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by Theodore Roosevelt

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Title: The Winning of the West, Volume Two
       From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783

Author: Theodore Roosevelt

Release Date: April 7, 2004 [EBook #11942]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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Produced by Mark Hamann, Terry Gilliland and PG Distributed Proofreaders




PRESIDENTIAL EDITION

THE WINNING OF THE WEST

BY

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

VOLUME TWO

FROM THE ALLEGHANIES TO THE MISSISSIPPI 1777-1783

WITH MAPS





THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH HIS PERMISSION TO

FRANCIS PARKMAN

TO WHOM AMERICANS WHO FEEL A PRIDE IN THE PIONEER HISTORY OF THEIR
COUNTRY ARE SO GREATLY INDEBTED


CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I.--THE WAR IN THE NORTHWEST, 1777-1778.

II.--CLARK'S CONQUEST OF THE ILLINOIS, 1778.

III.--CLARK'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST VINCENNES, 1779.

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

V.--THE MORAVIAN MASSACRE, 1779-1782.

VI.--THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE CONQUERED FRENCH SETTLEMENTS, 1779-1783.

VII.--KENTUCKY UNTIL THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 1782-1783.

VIII.--THE HOLSTON SETTLEMENTS, 1777-1779.

IX--KING'S MOUNTAIN, 1780.

X.--THE HOLSTON SETTLEMENTS TO THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 1781-1783.

XI.--ROBERTSON FOUNDS THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENT, 1779-1780.

XII.--THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENTS TO THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION,
1781-1783.

XIII.--WHAT THE WESTERNERS HAD DONE DURING THE REVOLUTION.

APPENDICES:

    APPENDIX A--To CHAPTER I.
    APPENDIX B--To CHAPTER II.
    APPENDIX C--To CHAPTER III.
    APPENDIX D--To CHAPTER IV.
    APPENDIX E--To CHAPTER VII.
    APPENDIX F--To CHAPTER VII.
    APPENDIX G--To CHAPTER X.
    APPENDIX H--To CHAPTER XII.
    APPENDIX I--To CHAPTER XIII.
    APPENDIX J--To CHAPTER XIII.

INDEX


[Illustration: The Colonies in 1774, when the First Continental Congress
assembled. The heavy line marks roughly the extension of population
westward. Based on a map by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.]

[Illustration: The States in 1783, when peace was declared. Based on a
map by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.]




CHAPTER I.

THE WAR IN THE NORTHWEST, 1777-1778.

    The Tribes Hold Councils at Detroit.

In the fall of 1776 it became evident that a formidable Indian war was
impending. At Detroit great councils were held by all the northwestern
tribes, to whom the Six Nations sent the white belt of peace, that they
might cease their feuds and join against the Americans. The
later councils were summoned by Henry Hamilton, the British
lieutenant-governor of the northwestern region, whose head-quarters were
at Detroit. He was an ambitious, energetic, unscrupulous man, of bold
character, who wielded great influence over the Indians; and the conduct
of the war in the west, as well as the entire management of frontier
affairs, was intrusted to him by the British Government. [Footnote:
Haldimand MSS. Sir Guy Carleton to Hamilton, September 26, 1777.] He had
been ordered to enlist the Indians on the British side, and have them
ready to act against the Americans in the spring; [Footnote: _Do_.,
Carleton to Hamilton, October 6, 1776.] and accordingly he gathered the
tribes together. He himself took part in the war-talks, plying the
Indians with presents and fire-water no less than with speeches and
promises. The headmen of the different tribes, as they grew excited,
passed one another black, red or bloody, and tomahawk belts, as tokens
of the vengeance to be taken on their white foes. One Delaware chief
still held out for neutrality, announcing that if he had to side with
either set of combatants it would be with the "buckskins," or
backwoodsmen, and not with the red-coats; but the bulk of the warriors
sympathized with the Half King of the Wyandots when he said that the
Long Knives had for years interfered with the Indians' hunting, and that
now at last it was the Indians' turn to threaten revenge. [Footnote: "Am.
Archives," 1st Series, Vol. II., p. 517. There were several councils
held at Detroit during this fall, and it is difficult--and not very
important--to separate the incidents that occurred at each. Some took
place before Hamilton arrived, which, according to his "brief account,"
was November 9th. He asserts that he did not send out war parties until
the following June; but the testimony seems conclusive that he was
active in instigating hostility from the time of his arrival.]


    Lt-Gov. Henry Hamilton.     Scalp Buying.

Hamilton was for the next two years the mainspring of Indian hostility
to the Americans in the northwest. From the beginning he had been
anxious to employ the savages against the settlers, and when the home
government bade him hire them he soon proved himself very expert, as
well as very ruthless, in their use. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Germaine
to Carlton, March 26, 1777.] He rapidly acquired the venomous hatred of
the backwoodsmen, who held him in peculiar abhorrence, and nicknamed him
the "hair-buyer" general, asserting that he put a price on the scalps of
the Americans. This allegation may have been untrue as affecting
Hamilton personally; he always endeavored to get the war parties to
bring in prisoners, and behaved well to the captives when they were in
his power; nor is there any direct evidence that he himself paid out
money for scalps. But scalps were certainly bought and paid for at
Detroit; [Footnote: See the "American Pioneer," I., 292, for a very
curious account of an Indian, who by dividing a large scalp into two got
fifty dollars for each half at Detroit.] and the commandant himself was
accustomed to receive them with formal solemnity at the councils held to
greet the war parties when they returned from successful
raids. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS; _passim;_ also Heckewelder, etc.] The
only way to keep the friendship of the Indians was continually to give
them presents; these presents were naturally given to the most
successful warriors; and the scalps were the only safe proofs of a
warrior's success. Doubtless the commandant and the higher British
officers generally treated the Americans humanely when they were brought
into contact with them; and it is not likely that they knew, or were
willing to know, exactly what the savages did in all cases. But they at
least connived at the measures of their subordinates. These were
hardened, embittered, men who paid for the zeal of their Indian allies
accordingly as they received tangible proof thereof; in other words,
they hired them to murder non-combatants as well as soldiers, and paid
for each life, of any sort, that was taken. The fault lay primarily with
the British Government, and with those of its advisers who, like
Hamilton, advocated the employment of the savages. They thereby became
participants in the crimes committed; and it was idle folly for them to
prate about having bidden the savages be merciful. The sin consisted in
having let them loose on the borders; once they were let loose it was
absolutely impossible to control them. Moreover, the British sinned
against knowledge; for some of their highest and most trusted officers
on the frontier had written those in supreme command, relating the
cruelties practised by the Indians upon the defenceless, and urging that
they should not be made allies, but rather that their neutrality only
should be secured. [Footnote:  E. g. in Haldimand MSS. Lieut.-Gov. Abbott
to General Carleton, June 8, 1778.]  The average American backwoodsman
was quite as brutal and inconsiderate a victor as the average British
officer; in fact, he was in all likelihood the less humane of the two;
but the Englishman deliberately made the deeds of the savage his own.
Making all allowance for the strait in which the British found
themselves, and admitting that much can be said against their accusers,
the fact remains that they urged on hordes of savages to slaughter men,
women, and children along the entire frontier; and for this there must
ever rest a dark stain on their national history.

Hamilton organized a troop of white rangers from among the French,
British, and Tories at Detroit. They acted as allies of the Indians, and
furnished leaders to them. Three of these leaders were the tories McKee,
Elliot, and Girty, who had fled together from Pittsburg [Footnote:
Haldimand MSS. Hamilton's letter, April 25. 1778. "April the 20th-Edward
Hayle (who had undertaken to carry a letter from me to the Moravian
Minister at Kushayhking) returned, having executed his commission--he
brought me a letter & newspapers from Mr. McKee who was Indian Agent for
the Crown and has been a long time in the hands of the Rebels at Fort
Pitt, at length has found means to make his escape with three other men,
two of the name of Girty (mentioned in Lord Dunmore's list) interpreters
& Matthew Elliott the young man who was last summer sent down from this
place a prisoner.--This last person I am informed has been at New York
since he left Quebec, and probably finding the change in affairs
unfavourable to the Rebels, has slipp'd away to make his peace here.

"23d--Hayle went off again to conduct them all safe through the Villages
having a letter & Wampum for that purpose.  Alexander McKee is a man of
good character, and has great influence with the Shawanese is well
acquainted with the country & can probably give some useful
intelligence, he will probably reach this place in a few days."] they
all three warred against their countrymen with determined ferocity.
Girty won the widest fame on the border by his cunning and cruelty; but
he was really a less able foe than the two others. McKee in particular
showed himself a fairly good commander of Indians and irregular troops;
as did likewise an Englishman named Caldwell, and two French partisans,
De Quindre and Lamothe, who were hearty supporters of the British.

    The British Begin a War of Extermination.

Hamilton and his subordinates, both red and white, were engaged in what
was essentially an effort to exterminate the borderers. They were not
endeavoring merely to defeat the armed bodies of the enemy. They were
explicitly bidden by those in supreme command to push back the frontier,
to expel the settlers from the country. Hamilton himself had been
ordered by his immediate official superior to assail the borders of
Pennsylvania and Virginia with his savages, to destroy the crops and
buildings of the settlers who had advanced beyond the mountains, and to
give to his Indian allies,--the Hurons, Shawnees, and other tribes,--all
the land of which they thus took possession. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS.
Haldimand to Hamilton, August 6, 1778.] With such allies as Hamilton
had this order was tantamount to proclaiming a war of extermination,
waged with appalling and horrible cruelty against the settlers, of all
ages and sexes. It brings out in bold relief the fact that in the west
the war of the Revolution was an effort on the part of Great Britain to
stop the westward growth of the English race in America, and to keep the
region beyond the Alleghanies as a region where only savages should
dwell.


    All the Northwestern Tribes go to War.

All through the winter of '76-77 the northwestern Indians were preparing
to take up the tomahawk. Runners were sent through the leafless, frozen
woods from one to another of their winter camps. In each bleak, frail
village, each snow-hidden cluster of bark wigwams, the painted,
half-naked warriors danced the war dance, and sang the war song, beating
the ground with their war clubs and keeping time with their feet to the
rhythmic chant as they moved in rings round the peeled post, into which
they struck their hatchets. The hereditary sachems, the peace chiefs,
could no longer control the young men. The braves made ready their
weapons and battle gear; their bodies were painted red and black, the
plumes of the war eagle were braided into their long scalp locks, and
some put on necklaces of bears' claws, and head-dresses made of panther
skin, or of the shaggy and horned frontlet of the buffalo. [Footnote:
For instances of an Indian wearing this buffalo cap, with the horns on,
see Kercheval and De Haas.]

Before the snow was off the ground the war parties crossed the Ohio and
fell on the frontiers from the Monongahela and Kanawha to the Kentucky.
[Footnote:  State Department MSS. for 1777, _passim_. So successful were
the Indian chiefs in hoodwinking the officers at Fort Pitt that some of
the latter continued to believe that only three or four hundred Indians
had gone on the war path.]

On the Pennsylvanian and Virginian frontiers the panic was tremendous.
The people fled into the already existing forts, or hastily built
others; where there were but two or three families in a place, they
merely gathered into block-houses--stout log-cabins two stories high,
with loop-holed walls, and the upper story projecting a little over the
lower. The savages, well armed with weapons supplied them from the
British arsenals on the Great Lakes, spread over the country; and there
ensued all the horrors incident to a war waged as relentlessly against
the most helpless non-combatants as against the armed soldiers in the
field. Block-houses were surprised and burnt; bodies of militia were
ambushed and destroyed. The settlers were shot down as they sat by their
hearth-stones in the evening, or ploughed the ground during the day; the
lurking Indians crept up and killed them while they still-hunted the
deer, or while they lay in wait for the elk beside the well-beaten game
trails.

The captured women and little ones were driven off to the far interior.
The weak among them, the young children, and the women heavy with child,
were tomahawked and scalped as soon as their steps faltered. The
able-bodied, who could stand the terrible fatigue, and reached their
journey's end, suffered various fates. Some were burned at the stake,
others were sold to the French or British traders, and long afterwards
made their escape, or were ransomed by their relatives. Still others
were kept in the Indian camps, the women becoming the slaves or wives of
the warriors, [Footnote:  Occasionally we come across records of the
women afterwards making their escape; very rarely they took their
half-breed babies with them. De Haas mentions one such case where the
husband, though he received his wife well, always hated the
copper-colored addition to his family; the latter, by the way, grew up a
thorough Indian, could not be educated, and finally ran away, joined the
Revolutionary army, and was never heard of afterwards.] while the
children were adopted into the tribe, and grew up precisely like their
little red-skinned playmates. Sometimes, when they had come to full
growth, they rejoined the whites; but generally they were enthralled by
the wild freedom and fascination of their forest life, and never forsook
their adopted tribesmen, remaining inveterate foes of their own color.
Among the ever-recurring: tragedies of the frontier, not the least
sorrowful was the recovery of these long-missing children by their
parents, only to find that they had lost all remembrance of and love for
their father and mother, and had become irreclaimable savages, who
eagerly grasped the first chance to flee from the intolerable
irksomeness and restraint of civilized life. [Footnote: For an instance
where a boy finally returned, see "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers," p. 119;
see also pp. 126, 132, 133, for instances of the capture and treatment
of whites by Indians.]

    The Attack on Wheeling.

Among others, the stockade at Wheeling [Footnote: Fort Henry. For an
account of the siege, see De Haas, pp. 223-340. It took place in the
early days of September.] was attacked by two or three hundred Indians;
with them came a party of Detroit Rangers, marshalled by drum and fife,
and carrying the British colors. [Footnote The accounts of the different
sieges of Wheeling were first written down from the statements of the
pioneers when they had grown very aged. In consequence, there is much
uncertainty as to the various incidents. Thus there seems to be a doubt
whether Girty did or did not command the Indians in this first siege.
The frontiersmen hated Girty as they did no other man, and he was
credited with numerous actions done by other white leaders of the
Indians; the British accounts say comparatively little about him. He
seems to have often fought with the Indians as one of their own number,
while his associates led organized bands of rangers; he was thus more
often brought into contact with the frontiersmen, but was really hardly
as dangerous a foe to them as were one or two of his tory companions.]
Most of the men inside the fort were drawn out by a stratagem, fell into
an ambuscade, and were slain; but the remainder made good the defence,
helped by the women, who ran the lead into bullets, cooled and loaded
the guns, and even, when the rush was made, assisted to repel it by
firing through the loopholes. After making a determined effort to storm
the stockade, in which some of the boldest warriors were slain while
trying in vain to batter down the gates with heavy timbers, the baffled
Indians were obliged to retire discomfited. The siege was chiefly
memorable because of an incident which is to this day a staple theme for
story-telling in the cabins of the mountaineers. One of the leading men
of the neighborhood was Major Samuel McColloch, renowned along the
border as the chief in a family famous for its Indian fighters, the
dread and terror of the savages, many of whose most noted warriors he
slew, and at whose hands he himself, in the end, met his death. When
Wheeling was invested, he tried to break into it, riding a favorite old
white horse. But the Indians intercepted him, and hemmed him in on the
brink of an almost perpendicular slope, [Footnote: The hill overlooks
Wheeling; the slope has now much crumbled away, and in consequence has
lost its steepness.] some three hundred feet high. So sheer was the
descent that they did not dream any horse could go down it, and instead
of shooting they advanced to capture the man whom they hated. McColloch
had no thought of surrendering, to die by fire at the stake, and he had
as little hope of resistance against so many foes. Wheeling short round,
he sat back in the saddle, shifted his rifle into his right hand, reined
in his steed, and spurred him over the brink. The old horse never
faltered, but plunged headlong down the steep, boulder-covered,
cliff-broken slope. Good luck, aided by the wonderful skill of the rider
and the marvellous strength and sure-footedness of his steed, rewarded,
as it deserved, one of the most daring feats of horsemanship of which we
have any authentic record. There was a crash, the shock of a heavy body,
half springing, half falling, a scramble among loose rocks, and the
snapping of saplings and bushes; and in another moment the awe-struck
Indians above saw their unharmed foe, galloping his gallant white horse
in safety across the plain. To this day the place is known by the name
of McColloch's leap. [Footnote: In the west this feat is as well known as
is Putnam's similar deed in the north.]

In Virginia and Pennsylvania the Indian outrages meant only the
harassing of the borderers; in Kentucky they threatened the complete
destruction of the vanguard of the white advance and, therefore the
stoppage of all settlement west of the Alleghanies until after the
Revolutionary war, when very possibly the soil might not have been ours
to settle. Fortunately Hamilton did not yet realize the importance of
the Kentucky settlements, nor the necessity of crushing them, and during
1777 the war bands organized at Detroit were sent against the country
round Pittsburg; while the feeble forts in the far western wilderness
were only troubled by smaller war parties raised among the tribes on
their own account. A strong expedition, led by Hamilton in person, would
doubtless at this time have crushed them.

    The Struggle in Kentucky.

As it was, there were still so few whites in Kentucky that they were
greatly outnumbered by the invading Indians. They were, in consequence,
unable to meet the enemy in the open field, and gathered in their
stations or forted villages. Therefore the early conflicts, for the most
part, took the form of sieges of these wooden forts. Such sieges, had
little in common with the corresponding operations of civilized armies.
The Indians usually tried to surprise a fort; if they failed, they
occasionally tried to carry it by open assault, or by setting fire to
it, but very rarely, indeed, beleaguered it in form. For this they
lacked both the discipline and the commissariat. Accordingly, if their
first rush miscarried, they usually dispersed in the woods to hunt, or
look for small parties of whites; always, however, leaving some of their
number to hover round the fort and watch any thing that took place.
Masters in the art of hiding, and able to conceal themselves behind a
bush, a stone, or a tuft of weeds, they skulked round the gate before
dawn, to shoot the white sentinels; or they ambushed the springs, and
killed those who came for water; they slaughtered all of the cattle that
had not been driven in, and any one venturing incautiously beyond the
walls was certain to be waylaid and murdered. Those who were thus hemmed
in the fort were obliged to get game on which to live; the hunters
accordingly were accustomed to leave before daybreak, travel eight or
ten miles, hunt all day at the risk of their lives, and return after
dark. Being of course the picked men of the garrison, they often eluded
the Indians, or slew them if an encounter took place, but very
frequently indeed they were themselves slain. The Indians always trusted
greatly to wiles and feints to draw their foes into their power. As ever
in this woodland fighting, their superiority in hiding, or taking
advantage of cover, counterbalanced the superiority of the whites as
marksmen; and their war parties were thus at least a match, man against
man, for the Kentuckians, though the latter, together with the Watauga
men, were the best woodsmen and fighters of the frontier. Only a very
few of the whites became, like Boon and Kenton, able to beat the best of
the savages at their own game.

The innumerable sieges that took place during the long years of Indian
warfare differed in detail, but generally closely resembled one another
as regards the main points. Those that occurred in 1777 may be
considered as samples of the rest; and accounts of these have been
preserved by the two chief actors, Boon and Clark. [Footnote: In Boon's
narrative, written down by Filson, and in Clark's diary, as given by
Morehead. The McAfee MSS. and Butler's history give some valuable
information. Boon asserts that at this time the "Long Knives" proved
themselves superior to their foe in almost every battle; but the facts
do not seem to sustain him, though the statement was doubtless true as
regards a few picked men. His estimates of the Indian numbers and losses
must be received with great caution.]

    Boonsborough Attacked.

Boonsborough, which was held by twenty-two riflemen, was attacked twice,
once in April and again in July, on each occasion by a party of fifty or
a hundred warriors. [Footnote: Boon says April 15th and July 4th.
Clark's diary makes the first date April 24th. Boon says one hundred
Indians, Clark "40 or 50." Clark's account of the loss on both sides
agrees tolerably well with Boon's. Clark's diary makes the second attack
take place on May 23d. His dates are probably correct, as Boon must have
written only from memory.] The first time the garrison was taken by
surprise; one man lost his scalp, and four were wounded, including Boon
himself, who had been commissioned as captain in the county militia.
[Footnote: Two of the other wounded men were Captain John Todd and
Boon's old hunting companion, Stoner.] The Indians promptly withdrew
when they found they could not carry the fort by a sudden assault. On
the second occasion the whites were on their guard, and though they had
one man killed and two wounded (leaving but thirteen unhurt men in the
fort), they easily beat off the assailants, and slew half a dozen of
them. This time the Indians stayed round two days, keeping up a heavy
fire, under cover of which they several times tried to burn the fort.
[Footnote: Clark's diary.]

    Logan's Adventures.

Logan's [Footnote: Boon says July 19th, Clark's diary makes it May 30th:
Clark is undoubtedly right; he gives the names of the man who was killed
and of the two who were wounded.] station at St. Asaphs was likewise
attacked; it was held by only fifteen gunmen. When the attack was made
the women, guarded by part of the men, were milking the cows outside the
fort. The Indians fired at them from the thick cane that still stood
near-by, killing one man and wounding two others, one mortally.
[Footnote: The name of the latter was Burr Harrison; he died a fortnight
afterward.--Clark.] The party, of course, fled to the fort, and on
looking back they saw their mortally wounded friend weltering on the
ground. His wife and family were within the walls; through the loopholes
they could see him yet alive, and exposed every moment to death. So
great was the danger that the men refused to go out to his rescue,
whereupon Logan alone opened the gate, bounded out, and seizing the
wounded man in his arms, carried him back unharmed through a shower of
bullets. The Indians continued to lurk around the neighborhood, and the
ammunition grew very scarce. Thereupon Logan took two companions and
left the fort at night to go to the distant settlements on the Holston,
where he might get powder and lead. He knew that the Indians were
watching the wilderness road, and trusting to his own hardiness and
consummate woodcraft, he struck straight out across the cliff-broken,
wood-covered mountains, sleeping wherever night overtook him, and
travelling all day long with the tireless speed of a wolf. [Footnote:
Not a fanciful comparison; the wolf is the only animal that an Indian or
a trained frontiersman cannot tire out in several days' travel.
Following a deer two days in light snow, I have myself gotten near
enough to shoot it without difficulty.] He returned with the needed
stores in ten days from the time he set out. These tided the people over
the warm months.

