reached, was found to be deserted. It was burned, and

the army pushed on to Piqua, a town a few miles distant, on the banks of

the Little Miami, [Footnote: The Indians so frequently shifted their

abode that it is hardly possible to identify the exact location of the

successive towns called Piqua or Pickaway.] reaching it about ten in the

morning of the 8th of August. [Footnote: "Papers relating to G. R.

Clark." In the Durrett MSS. at Louisville. The account of the death of

Joseph Rogers. This settles, by the way, that the march was made in

August, and not in July.] Piqua was substantially built, and was laid

out in the manner of the French villages. The stoutly built log-houses

stood far apart, surrounded by strips of corn-land, and fronting the

stream; while a strong block-house with loop-holed walls stood in the

middle. Thick woods, broken by small prairies, covered the rolling

country that lay around the town.

The Fight at Piqua.

Clark divided his army into four divisions, taking the command of two in

person. Giving the others to Logan, he ordered him to cross the river

above the town [Footnote: There is some conflict as to whether Logan

went up or down stream.] and take it in the rear, while he himself

crossed directly below it and assailed it in front. Logan did his best

to obey the orders, but he could not find a ford, and he marched by

degrees nearly three miles up stream, making repeated and vain attempts

to cross; when he finally succeeded the day was almost done, and the

fighting was over.

Meanwhile Clark plunged into the river, and crossed at the head of one

of his own two divisions; the other was delayed for a short time. Both

Simon Girty and his brother were in the town, together with several

hundred Indian warriors; exactly how many cannot be said, but they were

certainly fewer in number than the troops composing either wing of

Clark's army. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. McKee to De Peyster, Aug. 22,

1780. He was told of the battle by the Indians a couple of days after it

took place. He gives the force of the whites correctly as nine hundred

and seventy, forty of whom had been left to guard the boats. He says the

Indians were surprised, and that most of the warriors fled, so that all

the fighting was done by about seventy, with the two Girtys. This was

doubtless not the case; the beaten party in all these encounters was

fond of relating the valorous deeds of some of its members, who

invariably state that they would have conquered, had they not been

deserted by their associates. McKee reported that the Indians could find

no trace of the gun-wheels--the gun was carried on a pack-horse,--and so

he thought that the Kentuckians were forced to leave it behind on their

retreat. He put the killed of the Kentuckians at the modest number of

forty-eight; and reported the belief of Girty and the Indians that

"three hundred [of them] would have given [Clark's men] a total rout." A

very common feat of the small frontier historian was to put high praise

of his own side in the mouth of a foe. Withers, in his "Chronicles of

Border Warfare," in speaking of this very action, makes Girty withdraw

his three hundred warriors on account of the valor of Clark's men,

remarking that it was "useless to fight with fools or madmen." This

offers a comical contrast to Girty's real opinion, as shown in McKee's

letter.] They were surprised by Clark's swift advance just as a scouting

party of warriors, who had been sent out to watch the whites, were

returning to the village. The warning was so short that the squaws and

children had barely time to retreat out of the way. As Clark crossed the

stream, the warriors left their cabins and formed in some thick timber

behind them. At the same moment a cousin of Clark's, who had been

captured by the Indians, and was held prisoner in the town, made his

escape and ran towards the Americans, throwing up his hands, and calling

out that he was a white man. He was shot, whether by the Americans or

the Indians none could say. Clark came up and spoke a few words with him

before he died. [Footnote: Durrett MSS. Volume: "Papers referring to G.

R. Clark." The cousin's name was Joseph Rogers, a brother of the

commander of the galley.] A long-range skirmish ensued with the warriors

in the timber; but on the approach of Clark's second division the

Indians fell back. The two divisions followed in pursuit, becoming

mingled in disorder. After a slight running fight of two hours the

whites lost sight of their foes, and, wondering what had become of

Logan's wing, they gathered together and marched back towards the river.

One of the McAfees, captain over a company of riflemen from Salt River,

was leading, when he discovered an Indian in a tree-top. He and one of

his men sought shelter behind the same tree; whereupon he tried to glide

behind another, but was shot and mortally wounded by the Indian, who was

himself instantly killed. The scattered detachments now sat down to

listen for the missing wing. After half an hour's silent waiting, they

suddenly became aware of the presence of a body of Indians, who had

slipped in between them and the town. The backwoodsmen rushed up to the

attack, while the Indians whooped and yelled defiance. There was a

moment's heavy firing; but as on both sides the combatants carefully

sheltered themselves behind trees, there was very little loss; and the

Indians steadily gave way until they reached the town, about two miles

distant from the spot where the whites had halted. They then made a

stand, and, for the first time, there occurred some real fighting. The

Indians stood stoutly behind the loop-holed walls of the cabins, and in

the block-house; the Americans, advancing cautiously and gaining ground

inch by inch, suffered much more loss than they inflicted. Late in the

afternoon Clark managed to bring the three-pounder into action, from a

point below the town; while the riflemen fired at the red warriors as

they were occasionally seen running from the cabins to take refuge

behind the steep bank of the river. A few shots from the three-pounder

dislodged the defenders of the block-house; and about sunset the

Americans closed in, but only to find that their foes had escaped under

cover of a noisy fire from a few of the hindmost warriors. They had run

up stream, behind the banks, until they came to a small "branch" or

brook, by means of which they gained the shelter of the forest, where

they at once scattered and disappeared. A few of their stragglers

exchanged shots with the advance guard of Logan's wing as it at last

came down the bank; this was the only part Logan was able to take in the

battle. Of the Indians six or eight were slain, whereas the whites lost

seventeen killed, and a large number wounded. [Footnote: Bradford MS.;

the McAfee MSS. make the loss "15 or 20 Indians" in the last assault,

and "nearly as many" whites. Boon's narrative says seventeen on each

side. But McKee says only six Indians were killed and three wounded; and

Bombardier Homan, in the letter already quoted, says six were killed and

two captured, who were afterwards slain. The latter adds from hearsay

that the Americans cruelly slew an Indian woman; but there is not a

syllable in any of the other accounts to confirm this, and it may be set

down as a fiction of the by-no-means-valorous bombardier. The bombardier

mentions that the Indians in their alarm and anger immediately burnt all

the male prisoners in their villages.

The Kentucky historians give very scanty accounts of this expedition;

but as it was of a typical character it is worth while giving in full.