In the fall, when the hickories had turned yellow and the oaks deep red,
during the weeks of still, hazy weather that mark the Indian summer,
their favorite hunting season, [Footnote: Usually early in
November.--McAfee MSS.] the savages again filled the land, and Logan was
obliged to repeat his perilous journey. [Footnote: Marshall, 50.] He
also continually led small bands of his followers against the Indian
war--and hunting-parties, sometimes surprising and dispersing them, and
harassing them greatly. Moreover he hunted steadily throughout the year
to keep the station in meat, for the most skilful hunters were, in those
days of scarcity, obliged to spend much of their time in the chase.
Once, while at a noted game lick, [Footnote: These game licks were
common, and were of enormous extent. Multitudes of game, through
countless generations, had tramped the ground bare of vegetation, and
had made deep pits and channels with their hoofs and tongues. See McAfee
MSS. Sometimes the licks covered acres of ground, while the game trails
leading towards them through the wood were as broad as streets, even 100
feet wide. I have myself seen small game licks, the largest not a
hundred feet across, in the Selkirks, Coeur d'Alenes, and Bighorns, the
ground all tramped up by the hoofs of elk, deer, wild sheep, and white
goats, with deep furrows and hollows where the saline deposits existed.
In the Little Missouri Bad Lands there is so much mineral matter that no
regular licks are needed. As the game is killed off the licks become
overgrown and lost.] waiting for deer, he was surprised by the Indians,
and by their fire was wounded in the breast and had his right arm
broken. Nevertheless he sprang on his horse and escaped, though the
savages were so close that one, leaping at him, for a moment grasped the
tail of the horse. Every one of these pioneer leaders, from Clark and
Boon to Sevier and Robertson, was required constantly to expose his
life; each lost sons or brothers at the hands of the Indians, and each
thinned the ranks of the enemy with his own rifle. In such a primitive
state of society the man who led others was expected to show strength of
body no less than strength of mind and heart; he depended upon his
physical prowess almost as much as upon craft, courage, and headwork.
The founder and head of each little community needed not only a shrewd
brain and commanding temper, but also the thews and training to make him
excel as woodsman and hunter, and the heart and eye to enable him to
stand foremost in every Indian battle.

    Clark Shares in the Defense of Kentucky.

Clark spent most of the year at Harrodstown, taking part in the defence
of Kentucky. All the while he was revolving in his bold, ambitious heart
a scheme for the conquest of the Illinois country, and he sent scouts
thither to spy out the land and report to him what they saw. The Indians
lurked round Harrodstown throughout the summer; and Clark and his
companions were engaged in constant skirmishes with them. Once, warned
by the uneasy restlessness of the cattle (who were sure to betray the
presence of Indians if they got sight or smell of them), they were able
to surround a party of ten or twelve, who were hidden in a tall clump of
weeds. The savages were intent on cutting off some whites who were
working in a turnip patch two hundred yards from the fort; Clark's party
killed three--he himself killing one,--wounded another, and sold the
plunder they took, at auction, for seventy pounds. At other times the
skirmishes resulted differently, as on the occasion chronicled by Clark
in his diary, when they "went out to hunt Indians; one wounded Squire
Boon and escaped." [Footnote: Clark's Diary, entry for July 9th.]

The corn was brought in from the cribs under guard; one day while
shelling a quantity, a body of thirty-seven whites were attacked, and
seven were killed or wounded, though the Indians were beaten off and two
scalps taken. In spite of this constant warfare the fields near the
forts were gradually cleared, and planted with corn, pumpkins, and
melons; and marrying and mirth-making went on within the walls. One of
Clark's scouts, shortly after returning from the Illinois, got married,
doubtless feeling he deserved some reward for the hardships he had
suffered; on the wedding night Clark remarks that there was "great
merriment." The rare and infrequent expresses from Pittsburg or
Williamsburg brought letters telling of Washington's campaigns, which
Clark read with absorbed interest. On the first of October, having
matured his plans for the Illinois campaign, he left for Virginia, to
see if he could get the government to help him put them into execution.

    The Holston men Help Kentucky.

During the summer parties of backwoods militia from the Holston
settlements--both Virginians and Carolinians--came out to help the
Kentuckians in their struggle against the Indians; but they only stayed
a few weeks, and then returned home. In the fall, however, several
companies of immigrants came out across the mountains; and at the same
time the small parties of hunters succeeded in pretty well clearing the
woods of Indians. Many of the lesser camps and stations had been broken
up, and at the end of the year there remained only four--Boonsborough,
Harrodstown, Logan's station at St. Asaphs, and McGarry's, at the
Shawnee Springs. They contained in all some five or six hundred
permanent settlers, nearly half of them being able-bodied riflemen.
[Footnote: The McAfee MSS. give these four stations; Boon says there
were but three. He was writing from memory, however, and was probably
mistaken; thus he says there were at that time settlers at the Falls, an
evident mistake, as there were none there till the following year.
Collins, following Marshall, says there were at the end of the year only
one hundred and two men in Kentucky,--sixty-five at Harrodstown,
twenty-two at Boonsborough, fifteen at Logan's. This is a mistake based
on a hasty reading of Boon's narrative, which gives this number for
July, and particularly adds that after that data they began to
strengthen. In the McAfee MSS. is a census of Harrodstown for the fall
of 1777, which sums up: Men in service, 81; men not in service, 4;
women, 24; children above ten, 12; children under ten, 58; slaves above
ten, 12; slaves under ten, 7; total, 198. In October Clark in his diary
records meeting fifty men with their families, (therefore permanent
settlers), on their way to Boon, and thirty-eight men on their way to
Logan's. At the end of the year, therefore, Boonsborough and Harrodstown
must have held about two hundred souls apiece; Logan's and McGarry's
were considerably smaller. The large proportion of young children
testifies to the prolific nature of the Kentucky women, and also shows
the permanent nature of the settlements. Two years previously, in 1775,
there had been, perhaps, three hundred people in Kentucky, but very many
of them were not permanent residents.]

    Boon Captured.

Early in 1778 a severe calamity befell the settlements. In January Boon
went, with twenty-nine other men, to the Blue Licks to make salt for the
different garrisons--for hitherto this necessary of life had been
brought in, at great trouble and expense, from the settlements.
[Footnote: See Clark's Diary, entry for October 25, 1777.] The following
month, having sent three men back with loads of salt, he and all the
others were surprised and captured by a party of eighty or ninety
Miamis, led by two Frenchmen, named Baubin and Lorimer. [Footnote:
Haldimand MSS. B., 122, p. 35. Hamilton to Carleton, April 25, 1778. He
says four-score Miamis.] When surrounded, so that there was no hope of
escape, Boon agreed that all should surrender on condition of being well
treated. The Indians on this occasion loyally kept faith. The two
Frenchmen were anxious to improve their capture by attacking
Boonsborough; but the fickle savages were satisfied with their success,
and insisted on returning to their villages. Boon was taken, first to
Old Chillicothe, the chief Shawnee town on the Little Miami, and then to
Detroit, where Hamilton and the other Englishmen treated him well, and
tried to ransom him for a hundred pounds sterling. However, the Indians
had become very much attached to him, and refused the ransom, taking
their prisoner back to Chillicothe. Here he was adopted into the tribe,
and remained for two months, winning the good-will of the Shawnees by
his cheerfulness and his skill as a hunter, and being careful not to
rouse their jealousy by any too great display of skill at the
shooting-matches.

Hamilton was urging the Indians to repeat their ravages of the preceding
year; Mingos, Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis came to Detroit, bringing
scalps and prisoners. A great council was held at that post early in
June. [Footnote: _Do._, June 14, 1778.] All the northwestern tribes took
part, and they received war-belts from the Iroquois and messages calling
on them to rise as one man. They determined forthwith to fall on the
frontier in force. By their war parties, and the accompanying bands of
tories, Hamilton sent placards to be distributed among the frontiersmen,
endeavoring both by threat and by promise of reward, to make them desert
the patriot cause. [Footnote: Do., April 25, 1778.]

    Boon Escapes and Makes a Foray.

In June a large war party gathered at Chillicothe to march against
Boonsborough, and Boon determined to escape at all hazards, so that he
might warn his mends. One morning before sunrise he eluded the vigilance
of his Indian companions and started straight through the woods for his
home where he arrived in four days, having had but one meal during the
whole journey of a hundred and sixty miles. [Footnote: Boon's
Narrative.]

On reaching Boonsborough he at once set about putting the fort in good
condition; and being tried by court-martial for the capture at the Blue
Licks, he was not only acquitted but was raised to the rank of major.
His escape had probably disconcerted the Indian war party, for no
immediate attack was made on the fort. After waiting until August he got
tired of the inaction, and made a foray into the Indian country himself
with nineteen men, defeating a small party of his foes on the Sciota. At
the same time he learned that the main body of the Miamis had at last
marched against Boonsborough. Instantly he retraced his steps with all
possible speed, passed by the Indians, and reached the threatened fort a
day before they did.

    Boonsborough again Beseiged.

On the eighth day of the month the savages appeared before the stockade.
They were between three and four hundred in number, Shawnees and Miamis,
and were led by Captain Daigniau de Quindre, a noted Detroit partisan
[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Aug. 17, 1778, Girty reports that four hundred
Indians have gone to attack "Fort Kentuck." Hamilton's letter of Sept.
16th speaks of there being three hundred Shawnees with de Quindre (whom
Boon calls Duquesne).]; with him were eleven other Frenchmen, besides
the Indian chiefs. They marched into view with British and French colors
flying, and formally summoned the little wooden fort to surrender in the
name of his Britannic Majesty. The negotiations that followed showed, on
the part of both whites and reds, a curious mixture of barbarian cunning
and barbarian childishness; the account reads as if it were a page of
Graeco-Trojan diplomacy. [Footnote: See Boon's Narrative.] Boon first got
a respite of two days to consider de Quindre's request, and occupied the
time in getting the horses and cattle into the fort. At the end of the
two days the Frenchman came in person to the walls to hear the answer to
his proposition; whereupon Boon jeered at him for his simplicity,
thanking him in the name of the defenders for having given them time to
prepare for defence, and telling him that now they laughed at his
attack. De Quindre, mortified at being so easily outwitted, set a trap
in his turn for Boon. He assured the latter that his orders from Detroit
were to capture, not to destroy, the garrison, and proposed that nine of
their number should come out and hold a treaty. The terms of the treaty
are not mentioned; apparently it was to be one of neutrality,
Boonsborough acting as if it were a little independent and sovereign
commonwealth, making peace on its own account with a particular set of
foes. At any rate, de Quindre agreed to march his forces peaceably off
when it was concluded.

Boon accepted the proposition, but, being suspicious of the good-faith
of his opponents, insisted upon the conference being held within sixty
yards of the fort. After the treaty was concluded the Indians proposed
to shake hands with the nine white treaty-makers, and promptly grappled
them. [Footnote: Apparently there were eighteen Indians on the treaty
ground, but these were probably, like the whites, unarmed.] However, the
borderers wrested themselves free, and fled to the fort under a heavy
fire, which wounded one of their number.

The Indians then attacked the fort, surrounding it on every side and
keeping up a constant fire at the loop-holes. The whites replied in
kind, but the combatants were so well covered that little damage was
done. At night the Indians pitched torches of cane and hickory bark
against the stockade, in the vain effort to set it on fire, [Footnote:
McAfee MSS.] and de Quindre tried to undermine the walls, starting from
the water mark. But Boon discovered the attempt, and sunk a trench as a
countermine. Then de Quindre gave up and retreated on August 20th, after
nine days' fighting, in which the whites had but two killed and four
wounded; nor was the loss of the Indians much heavier. [Footnote: De
Quindre reported to Hamilton that, though foiled,  he had but two men
killed and three wounded. In Haldimand MSS., Hamilton to Haldimand,
October 15, 1778. Often, however, these partisan leaders merely reported
the loss in their own particular party of savages, taking no account of
the losses in the other bands that had joined them--as the Miamis joined
the Shawnees in this instance. But it is certain that Boon (or Filson,
who really wrote the Narrative) greatly exaggerated the facts in stating
that thirty-seven Indians were killed, and that the settlers picked up
125 pounds' weight of bullets which had been fired into the fort.]

This was the last siege of Boonsborough. Had de Quindre succeeded he
might very probably have swept the whites from Kentucky; but he failed,
and Boon's successful resistance, taken together with the outcome of
Clark's operations at the same time, ensured the permanency of the
American occupation. The old-settled region lying around the original
stations, or forts, was never afterwards seriously endangered by Indian
invasion.

    Ferocious Individual Warfare.

The savages continued to annoy the border throughout the year 1778. The
extent of their ravages can be seen from the fact that, during the
summer months those around Detroit alone brought in to Hamilton
eighty-one scalps and thirty-four prisoners, [Footnote: Haldimand MSS.
Letter of Hamilton, September 16, 1778. Hamilton was continually sending
out small war parties; thus he mentions that on August 25th a party of
fifteen Miamis went out; on September 5th, thirty-one Miamis; on
September 9th, one Frenchman, five Chippewas, and fifteen Miamis, etc.]
seventeen of whom they surrendered to the British, keeping the others
either to make them slaves or else to put them to death with torture.
During the fall they confined themselves mainly to watching the Ohio and
the Wilderness road, and harassing the immigrants who passed along them.
[Footnote: McAfee MSS.]

Boon, as usual, roamed restlessly over the country, spying out and
harrying the Indian war parties, and often making it his business to
meet the incoming bands of settlers, and to protect and guide them on
the way to their intended homes. [Footnote: Marshall, 55.] When not on
other duty he hunted steadily, for game was still plentiful in Kentucky,
though fast diminishing owing to the wanton slaughter made by some of
the more reckless hunters. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] He met with many
adventures, still handed down by tradition, in the chase of panther,
wolf, and bear, of buffalo, elk, and deer. The latter he killed only
when their hides and meat were needed, while he followed unceasingly the
dangerous beasts of prey, as being enemies of the settlers.

Throughout these years the obscure strife, made up of the individual
contests of frontiersman and Indian, went on almost without a break. The
sieges, surprises, and skirmishes in which large bands took part were
chronicled; but there is little reference in the books to the countless
conflicts wherein only one or two men on a side were engaged. The west
could never have been conquered, in the teeth of so formidable and
ruthless a foe, had it not been for the personal prowess of the pioneers
themselves. Their natural courage and hardihood, and their long training
in forest warfare, [Footnote: The last point is important. No Europeans
could have held their own for a fortnight in Kentucky; nor is it likely
that the western men twenty years before, at the time of Braddock's war,
could have successfully colonized such a far-off country.] made them
able to hold their own and to advance step by step, where a peaceable
population would have been instantly butchered or driven off. No regular
army could have done what they did. Only trained woodsmen could have led
the white advance into the vast forest-clad regions, out of which so
many fair States have been hewn. The ordinary regular soldier was almost
as helpless before the Indians in the woods as he would have been if
blindfolded and opposed to an antagonist whose eyes were left uncovered.

Much the greatest loss, both to Indians and whites, was caused by this
unending personal warfare. Every hunter, almost every settler, was
always in imminent danger of Indian attack, and in return was ever
ready, either alone or with one or two companions, to make excursions
against the tribes for scalps and horses. One or two of Simon Kenton's
experiences during this year may be mentioned less for their own sake
than as examples of innumerable similar deeds that were done, and woes
that were suffered, in the course of the ceaseless struggle.

    Simon Kenton's Adventures.

Kenton was a tall, fair-haired man of wonderful strength and agility;
famous as a runner and wrestler, an unerring shot, and a perfect
woodsman. Like so many of these early Indian fighters, he was not at all
bloodthirsty. He was a pleasant, friendly, and obliging companion; and
it was hard to rouse him to wrath. When once aroused, however, few were
so hardy as not to quail before the terrible fury of his anger. He was
so honest and unsuspecting that he was very easily cheated by sharpers;
and he died a poor man. He was a staunch friend and follower of Boon's.
[Footnote: See McClung's "Sketches of Western Adventure," pp. 86-117;
the author had received from Kenton, and other pioneers, when very old,
the tales of their adventures as young men. McClung's volume contains
very valuable incidental information about the customs of life among the
borderers,] and about Indian warfare; but he is a very inaccurate and
untrustworthy writer; he could not even copy a printed narrative
correctly (see his account of Slover's and McKnight's adventures), and
his tales about Kenton must be accepted rather as showing the adventures
incident to the life of a peculiarly daring Indian fighter than as being
specifically and chronologically correct in Kenton's individual case.
Once, in a fight outside the stockade at Boonsborough, he saved the life
of his leader by shooting an Indian who was on the point of tomahawking
him. Boon was a man of few words, cold and grave, accustomed to every
kind of risk and hairbreadth escape, and as little apt to praise the
deeds of others as he was to mention his own; but on this occasion he
broke through his usual taciturnity to express his thanks for Kenton's
help and his admiration for Kenton himself.

Kenton went with his captain on the expedition to the Scioto. Pushing
ahead of the rest, he was attracted by the sound of laughter in a
canebrake. Hiding himself, he soon saw two Indians approach, both riding
on one small pony, and chatting and laughing together in great
good-humor. Aiming carefully, he brought down both at once, one dead and
the other severely wounded. As he rushed up to finish his work, his
quick ears caught a rustle in the cane, and looking around he saw two
more Indians aiming at him. A rapid spring to one side on his part made
both balls miss. Other Indians came up; but, at the same time, Boon and
his companions appeared, running as fast as they could while still
keeping sheltered. A brisk skirmish followed, the Indians retreated, and
Kenton got the coveted scalp. When Boon returned to the fort, Kenton
stayed behind with another man and succeeded in stealing four good
horses, which he brought back in triumph.

Much pleased with his success he shortly made another raid into the
Indian country, this time with two companions. They succeeded in driving
off a whole band of one hundred and sixty horses, which they brought in
safety to the banks of the Ohio. But a strong wind was blowing, and the
river was so rough that in spite of all their efforts they could not get
the horses to cross; as soon as they were beyond their depth the beasts
would turn round and swim back. The reckless adventurers could not make
up their minds to leave the booty; and stayed so long, waiting for a
lull in the gale, and wasting their time in trying to get the horses to
take to the water in spite of the waves, that the pursuing Indians came
up and surprised them. Their guns had become wet and useless; and no
resistance could be made. One of them was killed, another escaped, and
Kenton himself was captured.

The Indians asked him if "Captain Boon" had sent him to steal horses;
and when he answered frankly that the stealing was his own idea, they
forthwith proceeded to beat him lustily with their ramrods, at the same
time showering on him epithets that showed they had at least learned the
profanity of the traders. They staked him out at night, tied so that he
could move neither hand nor foot; and during the day he was bound on an
unbroken horse, with his hands tied behind him so that he could not
protect his face from the trees and bushes. This was repeated every day.
After three days he reached the town of Chillicothe, stiff, sore, and
bleeding.

Next morning he was led out to run the gauntlet. A row of men, women,
and boys, a quarter of a mile long, was formed, each with a tomahawk,
switch, or club; at the end of the line was an Indian with a big drum,
and beyond this was the council-house, which, if he reached, would for
the time being protect him. The moment for starting arrived; the big
drum was beaten; and Kenton sprang forward in the race. [Footnote: For
this part of Kenton's adventures compare the "Last of the Mohicans."]
Keeping his wits about him he suddenly turned to one side and darted off
with the whole tribe after him. His wonderful speed and activity enabled
him to keep ahead, and to dodge those who got in his way, and by a
sudden double he rushed through an opening in the crowd, and reached the
council-house, having been struck but three or four blows.

He was not further molested that evening. Next morning a council was
held to decide whether he should be immediately burnt at the stake, or
should first be led round to the different villages. The warriors sat in
a ring to pass judgment, passing the war club from one to another; those
who passed it in silence thereby voted in favor of sparing the prisoner
for the moment, while those who struck it violently on the ground thus
indicated their belief that he should be immediately put to death. The
former prevailed, and Kenton was led from town to town. At each place he
was tied to the stake, to be switched and beaten by the women and boys;
or else was forced to run the gauntlet, while sand was thrown in his
eyes and guns loaded with powder fired against his body to burn his
flesh.

Once, while on the march, he made a bold rush for liberty, all unarmed
though he was; breaking out of the line and running into the forest. His
speed was so great and his wind so good that he fairly outran his
pursuers; but by ill-luck, when almost exhausted, he came against
another party of Indians. After this he abandoned himself to despair. He
was often terribly abused by his captors; once one of them cut his
shoulder open with an axe, breaking the bone.

His face was painted black, the death color, and he was twice sentenced
to be burned alive, at the Pickaway Plains and at Sandusky. But each
time he was saved at the last moment, once through a sudden spasm of
mercy on the part of the renegade Girty, his old companion in arms at
the time of Lord Dunmore's war, and again by the powerful intercession
of the great Mingo chief, Logan. At last, after having run the gauntlet
eight times and been thrice tied to the stake, he was ransomed by some
traders. They hoped to get valuable information from him about the
border forts, and took him to Detroit. Here he stayed until his
battered, wounded body was healed. Then he determined to escape, and
formed his plan in concert with two other Kentuckians, who had been in
Boon's party that was captured at the Blue Licks. They managed to secure
some guns, got safely off, and came straight down through the great
forests to the Ohio, reaching their homes in safety. [Footnote: McClung
gives the exact conversations that took place between Kenton, Logan,
Girty, and the Indian chiefs. They are very dramatic, and may possibly
be true; the old pioneer would probably always remember even the words
used on such occasions; but I hesitate to give them because McClung is
so loose in his statements. In the account of this very incident he
places it in '77, and says Kenton then accompanied Clark to the
Illinois. But in reality--as we know from Boon--it took place in '78,
and Kenton must have gone with Clark first.]

Boon and Kenton have always been favorite heroes of frontier story,--as
much so as ever were Robin Hood and Little John in England. Both lived
to a great age, and did and saw many strange things, and in the
backwoods cabins the tale of their deeds has been handed down in
traditional form from father to son and to son's son. They were known to
be honest, fearless, adventurous, mighty men of their hands; fond of
long, lonely wanderings; renowned as woodsmen and riflemen, as hunters
and Indian fighters. In course of time it naturally came about that all
notable incidents of the chase and woodland warfare were incorporated
into their lives by the story-tellers. The facts were altered and added
to by tradition year after year; so that the two old frontier warriors
already stand in that misty group of heroes whose rightful title to fame
has been partly overclouded by the haze of their mythical glories and
achievements.




CHAPTER II.

CLARK'S CONQUEST OF THE ILLINOIS, 1778.

Kentucky had been settled, chiefly through Boon's instrumentality, in
the year that saw the first fighting of the Revolution, and it had been
held ever since, Boon still playing the greatest part in the defence.
Clark's more far-seeing and ambitious soul now prompted him to try and
use it as a base from which to conquer the vast region northwest of the
Ohio.

    The Country beyond the Ohio.

The country beyond the Ohio was not, like Kentucky, a tenantless and
debatable hunting-ground. It was the seat of powerful and warlike Indian
confederacies, and of clusters of ancient French hamlets which had been
founded generations before the Kentucky pioneers were born; and it also
contained posts that were garrisoned and held by the soldiers of the
British king. Virginia, and other colonies as well, made, it is true,
vague claims to some of this territory. [Footnote: Some of the numerous
land speculation companies, which were so prominent about this time,
both before and after the Revolution, made claims to vast tracts of
territory in this region, having bought them for various trinkets from
the Indian chiefs. Such were the "Illinois Land Company" and "Wabash
Land Company," that, in 1773 and 1775, made purchases from the
Kaskaskias and Piankeshaws. The companies were composed of British,
American, and Canadian merchants and traders, of London, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Quebec, etc. Lord Dunmore was in the Wabash Company. The
agents of the companies, in after years, made repeated but unsuccessful
efforts to get Congress to confirm their grants. Although these various
companies made much noise at the time, they introduced no new settlers
into the land, and, in fact, did nothing of lasting effect; so that it
is mere waste of time to allude to most of them. See, however, the
"History of Indiana," by John B. Dillon (Indianapolis, 1859), pp.
102-109, etc.] But their titles were as unreal and shadowy as those
acquired by the Spanish and Portuguese kings when the Pope, with empty
munificence, divided between them the Eastern and the Western
hemispheres. For a century the French had held adverse possession; for a
decade and a half the British, not the colonial authorities, had acted
as their unchallenged heirs; to the Americans the country was as much a
foreign land as was Canada. It could only be acquired by force, and
Clark's teeming brain and bold heart had long been busy in planning its
conquest. He knew that the French villages, the only settlements in the
land, were the seats of the British power, the head-quarters whence
their commanders stirred up, armed, and guided the hostile Indians. If
these settled French districts were conquered, and the British posts
that guarded them captured, the whole territory would thereby be won for
the Federal Republic, and added to the heritage of its citizens; while
the problem of checking and subduing the northwestern Indians would be
greatly simplified, because the source of much of both their power and
hostility would be cut off at the springs. The friendship of the French
was invaluable, for they had more influence than any other people with
the Indians.

    Clark Sends Spies to the Illinois.

In 1777 Clark sent two young hunters as spies to the Illinois country
and to the neighborhood of Vincennes, though neither to them nor to any
one else did he breathe a hint of the plan that was in his mind. They
brought back word that, though some of the adventurous young men often
joined either the British or the Indian war parties, yet that the bulk
of the French population took but little interest in the struggle, were
lukewarm in their allegiance to the British flag, and were somewhat awed
by what they had heard of the backwoodsmen. [Footnote: The correctness
of this account is amply confirmed by the Haldimand MSS., letters of
Hamilton, _passim_; also Rocheblave to Carleton, July 4, 1778; and to
Hamilton, April 12, 1778.] Clark judged from this report that it would
not be difficult to keep the French neutral if a bold policy, strong as
well as conciliatory, was pursued towards them; and that but a small
force would be needed to enable a resolute and capable leader to conquer
at least the southern part of the country. It was impossible to raise
such a body among the scantily garrisoned forted villages of Kentucky.
The pioneers, though warlike and fond of fighting, were primarily
settlers; their soldiering came in as a purely secondary occupation.
They were not a band of mere adventurers, living by the sword and bent
on nothing but conquest. They were a group of hard-working,
hard-fighting freemen, who had come in with their wives and children to
possess the land. They were obliged to use all their wit and courage to
defend what they had already won without wasting their strength by
grasping at that which lay beyond. The very conditions that enabled so
small a number to make a permanent settlement forbade their trying
unduly to extend its bounds.

    He Goes to Virginia to Raise Troops.

Clark knew he could get from among his fellow-settlers some men
peculiarly suited for his purpose, but he also realized that he would
have to bring the body of his force from Virginia. Accordingly he
decided to lay the case before Patrick Henry, then Governor of the State
of which Kentucky was only a frontier county.

On October 1, 1777, he started from Harrodsburg, [Footnote: In the
earlier MSS, it is called sometimes Harrodstown and sometimes
Harrodsburg; but from this time on the latter name is in general use.]
to go over the Wilderness road. The brief entries of his diary for this
trip are very interesting and sometimes very amusing. Before starting he
made a rather shrewd and thoroughly characteristic speculation in
horseflesh, buying a horse for £12, and then "swapping" it with Isaac
Shelby and getting £10 to boot. He evidently knew how to make a good
bargain, and had the true backwoods passion for barter. He was detained
a couple of days by that commonest of frontier mischances, his horses
straying; a natural incident when the animals were simply turned loose
on the range and looked up when required. [Footnote: This, like so many
other incidents in the every-day history of the old pioneers, is among
the ordinary experiences of the present sojourner in the far west.] He
travelled in company with a large party of men, women, and children who,
disheartened by the Indian ravages, were going back to the settlements.
They marched from fifteen to twenty miles a day, driving beeves along
for food. In addition the scouts at different times killed three buffalo
[Footnote: One at Rockcastle River, two at Cumberland Ford.] and a few
deer, so that they were not stinted for fresh meat.

When they got out of the wilderness he parted from his companions and
rode off alone. He now stayed at the settler's house that was nearest
when night overtook him. At a large house, such as that of the
Campbell's, near Abingdon, he was of course welcomed to the best, and
treated with a generous hospitality, for which it would have been an
insult to offer money in return. At the small cabins he paid his way;
usually a shilling and threepence or a shilling and sixpence for
breakfast, bed, and feed for the horse; but sometimes four or five
shillings. He fell in with a Captain Campbell, with whom he journeyed a
week, finding him "an agreeable companion." They had to wait over one
stormy day, at a little tavern, and probably whiled away the time by as
much of a carouse as circumstances allowed; at any rate, Clark's share
of the bill when he left was £1 4_s_. [Footnote: The items of expense
jotted down in the diary are curious. For a night's lodging and board
they range from 1s. 3d. to 13s. In Williamsburg, the capital, they were
for a fortnight £9 18s.] Finally, a month after leaving Harrodsburg,
having travelled six hundred and twenty miles, he reached his father's
house. [Footnote Seventy miles beyond Charlottesville; he gives an
itinerary of his journey, making it six hundred and twenty miles in all,
by the route he travelled. On the way he had his horse shod and bought a
pair of shoes for himself; apparently he kept the rest of his backwoods
apparel. He sold his gun for £15 and swapped horses again--this time
giving £7 l0_s_. to boot.]

After staying only a day at his old home, he set out for Williamsburg,
where he was detained a fortnight before the State auditors would settle
the accounts of the Kentucky militia, which he had brought with him. The
two things which he deemed especially worthy of mention during this time
were his purchase of a ticket in the State lottery, for three pounds,
and his going to church on Sunday--the first chance he had had to do so
during the year. [Footnote: When his accounts were settled he
immediately bought "a piece of cloth for a jacket; price, £4 15_s_;
buttons, etc., 3_s_."] He was overjoyed at the news of Burgoyne's
surrender; and with a light heart he returned to his father's house, to
get a glimpse of his people before again plunging into the wilds.

    Clark and Patrick Henry.

After a week's rest he went back to the capital, laid his plans before
Patrick Henry, and urged their adoption with fiery enthusiasm.
[Footnote: Clark has left a full MS. memoir of the events of 1777, 1778,
and 1779. It was used extensively by Mann Butler, the first historian
who gave the campaign its proper prominence, and is printed almost
complete by Dillon, on pp. 115-167 of his "Indiana." It was written at
the desire of Presidents Jefferson and Madison; and therefore some
thirty or forty years after the events of which it speaks. Valuable
though it is, as the narrative of the chief actor, it would be still
more valuable had it been written earlier; it undoubtedly contains some
rather serious errors.] Henry's ardent soul quickly caught flame; but
the peril of sending an expedition to such a wild and distant country
was so great, and Virginia's resources were so exhausted, that he could
do little beyond lending Clark the weight of his name and influence. The
matter could not be laid before the Assembly, nor made public in any
way; for the hazard would be increased tenfold if the strictest secrecy
were not preserved. Finally Henry authorized Clark to raise seven
companies, each of fifty men, who were to act as militia and to be paid
as such. [Footnote: Henry's private letter of instructions, January 2,
1778.] He also advanced him the sum of twelve hundred pounds (presumably
in depreciated paper), and gave him an order on the authorities at
Pittsburg for boats, supplies, and ammunition; while three of the most
prominent Virginia gentlemen [Footnote: Thomas Jefferson, George Mason,
and George Wythe.] agreed in writing to do their best to induce the
Virginia Legislature to grant to each of the adventurers three hundred
acres of the conquered land, if they were successful. He was likewise
given the commission of colonel, with instructions to raise his men
solely from the frontier counties west of the Blue Ridge, [Footnote: 3
Butler, p. 48; but Henry's public instructions authorized Clark to raise
his men in any county.] so as not to weaken the people of the seacoast
region in their struggle against the British.

    Clark alone Organizes the Expedition.

Thus the whole burden of making ready the expedition was laid on Clark's
shoulders. The hampered Virginian authorities were able to give him
little beyond their good-will. He is rightfully entitled to the whole
glory; the plan and the execution were both his. It was an individual
rather than a state or national enterprise.

Governor Henry's open letter of instructions merely ordered Clark to go
to the relief of Kentucky. He carried with him also the secret letter
which bade him attack the Illinois regions; for he had decided to assail
this first, because, if defeated, he would then be able to take refuge
in the Spanish dominions beyond the Mississippi. He met with the utmost
difficulty in raising men. Some were to be sent to him from the Holston
overland, to meet him in Kentucky; but a combination of accidents
resulted in his getting only a dozen or so from this source. [Footnote:
Four companies were to be raised on the Holston; but only one actually
went to Kentucky; and most of its members deserted when they found out
about the true nature of the expedition.] Around Pittsburg the jealousy
between the Virginians and Pennsylvanians hampered him greatly.
Moreover, many people were strongly opposed to sending any men to
Kentucky at all, deeming the drain on their strength more serious than
the value of the new land warranted; for they were too short-sighted
rightly to estimate what the frontiersmen had really done. When he had
finally raised his troops he was bothered by requests from the different
forts to aid detachments of the local militia in expeditions against
bands of marauding Indians.

    He Starts Down the Ohio.

But Clark never for a moment wavered nor lost sight of his main object.
He worked steadily on, heedless of difficulty and disappointment, and
late in the spring at last got together four small companies of
frontiersmen from the clearings and the scattered hunters' camps. In
May, 1778, he left the Redstone settlements, taking not only his
troops--one hundred and fifty in all [Footnote: Clark's letter to George
Mason, Nov. 19, 1779. Given in "Clark's Campaign in the Illinois"
(Cincinnati, 1869), for the first time; one of Robert Clarke's excellent
Ohio Valley Historical Series.]--but also a considerable number of
private adventurers and settlers with their families. He touched at
Pittsburg and Wheeling to get his stores. Then the flotilla of clumsy
flatboats, manned by tall riflemen, rowed and drifted cautiously down
the Ohio between the melancholy and unbroken reaches of Indian-haunted
forest. The presence of the families shows that even this expedition had
the usual peculiar western character of being undertaken half for
conquest, half for settlement.

He landed at the mouth of the Kentucky, but rightly concluded that as a
starting-point against the British posts it would be better to choose a
place farther west, so he drifted on down the stream, and on the 27th of
May [Footnote: This is the date given in the deposition, in the case of
Floyd's heirs, in 1815; see MSS. in Col. Durrett's library at
Louisville. Clark's dates, given from memory, are often a day or two
out. His "Memoir" is of course less accurate than the letter to Mason.]
reached the Falls of the Ohio, where the river broke into great rapids
or riffles of swift water. This spot he chose, both because from it he
could threaten and hold in check the different Indian tribes, and
because he deemed it wise to have some fort to protect in the future the
craft that might engage in the river trade, when they stopped to prepare
for the passage of the rapids. Most of the families that had come with
him had gone off to the interior of Kentucky, but several were left, and
these settled on an island near the falls, where they raised a crop of
corn; and in the autumn they moved to the mainland. On the site thus
chosen by the clear-eyed frontier leader there afterwards grew up a
great city, named in honor of the French king, who was then our ally.
Clark may fairly be called its founder. [Footnote: It was named
Louisville in 1780, but was long known only as the Falls. Many other men
had previously recognized the advantages of the place; hunters and
surveyors had gone there, but Clark led thither the first permanent
settlers. Conolly had laid out at the Falls a grant of two thousand
acres, of which he afterwards surrendered half. His grant, covering much
of the present site of the city, was on July 1, 1780, declared to be
forfeited by a jury consisting of Daniel Boon and eleven other good men
and true, empanelled by the sheriff of the county. See Durrett MSS. in
"Papers Relating to Louisville, Ky."]

    Clark at the Falls.

Here Clark received news of the alliance with France, which he hoped
would render easier his task of winning over the habitants of the
Illinois. He was also joined by a few daring Kentuckians, including
Kenton, and by the only Holston company that had yet arrived. He now
disclosed to his men the real object of his expedition. The Kentuckians,
and those who had come down the river with him, hailed the adventure
with eager enthusiasm, pledged him their hearty support, and followed
him with staunch and unflinching loyalty. But the Holston recruits, who
had not come under the spell of his personal influence, murmured against
him. They had not reckoned on an expedition so long and so dangerous,
and in the night most of them left the camp and fled into the woods. The
Kentuckians, who had horses, pursued the deserters, with orders to kill
any who resisted; but all save six or eight escaped. Yet they suffered
greatly for their crime, and endured every degree of hardship and
fatigue, for the Kentuckians spurned them from the gates of the wooden
forts, and would not for a long time suffer them to enter, hounding them
back to the homes they had dishonored. They came from among a bold and
adventurous people, and their action was due rather to wayward and
sullen disregard of authority than to cowardice.

When the pursuing horsemen came back a day of mirth and rejoicing was
spent between the troops who were to stay behind to guard Kentucky and
those who were to go onward to conquer Illinois. On the 24th of June
Clark's boats put out from shore, and shot the falls at the very moment
that there was a great eclipse of the sun, at which the frontiersmen
wondered greatly, but for the most part held it to be a good omen.

Clark had weeded out all those whom he deemed unable to stand fatigue
and hardship; his four little companies were of picked men, each with a
good captain. [Footnote: The names of the four captains were John
Montgomery, Joseph Bowman, Leonard Helm, and William Harrod. Each
company nominally consisted of fifty men, but none of them was of full
strength.] His equipment was as light as that of an Indian war party,
for he knew better than to take a pound of baggage that could possibly
be spared.

    He Meets a Party of Hunters.

He intended to land some three leagues below the entrance of the
Tennessee River, [Footnote: At the old Fort Massac, then deserted. The
name is taken from that of an old French commander; it is not a
corruption of Fort Massacre, as has been asserted.] thence to march on
foot against the Illinois towns; for he feared discovery if he should
attempt to ascend the Mississippi, the usual highway by which the fur
traders went up to the quaint French hamlets that lay between the
Kaskaskia and the Illinois rivers. Accordingly he double-manned his oars
and rowed night and day until he reached a small island off the mouth of
the Tennessee, where he halted to make his final preparations, and was
there joined by a little party of American hunters, [Footnote In his
"Memoir" he says "from the States"; in his letter to Mason he calls them
"Englishmen," probably to show that they were not French, as they had
just come from Kaskaskia. He almost always spoke of the English proper
as British.] who had recently been in the French settlements. The
meeting was most fortunate. The hunters entered eagerly into Clark's
plans, joining him for the campaign, and they gave him some very
valuable information. They told him that the royal commandant was a
Frenchman, Rocheblave, whose head-quarters were at the town of
Kaskaskia; that the fort was in good repair, the militia were well
drilled and in constant readiness to repel attack, while spies were
continually watching the Mississippi, and the Indians and the coureurs
des bois were warned to be on the look-out for any American force, if
the party were discovered in time the hunters believed that the French
would undoubtedly gather together instantly to repel them, having been
taught to hate and dread the backwoodsmen as more brutal and terrible
than any Indians; and in such an event the strength of the works and the
superiority of the French in numbers would render the attack very
hazardous. But they thought that a surprise would enable Clark to do as
he wished, and they undertook to guide him by the quickest and shortest
route to the towns.

    The March to Kaskaskia.

Clark was rather pleased than otherwise to learn of the horror with
which the French regarded the backwoodsmen. He thought it would render
them more apt to be panic-struck when surprised, and also more likely to
feel a strong revulsion of gratitude when they found that the Americans
meant them well and not ill. Taking their new allies for guides, the
little body of less than two hundred men started north across the
wilderness, scouts being scattered out well ahead of them, both to kill
game for their subsistence and to see that their march was not
discovered by any straggling Frenchman or Indian. The first fifty miles
led through tangled and pathless forest, the toil of travelling being
very great. After that the work was less difficult as they got out among
the prairies, but on these great level meadows they had to take extra
precautions to avoid being seen. Once the chief guide got bewildered and
lost himself; he could no longer tell the route, nor whither it was best
to march. [Footnote: Even experienced woodsmen or plainsmen sometimes
thus become lost or "turned round," if in a country of few landmarks,
where they have rarely been before.] The whole party was at once cast
into the utmost confusion; but Clark soon made the guide understand that
he was himself in greater jeopardy than any one else, and would forfeit
his life if he did not guide them straight. Not knowing the man, Clark
thought he might be treacherous; and, as he wrote an old friend, he was
never in his life in such a rage as when he found his troops wandering
at random in a country where, at any moment, they might blunder on
several times their number of hostile Indians; while, if they were
discovered by any one at all, the whole expedition was sure to miscarry.
However, the guide proved to be faithful; after a couple of hours he
found his bearings once more, and guided the party straight to their
destination.

    The Surprise of Kaskaskia.

On the evening of the fourth of July [Footnote: So says Clark; and the
Haldimand MSS. contains a letter of Rocheblave of July 4th. For these
campaigns of 1778 I follow where possible Clark's letter to Mason as
being nearly contemporary; his "Memoir," as given by Dillon, comes next
in authority; while Butler, who was very accurate and painstaking, also
got hold of original information from men who had taken part in the
expedition, or from their descendants, besides making full use of the
"Memoir."] they reached the river Kaskaskia, within three miles of the
town, which lay on the farther bank. They kept in the woods until after
it grew dusk, and then marched silently to a little farm on the hither
side of the river, a mile from the town. The family were taken
prisoners, and from them Clark learned that some days before the
townspeople had been alarmed at the rumor of a possible attack; but that
their suspicions had been lulled, and they were then off their guard.
There were a great many men in the town, but almost all French, the
Indians having for the most part left. The account proved correct.
Rocheblave, the creole commandant, was sincerely attached to the British
interest. He had been much alarmed early in the year by the reports
brought to him by Indians that the Americans were in Kentucky and
elsewhere beyond the Alleghanies. He had written repeatedly to Detroit,
asking that regulars could be sent him, and that he might himself be
replaced by a commandant of English birth; for though the French were
well-disposed towards the crown, they had been frightened by the reports
of the ferocity of the backwoodsmen, and the Indians were fickle. In his
letters he mentioned that the French were much more loyal than the men
of English parentage. Hamilton found it impossible to send him
reinforcements however, and he was forced to do the best he could
without them; but he succeeded well in his endeavors to organize troops,
as he found the creole militia very willing to serve, and the Indians
extremely anxious to attack the Americans. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS.
Carleton to Hamilton, May 16, 1777; Rocheblave to Carleton, February 8,
1778; Rocheblave to Hamilton, April 12, 1778; Rocheblave to Carleton,
July 4, 1778.] He had under his orders two or three times as many men
as Clark, and he would certainly have made a good fight if he had not
been surprised. It was only Clark's audacity and the noiseless speed of
his movements that gave him a chance of success with the odds so heavily
against him.