The McAfee MSS. contain most information about it.] Clark destroyed all

the houses and a very large quantity of corn; and he sent out

detachments which destroyed another village, and the stores of some

British and French Canadian traders. Then the army marched back to the

mouth of the Licking and disbanded, most of the volunteers having been

out just twenty-five days. [Footnote: Bradford MS.]

Effect of the Victory.

The Indians were temporarily cowed by their loss and the damage they had

suffered, [Footnote: See Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, Aug.

30, 1780.] and especially by the moral effect of so formidable a

retaliatory foray following immediately on the heels of Bird's inroad.

Therefore, thanks to Clark, the settlements south of the Ohio were but

little molested for the remainder of the year. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.]

The bulk of the savages remained north of the river, hovering about

their burned towns, planning to take vengeance in the spring. [Footnote:

Virginia State Papers, I., 451.]

Nevertheless small straggling bands of young braves occasionally came

down through the woods; and though they did not attack any fort or any

large body of men, they were ever on the watch to steal horses, burn

lonely cabins, and waylay travellers between the stations. They shot the

solitary settlers who had gone out to till their clearings by stealth,

or ambushed the boys who were driving in the milk cows or visiting their

lines of traps. It was well for the victim if he was killed at once;

otherwise he was bound with hickory withes and driven to the distant

Indian towns, there to be tortured with hideous cruelty and burned to

death at the stake. [Footnote: McAfee MSS. The last was an incident that

happened to a young man named McCoun on March 8, 1781.] Boon himself

suffered at the hands of one of these parties. He had gone with his

brother to the Blue Licks, to him a spot always fruitful of evil; and

being ambushed by the Indians, his brother was killed, and he himself

was only saved by his woodcraft and speed of foot. The Indians had with

them a tracking dog, by the aid of which they followed his trail for

three miles; until he halted, shot the dog, and thus escaped. [Footnote:

Boon's Narrative.]

Life of the Settlers.

During this comparatively peaceful fall the settlers fared well; though

the men were ever on the watch for Indian war parties, while the

mothers, if their children were naughty, frightened them into quiet with

the threat that the Shawnees would catch them. The widows and the

fatherless were cared for by the other families of the different

stations. The season of want and scarcity had passed for ever; from

thenceforth on there was abundance in Kentucky. The crops did not fail;

not only was there plenty of corn, the one essential, but there was also

wheat, as well as potatoes, melons, pumpkins, turnips, and the like.

Sugar was made by tapping the maple trees; but salt was bought at a very

exorbitant price at the Falls, being carried down in boats from the old

Redstone Fort. Flax had been generally sown (though in the poorer

settlements nettle bark still served as a substitute), and the young men

and girls formed parties to pick it, often ending their labor by an hour

or two's search for wild plums. The men killed all the game they wished,

and so there was no lack of meat. They also surveyed the land and tended

the stock--cattle, horses, and hogs, which throve and multiplied out on

the range, fattening on the cane, and large white buffalo-clover. At odd

times the men and boys visited their lines of traps. Furs formed almost

the only currency, except a little paper money; but as there were no

stores west of the mountains, this was all that was needed, and each

settlement raised most things for itself, and procured the rest by

barter.

The law courts were as yet very little troubled, each small community

usually enforcing a rough-and-ready justice of its own. On a few of the

streams log-dams were built, and tub-mills started. In Harrodsburg a

toll mill was built in 1779. The owner used to start it grinding, and

then go about his other business; once on returning he found a large

wild turkey-gobbler so busily breakfasting out of the hopper that he was

able to creep quietly up and catch him with his hands. The people all

worked together in cultivating their respective lands; coming back to

the fort before dusk for supper. They would then call on any man who

owned a fiddle and spend the evening, with interludes of singing and

story-telling, in dancing--an amusement they considered as only below

hunting. On Sundays the stricter parents taught their children the

catechism; but in spite of the presence of not a few devout Baptists and

Presbyterians there was little chance for general observance of

religious forms. Ordinary conversation was limited to such subjects as

bore on the day's doings; the game that had been killed, the condition

of the crops, the plans of the settlers for the immediate future, the

accounts of the last massacre by the savages, or the rumor that Indian

sign had been seen in the neighborhood; all interspersed with much

banter, practical joking, and rough, good-humored fun. The scope of

conversation was of necessity narrowly limited even for the backwoods;

for there was little chance to discuss religion and politics, the two

subjects that the average backwoodsman regards as the staples of deep

conversation. The deeds of the Indians of course formed the one

absorbing topic. [Footnote: For all this see McAfee MSS.]

An Abortive Separatist Movement.

An abortive separatist movement was the chief political sensation of

this summer. Many hundreds and even thousand of settlers from the

backwoods districts of various States, had come to Kentucky, and some

even to Illinois, and a number of them were greatly discontented with

the Virginian rule. They deemed it too difficult to get justice when

they were so far from the seat of government; they objected to the land

being granted to any but actual settlers; and they protested against

being taxed, asserting that they did not know whether the country really

belonged to Virginia or the United States. Accordingly, they petitioned

the Continental Congress that Kentucky and Illinois combined might be

made into a separate State; [Footnote: State Department MSS. No. 48. See

Appendix G. As containing an account of the first, and hitherto entirely

unnoticed, separatist movement in Kentucky, I give the petition entire.]

but no heed was paid to their request, nor did their leading men join in

making it.

Kentucky Divided into Counties.

In November the Virginia Legislature divided Kentucky into the three

counties of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Fayette, appointing for each a

colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, and a surveyor. The three colonels, who

were also justices of the counties, [Footnote: Calendar of Virginia

State Papers, Vol. II., p. 47.] were, in their order, John Floyd--whom

Clark described as "a soldier, a gentleman and a scholar," [Footnote:

_Do_., Vol. I., p. 452.]--Benjamin Logan, and John Todd. Clark, whose

station was at the Falls of the Ohio, was brigadier-general and

commander over all. Boon was lieutenant-colonel under Todd; and their

county of Fayette had for its surveyor Thomas Marshall, [Footnote:

Collins, I., 20.] the father of the great chief-justice, whose services

to the United States stand on a plane with those of Alexander Hamilton.

[Footnote: Roughly, Fayette embraced the territory north and northeast

of the Kentucky River, Jefferson that between Green River and the lower

Kentucky, and Lincoln the rest of the present State.]

Clark's Plans to Attack Detroit.