Getting boats the American leader ferried his men across the stream
under cover of the darkness and in profound silence; the work occupying
about two hours. He then approached Kaskaskia under cover of the night,
dividing his force into two divisions, one being spread out to surround
the town so that none might escape, while he himself led the other up to
the walls of the fort.

Inside the fort the lights were lit, and through the windows came the
sounds of violins. The officers of the post had given a ball, and the
mirth-loving creoles, young men and girls, were dancing and revelling
within, while the sentinels had left their posts. One of his captives
showed Clark a postern-gate by the river-side, and through this he
entered the fort, having placed his men round about at the entrance.
Advancing to the great hall where the revel was held, he leaned silently
with folded arms against the door-post, looking at the dancers. An
Indian, lying on the floor of the entry, gazed intently on the
stranger's face as the light from the torches within flickered across
it, and suddenly sprang to his feet uttering the unearthly war-whoop.
Instantly the dancing ceased; the women screamed, while the men ran
towards the door. But Clark, standing unmoved and with unchanged face,
grimly bade them continue their dancing, but to remember that they now
danced under Virginia and not Great Britain. [Footnote: Memoir of Major
E. Denny, by Wm. H. Denny, p. 217. In "Record of the Court of Upland and
Military Journal of Major E. Denny," Philadelphia, 1860 (Historical
Society of Penn.). The story was told to Major Denny by Clark himself,
some time in '87 or '88; in process of repetition it evidently became
twisted, and, as related by Denny, there are some very manifest
inaccuracies, but there seems no reason to reject it entirely.] At the
same time his men burst into the fort, and seized the French officers,
including the commandant, Rocheblave. [Footnote: It is worth noting that
these Illinois French, and most of the Indians with whom the French fur
traders came in contact, called the Americans "Bostonnais." (In fact the
fur traders have taught this name to the northern tribes right across to
the Pacific. While hunting in the Selkirk Mountains last fall, the
Kootenai Indian who was with me always described me as a "Boston man.")
Similarly the Indians round the upper Ohio and thence southward often
called the backwoodsmen "Virginians." In each case the French and
Indians adopted the name of their leading and most inveterate enemies as
the title by which to call all of them.]

Immediately Clark had every street secured, and sent runners through the
town ordering the people to keep close to their houses on pain of death;
and by daylight he had them all disarmed. The backwoodsmen patrolled the
town in little squads; while the French in silent terror cowered within
their low-roofed houses. Clark was quite willing that they should fear
the worst; and their panic was very great. The unlooked-for and
mysterious approach and sudden onslaught of the backwoodsmen, their wild
and uncouth appearance, and the ominous silence of their commander, all
combined to fill the French with fearful forebodings for their future
fate. [Footnote: In his "Memoir" Clark dwells at length on the artifices
by which he heightened the terror of the French; and Butler enlarges
still further upon them. I follow the letter to Mason, which is much
safer authority, the writer having then no thought of trying to increase
the dramatic effect of the situation--which in Butler, and indeed in the
"Memoir" also, is strained till it comes dangerously near bathos.]

    Clark's Diplomacy.

Next morning a deputation of the chief men waited upon Clark; and
thinking themselves in the hands of mere brutal barbarians, all they
dared to do was to beg for their lives, which they did, says Clark,
"with the greatest servancy [saying] they were willing to be slaves to
save their families," though the bolder spirits could not refrain from
cursing their fortune that they had not been warned in time to defend
themselves. Now came Clark's chance for his winning stroke. He knew it
was hopeless to expect his little band permanently to hold down a much
more numerous hostile population, that was closely allied to many
surrounding tribes of warlike Indians; he wished above all things to
convert the inhabitants into ardent adherents of the American
Government.

So he explained at length that, though the Americans came as conquerors,
who by the laws of war could treat the defeated as they wished, yet it
was ever their principle to free, not to enslave, the people with whom
they came in contact. If the French chose to become loyal citizens, and
to take the oath of fidelity to the Republic, they should be welcomed to
all the privileges of Americans; those who did not so choose should be
allowed to depart from the land in peace with their families.

    The Creoles Espouse the American Cause.

The mercurial creoles who listened to his speech passed rapidly from the
depth of despair to the height of joy. Instead of bewailing their fate
they now could not congratulate themselves enough on their good-fortune.
The crowning touch to their happiness was given by Clark when he told
the priest, Pierre Gibault, in answer to a question as to whether the
Catholic Church could be opened, that an American commander had nothing
to do with any church save to defend it from insult, and that by the
laws of the Republic his religion had as great privileges as any other.
With that they all returned in noisy joy to their families, while the
priest, a man of ability and influence, became thenceforth a devoted and
effective champion of the American cause. The only person whom Clark
treated harshly was M. Rocheblave, the commandant, who, when asked to
dinner, responded in very insulting terms. Thereupon Clark promptly sent
him as a prisoner to Virginia (where he broke his parole and escaped),
and sold his slaves for five hundred pounds, which was distributed among
the troops as prize-money.

A small detachment of the Americans, accompanied by a volunteer company
of French militia, at once marched rapidly on Cahokia. The account of
what had happened in Kaskaskia, the news of the alliance between France
and America, and the enthusiastic advocacy of Clark's new friends, soon
converted Cahokia; and all of its inhabitants, like those of Kaskaskia,
took the oath of allegiance to America. Almost at the same time the
priest Gibault volunteered to go, with a few of his compatriots, to
Vincennes, and there endeavor to get the people to join the Americans,
as being their natural friends and allies. He started on his mission at
once, and on the first of August returned to Clark with the news that he
had been completely successful, that the entire population, after having
gathered in the church to hear him, had taken the oath of allegiance,
and that the American flag floated over their fort. [Footnote: Judge
John Law's "Address on the Colonial History of Vincennes," P 25.] No
garrison could be spared to go to Vincennes; so one of the captains
[Footnote: Leonard Helm. Vol. II.] was sent thither alone to take
command.

The priest Gibault had given convincing proof of his loyalty. He
remarked to Clark rather dryly that he had, properly speaking, nothing
to do with the temporal affairs of his flock, but that now and then he
was able to give them such hints in a spiritual way as would tend to
increase their devotion to their new friends.

    Clark's Difficulties.

Clark now found himself in a position of the utmost difficulty. With a
handful of unruly backwoodsmen, imperfectly disciplined and kept under
control only by his own personal influence, he had to protect and govern
a region as large as any European kingdom. Moreover, he had to  keep
content and loyal a population of alien race, creed, and language, while
he held his own against the British and against numerous tribes of
Indians, deeply imbittered against all Americans and as blood-thirsty
and treacherous as they were warlike. It may be doubted if there was
another man in the west who possessed the daring and resolution, the
tact, energy, and executive ability necessary for the solution of so
knotty a series of problems.

He was hundreds of miles from the nearest post containing any American
troops; he was still farther from the seat of government. He had no hope
whatever of getting reinforcements or even advice and instruction for
many months, probably not for a year; and he was thrown entirely on his
own resources and obliged to act in every respect purely on his own
responsibility.

Governor Patrick Henry, although leaving every thing in the last resort
to Clark's discretion, had evidently been very doubtful whether a
permanent occupation of the territory was feasible, [Footnote: In his
secret letter of instructions he orders Clark to be especially careful
to secure the artillery and military stores at Kaskia, laying such
stress upon this as to show that he regarded the place itself as of
comparatively little value. In fact, all Henry's order contemplated was
an attack on "the British post at Kaskasky." However, he adds, that if
the French are willing to become American citizens, they shall be fully
protected against their foes. The letter earnestly commands Clark to
treat not only the inhabitants, but also all British prisoners, with the
utmost humanity.] though both he, and especially Jefferson, recognized
the important bearing that its acquisition would have upon the
settlement of the northwestern boundary, when the time came to treat for
peace. Probably Clark himself had not at first appreciated all the
possibilities that lay within his conquest, but he was fully alive to
them now and saw that, provided he could hold on to it, he had added a
vast and fertile territory to the domain of the Union. To the task of
keeping it he now bent all his energies.

    Clark Prepares for Defence.

The time of service of his troops had expired, and they were anxious to
go home. By presents and promises he managed to enlist one hundred of
them for eight months longer. Then, to color his staying with so few
men, he made a feint of returning to the Falls, alleging as a reason his
entire confidence in the loyalty of his French friends and his trust in
their capacity to defend themselves. He hoped that this would bring out
a remonstrance from the inhabitants, who, by becoming American citizens,
had definitely committed themselves against the British. The result was
such as he expected. On the rumor of his departure, the inhabitants in
great alarm urged him to stay, saying that otherwise the British would
surely retake the post. He made a show of reluctantly yielding to their
request, and consented to stay with two companies; and then finding that
many of the more adventurous young creoles were anxious to take service,
he enlisted enough of them to fill up all four companies to their
original strength. His whole leisure was spent in drilling the men,
Americans and French alike, and in a short time he turned them into as
orderly and well disciplined a body as could be found in any garrison of
regulars.

He also established very friendly relations with the Spanish captains of
the scattered creole villages across the Mississippi, for the Spaniards
were very hostile to the British, and had not yet begun to realize that
they had even more to dread from the Americans. Clark has recorded his
frank surprise at finding the Spanish commandant, who lived at St.
Louis, a very pleasant and easy companion, instead of haughty and
reserved, as he had supposed all Spaniards were.

    Dealings with the Indians.

The most difficult, and among the most important, of his tasks, was
dealing with the swarm of fickle and treacherous savage tribes that
surrounded him. They had hitherto been hostile to the Americans; but
being great friends of the Spaniards and French they were much confused
by the change in the sentiments of the latter, and by the sudden turn
affairs had taken.

Some volunteers--Americans, French, and friendly Indians--were sent to
the aid of the American captain at Vincennes, and the latter, by threats
and promises, and a mixture of diplomatic speech-making with a show of
force, contrived, for the time being, to pacify the immediately
neighboring tribes.

Clark took upon himself the greater task of dealing with a huge horde of
savages, representing every tribe between the Great Lakes and the
Mississippi, who had come to the Illinois, some from a distance of five
hundred miles, to learn accurately all that had happened, and to hear
for themselves what the Long Knives had to say. They gathered to meet
him at Cahokia, chiefs and warriors of every grade; among them were
Ottawas and Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Sacs, and Foxes, and others
belonging to tribes whose very names have perished. The straggling
streets of the dismayed little town were thronged with many hundreds of
dark-browed, sullen-looking savages, grotesque in look and terrible in
possibility. They strutted to and fro in their dirty finery, or lounged
round the houses, inquisitive, importunate, and insolent, hardly
concealing a lust for bloodshed and plunder that the slightest mishap
was certain to render ungovernable.

Fortunately Clark knew exactly how to treat them. He thoroughly
understood their natures, and was always on his guard, while seemingly
perfectly confident; and he combined conciliation with firmness and
decision, and above all with prompt rapidity of action.

For the first two or three days no conclusion was reached, though there
was plenty of speech-making. But on the night of the third a party of
turbulent warriors [Footnote: "A party of Puans and others."--Clark's
letter to Mason.] endeavored to force their way into the house where he
was lodging, and to carry him off. Clark, who, as he records, had been
"under some apprehensions among such a number of Devils," was
anticipating treachery. His guards were at hand, and promptly seized the
savages; while the townspeople took the alarm and were under arms in a
couple of minutes, thus convincing the Indians that their friendship for
the Americans was not feigned.

    Clark and the Savages.

Clark instantly ordered the French militia to put the captives, both
chiefs and warriors, in irons. He had treated the Indians well, and had
not angered them by the harshness and brutality that so often made them
side against the English or Americans and in favor of the French; but he
knew that any signs of timidity would be fatal. His boldness and
decision were crowned with complete success. The crestfallen prisoners
humbly protested that they were only trying to find out if the French
were really friendly to Clark, and begged that they might be released.
He answered with haughty indifference, and refused to release them, even
when the chiefs of the other tribes came up to intercede. Indians and
whites alike were in the utmost confusion, every man distrusting what
the moment might bring forth. Clark continued seemingly wholly unmoved,
and did not even shift his lodgings to the fort, remaining in a house in
the town, but he took good care to secretly fill a large room adjoining
his own with armed men, while the guards were kept ready for instant
action. To make his show of indifference complete, he "assembled a
Number of Gentlemen and Ladies and danced nearly the whole Night." The
perplexed savages, on the other hand, spent the hours of darkness in a
series of councils among themselves.

Next morning he summoned all the tribes to a grand council, releasing
the captive chiefs, that he might speak to them in the presence of their
friends and allies. The preliminary ceremonies were carefully executed
in accordance with the rigid Indian etiquette. Then Clark stood up in
the midst of the rings of squatted warriors, while his riflemen
clustered behind him in their tasselled hunting-shirts, travel-torn and
weather-beaten. He produced the bloody war-belt of wampum, and handed it
to the chiefs whom he had taken captive, telling the assembled tribes
that he scorned alike their treachery and their hostility; that he would
be thoroughly justified in putting them to death, but that instead he
would have them escorted safely from the town, and after three days
would begin war upon them. He warned them that if they did not wish
their own women and children massacred, they must stop killing those of
the Americans. Pointing to the war-belt, he challenged them, on behalf
of his people, to see which would make it the most bloody; and he
finished by telling them that while they stayed in his camp they should
be given food and strong drink, [Footnote: "Provisions and Rum." Letter
to Mason. This is much the best authority for these proceedings. The
"Memoir," written by an old man who had squandered his energies and sunk
into deserved obscurity, is tedious and magniloquent, and sometimes
inaccurate. Moreover, Dillon has not always chosen the extracts
judiciously. Clark's decidedly prolix speeches to the Indians are given
with intolerable repetition. They were well suited to the savages,
drawing the causes of the quarrel between the British and Americans in
phrases that could be understood by the Indian mind; but their inflated
hyperbole is not now interesting. They describe the Americans as
lighting a great council-fire, sharpening tomahawks, striking the
war-post, declining to give "two bucks for a blanket," as the British
wanted them to, etc.; with incessant allusions to the Great Spirit being
angry, the roads being made smooth, refusing to listen to the bad birds
who flew through the woods, and the like. Occasional passages are fine;
but it all belongs to the study of Indians and Indian oratory, rather
than to the history of the Americans.] and that now he had ended his
talk to them, and he wished them to speedily depart.

Not only the prisoners, but all the other chiefs in turn forthwith rose,
and in language of dignified submission protested their regret at having
been led astray by the British, and their determination thenceforth to
be friendly with the Americans.

In response Clark again told them that he came not as a counsellor but
as a warrior, not begging for a truce but carrying in his right hand
peace and in his left hand war; save only that to a few of their worst
men he intended to grant no terms whatever. To those who were friendly
he, too, would be a friend, but if they chose war, he would call from
the Thirteen Council Fires [Footnote: In his speeches, as in those of
his successors in treaty-making, the United States were sometimes spoken
of as the Thirteen Fires, and sometimes as the Great Fire.] warriors so
numerous that they would darken the land, and from that time on the red
people would hear no sound but that of the birds that lived on blood. He
went on to tell them, that there had been a mist before their eyes, but
that he would clear away the cloud and would show them the right of the
quarrel between the Long Knives and the King who dwelt across the great
sea; and then he told them about the revolt in terms which would almost
have applied to a rising of Hurons or Wyandots against the Iroquois. At
the end of his speech he offered them the two belts of peace and war.

    The Indians Make Peace.

They eagerly took the peace belt, but he declined to smoke the calumet,
and told them he would not enter into the solemn ceremonies of the peace
treaty with them until the following day. He likewise declined to
release all his prisoners, and insisted that two of them should be put
to death. They even yielded to this, and surrendered to him two young
men, who advanced and sat down before him on the floor, covering their
heads with their blankets, to receive the tomahawk. [Footnote: I have
followed the contemporary letter to Mason rather than the more elaborate
and slightly different account of the "Memoir." The account written by
Clark in his old age, like Shelby's similar autobiography, is, in many
respects, not very trustworthy. It cannot be accepted for a moment where
it conflicts with any contemporary accounts.] Then he granted them full
peace and forgave the young men their doom, and the next day, after the
peace council, there was a feast, and the friendship of the Indians was
won. Clark ever after had great influence over them; they admired his
personal prowess, his oratory, his address as a treaty-maker, and the
skill with which he led his troops. Long afterwards, when the United
States authorities were endeavoring to make treaties with the red men,
it was noticed that the latter would never speak to any other white
general or commissioner while Clark was present.

After this treaty there was peace in the Illinois country; the Indians
remained for some time friendly, and the French were kept well
satisfied.




CHAPTER III.

CLARK'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST VINCENNES, 1779.

Hamilton, at Detroit, had been so encouraged by the successes of his war
parties that, in 1778, he began to plan an attack on Fort Pitt
[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Hamilton to Carleton, January, 1778.]; but his
plans were forestalled by Clark's movements, and he, of course,
abandoned them when the astounding news reached him that the rebels had
themselves invaded the Illinois country, captured the British
commandant, Rocheblave, and administered to the inhabitants the oath of
allegiance to Congress. [Footnote: _Do_. Hamilton's letter of August
8th.] Shortly afterwards he learned that Vincennes likewise was in the
hands of the Americans.

    Hamilton Prepares to Reconquer the Country.

He was a man of great energy, and he immediately began to prepare an
expedition for the reconquest of the country. French emissaries who were
loyal to the British crown were sent to the Wabash to stir up the
Indians against the Americans; and though the Piankeshaws remained
friendly to the latter, the Kickapoos and Weas, who were more powerful,
announced their readiness to espouse the British cause if they received
support, while the neighboring Miamis were already on the war-path. The
commandants at the small posts of Mackinaw and St. Josephs were also
notified to incite the Lake Indians to harass the Illinois country.
[Footnote: Hamilton to Haldimand, September 17, 1778.]

He led the main body in person, and throughout September every soul in
Detroit was busy from morning till night in mending boats, baking
biscuit, packing provisions in kegs and bags, preparing artillery
stores, and in every way making ready for the expedition. Fifteen large
bateaux and pirogues were procured, each capable of carrying from 1,800
to 3,000 pounds; these were to carry the ammunition, food, clothing,
tents, and especially the presents for the Indians. Cattle and wheels
were sent ahead to the most important portages on the route that would
be traversed; a six-pounder gun was also forwarded. Hamilton had been
deeply exasperated by what he regarded as the treachery of most of the
Illinois and Wabash creoles in joining the Americans; but he was in high
spirits and very confident of success. He wrote to his superior officer
that the British were sure to succeed if they acted promptly, for the
Indians were favorable to them, knowing they alone could give them
supplies; and he added "the Spaniards are feeble and hated by the
French, the French are fickle and have no man of capacity to advise or
lead them, and the Rebels are enterprising and brave, but want
resources." The bulk of the Detroit French, including all their leaders,
remained staunch supporters of the crown, and the militia eagerly
volunteered to go on the expedition. Feasts were held with the Ottawas,
Chippewas, and Pottawatomies, at which oxen were roasted whole, while
Hamilton and the chiefs of the French rangers sang the war-song in
solemn council, and received pledges of armed assistance and support
from the savages. [Footnote: _Do_. Hamilton to Haldimand, September 23,
October 3, 1778.]

    He Starts against Vincennes.

On October 7th the expedition left Detroit; before starting the
venerable Jesuit missionary gave the Catholic French who went along his
solemn blessing and approval, conditionally upon their strictly keeping
the oath they had taken to be loyal and obedient servants of the crown.
[Footnote: Haldimand MSS., Series B., Vol. 123, p. 53. Hamilton's letter
of July 6, 1781, containing a "brief account" of the whole expedition,
taken from what he calls a "diary of transactions" that he had
preserved.] It is worthy of note that, while the priest at Kaskaskia
proved so potent an ally of the Americans, the priest at Detroit was one
of the staunchest supporters of the British. Hamilton started with
thirty-six British regulars, under two lieutenants, forty-five Detroit
volunteers (chiefly French), who had been carefully drilled for over a
year, under Captain Lamothe; seventy-nine Detroit militia, under a major
and two captains; and seventeen members of the Indian Department
(including three captains and four lieutenants) who acted with the
Indians. There were thus in all one hundred and seventy-seven whites.
[Footnote: _Do_., Series B., Vol. 122, p. 253, return of forces on Dec.
24th.] Sixty Indians started with the troops from Detroit, but so many
bands joined him on the route that when he reached Vincennes his entire
force amounted to five hundred men. [Footnote: _Do_. Hamilton's letter
of July 6, 1781, the "brief account." Clark's estimate was very close to
the truth; he gave Hamilton six hundred men, four hundred of them
Indians. See State Department MSS., No. 71, Vol. I., p. 247. Papers
Continental Congress. Letter of G. R. Clark to Gov. Henry, April 29,
1779. This letter was written seven months before that to Mason, and
many years before the "Memoir," so I have, where possible, followed it
as being better authority than either.]

    Difficulties of the Route.