The winter passed quietly away, but as soon as the snow was off the

ground in 1781, the Indians renewed their ravages. Early in the winter

Clark went to Virginia to try to get an army for an expedition against

Detroit. He likewise applied to Washington for assistance. Washington

fully entered into his plans, and saw their importance. He would gladly

have rendered him every aid. But he could do nothing, because of the

impotence to which the central authority, the Continental Congress, had

been reduced by the selfishness and supine indifference of the various

States--Virginia among the number. He wrote Clark: "It is out of my

power to send any reinforcements to the westward. If the States would

fill their continental battalions we should be able to oppose a regular

and permanent force to the enemy in every quarter. If they will not,

they must certainly take measures to defend themselves by their militia,

however expensive and ruinous the system." [Footnote: State Department

MSS., No. 147, Vol. V. Reports of Board of War. Letter of Washington,

June 8, 1781. It is impossible to study any part of the Revolutionary

struggle without coming to the conclusion that Washington would have

ended it in half the time it actually lasted, had the jangling States

and their governments, as well as the Continental Congress, backed him

up half as effectively as the Confederate people and government backed

up Lee, or as the Northerners and the Washington administration backed

up McClellan--still more as they backed up Grant. The whole of our

Revolutionary history is a running commentary on the anarchic weakness

of disunion, and the utter lack of liberty that follows in its train.]

It was impossible to state with more straightforward clearness the fact

that Kentucky owed the unprotected condition in which she was left, to

the divided or States-rights system of government that then existed; and

that she would have had ample protection--and incidentally greater

liberty--had the central authority been stronger.

Why his Efforts were Baffled.

At last, Clark was empowered to raise the men he wished, and he passed

and repassed from Fort Pitt to the Falls of the Ohio and thence to the

Illinois in the vain effort to get troops. The inertness and

shortsightedness of the frontiersmen, above all the exhaustion of the

States, and their timid selfishness and inability to enforce their

commands, baffled all of Clark's efforts. In his letters to Washington

he bitterly laments his enforced dependence upon "persuasive arguments

to draw the inhabitants of the country into the field." [Footnote: State

Department MSS. Letters to Washington, Vol. 49, p. 235, May 21, 1781.

The entire history of the western operations shows the harm done by the

weak and divided system of government that obtained at the time of the

Revolution, and emphasizes our good fortune in replacing it by a strong

and permanent Union.] The Kentuckians were anxious to do all in their

power, but of course only a comparatively small number could be spared

for so long a campaign from their scattered stockades. Around Pittsburg,

where he hoped to raise the bulk of his forces, the frontiersmen were

split into little factions by their petty local rivalries, the envy

their leaders felt of Clark himself, and the never-ending jealousies and

bickerings between the Virginians and Pennsylvanians. [Footnote:

Calendar of Virginia State Papers, I., pp. 502, 597, etc.; II., pp. 108,

116, 264, 345. The Kentuckians were far more eager for action than the

Pennsylvanians.]

The fort at the Falls, where Clark already had some troops, was

appointed as a gathering-place for the different detachments that were

to join him; but from one cause or another, all save one or two failed

to appear. Most of them did not even start, and one body of

Pennsylvanians that did go met with an untoward fate. This was a party

of a hundred Westmoreland men under their county-lieutenant, Col.

Archibald Loughry. They started down the Ohio in flat-boats, but having

landed on a sand bar to butcher and cook a buffalo that they had killed,

they were surprised by an equal number of Indians under Joseph Brant,

and being huddled together, were all slain or captured with small loss

to their assailants. [Footnote: At Loughry's Creek, some ten miles below

the mouth of the Miami, on August 24, 1781. Diary of Captain Isaac

Anderson, quoted in "Indiana Hist. Soc. Pamphlets, No. 4," by Charles

Martindale, Indianapolis, 1888. Collins, whose accuracy by no means

equals his thirst for pure detail, puts this occurrence just a year too

late. Brant's force was part of a body of several hundred Indians

gathered to resist Clark.] Many of the prisoners, including Loughry

himself, were afterwards murdered in cold blood by the Indians.

Fighting on the Frontier.

During this year the Indians continually harassed the whole frontier,

from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, ravaging the settlements and assailing

the forts in great bands of five or six hundred warriors. [Footnote: It

is most difficult to get at the number of the Indian parties; they were

sometimes grossly exaggerated and sometimes hopelessly underestimated.]

The Continental troops stationed at Fort Pitt were reduced to try every

expedient to procure supplies. Though it was evident that the numbers of

the hostile Indians had largely increased and that even such tribes as

the Delawares, who had been divided, were now united against the

Americans, nevertheless, because of the scarcity of food, a party of

soldiers had to be sent into the Indian country to kill buffalo, that

the garrison might have meat. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 147,

Vol. VI. Reports of Board of War. March 15, 1781.] The Indians

threatened to attack the fort itself, as well as the villages it

protected; passing around and on each side, their war parties ravaged

the country in its rear, distressing greatly the people; and from this

time until peace was declared with Great Britain, and indeed until long

after that event, the westernmost Pennsylvanians knew neither rest nor

safety. [Footnote: _Do_., No. 148, Vol. I.. January 4, 1781; No. 149,

Vol. I., August 6, 1782; No. 149, Vol. II., p. 461; No. 149, Vol. III.,

p. 183. Federal garrisons were occasionally established at, or withdrawn

from, other posts on the upper Ohio besides Fort Pitt; but their

movements had no permanent value, and only require chronicling by the

local, State, or county historians. In 1778 Fort McIntosh was built at

Beaver Creek, on the north bank of the Ohio, and Fort Laurens seventy

miles towards the interior. The latter was soon abandoned; the former

was in Pennsylvania, and a garrison was kept there.] Among many others

the forted village at Wheeling was again attacked. But its most

noteworthy siege occurred during the succeeding summer, when [Footnote:

The commanders at the unmolested forts and the statesmen who stayed at

home only saw those members of the tribes who claimed to be peaceful,

and invariably put the number of warriors on the warpath at far too low

a figure. Madison's estimates, for instance, were very much out of the

way, yet many modern critics follow him.] Simon Girty, with fife and

drum, led a large band of Indians and Detroit rangers against it, only

to be beaten off. The siege was rendered memorable by the heroism of a

girl, who carried powder from the stockade to an outlying log-house,

defended by four men; she escaped unscathed because of her very

boldness, in spite of the fire from so many rifles, and to this day the

mountaineers speak of her deed. [Footnote: See De Haas, 263-281, for the

fullest, and probably most accurate, account of the siege; as already

explained he is the most trustworthy of the border historians. But it is

absolutely impossible to find out the real facts concerning the sieges

of Wheeling; it is not quite certain even whether there were two or

three. The testimony as to whether the heroine of the powder feat was

Betty Zane or Molly Scott is hopelessly conflicting; we do not know

which of the two brothers Girty was in command, nor whether either was

present at the first attack. Much even of De Haas' account is, to put it

mildly, greatly embellished; as for instance his statement about the

cannon (a small French gun, thrown into the Monongahela when Fort Du

Quesne was abandoned, and fished up by a man named Naly, who was in

swimming), which he asserts cut "a wide passage" through the "deep

columns" of the savages. There is no reason to suppose that the Indians

suffered a serious loss. Wheeling was a place of little strategic

importance, and its fall would not have produced any far-reaching

effects.]

It would be tiresome and profitless to so much as name the many

different stations that were attacked. In their main incidents all the

various assaults were alike, and that made this summer on McAfee's

station may be taken as an illustration.

The Attack on McAfee's Station.

The McAfees brought their wives and children to Kentucky in the fall of

'79, and built a little stockaded hamlet on the banks of Salt River, six

or seven miles from Harrodsburg. Some relatives and friends joined them,

but their station was small and weak. The stockade, on the south side,

was very feeble, and there were but thirteen men, besides the women and

children, in garrison; but they were strong and active, good woodsmen,

and excellent marksmen. The attack was made on May 4, 1781. [Footnote:

McAfee MSS. This is the date given in the MS. "Autobiography of Robert

McAfee"; the MS. "History of First Settlement on Salt River" says May

6th. I draw my account from these two sources; the discrepancies are

trivial.]

The Indians lay all night at a corn-crib three-quarters of a mile

distant from the stockade. The settlers, though one of their number had

been carried off two months before, still continued their usual

occupations. But they were very watchful and always kept a sharp

look-out, driving the stock inside the yard at night. On the day in

question, at dawn, it was noticed that the dogs and cattle betrayed

symptoms of uneasiness; for all tame animals dreaded the sight or smell

of an Indian as they did that of a wild beast, and by their alarm often

warned the settlers and thus saved their lives.

In this case the warning was unheeded. At daybreak the stock were turned

loose and four of the men went outside the fort. Two began to clear a

patch of turnip-land about a hundred and fifty yards off, leaving their

guns against a tree close at hand. The other two started towards the

corn-crib, with a horse and bag. After going a quarter of a mile, the

path dipped into a hollow, and here they suddenly came on the Indians,

advancing stealthily toward the fort. At the first fire one of the men

was killed, and the horse, breaking loose, galloped back to the fort.

The other man likewise turned and ran towards home, but was confronted

by an Indian who leaped into the path directly ahead of him. The two

were so close together that the muzzles of their guns crossed, and both

pulled trigger at once; the Indian's gun missed fire and he fell dead in

his tracks. Continuing his flight, the survivor reached the fort in

safety.

When the two men in the turnip-patch heard the firing they seized their

guns and ran towards the point of attack, but seeing the number of the

assailants they turned back to the fort, trying to drive the frightened

stock before them. The Indians coming up close, they had to abandon the

attempt, although most of the horses and some of the cattle got safely

home. One of the men reached the gate ahead of the Indians; the other

was cut off, and took a roundabout route through the woods. He speedily

distanced all of his pursuers but one; several times he turned to shoot

the latter, but the Indian always took prompt refuge behind a tree, and

the white man then renewed his flight. At last he reach a fenced

orchard, on the border of the cleared ground round the fort. Throwing

himself over the fence he lay still among the weeds on the other side.

In a minute or two the pursuer, running up, cautiously peered over the

fence, and was instantly killed; he proved to be a Shawnee chief,

painted, and decked with many silver armlets, rings, and brooches. The

fugitive then succeeded in making his way into the fort.

The settlers inside the stockade had sprung to arms the moment the first

guns were heard. The men fired on the advancing Indians, while the women

and children ran bullets and made ready the rifle-patches. Every one

displayed the coolest determination and courage except one man who hid

under a bed, until found by his wife; whereupon he was ignominiously

dragged out and made to run bullets with the women.

As the Indians advanced they shot down most of the cattle and hogs and

some of the horses that were running frantically round the stockade; and

they likewise shot several dogs that had sallied out to help their

masters. They then made a rush on the fort, but were driven off at once,

one of their number being killed and several badly hurt, while but one

of the defenders was wounded, and he but slightly. After this they

withdrew to cover and began a desultory firing, which lasted for some

time.

Suddenly a noise like distant thunder came to the ears of the men in the

fort. It was the beat of horsehoofs. In a minute or two forty-five

horsemen, headed by McGarry, appeared on the road leading from

Harrodsburg, shouting and brandishing their rifles as they galloped up.

The morning was so still that the firing had been heard a very long way;

and a band of mounted riflemen had gathered in hot haste to go to the

relief of the beleaguered stockade.

The Indians, whooping defiance, retired; while McGarry halted a moment

to allow the rescued settlers to bridle their horses--saddles were not

thought of. The pursuit was then begun at full speed. At the ford of a

small creek near by, the rearmost Indians turned and fired at the

horsemen, killing one and wounding another, while a third had his horse

mired down, and was left behind. The main body was overtaken at the

corn-crib, and a running fight followed; the whites leaving their horses

and both sides taking shelter behind the tree-trunks. Soon two Indians

were killed, and the others scattered in every direction, while the

victors returned in triumph to the station.

Slight Losses of the Indians.

It is worthy of notice that though the Indians were defeated, and though

they were pitted against first-class rifle shots, they yet had but five

men killed and a very few wounded. They rarely suffered a heavy loss in

battle with the whites, even when beaten in the open or repulsed from a

fort. They would not stand heavy punishment, and in attacking a fort

generally relied upon a single headlong rush, made under cover of

darkness or as a surprise; they tried to unnerve their antagonists by

the sudden fury of their onslaught and the deafening accompaniment of

whoops and yells. If they began to suffer much loss they gave up at

once, and if pursued scattered in every direction, each man for himself,

and owing to their endurance, woodcraft, and skill in hiding, usually

got off with marvellously little damage. At the outside a dozen of their

men might be killed in the pursuit by such of the vengeful backwoodsmen

as were exceptionally fleet of foot. The northwestern tribes at this

time appreciated thoroughly that their marvellous fighting qualities

were shown to best advantage in the woods, and neither in the defence

nor in the assault of fortified places. They never cooped themselves in

stockades to receive an attack from the whites, as was done by the

Massachusetts Algonquins in the seventeenth century, and by the Creeks

at the beginning of the nineteenth; and it was only when behind

defensive works from which they could not retreat that the forest

Indians ever suffered heavily when defeated by the whites. On the other

hand, the defeat of the average white force was usually followed by a

merciless slaughter. Skilled backwoodsmen scattered out, Indian fashion,

but their less skilful or more panic-struck brethren, and all regulars

or ordinary militia, kept together from a kind of blind feeling of

safety in companionship, and in consequence their nimble and ruthless

antagonists destroyed them at their ease.