Having embarked, the troops and Indians paddled down stream to Lake
Erie, reaching it in a snowstorm, and when a lull came they struck
boldly across the lake, making what bateau men still call a "traverse"
of thirty-six miles to the mouth of the Maumee. Darkness overtook them
while still on the lake, and the head boats hung out lights for the
guidance of those astern; but about midnight a gale came up, and the
whole flotilla was nearly swamped, being beached with great difficulty
on an oozy flat close to the mouth of the Maumee. The waters of the
Maumee were low, and the boats were poled slowly up against the current,
reaching the portage point, where there was a large Indian village, on
the 24th of the month. Here a nine miles' carry was made to one of the
sources of the Wabash, called by the voyageurs "la petite rivière." This
stream was so low that the boats could not have gone down it had it not
been for a beaver dam four miles below the landing-place, which backed
up the current. An opening was made in the dam to let the boats pass.
The traders and Indians thoroughly appreciated the help given them at
this difficult part of the course by the engineering skill of the
beavers--for Hamilton was following the regular route of the hunting,
trading, and war parties,--and none of the beavers of this particular
dam were ever molested, being left to keep their dam in order, and
repair it, which they always speedily did whenever it was damaged.
[Footnote: Haldimand's MSS. Hamilton's "brief account."]

It proved as difficult to go down the Wabash as to get up the Maumee.
The water was shallow, and once or twice in great swamps dykes had to be
built that the boats might be floated across. Frost set in heavily, and
the ice cut the men as they worked in the water to haul the boats over
shoals or rocks. The bateaux often needed to be beached and caulked,
while both whites and Indians had to help carry the loads round the
shoal places. At every Indian village it was necessary to stop, hold a
conference, and give presents. At last the Wea village--or Ouiatanon, as
Hamilton called it--was reached. Here the Wabash chiefs, who had made
peace with the Americans, promptly came in and tendered their allegiance
to the British, and a reconnoitering party seized a lieutenant and three
men of the Vincennes militia, who were themselves on a scouting
expedition, but who nevertheless were surprised and captured without
difficulty. [Footnote: _Do._ The French  officer had in his pocket one
British and one American commission; Hamilton debated in his mind for
some time the advisability of hanging him.] They had been sent out by
Captain Leonard Helm, then acting as commandant at Vincennes. He had but
a couple of Americans with him, and was forced to trust to the creole
militia, who had all embodied themselves with great eagerness, having
taken the oath of allegiance to Congress. Having heard rumors of the
British advance, he had dispatched a little party to keep watch, and in
consequence of their capture he was taken by surprise.

    Hamilton Captures Vincennes.

From Ouiatanon Hamilton dispatched Indian parties to surround Vincennes
and intercept any messages sent either to the Falls or to the Illinois;
they were completely successful, capturing a messenger who carried a
hurried note written by Helm to Clark to announce what had happened. An
advance guard, under Major Hay, was sent forward to take possession, but
Helm showed so good a front that nothing was attempted until the next
day, the 17th of December, just seventy-one days after the expedition
had left Detroit, when Hamilton came up at the head of his whole force
and entered Vincennes. Poor Helm was promptly deserted by all the creole
militia. The latter had been loud in their boasts until the enemy came
in view, but as soon as they caught sight of the red-coats they began to
slip away and run up to the British to surrender their arms. [Footnote:
_Do._ Intercepted letter of Captain Helm, Series B., Vol. 122, p. 280.]
He was finally left with only one or two men, Americans. Nevertheless he
refused the first summons to surrender; but Hamilton, who knew that
Helm's troops had deserted him, marched up to the fort at the head of
his soldiers, and the American was obliged to surrender, with no terms
granted save that he and his associates should be treated with humanity.
[Footnote: Letter of Hamilton, Dec. 18-30, 1778. The story of Helm's
marching out with the honors of war is apparently a mere invention. Even
Mann Butler, usually so careful, permits himself to be led off into all
sorts of errors when describing the incidents of the Illinois and
Vincennes expeditions, and the writers who have followed him have
generally been less accurate. The story of Helm drinking toddy by the
fire-place when Clark retook the fort, and of the latter ordering
riflemen to fire at the chimney, so as to knock the mortar into the
toddy, may safely be set down as pure--and very weak--fiction. When
Clark wrote his memoirs, in his old age, he took delight in writing down
among his exploits all sorts of childish stratagems; the marvel is that
any sane historian should not have seen that these were on their face as
untrue as they were ridiculous.] The instant the fort was surrendered
the Indians broke in and plundered it; but they committed no act of
cruelty, and only plundered a single private house.

    Measures to Secure his Conquest.

The French inhabitants had shown pretty clearly that they did not take a
keen interest in the struggle, on either side. They were now summoned to
the church and offered the chance--which they for the most part eagerly
embraced--of purging themselves of their past misconduct by taking a
most humiliating oath of repentance, acknowledging that they had sinned
against God and man by siding with the rebels, and promising to be loyal
in the future. Two hundred and fifty of the militia, being given back
their arms, appeared with their officers, and took service again under
the British king, swearing a solemn oath of allegiance. They certainly
showed throughout the most light-hearted indifference to chronic perjury
and treachery; nor did they in other respects appear to very good
advantage. Clark was not in the least surprised at the news of their
conduct; for he had all along realized that the attachment of the French
would prove but a slender reed on which to lean in the moment of trial.

Hamilton had no fear of the inhabitants themselves, for the fort
completely commanded the town. To keep them in good order he confiscated
all their spirituous liquors, and in a rather amusing burst of Puritan
feeling destroyed two billiard tables, which he announced were "sources
of immorality and dissipation in such a settlement." [Footnote: _Do._]
He had no idea that he was in danger of attack from without, for his
spies brought him word that Clark had only a hundred and ten men in the
Illinois county [Footnote: _Do._ "Fourscore at Kaskaskia and thirty at
Cahokia."]; and the route between was in winter one of extraordinary
difficulty.

    He Goes into Winter Quarters.

He had five hundred men and Clark but little over one hundred. He was
not only far nearer his base of supplies and reinforcements at Detroit,
than Clark was to his at Fort Pitt, but he was also actually across
Clark's line of communications. Had he pushed forward at once to attack
the Americans, and had he been able to overcome the difficulties of the
march, he would almost certainly have conquered. But he was daunted by
the immense risk and danger of the movement. The way was long and the
country flooded, and he feared the journey might occupy so much time
that his stock of provisions would be exhausted before he got half-way.
In such a case the party might starve to death or perish from exposure.
Besides he did not know what he should do for carriages; and he dreaded
the rigor of the winter weather. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS.; in his
various letters Hamilton sets forth the difficulties at length.] There
were undoubtedly appalling difficulties in the way of a mid-winter march
and attack; and the fact that Clark attempted and performed the feat
which Hamilton dared not try, marks just the difference between a man of
genius and a good, brave, ordinary commander.

    He Plans a Great Campaign in the Spring.

Having decided to suspend active operations during the cold weather, he
allowed the Indians to scatter back to their villages for the winter,
and sent most of the Detroit militia home, retaining in garrison only
thirty-four British regulars, forty French volunteers, and a dozen white
leaders of the Indians [Footnote: _Do._ B. Vol. 122, p. 287. Return of
Vincennes garrison for Jan. 30, 1779.]; in all eighty or ninety whites,
and a probably larger number of red auxiliaries. The latter were
continually kept out on scouting expeditions; Miamis and Shawnees were
sent down to watch the Ohio, and take scalps in the settlements, while
bands of Kickapoos, the most warlike of the Wabash Indians, and of
Ottawas, often accompanied by French partisans, went towards the
Illinois country. [Footnote: Hamilton's "brief account," and his letter
of December 18th.] Hamilton intended to undertake a formidable campaign
in the spring. He had sent messages to Stuart, the British Indian agent
in the south, directing him to give war-belts to the Chickasaws,
Cherokees, and Creeks, that a combined attack on the frontier might take
place as soon as the weather opened. He himself was to be joined by
reinforcements from Detroit, while the Indians were to gather round him
as soon as the winter broke. He would then have had probably over a
thousand men, and light cannon with which to batter down the stockades.
He rightly judged that with this force he could not only reconquer the
Illinois, but also sweep Kentucky, where the outnumbered riflemen could
not have met him in the field, nor the wooden forts have withstood his
artillery. Undoubtedly he would have carried out his plan, and have
destroyed all the settlements west of the Alleghanies, had he been
allowed to wait until the mild weather brought him his hosts of Indian
allies and his reinforcements of regulars and militia from Detroit.

    Panic among the Illinois French.

But in Clark he had an antagonist whose far-sighted daring and
indomitable energy raised him head and shoulders above every other
frontier leader. This backwoods colonel was perhaps the one man able in
such a crisis to keep the land his people had gained. When the news of
the loss of Vincennes reached the Illinois towns, and especially when
there followed a rumor that Hamilton himself was on his march thither to
attack them, [Footnote: The rumor came when Clark was attending a dance
given by the people of the little village of La Prairie du Rocher. The
Creoles were passionately fond of dancing and the Kentuckians entered
into the amusement with the utmost zest.] the panic became tremendous
among the French. They frankly announced that though they much preferred
the Americans, yet it would be folly to oppose armed resistance to the
British; and one or two of their number were found to be in
communication with Hamilton and the Detroit authorities. Clark promptly
made ready for resistance, tearing down the buildings near the fort at
Kaskaskia--his head-quarters--and sending out scouts and runners; but he
knew that it was hopeless to try to withstand such a force as Hamilton
could gather. He narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by a party of
Ottawas and Canadians, who had come from Vincennes early in January,
when the weather was severe and the travelling fairly good. [Footnote:
Haldimand MSS. Hamilton's letter January 24, 1779.] He was at the time
on his way to Cahokia, to arrange for the defence; several of the
wealthier Frenchmen were with him in "chairs"--presumably creaking
wooden carts,--and one of them "swampt," or mired down, only a hundred
yards from the ambush. Clark and his guards were so on the alert that no
attack was made.

    Clark Receives News concerning Vincennes.

In the midst of his doubt and uncertainty he received some news that
enabled him immediately to decide on the proper course to follow. He had
secured great influence over the bolder, and therefore the leading,
spirits among the French. One of these was a certain Francis Vigo, a
trader in St. Louis. He was by birth an Italian, who had come to New
Orleans in a Spanish regiment, and having procured his discharge, had
drifted to the creole villages of the frontier, being fascinated by the
profitable adventures of the Indian trade. Journeying to Vincennes, he
was thrown into prison by Hamilton; on being released, he returned to
St. Louis. Thence he instantly crossed over to Kaskaskia, on January 27,
1779, [Footnote: State Department MSS. Letters to Washington, 33, p.
90.] and told Clark that Hamilton had at the time only eighty men in
garrison, with three pieces of cannon and some swivels mounted, but that
as soon as the winter broke, he intended to gather a very large force
and take the offensive. [Footnote: State Department MSS. Papers of
Continental Congress, No. 71, Vol. I., p. 267.]

    Clark Determines to Strike the First Blow.

Clark instantly decided to forestall his foe, and to make the attack
himself, heedless of the almost impassable nature of the ground and of
the icy severity of the weather. Not only had he received no
reinforcements from Virginia but he had not had so much as "a scrip of a
pen" from Governor Henry since he had left him, nearly twelve months
before. [Footnote: _Do._] So he was forced to trust entirely to his own
energy and power. He first equipped a row-galley with two four-pounders
and four swivels, and sent her off with a crew of forty men, having
named her the Willing. [Footnote: Under the command of Clark's cousin,
Lt. John Rogers.] She was to patrol the Ohio, and then to station
herself in the Wabash so as to stop all boats from descending it. She
was the first gun-boat ever afloat on the western waters.

    His March against Vincennes.

Then he hastily drew together his little garrisons of backwoodsmen from
the French towns, and prepared for the march overland against Vincennes.
His bold front and confident bearing, and the prompt decision of his
measures, had once more restored confidence among the French, whose
spirits rose as readily as they were cast down; and he was especially
helped by the creole girls, whose enthusiasm for the expedition roused
many of the more daring young men to volunteer under Clark's banner. By
these means he gathered together a band of one hundred and seventy men,
at whose head he marched out of Kaskaskia on the 7th of February.
[Footnote: Letter to Henry. The letter to Mason says it was the 5th.]
All the inhabitants escorted them out of the village, and the Jesuit
priest, Gibault, gave them absolution at parting.

The route by which they had to go was two hundred and forty miles in
length. It lay through a beautiful and well watered country, of groves
and prairies; but at that season the march was necessarily attended with
the utmost degree of hardship and fatigue. The weather had grown mild,
so that there was no suffering from cold; but in the thaw the ice on the
rivers melted, great freshets followed, and all the lowlands and meadows
were flooded. Clark's great object was to keep his troops in good
spirits. Of course he and the other officers shared every hardship and
led in every labor. He encouraged the men to hunt game; and to "feast on
it like Indian war-dancers," [Footnote: Clark's "Memoir."] each company
in turn inviting the others to the smoking and plentiful banquets. One
day they saw great herds of buffaloes and killed many of them. They had
no tents [Footnote: State Department MSS. Letters to Washington, Vol.
33, p. 90. "A Journal of Col. G. R. Clark. Proceedings from the 29th
Jan'y 1779 to the 26th March Inst." [by Captain Bowman]. This journal
has been known for a long time. The original is supposed to have been
lost; but either this is it or else it is a contemporary MS. copy. In
the "Campaign in the Illinois" (Cincinnati, Robert Clarke and Co.,
1869), p. 99, there is a printed copy of the original. The Washington
MS. differs from it in one or two particulars. Thus, the printed diary
in the "Campaign," on p. 99, line 3, says "fifty volunteers"; the MS.
copy says "50 French volunteers." Line 5 in the printed copy says "and
such other Americans"; in the MS. it says "and several other Americans."
Lines 6 and 7 of the printed copy read as follows in the MS. (but only
make doubtful sense): "These with a number of horses designed for the
settlement of Kantuck &c. Jan. 30th, on which Col. Clark," etc. Lines 10
and 11 of the printed copy read in the MS.: "was let alone till spring
that he with his Indians would undoubtedly cut us all off." Lines 13 and
14, of the printed copy read in the MS. "Jan. 31st, sent an express to
Cahokia for volunteers. Nothing extraordinary this day."]; but at
nightfall they kindled huge camp-fires, and spent the evenings merrily
round the piles of blazing logs, in hunter fashion, feasting on bear's
ham and buffalo hump, elk saddle, venison haunch, and the breast of the
wild turkey, some singing of love and the chase and war, and others
dancing after the manner of the French trappers and wood-runners.

Thus they kept on, marching hard but gleefully and in good spirits until
after a week they came to the drowned lauds of the Wabash. They first
struck the two branches of the Little Wabash. Their channels were a
league apart, but the flood was so high that they now made one great
river five miles in width, the overflow of water being three feet deep
in the shallowest part of the plains between and alongside them.

Clark instantly started to build a pirogue; then crossing over the first
channel he put up a scaffold on the edge of the flooded plain. He
ferried his men over, and brought the baggage across and placed it on
the scaffold; then he swam the pack-horses over, loaded them as they
stood belly-deep in the water beside the scaffold, and marched his men
on through the water until they came to the second channel, which was
crossed as the first had been. The building of the pirogue and the
ferrying took three days in all.

They had by this time come so near Vincennes that they dared not fire a
gun for fear of being discovered; besides, the floods had driven the
game all away; so that they soon began to feel hunger, while their
progress was very slow, and they suffered much from the fatigue of
travelling all day long through deep mud or breast-high water. On the
17th they reached the Embarras River, but could not cross, nor could
they find a dry spot on which to camp; at last they found the water
falling off a small, almost submerged hillock, and on this they huddled
through the night. At daybreak they heard Hamilton's morning gun from
the fort, that was but three leagues distant; and as they could not find
a ford across the Embarras, they followed it down and camped by the
Wabash. There Clark set his drenched, hungry, and dispirited followers
to building some pirogues; while two or three unsuccessful attempts were
made to get men across the river that they might steal boats. He
determined to leave his horses at this camp; for it was almost
impossible to get them further. [Footnote: This is not exactly stated in
the "Memoir"; but it speaks of the horses as being with the troops on
the 20th; and after they left camp, on the evening of the 21st, states
that he "would have given a good deal ... for one of the horses."]

    Hardship and Suffering.

On the morning of the 20th the men had been without food for nearly two
days. Many of the Creole volunteers began to despair, and talked of
returning. Clark knew that his Americans, veterans who had been with him
for over a year, had no idea of abandoning the enterprise, nor yet of
suffering the last extremities of hunger while they had horses along. He
paid no heed to the request of the Creoles, nor did he even forbid their
going back; he only laughed at them, and told them to go out and try to
kill a deer. He knew that without any violence he could yet easily
detain the volunteers for a few days longer; and he kept up the spirits
of the whole command by his undaunted and confident mien. The canoes
were nearly finished; and about noon a small boat with five Frenchmen
from Vincennes was captured. From these Clark gleaned the welcome
intelligence that the condition of affairs was unchanged at the fort,
and that there was no suspicion of any impending danger. In the evening
the men were put in still better heart by one of the hunters killing a
deer.

It rained all the next day. By dawn Clark began to ferry the troops over
the Wabash in the canoes he had built, and they were soon on the eastern
bank of the river, the side on which Vincennes stood. They now hoped to
get to town by nightfall; but there was no dry land for leagues round
about, save where a few hillocks rose island-like above the flood. The
Frenchmen whom they had captured said they could not possibly get along;
but Clark led the men in person, and they waded with infinite toil for
about three miles, the water often up to their chins; and they then
camped on a hillock for the night. Clark kept the troops cheered up by
every possible means, and records that he was much assisted by "a little
antic drummer," a young boy who did good service by making the men laugh
with his pranks and jokes. [Footnote: Law, in his "Vincennes" (p. 32),
makes the deeds of the drummer the basis for a traditional story that is
somewhat too highly colored. Thus he makes Clark's men at one time
mutiny, and refuse to go forwards. This they never did; the Creoles once
got dejected and wished to return, but the Americans, by Clark's own
statement, never faltered at all. Law's "Vincennes" is an excellent
little book, but he puts altogether too much confidence in mere
tradition. For another instance besides this, see page 68, where he
describes Clark as entrapping and killing "upwards of fifty Indians,"
instead of only eight or nine, as was actually the case.]

Next morning they resumed their march, the strongest wading painfully
through the water, while the weak and famished were carried in the
canoes, which were so hampered by the bushes that they could hardly go
even as fast as the toiling footmen. The evening and morning guns of the
fort were heard plainly by the men as they plodded onward, numbed and
weary. Clark, as usual, led them in person. Once they came to a place so
deep that there seemed no crossing, for the canoes could find no ford.
It was hopeless to go back or stay still, and the men huddled together,
apparently about to despair. But Clark suddenly blackened his face with
gunpowder, gave the war-whoop, and sprang forwards boldly into the
ice-cold water, wading out straight towards the point at which they were
aiming; and the men followed him, one after another, without a word.
Then he ordered those nearest him to begin one of their favorite songs;
and soon the whole line took it up, and marched cheerfully onward. He
intended to have the canoes ferry them over the deepest part, but before
they came to it one of the men felt that his feet were in a path, and by
carefully following it they got to a sugar camp, a hillock covered with
maples, which once had been tapped for sugar. Here they camped for the
night, still six miles from the town, without food, and drenched
through. The prisoners from Vincennes, sullen and weary, insisted that
they could not possibly get to the town through the deep water; the
prospect seemed almost hopeless even to the iron-willed, steel-sinewed
backwoodsmen [Footnote: Bowman ends his entry for the day with: "No
provisions yet. Lord help us!"]; but their leader never lost courage for
a moment.

That night was bitterly cold, for there was a heavy frost, and the ice
formed half an inch thick round the edges and in the smooth water. But
the sun rose bright and glorious, and Clark, in burning words, told his
stiffened, famished, half-frozen followers that the evening would surely
see them at the goal of their hopes. Without waiting for an answer, he
plunged into the water, and they followed him with a cheer, in Indian
file. Before the third man had entered the water he halted and told one
of his officers [Footnote: Bowman] to close the rear with twenty-five
men, and to put to death any man who refused to march; and the whole
line cheered him again.

Then came the most trying time of the whole march. Before them lay a
broad sheet of water, covering what was known as the Horse Shoe Plain;
the floods had made it a shallow lake four miles across, unbroken by so
much as a handsbreadth of dry land. On its farther side was a dense
wood. Clark led breast high in the water with fifteen or twenty of the
strongest men next him. About the middle of the plain the cold and
exhaustion told so on the weaker men that the canoes had to take them
aboard and carry them on to the land; and from that time on the little
dug-outs plied frantically to and fro to save the more helpless from
drowning. Those, who, though weak, could still move onwards, clung to
the stronger, and struggled ahead, Clark animating them in every
possible way. When they at last reached the woods the water became so
deep that it was to the shoulders of the tallest, but the weak and those
of low stature could now cling to the bushes and old logs, until the
canoes were able to ferry them to a spot of dry land, some ten acres in
extent, that lay near-by. The strong and tall got ashore and built
fires. Many on reaching the shore fell flat on their faces, half in the
water, and could not move farther. It was found that the fires did not
help the very weak, so every such a one was put between two strong men
who ran him up and down by the arms, and thus soon made him recover.
[Footnote: Clark's "Memoir."]