Indian War Parties Repulsed.

Still, the Indian war parties were often checked, or scattered; and

occasionally one of them received some signal discomfiture. Such was the

case with a band that went up the Kanawha valley just as Clark was

descending the Ohio on his way to the Illinois. Finding the fort at the

mouth of the Kanawha too strong to be carried, they moved on up the

river towards the Greenbriar settlements, their chiefs shouting

threateningly to the people in the fort, and taunting them with the

impending destruction of their friends and kindred. But two young men in

the stockade forthwith dressed and painted themselves like Indians, that

they might escape notice even if seen, and speeding through the woods

reached the settlements first and gave warning. The settlers took refuge

on a farm where there was a block-house with a stockaded yard. The

Indians attacked in a body at daybreak when the door was opened,

thinking to rush into the house; but they were beaten off, and paid dear

for their boldness, for seventeen of them were left dead in the yard,

besides the killed and wounded whom they carried away. [Footnote: McKee

was the commander at the fort; the block-house was owned by Col. Andrew

Donelly; Hanlon and Prior were the names of the two young men. This

happened in May, 1778. For the anecdotes of personal prowess in this

chapter see De Haas, or else Kercheval, McClung, Doddridge, and the

fifty other annalists of those western wars, who repeat many of the same

stories. All relate facts of undoubted authenticity and wildly

improbable tales, resting solely on tradition, with exactly the same

faith. The chronological order of these anecdotes being unimportant, I

have grouped them here. It must always be remembered that both the men

and the incidents described are interesting chiefly as examples; the old

annalists give many hundreds of such anecdotes, and there must have been

thousands more that they did not relate.] In the same year a block-house

was attacked while the children were playing outside. The Indians in

their sudden rush killed one settler, wounded four, and actually got

inside the house; yet three were killed or disabled, and they were

driven out by the despairing fury of the remaining whites, the women

fighting together with the men. Then the savages instantly fled, but

they had killed and scalped, or carried off, ten of the children. Be it

remembered that these instances are taken at random from among hundreds

of others, extending over a series of years longer than the average life

of a generation.

The Indians warred with the odds immeasurably in their favor. The Ohio

was the boundary between their remaining hunting-grounds and the lands

where the whites had settled. In Kentucky alone this frontier was

already seventy miles in length. [Footnote: Virginia State Papers, I.,

437. Letter of Col. John Floyd. The Kentuckians, he notices, trust

militia more than they do regulars.] Beyond the river stretched the

frowning forest, to the Indians a sure shield in battle, a secure haven

in disaster, an impenetrable mask from behind which to plan attack.

Nature of the Indian Forays.

Clark, from his post at the Falls, sent out spies and scouts along the

banks of the river, and patrolled its waters with his gun-boat; but it

was absolutely impossible to stop all the forays or to tell the point

likely to be next struck. A war party starting from the wigwam-towns

would move silently down through the woods, cross the Ohio at any point,

and stealthily and rapidly traverse the settlements, its presence

undiscovered until the deeds of murder and rapine were done, and its

track marked by charred cabins and the ghastly, mutilated bodies of men,

women, and children.

If themselves assailed, the warriors fought desperately and effectively.

They sometimes attacked bodies of troops, but always by ambush or

surprise; and they much preferred to pounce on unprepared and

unsuspecting surveyors, farmers, or wayfarers, or to creep up to

solitary, outlying cabins. They valued the scalps of women and children

as highly as those of men. Striking a sudden blow, where there was

hardly any possibility of loss to themselves, they instantly moved on to

the next settlement, repeating the process again and again. Tireless,

watchful, cautious, and rapid, they covered great distances, and their

stealth and the mystery of their coming and going added to the terror

produced by the horrible nature of their ravages. When pursued they

dextrously covered their trail, and started homewards across a hundred

leagues of trackless wilderness. The pursuers almost of necessity went

slower, for they had to puzzle out the tracks; and after a certain

number of days either their food gave out or they found themselves too

far from home, and were obliged to return. In most instances the pursuit

was vain. Thus a party of twenty savages might make a war-trail some

hundreds of miles in length, taking forty or fifty scalps, carrying off

a dozen women and children, and throwing a number of settlements, with

perhaps a total population of a thousand souls, into a rage of terror

and fury, with a loss to themselves of but one or two men killed and

wounded.

A Great War Band Threatens Kentucky

Throughout the summer of 1781 the settlers were scourged by an unbroken

series of raids of this kind. In August McKee, Brant, and other tory and

Indian leaders assembled on the Miami an army of perhaps a thousand

warriors. They were collected to oppose Clark's intended march to

Detroit; for the British leaders were well aware of Clark's intention,

and trusted to the savages to frustrate it if he attempted to put it

into execution. Brant went off for a scout with a hundred warriors, and

destroyed Loughry's party of Westmoreland men, as already related,

returning to the main body after having done so. The fickle savages were

much elated by this stroke, but instead of being inspired to greater

efforts, took the view that the danger of invasion was now over. After

much persuasion Brant, McKee, and the captain of the Detroit rangers,

Thompson, persuaded them to march towards the Falls. On September 9th

they were within thirty miles of their destination, and halted to send

out scouts. Two prisoners were captured, from whom it was learned that

Clark had abandoned his proposed expedition. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS.

Captain A. Thompson to De Peyster, September 26, 1781.] Instantly the

Indians began to disband, some returning to their homes, and others

scattering out to steal horses and burn isolated cabins. Nor could the

utmost efforts of their leaders keep them together. They had no wish to

fight Clark unless it was absolutely necessary, in order to save their

villages and crops from destruction; and they much preferred plundering

on their own account. However, a couple of hundred Hurons and Miamis,

under Brant and McKee, were kept together, and moved southwards between

the Kentucky and Salt rivers, intending "to attack some of the small

forts and infest the roads." [Footnote: _Do._ Captain A. McKee to De

Peyster, September 26, 1781.] About the middle of the month they fell in

with a party of settlers led by Squire Boon.

Squire Boon and Floyd Defeated.

Squire Boon had built a fort, some distance from any other, and when

rumors of a great Indian invasion reached him, he determined to leave it

and join the stations on Bear Grass Creek. When he reached Long Run,

with his men, women, and children, cattle, and household goods, he

stumbled against the two hundred warriors of McKee and Brant. His people

were scattered to the four winds, with the loss of many scalps and all

their goods and cattle. The victors camped on the ground with the

intention of ambushing any party that arrived to bury the dead; for they

were confident some of the settlers would come for this purpose. Nor

were they disappointed; for next morning Floyd, the county lieutenant,

with twenty-five men, made his appearance. Floyd marched so quickly that

he came on the Indians before they were prepared to receive him. A smart

skirmish ensued; but the whites were hopelessly outnumbered, and were

soon beaten and scattered, with a loss of twelve or thirteen men. Floyd

himself, exhausted and with his horse shot, would have been captured had

not another man, one Samuel Wells, who was excellently mounted, seen his

plight. Wells reined in, leaped off his horse, and making Floyd ride, he

ran beside him, and both escaped. The deed was doubly noble, because the

men had previously been enemies. [Footnote: Marshall, I., 116. Floyd had

previously written Jefferson (Virginia State Papers, I., 47) that in his

county there were but three hundred and fifty-four militia between

sixteen and fifty-four years old; that all people were living in forts,

and that forty-seven of the settlers of all ages had been killed, and

many wounded, since January; so his defeat was a serious blow.] The

frontiersmen had made a good defence in spite of the tremendous odds

against them, and had slain four of their opponents, three Hurons and a

Miami. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Thompson's letter; McKee only mentions

the three Hurons. As already explained, the partisan leaders were apt,

in enumerating the Indian losses, only to give such as had occurred in

their own particular bands. Marshall makes the fight take place in

April; the Haldimand MSS. show that it was in September. Marshall is as

valuable for early Kentucky history as Haywood for the corresponding

periods in Tennessee; but both one and the other write largely from

tradition, and can never be followed when they contradict contemporary

reports.] Among the former was the head chief, a famous warrior; his

death so discouraged the Indians that they straightway returned home

with their scalps and plunder, resisting McKee's entreaty that they

would first attack Boonsborough.

One war party carried off Logan's family; but Logan, following swiftly

after, came on the savages so suddenly that he killed several of their

number, and rescued all his own people unhurt. [Footnote: Bradford MSS.]

Complicity of the British.

Often French Canadians, and more rarely tories, accompanied these little

bands of murderous plunderers [Footnote: At this very time a small band

that had captured a family in the Kanawha valley were pursued fifty

miles, overtaken, several killed and wounded, and the prisoners

recaptured, by Col. Andrew Donelly, mentioned in a previous note; it

consisted of two French and eight Indians. Virginia State Papers, I.,

601.]--besides the companies of Detroit rangers who went with the large

war parties--and they were all armed and urged on by the British at

Detroit. One of the official British reports to Lord George Germaine,

made on October 23d of this year, deals with the Indian war parties

employed against the northwestern frontier. "Many smaller Indian parties

have been very successful.... It would be endless and difficult to

enumerate to your Lordship the parties that are continually employed

upon the back settlements. From the Illinois country to the frontiers of

New York there is a continual succession... the perpetual terror and

losses of the inhabitants will I hope operate powerfully in our

favor" [Footnote: See full copy of the letter in Mr. Martindale's

excellent pamphlet, above quoted.];--so runs the letter. At the same

time the British commander in Canada was pointing out to his subordinate

at Detroit that the real danger to British rule arose from the extension

of the settlements westwards, and that this the Indians could prevent

[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to De Peyster, June 24, 1781.

Throughout the letters of the British officers at and near Detroit there

are constant allusions to scalps being brought in; but not one word, as

far as I have seen, to show that the Indians were ever reproved because

many of the scalps were those of women and children. It is only fair to

say, however, that there are several instances of the commanders

exhorting the Indians to be merciful--which was a waste of breath,--and

several other instances where successful efforts were made to stop the

use of torture. The British officers were generally personally humane to

their prisoners.]; in other words, the savages were expressly directed

to make war on non-combatants, for it was impossible to attack a

settlement without attacking the women and children therein. In return

the frontiersmen speedily grew to regard both British and Indians with

the same venomous and indiscriminate anger.

Nature of the Ceaseless Strife

In the writings of the early annalists of these Indian wars are to be

found the records of countless deeds of individual valor and cowardice,

prowess and suffering, of terrible woe in time of disaster and defeat,

and of the glutting of ferocious vengeance in the days of triumphant

reprisal. They contain tales of the most heroic courage and of the

vilest poltroonery; for the iron times brought out all that was best and

all that was basest in the human breast. We read of husbands leaving

their wives, and women their children, to the most dreadful of fates, on

the chance that they themselves might thereby escape; and on the other

hand, we read again and again of the noblest acts of self-sacrifice,

where the man freely gave his life for that of his wife or child, his

brother or his friend. Many deeds of unflinching loyalty are recorded,

but very, very few where magnanimity was shown to a fallen foe. The

women shared the stern qualities of the men; often it happened that,

when the house-owner had been shot down, his wife made good the defence

of the cabin with rifle or with axe, hewing valiantly at the savages who

tried to break through the door, or dig under the puncheon floor, or,

perhaps, burst down through the roof or wide chimney. Many hundreds of

these tales could be gathered together; one or two are worth giving, not

as being unique, but rather as samples of innumerable others of the same

kind.

Feat of the Two Poes.

In those days [Footnote: 1781, De Haas; Doddridge, whom the other

compilers follow, gives a wrong date (1782), and reverses the parts the

two brothers played.] there lived beside the Ohio, in extreme

northwestern Virginia, two tall brothers, famed for their strength,

agility, and courage. They were named Adam and Andrew Poe. In the summer

of '81 a party of seven Wyandots or Hurons came into their settlement,

burned some cabins, and killed one of the settlers. Immediately eight

backwoodsmen started in chase of the marauders; among them were the two

Poes.