Fortunately at this time an Indian canoe, paddled by some squaws, was
discovered and overtaken by one of the dug-outs. In it was half a
quarter of a buffalo, with some corn, tallow and kettles. This was an
invaluable prize. Broth was immediately made, and was served out to the
most weakly with great care; almost all of the men got some, but very
many gave their shares to the weakly, rallying and joking them to put
them in good heart. The little refreshment, together with the fires and
the bright weather, gave new life to all. They set out again in the
afternoon, crossed a deep, narrow lake in their canoes, and after
marching a short distance came to a copse of timber from which they saw
the fort and town not two miles away. Here they halted, and looked to
their rifles and ammunition, making ready for the fight. Every man now
feasted his eyes with the sight of what he had so long labored to reach,
and forthwith forgot that he had suffered any thing; making light of
what had been gone through, and passing from dogged despair to the most
exultant self-confidence.

Between the party and the town lay a plain, the hollows being filled
with little pools, on which were many water-fowl, and some of the
townspeople were in sight, on horseback, shooting ducks. Clark sent out
a few active young creoles, who succeeded in taking prisoner one of
these fowling horsemen. From him it was learned that neither Hamilton
nor any one else had the least suspicion that any attack could possibly
be made at that season, but that a couple of hundred Indian warriors had
just come to town.

Clark was rather annoyed at the last bit of information. The number of
armed men in town, including British, French, and Indians about
quadrupled his own force. This made heavy odds to face, even with the
advantage of a surprise, and in spite of the fact that his own men were
sure to fight to the last, since failure meant death by torture.
Moreover, if he made the attack without warning, some of the Indians and
Vincennes people would certainly be slain, and the rest would be thereby
made his bitter enemies, even if he succeeded. On the other hand, he
found out from the prisoner that the French were very lukewarm to the
British, and would certainly not fight if they could avoid it; and that
half of the Indians were ready to side with the Americans. Finally,
there was a good chance that before dark some one would discover the
approach of the troops and would warn the British, thereby doing away
with all chance of a surprise.

After thinking it over Clark decided, as the less of two evils, to
follow the hazardous course of himself announcing his approach. He
trusted that the boldness of such a course, together with the shock of
his utterly unexpected appearance, would paralyze his opponents and
incline the wavering to favor him. So he released the prisoner and sent
him in ahead, with a letter to the people of Vincennes. By this letter
he proclaimed to the French that he was that moment about to attack the
town; that those townspeople who were friends to the Americans were to
remain in their houses, where they would not be molested; that the
friends of the king should repair to the fort, join the "hair-buyer
general," and fight like men; and that those who did neither of these
two things, but remained armed and in the streets, must expect to be
treated as enemies. [Footnote: Clark's "Memoir."]

    Surprise of the Town.

Having sent the messenger in advance, he waited until his men were
rested and their rifles and powder dry, and then at sundown marched
straight against the town. He divided his force into two divisions,
leading in person the first, which consisted of two companies of
Americans and of the Kaskaskia creoles; while the second, led by Bowman,
contained Bowman's own company and the Cahokians. His final orders to
the men were to march with the greatest regularity, to obey the orders
of their officers, and, above all, to keep perfect silence. [Footnote:
In the Haldimand MSS., Series B., Vol. 122, p. 289, there is a long
extract from what is called "Col. Clark's Journal." This is the official
report which he speaks of as being carried by William Moires, his
express, who was taken by the Indians (see his letter to Henry of April
29th; there seems, by the way, to be some doubt whether this letter was
not written to Jefferson; there is a copy in the Jefferson MSS. Series
I., Vol. I.). This is not only the official report, but also the
earliest letter Clark wrote on the subject and therefore the most
authoritative. The paragraph relating to the final march against
Vincennes is as follows:

"I order'd the march in the first division Capt. Williams, Capt.
Worthingtons Company & the Kaskaskia Volunteers, in the 2d commanded by
Capt. Bowman his own Company & the Cohos Volunteers. At sun down I put
the divisions in motion to march in the greatest order & regularity &
observe the orders of their officers. Above all to be silent--the 5 men
we took in the canoes were our guides. We entered the town on the upper
part leaving detached Lt. Bayley & 15 rifle men to attack the Fort &
keep up a fire to harrass them untill we took possession of the town &
they were to remain on that duty till relieved by another party, the two
divisions marched into the town & took possession of the main street,
put guards &c without the least molestation."

This effectually disposes of the account, which was accepted by Clark
himself in his old age, that he ostentatiously paraded his men and
marched them to and fro with many flags flying, so as to impress the
British with his numbers. Instead of indulging in any such childishness
(which would merely have warned the British, and put them on their
guard), he in reality made as silent an approach as possible, under
cover of the darkness.

Hamilton, in his narrative, speaks of the attack as being made on the
22d of February, not the 23d as Clark says.] The rapidly gathering dusk
prevented any discovery of his real numbers.

In sending in the messenger he had builded even better than he knew;
luck which had long been against him now at last favored him. Hamilton's
runners had seen Clark's camp-fires the night before; and a small
scouting party of British regulars, Detroit volunteers, and Indians had
in consequence been sent to find out what had caused them. [Footnote:
Hamilton's "brief account" in the Haldimand MSS. The party was led by
Lt. Schieffelin of the regulars and the French captains Lamothe and
Maisonville.] These men were not made of such stern stuff as Clark's
followers, nor had they such a commander; and after going some miles
they were stopped by the floods, and started to return. Before they got
back, Vincennes was assailed. Hamilton trusted so completely to the
scouting party, and to the seemingly impassable state of the country,
that his watch was very lax. The creoles in the town, when Clark's
proclamation was read to them, gathered eagerly to discuss it; but so
great was the terror of his name, and so impressed and appalled were
they by the mysterious approach of an unknown army, and the confident
and menacing language with which its coming was heralded, that none of
them dared show themselves partisans of the British by giving warning to
the garrison. The Indians likewise heard vague rumors of what had
occurred and left the town; a number of the inhabitants who were
favorable to the British, followed the same course. [Footnote: Haldimand
MSS. Series B., Vol. 122, p. 337. Account brought to the people of
Detroit of the loss of Vincennes, by a Captain Chêne, who was then
living in the village. As the Virginians entered it he fled to the woods
with some Huron and Ottawa warriors; next day he was joined by some
French families and some Miamis and Pottawatomies.] Hamilton, attracted
by the commotion, sent down his soldiers to find out what had occurred;
but before they succeeded, the Americans were upon them.

About seven o'clock [Footnote: Clark's letter to Henry.] Clark entered
the town, and at once pushed his men on to attack the fort. Had he
charged he could probably have taken it at once; for so unprepared were
the garrison that the first rifle shots were deemed by them to come from
drunken Indians. But of course he had not counted on such a state of
things. He had so few men that he dared not run the risk of suffering a
heavy loss. Moreover, the backwoodsmen had neither swords nor bayonets.

Most of the creole townspeople received Clark joyfully, and rendered him
much assistance, especially by supplying him with powder and ball, his
own stock of ammunition being scanty. One of the Indian chiefs
[Footnote: A son of the Piankeshaw head-chief Tabae.]offered to bring
his tribe to the support of the Americans, but Clark answered that all
he asked of the red men was that they should for the moment remain
neutral. A few of the young Creoles were allowed to join in the attack,
however, it being deemed good policy to commit them definitely to the
American side.

    The Attack on the Fort.

Fifty of the American troops were detached to guard against any relief
from without, while the rest attacked the fort: yet Hamilton's scouting
party crept up, lay hid all night in an old barn, and at daybreak rushed
into the fort. [Footnote: Hamilton's Narrative. Clark in his "Memoir"
asserts that he designedly let them through, and could have shot them
down as they tried to clamber over the stockade if he had wished. Bowman
corroborates Hamilton, saying: "We sent a party to intercept them, but
missed them. However, we took one of their men, ... the rest making
their escape under the cover of the night into the fort." Bowman's
journal is for this siege much more trustworthy than Clark's "Memoir."
In the latter, Clark makes not a few direct misstatements, and many
details are colored so as to give them an altered aspect. As an instance
of the different ways in which he told an event at the time, and thirty
years later, take the following accounts of the same incident. The first
is from the letter to Henry (State Department MSS.), the second from the
"Memoir." I. "A few days ago I received certain intelligence of Wm.
Moires my express to you being killed near the Falls of Ohio, news truly
disagreeable to me, as I fear many of my letters will fall into the
hands of the enemy at Detroit." 2. "Poor Myres the express, who set out
on the 15th, got killed on his passage, and his packet fell into the
hands of the enemy; but I had been so much on my guard that there was
not a sentence in it that could be of any disadvantage to us for the
enemy to know; and there were private letters from soldiers to their
friends designedly wrote to deceive in cases of such accidents." Firing
was kept up with very little intermission throughout the night.

His whole account of the night attack and of his treating with Hamilton
is bombastic. If his account of the incessant "blaze of fire" of the
Americans is true, they must have wasted any amount of ammunition
perfectly uselessly. Unfortunately, most of the small western historians
who have written about Clark have really damaged his reputation by the
absurd inflation of their language. They were adepts in the
forcible-feeble style of writing, a sample of which is their rendering
him ludicrous by calling him "the Hannibal of the West," and the
"Washington of the West." Moreover, they base his claims to greatness
not on his really great deeds, but on the half-imaginary feats of
childish cunning he related in his old age.] At one o'clock the moon
set, and Clark took advantage of the darkness to throw up an
intrenchment within rifle-shot of the strongest battery, which consisted
of two guns. All of the cannon and swivels in the fort were placed about
eleven feet above the ground, on the upper floors of the strong
block-houses that formed the angles of the palisaded walls. At sunrise
on the 24th the riflemen from the intrenchment opened a hot fire into
the port-holes of the battery, and speedily silenced both guns.
[Footnote: Clark's letter to Henry.] The artillery and musketry of the
defenders did very little damage to the assailants, who lost but one man
wounded, though some of the houses in the town were destroyed by the
cannon-balls. In return, the backwoodsmen, by firing into the ports,
soon rendered it impossible for the guns to be run out and served, and
killed or severely wounded six or eight of the garrison; for the
Americans showed themselves much superior, both in marksmanship and in
the art of sheltering themselves, to the British regulars and French
Canadians against whom they were pitted.

Early in the forenoon Clark summoned the fort to surrender, and while
waiting for the return of the flag his men took the opportunity of
getting breakfast, the first regular meal they had had for six days.
Hamilton declined to surrender, but proposed a three days' truce
instead. This proposition Clark instantly rejected, and the firing again
began, the backwoodsmen beseeching Clark to let them storm the fort; he
refused. While the negotiations were going on a singular incident
occurred. A party of Hamilton's Indians returned from a successful
scalping expedition against the frontier, and being ignorant of what had
taken place, marched straight into the town. Some of Clark's
backwoodsmen instantly fell on them and killed or captured nine, besides
two French partisans who had been out with them. [Footnote: _Do_. In the
letter to Mason he says two scalped, six captured and after-wards
tomahawked. Bowman says two killed, three wounded, six captured; and
calls the two partisans "prisoners." Hamilton and Clark say they were
French allies of the British, the former saying there were two, the
latter mentioning only one. Hamilton says there were fifteen Indians.]
One of the latter was the son of a creole lieutenant in Clark's troops,
and after much pleading his father and friends procured the release of
himself and his comrade. [Footnote: The incident is noteworthy as
showing how the French were divided; throughout the Revolutionary war in
the west they furnished troops to help in turn whites and Indians,
British and Americans. The Illinois French, however, generally remained
faithful to the Republic, and the Detroit French to the crown.] Clark
determined to make a signal example of the six captured Indians, both to
strike terror into the rest and to show them how powerless the British
were to protect them; so he had them led within sight of the fort and
there tomahawked and thrown into the river. [Footnote: Hamilton, who
bore the most vindictive hatred to Clark, implies that the latter
tomahawked the prisoners himself; but Bowman explicitly says that it was
done while Clark and Hamilton were meeting at the church. Be it noticed
in passing, that both Clark and Hamilton agree that though the Vincennes
people favored the Americans, only a very few of them took active part
on Clark's side.] The sight did not encourage the garrison. The English
troops remained firm and eager for the fight, though they had suffered
the chief loss; but the Detroit volunteers showed evident signs of
panic.

    Surrender of the Fort.

In the afternoon Hamilton sent out another flag, and he and Clark met in
the old French church to  arrange for the capitulation. Helm, who  was
still a prisoner on parole, and was told by Clark that he was to remain
such until recaptured, was present; so were the British Major Hay and
the American Captain Bowman. There was some bickering and recrimination
between the leaders, Clark reproaching Hamilton with having his hands
dyed in the blood of the women and children slain by his savage allies;
while the former answered that he was not to blame for obeying the
orders of his superiors, and that he himself had done all he could to
make the savages act mercifully. It was finally agreed that the
garrison, seventy-nine men in all, [Footnote: Letter to Henry.
Hamilton's letter says sixty rank and file of the 8th regiment and
Detroit volunteers; the other nineteen were officers and under-officers,
artillerymen, and French partisan leaders. The return of the garrison
already quoted shows he had between eighty and ninety white troops.]
should surrender as prisoners of war. The British commander has left on
record his bitter _mortification_ at having to yield the fort "to a set
of uncivilized Virginia woodsmen armed with rifles." In truth, it was a
most notable achievement. Clark had taken, without artillery, a heavy
stockade, protected by cannon and swivels, and garrisoned by trained
soldiers. His superiority in numbers was very far from being in itself
sufficient to bring about the result, as witness the almost invariable
success with which the similar but smaller Kentucky forts, unprovided
with artillery and held by fewer men, were defended against much larger
forces than Clark's. Much credit belongs to Clark's men, but most
belongs to their leader. The boldness of his plan and the resolute skill
with which he followed it out, his perseverance through the intense
hardships of the midwinter march, the address with which he kept the
French and Indians neutral, and the masterful way in which he controlled
his own troops, together with the ability and courage he displayed in
the actual attack, combined to make his feat the most memorable of all
the deeds done west of the Alleghanies in the Revolutionary war.
[Footnote: Hamilton himself, at the conclusion of his "brief account,"
speaks as follows in addressing his superiors: "The difficulties and
dangers of Colonel Clark's march from the Illinois were such as required
great courage to encounter and great perseverance to overcome. In
trusting to traitors he was more fortunate than myself; whether, on the
whole, he was entitled to success is not for me to determine." Both
Clark and Hamilton give minute accounts of various interviews that took
place between them; the accounts do not agree, and it is needless to say
that in the narration of each the other appears to disadvantage, being
quoted as practically admitting various acts of barbarity, etc.] It was
likewise the most important in its results, for had he been defeated we
would not only have lost the Illinois, but in all probability Kentucky
also.

    Capture of a Convoy from Detroit.

Immediately after taking the fort Clark sent Helm and fifty men, in
boats armed with swivels, up the Wabash to intercept a party of forty
French volunteers from Detroit, who were bringing to Vincennes bateaux
heavily laden with goods of all kinds, to the value of ten thousand
pounds sterling. [Footnote: Letter to Henry.] In a few days Helm
returned successful, and the spoils, together with the goods taken at
Vincennes, were distributed among the soldiers, who "got almost rich."
[Footnote: "Memoir."] The officers kept nothing save a few needed
articles of clothing. The gun-boat _Willing_ appeared shortly after the
taking of the fort, the crew bitterly disappointed that they were not in
time for the fighting. The long-looked-for messenger from the governor
of Virginia also arrived, bearing to the soldiers the warm thanks of the
Legislature of that State for their capture of Kaskaskia and the promise
of more substantial reward. [Footnote: One hundred and fifty thousand
acres of land opposite Louisville were finally allotted them. Some of
the Piankeshaw Indians ceded Clark a tract of land for his own use, but
the Virginia Legislature very properly disallowed the grant.]

    Disposal of the Prisoners.

Clark was forced to parole most of his prisoners, but twenty-seven,
including Hamilton himself, were sent to Virginia. The backwoodsmen
regarded Hamilton with revengeful hatred, and he was not well treated
while among them, [Footnote: In Hamilton's "brief account" he says that
their lives were often threatened by the borderers, but that "our guard
behaved very well, protected us, and hunted for us." At the Falls he
found "a number of settlers who lived in log-houses, in eternal
apprehension from the Indians," and he adds: "The people at the forts
are in a wretched state, obliged to enclose the cattle every night
within the fort, and carry their rifles to the field when they go to
plough or cut wood." He speaks of Boon's kindness in his short printed
narrative in the _Royal Gazette_.] save only by Boon--for the
kind-hearted, fearless old pioneer never felt any thing but pity for a
fallen enemy. All the borderers, including Clark, [Footnote: Clark, in
his letter to Mason, alludes to Hamilton's "known barbarity"; but in his
memoir he speaks very well of Hamilton, and attributes the murderous
forays to his subordinates, one of whom, Major Hay, he particularly
specifies.] believed that the British commander himself gave rewards to
the Indians for the American scalps they brought in; and because of his
alleged behavior in this regard he was kept in close confinement by the
Virginia government until, through the intercession of Washington, he
was at last released and exchanged. Exactly how much he was to blame it
is difficult to say. Certainly the blame rests even more with the crown,
and the ruling class in Britain, than with Hamilton, who merely carried
out the orders of his superiors; and though he undoubtedly heartily
approved of these orders, and executed them with eager zest, yet it
seems that he did what he could--which was very little--to prevent
unnecessary atrocities.

The crime consisted in employing the savages at all in a war waged
against men, women, and children alike. Undoubtedly the British at
Detroit followed the example of the French [Footnote: See Parkman's
"Montcalm and Wolfe," II., 421, for examples of French payments, some of
a peculiarly flagrant sort. A certain kind of American pseudo-historian
is especially fond of painting the British as behaving to us with
unexampled barbarity; yet nothing is more sure than that the French were
far mote cruel and less humane in their contests with us than were the
British.] in paying money to the Indians for the scalps of their foes.
It is equally beyond question that the British acted with much more
humanity than their French predecessors had shown. Apparently the best
officers utterly disapproved of the whole business of scalp buying; but
it was eagerly followed by many of the reckless agents and partisan
leaders, British, tories, and Canadians, who themselves often
accompanied the Indians against the frontier and witnessed or shared in
their unmentionable atrocities. It is impossible to acquit either the
British home government or its foremost representatives at Detroit of a
large share in the responsibility for the appalling brutality of these
men and their red allies; but the heaviest blame rests on the home
government.

    The Country Pacified.

Clark soon received some small reinforcements, and was able to establish
permanent garrisons at Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and Cahokia. With the
Indian tribes who lived round about he made firm peace; against some
hunting bands of Delawares who came in and began to commit ravages, he
waged ruthless and untiring war, sparing the women and children, but
killing all the males capable of bearing arms, and he harried most of
them out of the territory, while the rest humbly sued for peace. His own
men worshipped him; the French loved and stood in awe of him while the
Indians respected and feared him greatly. During the remainder of the
Revolutionary war the British were not able to make any serious effort
to shake the hold he had given the Americans on the region lying around
and between Vincennes and the Illinois. Moreover he so effectually
pacified the tribes between the Wabash and the Mississippi that they did
not become open and formidable foes of the whites until, with the close
of the war against Britain, Kentucky passed out of the stage when Indian
hostilities threatened her very life.

The fame of Clark's deeds and the terror of his prowess spread to the
southern Indians, and the British at Natchez trembled lest they should
share the fate that had come on Kaskaskia and Vincennes. [Footnote:
State Department MSS. [Intercepted Letters], No. 51, Vol. II., pp. 17
and 45. Letter of James Colbert, a half-breed in the British interest,
resident at that time among the Chickasaws, May 25, 1779, etc.]
Flat-boats from the Illinois went down to New Orleans, and keel-boats
returned from that city with arms and munitions, or were sent up to
Pittsburg [Footnote: The history of the early navigation of the Ohio and
Mississippi begins many years before the birth of any of our western
pioneers, when the French went up and down them. Long before the
Revolutionary war occasional hunters, in dug-outs, or settlers going to
Natchez in flat-boats, descended these rivers, and from Pittsburg craft
were sent to New Orleans to open negotiations with the Spaniards as soon
as hostilities broke out; and ammunition was procured from New Orleans
as soon as Independence was declared.]; and the following spring Clark
built a fort on the east bank of the Mississippi below the Ohio.
[Footnote: In lat. 36° 30'; it was named Fort Jefferson. Jefferson MSS.,
1st Series, Vol. 19. Clark's letter.] It was in the Chickasaw territory,
and these warlike Indians soon assaulted it, making a determined effort
to take it by storm, and though they were repulsed with very heavy
slaughter, yet, to purchase their neutrality, the Americans were glad to
abandon the fort.

    Clark Moves to the Falls of Ohio.

Clark himself, towards the end of 1779, took up his abode at the Falls
of the Ohio, where he served in some sort as a shield both for the
Illinois and for Kentucky, and from whence he hoped some day to march
against Detroit. This was his darling scheme, which he never ceased to
cherish. Through no fault of his own, the day never came when he could
put it in execution.

He was ultimately made a brigadier-general of the Virginian militia, and
to the harassed settlers in Kentucky his mere name was a tower of
strength. He was the sole originator of the plan for the conquest of the
northwestern lands, and, almost unaided, he had executed his own scheme.
For a year he had been wholly cut off from all communication with the
home authorities, and had received no help of any kind. Alone, and with
the very slenderest means, he had conquered and held a vast and
beautiful region, which but for him would have formed part of a foreign
and hostile empire [Footnote: It is of course impossible to prove that
but for Clark's conquest the Ohio would have been made our boundary in
1783, exactly as it is impossible to prove that but for Wolfe the
English would not have taken Quebec. But when we take into account the
determined efforts of Spain and France to confine us to the land east of
the Alleghanies, and then to the land southeast of the Ohio, the
slavishness of Congress in instructing our commissioners to do whatever
France wished, and the readiness shown by one of the commissioners,
Franklin, to follow these instructions, it certainly looks as if there
would not even have been an effort made by us to get the northwestern
territory had we not already possessed it, thanks to Clark. As it was,
it was only owing to Jay's broad patriotism and stern determination that
our western boundaries were finally made so far-reaching. None of our
early diplomats did as much for the west as Jay, whom at one time the
whole west hated and reviled; Mann Butler, whose politics are generally
very sound, deserves especial credit for the justice he does the New
Yorker.

It is idle to talk of the conquest as being purely a Virginian affair.
It was conquered by Clark, a Virginian, with some scant help from
Virginia, but it was retained only owing to the power of the United
States and the patriotism of such northern statesmen as Jay, Adams, and
Franklin, the negotiators of the final treaty. Had Virginia alone been
in interest, Great Britain would not have even paid her claims the
compliment of listening to them. Virginia's share in the history of the
nation has ever been gallant and leading; but the Revolutionary war was
emphatically fought by Americans for America; no part could have won
without the help of the whole, and every victory was thus a victory for
all, in which all alike can take pride.]; he had clothed and paid his
soldiers with the spoils of his enemies; he had spent his own fortune as
carelessly as he had risked his life, and the only reward that he was
destined for many years to receive was the sword voted him by the
Legislature of Virginia. [Footnote: A probably truthful tradition
reports that when the Virginian commissioners offered Clark the sword,
the grim old fighter, smarting under the sense of his wrongs, threw it
indignantly from him, telling the envoys that he demanded from Virginia
his just rights and the promised reward of his services, not an empty
compliment.]




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.




CHAPTER V.

THE MORAVIAN MASSACRE, 1779-1782.

    The Moravians.

After the Moravian Indians were led by their missionary pastors to the
banks of the Muskingum they dwelt peacefully and unharmed for several
years. In Lord Dunmore's war special care was taken by the white leaders
that these Quaker Indians should not be harmed; and their villages of
Salem, Gnadenhutten, and Schönbrunn received no damage whatever. During
the early years of the Revolutionary struggle they were not molested,
but dwelt in peace and comfort in their roomy cabins of squared timbers,
cleanly and quiet, industriously tilling the soil, abstaining from all
strong drink, schooling their children, and keeping the Seventh Day as a
day of rest. They sought to observe strict neutrality, harming neither
the Americans nor the Indians, nor yet the allies of the latter, the
British and French at Detroit. They hoped thereby to offend neither
side, and to escape unhurt themselves.

But this was wholly impossible. They occupied an utterly untenable
position. Their villages lay mid-way between the white settlements
southeast of the Ohio, and the towns of the Indians round Sandusky, the
bitterest foes of the Americans, and those most completely under British
influence. They were on the trail that the war-parties followed whether
they struck at Kentucky or at the valleys of the Alleghany and
Monongahela. Consequently the Sandusky Indians used the Moravian
villages as halfway houses, at which to halt and refresh themselves
whether starting on a foray or returning with scalps and plunder.

    The Wild Indians Hate Them.

By the time the war had lasted four or five years both the wild or
heathen Indians and the backwoodsmen had become fearfully exasperated
with the unlucky Moravians. The Sandusky Indians were largely Wyandots,
Shawnees, and Delawares, the latter being fellow-tribesmen of the
Christian Indians; and so they regarded the Moravians as traitors to the
cause of their kinsfolk, because they would not take up the hatchet
against the whites. As they could not goad them into declaring war, they
took malicious pleasure in trying to embroil them against their will,
and on returning from raids against the settlements often passed through
their towns solely to cast suspicion on them and to draw down the wrath
of the backwoodsmen on their heads. The British at Detroit feared lest
the Americans might use the Moravian villages as a basis from which to
attack the lake posts; they also coveted their men as allies; and so the
baser among their officers urged the Sandusky tribes to break up the
villages and drive off the missionaries. The other Indian tribes
likewise regarded them with angry contempt and hostility; the Iroquois
once sent word to the Chippewas and Ottawas that they gave them the
Christian Indians "to make broth of."

    So Do the Americans.

The Americans became even more exasperated. The war parties that
plundered and destroyed their homes, killing their wives, children, and
friends with torments too appalling to mention, got shelter and
refreshment from the Moravians, [Footnote: Heckewelder's "Narrative of
the Mission of the United Brethren," Philadelphia, 1820, p. 166.]
--who, indeed, dared not refuse it. The backwoodsmen, roused to a mad
frenzy of rage by the awful nature of their wrongs, saw that the
Moravians rendered valuable help to their cruel and inveterate foes, and
refused to see that the help was given with the utmost reluctance.
Moreover, some of the young Christian Indians backslid, and joined their
savage brethren, accompanying them on their war parties and ravaging
with as much cruelty as any of their number. [Footnote: _Pennsylvania
Packet_ (Philadelphia, April 16, 1782); Heckewelder, 180; Loskiel's
"History of the Mission of the United Brethren" (London, 1794), P--172.
] Soon the frontiersmen began to clamor for the destruction of the
Moravian towns; yet for a little while they were restrained by the
Continental officers of the few border forts, who always treated these
harmless Indians with the utmost kindness.

    They Blindly Court their Fate.

On either side were foes, who grew less governable day by day, and the
fate of the hapless and peaceful Moravians, if they continued to dwell
on the Muskingum, was absolutely inevitable. With blind fatuity their
leaders, the missionaries, refused to see the impending doom; and the
poor, simple Indians clung to their homes till destroyed. The American
commander at Pittsburg, Col. Gibson, endeavored to get them to come into
the American lines, where he would have the power, as he already had the
wish, to protect them; he pointed out that where they were they served
in some sort as a shield to the wild Indians, whom he had to spare so as
not to harm the Moravians. [Footnote: Loskiel, p. 137.] The Half King
of the Wyandots, from the other side, likewise tried to persuade them
to abandon their dangerous position, and to come well within the Indian
and British lines, saying: "Two mighty and angry gods stand opposite to
each other with their mouths wide open, and you are between them, and
are in danger of being crushed by one or the other, or by both."
[Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 41, Vol. III., pp. 78, 79; extract
from diary of Rev. David Zeisburger.] But in spite of these warnings,
and heedless of the safety that would have followed the adoption of
either course, the Moravians followed the advice of their missionaries
and continued where they were. They suffered greatly from the wanton
cruelty of their red brethren; and their fate remains a monument to
the cold-blooded and cowardly brutality of the borderers, a stain on
frontier character that the lapse of time cannot wash away; but it is
singular that historians have not yet pointed out the obvious truth,
that no small share of the blame for their sad end should be put to
the credit of the blind folly of their missionary leaders. Their only
hope in such a conflict as was then raging, was to be removed from
their fatally dangerous position; and this the missionaries would not
see. As long at they stayed where they were, it was a mere question of
chance and time whether they would be destroyed by the Indians or the
whites; for their destruction at the hands of either one party or the
other was inevitable.

Their fate was not due to the fact that they were Indians; it resulted
from their occupying an absolutely false position. This is clearly shown
by what happened twenty years previously to a small community of
non-resistant Christian whites. They were Dunkards--Quaker-like
Germans--who had built a settlement on the Monongahela. As they helped
neither side, both distrusted and hated them. The whites harassed them
in every way, and the Indians finally fell upon and massacred them.
[Footnote: Withers, 59.] The fates of these two communities, of white
Dunkards and red Moravians, were exactly parallel. Each became hateful
to both sets of combatants, was persecuted by both, and finally fell a
victim to the ferocity of the race to which it did not belong.

    Evil Conduct of the Backwoodsmen.

The conduct of the backwoodsmen towards these peaceful and harmless
Christian Indians was utterly abhorrent, and will ever be a subject of
just reproach and condemnation; and at first sight it seems incredible
that the perpetrators of so vile a deed should have gone unpunished and
almost unblamed. It is a dark blot on the character of a people that
otherwise had many fine and manly qualities to its credit. But the
extraordinary conditions of life on the frontier must be kept in mind
before passing too severe a judgment. In the turmoil of the harassing
and long-continued Indian war, and the consequent loosening of social
bonds, it was inevitable that, as regards outside matters, each man
should do what seemed right in his own eyes. The bad and the good alike
were left free and untrammelled to follow the bent of their desires. The
people had all they could do to beat off their savage enemies, and to
keep order among themselves. They were able to impose but slight checks
on ruffianism that was aimed at outsiders. There were plenty of good and
upright men who would not harm any Indians wrongfully, and who treated
kindly those who were peaceable. On the other hand, there were many of
violent and murderous temper. These knew that their neighbors would
actively resent any wrong done to themselves, but knew, also, that,
under the existing conditions, they would at the worst do nothing more
than openly disapprove of an outrage perpetrated on Indians.

    Its Explanation.

The violence of the bad is easily understood. The indifference displayed
towards their actions by the better men of the community, who were
certainly greatly in the majority, is harder to explain. It rose from
varying causes. In the first place, the long continuance of Indian
warfare, and the unspeakable horrors that were its invariable
accompaniments had gradually wrought up many even of the best of the
backwoodsmen to the point where they barely considered an Indian as a
human being. The warrior was not to them a creature of romance. They
knew him for what he was--filthy, cruel, lecherous, and faithless. He
sometimes had excellent qualities, but these they seldom had a chance to
see. They always met him at his worst. To them he was in peace a lazy,
dirty, drunken beggar, whom they despised, and yet whom they feared; for
the squalid, contemptible creature might at any moment be transformed
into a foe whose like there was not to be found in all the wide world
for ferocity, cunning, and blood-thirsty cruelty. The greatest Indians,
chiefs like Logan and Cornstalk, who were capable of deeds of the
loftiest and most sublime heroism, were also at times cruel monsters or
drunken good-for-nothings. Their meaner followers had only such virtues
as belong to the human wolf--stealth, craft, tireless endurance, and the
courage that prefers to prey on the helpless, but will fight to the
death without flinching if cornered.

    Grimness of the Backwoods Character.

Moreover, the backwoodsmen were a hard people; a people who still lived
in an iron age. They did not spare themselves, nor those who were dear
to them; far less would they spare their real or possible foes. Their
lives were often stern and grim; they were wonted to hardship and
suffering. In the histories or traditions of the different families
there are recorded many tales of how they sacrificed themselves, and, in
time of need, sacrificed others. The mother who was a captive among the
Indians might lay down her life for her child; but if she could not save
it, and to stay with it forbade her own escape it was possible that she
would kiss it good-by and leave it to its certain fate, while she
herself, facing death at every step, fled homewards through hundreds of
miles of wilderness. [Footnote: See Hale's "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers,"
the  adventures of Mrs. Inglis. She was captured on the head-waters of
the Kanawha, at the time of Braddock's defeat. The other inhabitants of
the settlement were also taken prisoners or massacred by the savages,
whom they had never wronged in any way. She was taken to the Big Bone
Lick in Kentucky. On the way her baby was born, but she was not allowed
to halt a day on account of this incident. She left it in the Indian
camp, and made her escape in company with "an old Dutch woman." They
lived on berries and nuts for forty days, while they made their way
homewards. Both got in safely, though they separated after the old Dutch
woman, in the extremity of hunger, had tried to kill her companion that
she might eat her. When Cornstalk's party perpetrated the massacre of
the Clendennins during Pontiac's war (see Stewart's Narrative), Mrs.
Clendennin likewise left her baby to its death, and made her escape; her
husband had previously been killed and his bloody scalp tied across her
jaws as a gag.] The man who daily imperilled his own life, would, if
water was needed in the fort, send his wife and daughter to draw it from
the spring round which he knew Indians lurked, trusting that the
appearance of the women would make the savages think themselves
undiscovered, and that they would therefore defer their attack.
[Footnote: As at the siege of Bryan's Station.] Such people were not
likely to spare their red-skinned foes. Many of their friends, who had
never hurt the savages in any way, had perished the victims of wanton
aggression. They themselves had seen innumerable instances of Indian
treachery. They had often known the chiefs of a tribe to profess warm
friendship at the very moment that their young men were stealing and
murdering. They grew to think of even the most peaceful Indians as
merely sleeping wild beasts, and while their own wrongs were ever
vividly before them, they rarely heard of or heeded those done to their
foes. In a community where every strong courageous man was a bulwark to
the rest, he was sure to be censured lightly for merely killing a member
of a loathed and hated race.

Many of the best of the backwoodsmen were Bible-readers, but they were
brought up in a creed that made much of the Old Testament, and laid
slight stress on pity, truth, or mercy. They looked at their foes as the
Hebrew prophets looked at the enemies of Israel. What were the
abominations because of which the Canaanites were destroyed before
Joshua, when compared with the abominations of the red savages whose
lands they, another chosen people, should in their turn inherit? They
believed that the Lord was king for ever and ever, and they believed no
less that they were but obeying His commandment as they strove mightily
to bring about the day when the heathen should have perished out of the
land; for they had read in The Book that he was accursed who did the
work of the Lord deceitfully, or kept his sword back from blood. There
was many a stern frontier zealot who deemed all the red men, good and
bad, corn ripe for the reaping. Such a one rejoiced to see his fellows
do to the harmless Moravians as the Danites once did to the people of
Laish, who lived quiet and secure, after the manner of the Sidonians,
and had no business with any man, and who yet were smitten with the edge
of the sword, and their city burnt with fire.

    The Moravians Themselves not Blameless.

Finally, it must not be forgotten that there were men on the frontier
who did do their best to save the peaceful Indians, and that there were
also many circumstances connected with the latter that justly laid them
open to suspicion. When young backsliding Moravians appeared in the war
parties, as cruel and murderous as their associates, the whites were
warranted in feeling doubtful as to whether their example might not
infect the remainder of their people. War parties, whose members in
dreadful derision left women and children impaled by their trail to
greet the sight of the pursuing husbands and fathers, found food and
lodging at the Moravian towns. No matter how reluctant the aid thus
given, the pursuers were right in feeling enraged, and in demanding that
the towns should be removed to where they could no longer give comfort
to the enemy. When the missionaries refused to consent to this removal,
they thereby became helpers of the hostile Indians; they wronged the
frontiersmen, and they still more grievously wronged their own flocks.
They certainly had ample warning of the temper of the whites. Col.
Brodhead was in command at Fort Pitt until the end of 1781. At the time
that General Sullivan ravaged the country of the Six Nations, he had led
a force up the Alleghany and created a diversion by burning one or two
Iroquois towns. In 1781 he led a successful expedition against a town of
hostile Delawares on the Muskingum, taking it by surprise and
surrounding it so completely that all within were captured. Sixteen
noted warriors and marauders were singled out and put to death. The
remainder fared but little better, for, while marching back to Fort
Pitt, the militia fell on them and murdered all the men, leaving only
the women and children. The militia also started to attack the
Moravians, and were only prevented by the strenuous exertions of
Brodhead. Even this proof of the brutality of their neighbors was wasted
on the missionaries.

    Maltreated by the British and Wild Indians.

The first blow the Moravians received was from the wild Indians. In the
fall of this same year (1781) their towns were suddenly visited by a
horde of armed warriors, horsemen and footmen, from Sandusky and
Detroit. Conspicuous among them were the Wyandots, under the Half King;
the Delawares, also led by a famous chief, Captain Pipe; and a body of
white rangers from Detroit, including British, French, and tories,
commanded by the British Captain Elliott, and flying the British
flag. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 41, Vol. III., p. 77.] With
them came also Shawnees, Chippewas, and Ottawas. All were acting in
pursuance of the express orders of the commandant at Detroit. [Footnote:
Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, October 5th and 21st, 1781;
McKee to De Peyster, October 18th.] These warriors insisted on the
Christian Indians abandoning their villages and accompanying them back
to Sandusky and Detroit; and they destroyed many of the houses, and much
of the food for the men and the fodder for the horses and cattle. The
Moravians begged humbly to be left where they were, but without avail.
They were forced away to Lake Erie, the missionaries being taken to
Detroit, while the Indians were left on the plains of Sandusky. The wild
Indians were very savage against them, but the British commandant would
not let them be seriously maltreated, [Footnote: _Do_., December u,
1781.] though they were kept in great want and almost starved.

    Also by the Americans.

A few Moravians escaped, and remained in their villages; but these,
three or four weeks later, were captured by a small detachment of
American militia, under Col. David Williamson, who had gone out to make
the Moravians either move farther off or else come in under the
protection of Fort Pitt. Williamson accordingly took the Indians to the
fort, where the Continental commander, Col. John Gibson, at once
released them, and sent them back to the villages unharmed. [Footnote:
Gibson was the old friend of the chief Logan. It is only just to
remember that the Continental officers at Fort Pitt treated the
Moravians even better than did the British officers at Detroit.] Gibson
had all along been a firm friend of the Moravians. He had protected them
against the violence of the borderers, and had written repeated and
urgent letters to Congress and to his superior officers, asking that
some steps might be taken to protect the friendly Christian
Indians. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Jan. 22, 1780 (intercepted letters).]
In the general weakness and exhaustion, however, nothing was done; and,
as neither the State nor Federal governments took any steps to protect
them, and as their missionaries refused to learn wisdom, it was evident
that the days of the Moravians were numbered. The failure of the
government to protect them was perhaps inevitable, but was certainly
discreditable.

The very day after Gibson sent the Christian Indians back to their
homes, several murders were committed near Pittsburg, and many of the
frontiersmen insisted that they were done with the good will or
connivance of the Moravians. The settlements had suffered greatly all
summer long, and the people clamored savagely against all the Indians,
blaming both Gibson and Williamson for not having killed or kept captive
their prisoners. The ruffianly and vicious of course clamored louder
than any; the mass of people who are always led by others, chimed in, in
a somewhat lower key; and many good men were silent for the reasons
given already. In a frontier democracy, military and civil officers are
directly dependent upon popular approval, not only for their offices,
but for what they are able to accomplish while filling them. They are
therefore generally extremely sensitive to either praise or blame.
Ambitious men flatter and bow to popular prejudice or opinion, and only
those of genuine power and self-reliance dare to withstand it.
Williamson was physically a fairly brave officer and not naturally
cruel; but he was weak and ambitious, ready to yield to any popular
demand, and, if it would advance his own interests, to connive at any
act of barbarity. [Footnote: This is the most favorable estimate of his
character, based on what Doddridge says (p. 260). He was a very
despicable person, but not the natural brute the missionaries painted
him.] Gibson, however, who was a very different man, paid no heed to the
cry raised against him.

They Refuse to be Warned and Return to their Homes.

With incredible folly the Moravians refused to heed even such rough
warnings as they had received. During the long winter they suffered
greatly from cold and hunger, at Sandusky, and before the spring of 1782
opened, a hundred and fifty of them returned to their deserted villages.

That year the Indian outrages on the frontiers began very early. In
February there was some fine weather; and while it lasted, several
families of settlers were butchered, some under circumstances of
peculiar atrocity. In particular, four Sandusky Indians having taken
some prisoners, impaled two of them, a woman and a child, while on their
way to the Moravian towns, where they rested and ate, prior to
continuing their journey with their remaining captives. When they left
they warned the Moravians that white men were on their trail. [Footnote:
Heckewelder, 3:1.] A white man who had just escaped this same impaling
party, also warned the Moravians that the exasperated borderers were
preparing a party to kill them; and Gibson, from Fort Pitt, sent a
messenger to them, who, however, arrived too late. But the poor
Christian Indians, usually very timid, now, in the presence of a real
danger, showed a curious apathy; their senses were numbed and dulled by
their misfortunes, and they quietly awaited their doom. [Footnote:
Loskiel, 176.]

It was not long deferred. Eighty or ninety frontiersmen, under
Williamson, hastily gathered together to destroy the Moravian towns. It
was, of course, just such an expedition as most attracted the brutal,
the vicious, and the ruffianly; but a few decent men, to their shame,
went along. They started in March, and on the third day reached the
fated villages. That no circumstance might be wanting to fill the
measure of their infamy, they spoke the Indians fair, assured them that
they meant well, and spent an hour or two in gathering together those
who were in Salem and Gnadenhutten, putting them all in two houses at
the latter place. Those at the third town, of Schönbrunn, got warning
and made their escape.

As soon as the unsuspecting Indians were gathered in the two houses, the
men in one, the women and children in the other, the whites held a
council as to what should be done with them. The great majority were for
putting them instantly to death. Eighteen men protested, and asked that
the lives of the poor creatures should be spared; and then withdrew,
calling God to witness that they were innocent of the crime about to be
committed. By rights they should have protected the victims at any
hazard. One of them took off with him a small Indian boy, whose life was
thus spared. With this exception only two lads escaped.

    They are Massacred.

When the murderers told the doomed Moravians their fate, they merely
requested a short delay in which to prepare themselves for death. They
asked one another's pardon for whatever wrongs they might have done,
knelt down and prayed, kissed one another farewell, "and began to sing
hymns of hope and of praise to the Most High." Then the white butchers
entered the houses and put to death the ninety-six men, women, and
children that were within their walls. More than a hundred years have
passed since this deed of revolting brutality; but even now a just man's
blood boils in his veins at the remembrance. It is impossible not to
regret that fate failed to send some strong war party of savages across
the path of these inhuman cowards, to inflict on them the punishment
they so richly deserved. We know that a few of them were afterwards
killed by the Indians; it is a matter of keen regret that any escaped.