The Wyandots were the bravest of all the Indian tribes, the most

dangerous in battle, and the most merciful in victory, rarely torturing

their prisoners; the backwoodsmen respected them for their prowess more

than they did any other tribe, and, if captured, esteemed themselves

fortunate to fall into Wyandot hands. These seven warriors were the most

famous and dreaded of the whole tribe. They included four brothers, one

being the chief Bigfoot, who was of gigantic strength and stature, the

champion of all, their most fearless and redoubtable fighter. Yet their

very confidence ruined them, for they retreated in a leisurely manner,

caring little whether they were overtaken or not, as they had many times

worsted the whites, and did not deem them their equals in battle.

The backwoodsmen followed the trail swiftly all day long, and, by the

help of the moon, late into the night. Early next morning they again

started and found themselves so near the Wyandots that Andrew Poe turned

aside and went down to the bed of a neighboring stream, thinking to come

up behind the Indians while they were menaced by his comrades in front.

Hearing a low murmur, he crept up through the bushes to a jutting rock

on the brink of the watercourse, and peering cautiously over, he saw two

Indians beneath him. They were sitting under a willow, talking in deep

whispers; one was an ordinary warrior, the other, by his gigantic size,

was evidently the famous chief himself. Andrew took steady aim at the

big chiefs breast and pulled trigger. The rifle flashed in the pan; and

the two Indians sprang to their feet with a deep grunt of surprise. For

a second all three stared at one another. Then Andrew sprang over the

rock, striking the big Indian's breast with a shock that bore him to the

earth; while at the moment of alighting, he threw his arm round the

small Indian's neck, and all three rolled on the ground together.

At this instant they heard sharp firing in the woods above them. The

rest of the whites and Indians had discovered one another at the same

time. A furious but momentary fight ensued; three backwoodsmen and four

Indians were killed outright, no other white being hurt, while the

single remaining red warrior made his escape, though badly wounded. But

the three men who were struggling for life and death in the ravine had

no time to pay heed to outside matters. For a moment Andrew kept down

both his antagonists, who were stunned by the shock; but before he could

use his knife the big Indian wrapped him in his arms and held him as if

in a vise. This enabled the small Indian to wrest himself loose, when

the big chief ordered him to run for his tomahawk, which lay on the sand

ten feet away, and to kill the white man as he lay powerless in the

chiefs arms. Andrew could not break loose, but watching his chance, as

the small Indian came up, he kicked him so violently in the chest that

he knocked the tomahawk out of his hand and sent him staggering into the

water. Thereat the big chief grunted out his contempt, and thundered at

the small Indian a few words that Andrew could not understand. The small

Indian again approached and after making several feints, struck with the

tomahawk, but Andrew dodged and received the blow on his wrist instead

of his head; and the wound though deep was not disabling. By a sudden

and mighty effort he now shook himself free from the giant, and

snatching up a loaded rifle from the sand, shot the small Indian as he

rushed on him. But at that moment the larger Indian, rising up, seized

him and hurled him to the ground. He was on his feet in a second, and

the two grappled furiously, their knives being lost; Andrew's activity

and skill as a wrestler and boxer making amends for his lack of

strength. Locked in each other's arms they rolled into the water. Here

each tried to drown the other, and Andrew catching the chief by the

scalp lock held his head under the water until his faint struggles

ceased. Thinking his foe dead, he loosed his grip to try to get at his

knife, but, as Andrew afterwards said, the Indian had only been "playing

possum," and in a second the struggle was renewed. Both combatants

rolled into deep water, when they separated and struck out for the

shore. The Indian proved the best swimmer, and ran up to the rifle that

lay on the sand, whereupon Andrew turned to swim out into the stream,

hoping to save his life by diving. At this moment his brother Adam

appeared on the bank, and seeing Andrew covered with blood and swimming

rapidly away, mistook him for an Indian, and shot him in the shoulder.

Immediately afterwards he saw his real antagonist. Both had empty guns,

and the contest became one as to who could beat the other in loading,

the Indian exclaiming: "Who load first, shoot first!" The chief got his

powder down first, but, in hurriedly drawing out his ramrod, it slipped

through his fingers and fell in the river. Seeing that it was all over,

he instantly faced his foe, pulled open the bosom of his shirt, and the

next moment received the ball fair in his breast. Adam, alarmed for his

brother, who by this time could barely keep himself afloat, rushed into

the river to save him, not heeding Andrew's repeated cries to take the

big Indian's scalp. Meanwhile the dying chief, resolute to save the long

locks his enemies coveted--always a point of honor among the red

men,--painfully rolled himself into the stream. Before he died he

reached the deep water, and the swift current bore his body away.

Other Feats of Personal Prowess

About this time a hunter named McConnell was captured near Lexington by

five Indians. At night he wriggled out of his bonds and slew four of his

sleeping captors, while the fifth, who escaped, was so bewildered that,

on reaching the Indian town, he reported that his party had been

attacked at night by a number of whites, who had not only killed his

companions but the prisoner likewise.

A still more remarkable event had occurred a couple of summers

previously. Some keel boats, manned by a hundred men under Lieutenant

Rogers, and carrying arms and provisions procured from the Spaniards at

New Orleans, were set upon by an Indian war party under Girty and

Elliott, [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, November 1,

1779.] while drawn up on a sand beach of the Ohio. The boats were

captured and plundered, and most of the men were killed; several

escaped, two under very extraordinary circumstances. One had both his

arms, the other both his legs, broken. They lay hid till the Indians

disappeared, and then accidentally discovered each other. For weeks the

two crippled beings lived in the lonely spot where the battle had been

fought, unable to leave it, each supplementing what the other could do.

The man who could walk kicked wood to him who could not, that he might

make a fire, and making long circuits, chased the game towards him for

him to shoot it. At last they were taken off by a passing flat-boat.

The backwoodsmen, wonted to vigorous athletic pastimes, and to fierce

brawls among themselves, were generally overmatches for the Indians in

hand-to-hand struggles. One such fight, that took place some years

before this time, deserves mention. A man of herculean strength and of

fierce, bold nature, named Bingaman, lived on the frontier in a lonely

log-house. The cabin had but a single room below, in which Bingaman

slept, as well as his mother, wife, and child; a hired man slept in the

loft. One night eight Indians assailed the house. As they burst in the

door Bingaman thrust the women and the child under the bed, his wife

being wounded by a shot in the breast. Then having discharged his piece

he began to beat about at random with the long heavy rifle. The door

swung partially to, and in the darkness nothing could be seen. The

numbers of the Indians helped them but little, for Bingaman's tremendous

strength enabled him to shake himself free whenever grappled. One after

another his foes sank under his crushing blows, killed or crippled; it

is said that at last but one was left to flee from the house in terror.

The hired man had not dared to come down from the loft, and when

Bingaman found his wife wounded he became so enraged that it was with

difficulty he could be kept from killing him. [Footnote: It is curious

how faithfully, as well as vividly, Cooper has reproduced these

incidents. His pictures of the white frontiersmen are generally true to

life; in his most noted Indian characters he is much less fortunate. But

his "Indian John" in the "Pioneers" is one of his best portraits; almost

equal praise can he given to Susquesus in the "Chainbearers."]

Incidents such as these followed one another in quick succession. They

deserve notice less for their own sakes than as examples of the way the

West was won; for the land was really conquered not so much by the

actual shock of battle between bodies of soldiers, as by the continuous

westward movement of the armed settlers and the unceasing individual

warfare waged between them and their red foes.

For the same reason one or two of the more noted hunters and Indian

scouts deserve mention, as types of hundreds of their fellows, who spent

their lives and met their deaths in the forest. It was their warfare

that really did most to diminish the fighting force of the tribes. They

battled exactly as their foes did, making forays, alone or in small

parties, for scalps and horses, and in their skirmishes inflicted as

much loss as they received; in striking contrast to what occurred in

conflicts between the savages and regular troops.

The Hunter Wetzel.

One of the most formidable of these hunters was Lewis Wetzel. [Footnote:

The name is variously spelt; in the original German records of the

family it appears as Wätzel, or Watzel.] Boon, Kenton, and Harrod

illustrate by their lives the nobler, kindlier traits of the dauntless

border-folk; Wetzel, like McGarry, shows the dark side of the picture.

He was a good friend to his white neighbors, or at least to such of them

as he liked, and as a hunter and fighter there was not in all the land

his superior. But he was of brutal and violent temper, and for the

Indians he knew no pity and felt no generosity. They had killed many of

his friends and relations, among others his father; and he hunted them

in peace or war like wolves. His admirers denied that he ever showed

"unwonted cruelty" [Footnote: De Haas, 345.] to Indian women and

children; that he sometimes killed them cannot be gainsaid. Some of his

feats were cold-blooded murders, as when he killed an Indian who came in

to treat with General Harmar, under pledge of safe conduct; one of his

brothers slew in like fashion a chief who came to see Col. Brodhead. But

the frontiersmen loved him, for his mere presence was a protection, so

great was the terror he inspired among the red men. His hardihood and

address were only equalled by his daring and courage. He was literally a

man without fear; in his few days of peace his chief amusements were

wrestling, foot-racing, and shooting at a mark. He was a dandy, too,

after the fashion of the backwoods, especially proud of his mane of long

hair, which, when he let it down, hung to his knees. He often hunted

alone in the Indian country, a hundred miles beyond the Ohio. As he

dared not light a bright fire on these trips, he would, on cold nights,

make a small coal-pit, and cower over it, drawing his blanket over his

head, when, to use his own words, he soon became as hot as in a "stove

room." Once he surprised four Indians sleeping in their camp; falling on

them he killed three. Another time, when pursued by the same number of

foes, he loaded his rifle as he ran, and killed in succession the three

foremost, whereat the other fled. In all, he took over thirty scalps of

warriors, thus killing more Indians than were slain by either one of the

two large armies of Braddock and St. Clair during their disastrous

campaigns. Wetzel's frame, like his heart, was of steel. But his temper

was too sullen and unruly for him ever to submit to command or to bear

rule over others. His feats were performed when he was either alone or

with two or three associates. An army of such men would have been wholly

valueless.

Brady and his Scouts.

Another man, of a far higher type, was Captain Samuel Brady, already a

noted Indian fighter on the Alleghany. For many years after the close of

the Revolutionary war he was the chief reliance of the frontiersmen of

his own neighborhood. He had lost a father and a brother by the Indians;

and in return he followed the red men with relentless hatred. But he

never killed peaceful Indians nor those who came in under flags of

truce. The tale of his wanderings, his captivities, his hairbreadth

escapes, and deeds of individual prowess would fill a book. He

frequently went on scouts alone, either to procure information or to get

scalps. On these trips he was not only often reduced to the last

extremity by hunger, fatigue, and exposure, but was in hourly peril of

his life from the Indians he was hunting. Once he was captured; but when

about to be bound to the stake for burning, he suddenly flung an Indian

boy into the fire, and in the confusion burst through the warriors, and

actually made his escape, though the whole pack of yelling savages

followed at his heels with rifle and tomahawk. He raised a small company

of scouts or rangers, and was one of the very few captains able to

reduce the unruly frontiersmen to order. In consequence his company on

several occasions fairly whipped superior numbers of Indians in the

woods; a feat that no regulars could perform, and to which the

backwoodsmen themselves were generally unequal, even though an overmatch

for their foes singly, because of their disregard of discipline.

[Footnote: In the open plain the comparative prowess of these forest

Indians, of the backwoodsmen, and of trained regulars was exactly the

reverse of what it was in the woods.]

So, with foray and reprisal, and fierce private war, with all the border

in a flame, the year 1781 came to an end. At its close there were in

Kentucky seven hundred and sixty able-bodied militia, fit for an

offensive campaign. [Footnote: Letter of John Todd, October 21, 1781.

Virginia State Papers, II., 562. The troops at the Falls were in a very

destitute condition, with neither supplies nor money, and their credit

worn threadbare, able to get nothing from the surrounding country

(_do_., p. 313). In Clark's absence the colonel let his garrison be

insulted by the townspeople, and so brought the soldiers into contempt,

while some of the demoralized officers tampered with the public stores.

It was said that much dissipation prevailed in the garrison, to which

accusation Clark answered sarcastically: "However agreeable such conduct

might have been to their sentiments, I believe they seldom had the means

in their power, for they were generally in a starving condition" (_do_.,

Vol. III., pp. 347 and 359).] As this did not include the troops at the

Falls, nor the large shifting population, nor the "fort soldiers," the

weaker men, graybeards, and boys, who could handle a rifle behind a

stockade, it is probable that there were then somewhere between four and

five thousand souls in Kentucky.