When the full particulars of the affair were known, all the best leaders
of the border, almost all the most famous Indian fighters, joined in
denouncing it. [Footnote: Col. James Smith, then of Kentucky, in 1799
calls it "an act of barbarity equal to any thing I ever knew to be
committed by the savages themselves, except the burning of prisoners."]
Nor is it right that the whole of the frontier folk should bear the
blame for the deed. It is a fact, honorable and worthy of mention, that
the Kentuckians were never implicated in this or any similar massacre.
[Footnote: The Germans of up-country North Carolina were guilty of as
brutal massacres as the Scotch-Irish backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania. See
Adair, 245. There are two or three individual instances of the barbarity
of Kentuckians--one being to the credit of McGarry,--but they are
singularly few, when the length and the dreadful nature of their Indian
wars are taken into account. Throughout their history the Kentucky
pioneers had the right on their side in their dealings with the Indians.
They were not wanton aggressors; they entered upon vacant
hunting-grounds, to which no tribe had a clear title, and to which most
even of the doubtful titles had been fairly extinguished. They fought
their foes fiercely, with varying fortune, and eventually wrested the
land from them; but they very rarely wronged them; and for the numerous
deeds of fearful cruelty that were done on Kentucky soil, the Indians
were in almost every case to blame.]

But at the time, and in their own neighborhood--the corner of the Upper
Ohio valley where Pennsylvania and Virginia touch,--the conduct of the
murderers of the Moravians roused no condemnation. The borderers at
first felt about it as the English Whigs originally felt about the
massacre of Glencoe. For some time the true circumstances of the affair
were not widely known among them. They were hot with wrath against all
the red-skinned race; and they rejoiced to hear of the death of a number
of treacherous Indians who pretended to be peaceful, while harboring and
giving aid and comfort to, and occasionally letting their own young men
join, bands of avowed murderers. Of course, the large wicked and
disorderly element was loud in praise of the deed. The decent people, by
their silence, acquiesced.

A terrible day of reckoning was at hand; the retribution fell on but
part of the real criminals, and bore most heavily on those who were
innocent of any actual complicity in the deed of evil. Nevertheless it
is impossible to grieve overmuch for the misfortune that befell men who
freely forgave and condoned such treacherous barbarity.

    Crawford Marches against Sandusky.

In May a body of four hundred and eighty Pennsylvania and Virginia
militia gathered at Mingo Bottom, on the Ohio, with the purpose of
marching against and destroying the towns of the hostile Wyandots and
Delawares in the neighborhood of the Sandusky River. The Sandusky
Indians were those whose attacks were most severely felt by that portion
of the frontier; and for their repeated and merciless ravages they
deserved the severest chastisement. The expedition against them was from
every point of view just; and it was undertaken to punish them, and
without any definite idea of attacking the remnant of the Moravians who
were settled among them. On the other hand, the militia included in
their ranks most of those who had taken part in the murderous expedition
of two months before; this fact, and their general character, made it
certain that the peaceable and inoffensive Indians would, if
encountered, be slaughtered as pitilessly as their hostile brethren.

How little the militia volunteers disapproved of the Moravian massacre
was shown when, as was the custom, they met to choose a leader. There
were two competitors for the place, Williamson, who commanded at the
massacre, being one; and he was beaten by only five votes. His
successful opponent, Colonel William Crawford, was a fairly good
officer, a just and upright man, but with no special fitness for such a
task as that he had undertaken. Nor were the troops he led of very good
stuff [Footnote: A minute and exhaustive account of Crawford's campaign
is given by Mr. C. W. Butterfield in his "Expedition against Sandusky."
(Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1873). Mr. Butterfield shows
conclusively that the accepted accounts are wholly inaccurate, being
derived from the reports of the Moravian missionaries, whose
untruthfulness (especially Heckewelder's) is clearly demonstrated. He
shows the apocryphal nature of some of the pretended narratives of the
expedition, such as two in "The American Pioneer," etc. He also shows
how inaccurate McClung's "sketches" are--for McClung was like a host of
other early western annalists, preserving some valuable facts in a good
deal of rubbish, and having very little appreciation indeed of the
necessity of so much as approximate accuracy. Only a few of these early
western historians had the least conception of the value of evidence or
of the necessity of sifting it, or of weighing testimony.

On the other hand, Mr. Butterfield is drawn into grave errors by his
excessive partisanship of the borderers. He passes lightly over their
atrocious outrages, colors favorably many of their acts, and praises the
generalship of Crawford and the soldiership of his men; when in reality
the campaign was badly conducted from beginning to end, and reflected
discredit on most who took part in it; Crawford did poorly, and the bulk
of his men acted like unruly cowards.]; though they included a few
veteran Indian fighters.

The party left Mingo Bottom on the 25th of May. After nine days' steady
marching through the unbroken forests they came out on the Sandusky
plains; billowy stretches of prairie, covered with high coarse grass and
dotted with islands of timber. As the men marched across them they
roused quantities of  prairie fowl, and saw many geese and sand-hill
cranes, which circled about in the air, making a strange clamor.

Crawford hoped to surprise the Indian towns; but his progress was slow
and the militia every now and then fired off their guns. The spies of
the savages dogged his march and knew all his movements [Footnote:
Heckewelder, 336. Butterfield shows conclusively that there is not the
slightest ground to accept Heckewelder's assertion that Crawford's
people openly declared that "no Indian was to be spared, friend or
foe."]; and runners were sent to Detroit asking help. This the British
commandant at once granted. He sent to the assistance of the threatened
tribes a number of lake Indians and a body of rangers and Canadian
volunteers, under Captain Caldwell. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. May 14,
1782. De Peyster to Haldimand.]

    The Fight at Sandusky.

On the fourth of June Crawford's troops reached one of the Wyandot
towns. It was found to be deserted; and the army marched on to try and
find the others. Late in the afternoon, in the midst of the plains, near
a cranberry marsh, they encountered Caldwell and his Detroit rangers,
together with about two hundred Delawares, Wyandots, and lake Indians.
[Footnote: _Do_. Official report of Lt. John Turney of the rangers, June
7, 1782.] The British and Indians united certainly did not much exceed
three hundred men; but they were hourly expecting reinforcements, and
decided to give battle. They were posted in a grove of trees, from which
they were driven by the first charge of the Americans. A hot skirmish
ensued, in which, in spite of Crawford's superiority in force, and of
the exceptionally favorable nature of the country, he failed to gain any
marked advantage. His troops, containing so large a leaven of the
murderers of the Moravians, certainly showed small fighting capacity
when matched against armed men who could defend themselves. After the
first few minutes neither side gained or lost ground.

Of the Americans five were killed and nineteen wounded--in all
twenty-four. Of their opponents the rangers lost two men killed and
three wounded, Caldwell being one of the latter; and the Indians four
killed and eight wounded--in all seventeen. [Footnote: _Do_. Probably
some of this loss occurred on the following day. I rely on Butterfield
for the American loss, as he quotes Irvine's official report, etc. He of
course wrote without knowledge of the British reports; and his account
of the Indian losses and numbers is all wrong. He fails signally in his
effort to prove that the Americans behaved bravely.]

That night Crawford's men slept by their watch-fires in the grove, their
foes camping round about in the open prairie. Next morning the British
and Indians were not inclined to renew the attack; they wished to wait
until their numbers were increased. The only chance of the American
militia was to crush their enemies before reinforcements arrived, yet
they lay supine and idle all day long, save for an occasional harmless
skirmish. Crawford's generalship was as poor as the soldiership of his
men.

    Rout of the Whites.

In the afternoon the Indians were joined by one hundred and forty
Shawnees. At sight of this accession of strength the disspirited militia
Rout gave up all thought of any thing but flight, though they were still
equal in numbers to their foes. That night they began a hurried and
disorderly retreat. The Shawnees and Delawares attacked them in the
darkness, causing some loss and great confusion, and a few of the troops
got into the marsh. Many thus became scattered, and next morning there
were only about three hundred men left together in a body. Crawford
himself was among the missing, so Williamson took command, and hastily
continued the retreat. The savages did not make a very hot pursuit;
nevertheless, in the afternoon of that day a small number of Indians and
Detroit rangers overtook the Americans. They were all mounted. A slight
skirmish followed, and the Americans lost eleven men, but repulsed their
pursuers. [Footnote: Who were probably at this point much fewer in
number than the Americans; Butterfield says the reverse, but his account
is untrustworthy on these matters.] After this they suffered little
molestation, and reached Mingo Bottom on the 13th of the month.
[Footnote: As Butterfield shows, Heckewelder's account of Crawford's
whole expedition is a piece of sheer romancing.]

Many of the stragglers came in afterwards. In all about seventy either
died of their wounds, were killed outright, or were captured. Of the
latter, those who were made prisoners by the Wyandots were tomahawked
and their heads stuck on poles; but if they fell into the hands of the
Shawnees or Delawares they were tortured to death with fiendish cruelty.
Among them was Crawford himself, who had become separated from the main
body when it began its disorderly night retreat. After abandoning his
jaded horse he started homewards on foot, but fell into the hands of a
small party of Delawares, together with a companion named Knight.

These two prisoners were taken to one of the Delaware villages. The
Indians were fearfully exasperated by the Moravian massacre [Footnote:
Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, June 23, 1782.]; and some of
the former Moravians, who had rejoined their wild tribesmen, told the
prisoners that from that time on not a single captive should escape
torture. Nevertheless it is likely that Crawford would have been burned
in any event, and that most of the prisoners would have been tortured to
death even had the Moravians never been harmed; for such had always been
the custom of the Delawares.

The British, who had cared for the remnants of the Moravians, now did
their best to stop the cruelties of the Indians, [Footnote: _Do_. Aug.
18, 1782.] but could accomplish little or nothing. Even the Mingos and
Hurons told them that though they would not torture any Americans, they
intended thenceforth to put all their prisoners to death. [Footnote:
_Do_. Dec. 1, 1782.]

    Crawford Tortured to Death.

Crawford was tied to the stake in the presence of a hundred Indians.
Among them were Simon Girty, the white renegade, and a few Wyandots.
Knight, Crawford's fellow-captive, was a horrified spectator of the
awful sufferings which he knew he was destined by his captors ultimately
to share. Crawford, stripped naked, and with his hands bound behind him,
was fastened to a high stake by a strong rope; the rope was long enough
for him to walk once or twice round the stake. The fire, of small
hickory poles, was several yards from the post, so as only to roast and
scorch him. Powder was shot into his body, and burning fagots shoved
against him, while red embers were strewn beneath his feet. For two
hours he bore his torments with manly fortitude, speaking low, and
beseeching the Almighty to have mercy on his soul. Then he fell down,
and his torturers scalped him, and threw burning coals on his bare
skull. Rising, he walked about the post once or twice again, and then
died. Girty and the Wyandots looked on, laughing at his agony, but
taking no part in the torture. When the news of his dreadful fate was
brought to the settlements, it excited the greatest horror, not only
along the whole frontier, but elsewhere in the country; for he was
widely known, was a valued friend of Washington and was everywhere
beloved and respected.

Knight, a small and weak-looking man, was sent to be burned at the
Shawnee towns, under the care of a burly savage. Making friends with the
latter, he lulled his suspicions, the more easily because the Indian
evidently regarded so small a man with contempt; and then, watching his
opportunity, he knocked his guard down and ran off into the woods,
eventually making his way to the settlements.

Another of the captives, Slover by name, made a more remarkable escape.
Slover's life history had been curious. When a boy eight years old,
living near the springs of the Kanawha, his family was captured by
Indians, his brother alone escaping. His father was killed, and his two
little sisters died of fatigue on the road to the Indian villages; his
mother was afterwards ransomed. He lived twelve years with the savages,
at first in the Miami towns, and then with the Shawnees. When twenty
years old he went to Fort Pitt, where, by accident, he was made known to
some of his relations. They pressed him to rejoin his people, but he had
become so wedded to savage life that he at first refused. At last he
yielded, however, took up his abode with the men of his own color, and
became a good citizen, and a worthy member of the Presbyterian Church.
At the outbreak of the Revolution he served fifteen months as a
Continental soldier, and when Crawford started against the Sandusky
Indians, he went along as a scout.

Slover, when captured, was taken round to various Indian towns, and saw
a number of his companions, as well as other white prisoners, tomahawked
or tortured to death. He was examined publicly about many matters at
several Great Councils--for he spoke two or three different Indian
languages fluently. At one of the councils he heard the Indians solemnly
resolve to take no more prisoners thereafter, but to kill all Americans,
of whatever sex and age; some of the British agents from Detroit
signifying their approval of the resolution. [Footnote: Slover asserts
that it was taken in consequence of a message sent advising it by the
commandant at Detroit. This is doubtless untrue; the commandant at
Detroit did what he could to stop such outrages, although many of his
more reckless and uncontrollable subordinates very probably pursued an
opposite course. The ignorant and violently prejudiced backwoodsmen
naturally believed all manner of evil of their British foes; but it is
singular that writers who ought to be well informed should even now
continue to accept all their wild assertions as unquestioned facts. The
conduct of the British was very bad; but it is silly to describe it in
the terms often used. The year after their escape Slover dictated, and
Knight wrote, narratives of their adventures, which were together
published in book form at Philadelphia in 1783. They are very
interesting.]

    Slover's Escape.

At last he was condemned to be burned, and was actually tied to the
stake. But a heavy shower came on, so wetting the wood that it was
determined to reprieve him till the morrow. That night he was bound and
put in a wigwam under the care of three warriors. They laughed and
chatted with the prisoner, mocking him, and describing to him with
relish all the torments that he was to suffer. At last they fell asleep,
and, just before daybreak, he managed to slip out of his rope and
escape, entirely naked.

Catching a horse, he galloped away sitting on a piece of old rug, and
guiding the animal with the halter. He rode steadily and at speed for
seventy miles, until his horse dropped dead under him late in the
afternoon. Springing off, he continued the race on foot. At last he
halted, sick and weary; but, when he had rested an hour or two, he heard
afar off the halloo of his pursuers. Struggling to his feet he continued
his flight, and ran until after dark. He then threw himself down and
snatched a few hours' restless sleep, but, as soon as the moon rose, he
renewed his run for life, carefully covering his trail whenever
possible. At last he distanced his enemies. For five days he went
straight through the woods, naked, bruised, and torn, living on a few
berries and a couple of small crawfish he caught in a stream. He could
not sleep nor sometimes even lie down at night because of the
mosquitoes. On the morning of the sixth day he reached Wheeling, after
experiencing such hardship and suffering as none but an iron will and
frame could have withstood.

    Woe on the Frontier.

Until near the close of the year 1782 the frontiers suffered heavily. A
terrible and deserved retribution fell on the borderers for their crime
in failing to punish the dastardly deed of Williamson and his
associates. The Indians were roused to savage anger by the murder of the
Moravians, and were greatly encouraged by their easy defeat of
Crawford's troops. They harassed the settlements all along the Upper
Ohio, the Alleghany and the Monongahela, and far into the interior,
[Footnote: Va. State Papers, III., 235.] burning, ravaging, and
murdering, and bringing dire dismay to every lonely clearing, and every
palisaded hamlet of rough log-cabins.




CHAPTER VI.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE CONQUERED FRENCH SETTLEMENTS, 1779-1783.

    Illinois Made a County.

The Virginian Government took immediate steps to provide for the civil
administration of the country Clark had conquered. In the fall of 1778
the entire region northwest of the Ohio was constituted the county of
Illinois, with John Todd as county-lieutenant or commandant.

Todd was a firm friend and follower of Clark's, and had gone with him on
his campaign against Vincennes. It therefore happened that he received
his commission while at the latter town, early in the spring of '79. In
May he went to Kaskaskia, to organize the county; and Clark, who
remained military commandant of the Virginia State troops that were
quartered in the district, was glad to turn over the civil government to
the charge of his old friend.

Together with his commission, Todd received a long and excellent letter
of instructions from Governor Patrick Henry. He was empowered to choose
a deputy-commandant, and officers for the militia; but the judges and
officers of the court were to be elected by the people themselves. He
was given large discretionary power, Henry impressing upon him with
especial earnestness the necessity to "cultivate and conciliate the
French and Indians." [Footnote: See Col. John Todd's "Record Book,"
while County Lieutenant of Illinois. There is an MS. copy in Col.
Durrett's library at Louisville. It is our best authority for these
years in Illinois. The substance of it is given on pp. 49-68 of Mr.
Edward G. Mason's interesting and valuable pamphlet on "Illinois in the
18th Century" (Chicago, Fergus Printing Co., 1881).] With this end in
view, he was bidden to pay special heed to the customs of the creoles,
to avoid shocking their prejudices, and to continually consult with
their most intelligent and upright men. He was to coöperate in every way
with Clark and his troops, while at the same time the militia were to be
exclusively under his own control. The inhabitants were to have strict
justice done them if wronged by the troops; and Clark was to put down
rigorously any licentiousness on the part of his soldiers. The wife and
children of the former British commandant--the creole Rocheblave--were
to be treated with particular respect, and not suffered to want for any
thing. He was exhorted to use all his diligence and ability to
accomplish the difficult task set him. Finally Henry advised him to lose
no opportunity of inculcating in the minds of the French the value of
the liberty the Americans brought them, as contrasted with "the slavery
to which the Illinois was destined" by the British.

This last sentence was proved by subsequent events to be a touch of
wholly unconscious but very grim humor. The French were utterly unsuited
for liberty, as the Americans understood the term, and to most of them
the destruction of British rule was a misfortune. The bold,
self-reliant, and energetic spirits among them, who were able to become
Americanized, and to adapt themselves to the new conditions, undoubtedly
profited immensely by the change. As soon as they adopted American ways,
they were received by the Americans on terms of perfect and cordial
equality, and they enjoyed a far higher kind of life than could possibly
have been theirs formerly, and achieved a much greater measure of
success. But most of the creoles were helplessly unable to grapple with
the new life. They had been accustomed to the paternal rule of priest
and military commandant, and they were quite unable to govern
themselves, or to hold their own with the pushing, eager, and often
unscrupulous, new-comers. So little able were they to understand
precisely what the new form of government was, that when they went down
to receive Todd as commandant, it is said that some of them, joining in
the cheering, from force of habit cried "Vive le Roi."

For the first year of Todd's administration, while Clark still remained
in the county as commandant of the State troops, matters went fairly
well. Clark kept the Indians completely in check, and when some of them
finally broke out, and started on a marauding expedition against
Cahokia, he promptly repulsed them, and by a quick march burned their
towns on Rock River, and forced them to sue for peace. [Footnote: In the
beginning of 1780. Bradford MS.]

Todd appointed a Virginian, Richard Winston, as commandant at Kaskaskia;
all his other appointees were Frenchmen. An election was forthwith held
for justices; to the no small astonishment of the Creoles, unaccustomed
as they were to American methods of self-government. Among those whom
they elected as judges and court officers were some of the previously
appointed militia captains and lieutenants, who thus held two positions.
The judges governed their decisions solely by the old French laws and
customs. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 51.] Todd at once
made the court proceed to business. On its recommendation he granted
licenses to trade to men of assured loyalty. He also issued a
proclamation in reference to new settlers taking up lands. Being a
shrewd man, he clearly foresaw the ruin that was sure to arise from the
new Virginia land laws as applied to Kentucky, and he feared the inrush
of a horde of speculators, who would buy land with no immediate
intention of settling thereon. Besides, the land was so fertile in the
river bottoms, that he deemed the amount Virginia allotted to each
person excessive. So he decreed that each settler should take up his
land in the shape of one of the long narrow French farms, that stretched
back from the water-front; and that no claim should contain a greater
number of acres than did one of these same farms. This proclamation
undoubtedly had a very good effect.

    Financial Difficulties.

He next wrestled steadily, but much less successfully, with the
financial question. He attempted to establish a land bank, as it were,
setting aside a great tract of land to secure certain issues of
Continental money. The scheme failed, and in spite of his public
assurance that the Continental currency would shortly be equal in value
to gold and silver, it swiftly sank until it was not worth two cents on
the dollar.

This wretched and worthless paper-money, which the Americans brought
with them, was a perfect curse to the country. Its rapid depreciation
made it almost impossible to pay the troops, or to secure them supplies,
and as a consequence they became disorderly and mutinous. Two or three
prominent creoles, who were devoted adherents of the American cause,
made loans of silver to the Virginian Government, as represented by
Clark, thereby helping him materially in the prosecution of his
campaign. Chief among these public-spirited patriots were Francis Vigo,
and the priest Gibault, both of them already honorably mentioned. Vigo
advanced nearly nine thousand dollars in specie,--piastres or Spanish
milled dollars,--receiving in return bills on the "Agent of Virginia,"
which came back protested for want of funds; and neither he nor his
heirs ever got a dollar of what was due them. He did even more. The
creoles at first refused to receive any thing but peltries or silver for
their goods; they would have nothing to do with the paper, and to all
explanations as to its uses, simply answered "that their commandants
never made money." [Footnote: Law's "Vincennes," pp. 49, 126. For some
inscrutable reason, by the way, the Americans for a long time persisted
in speaking of the place as _St._ Vincennes.] Finally they were
persuaded to take it on Vigo's personal guaranty, and his receiving it
in his store. Even he, however, could not buoy it up long.

Gibault likewise [Footnote See his letter to Governor St. Clair, May I,
1790.] advanced a large sum of money, parted with his titles and beasts,
so as to set a good example to his parishioners, and, with the same
purpose, furnished goods to the troops at ordinary prices, taking the
paper in exchange as if it had been silver. In consequence he lost over
fifteen hundred dollars, was forced to sell his only two slaves, and
became almost destitute; though in the end he received from the
government a tract of land which partially reimbursed him. Being driven
to desperate straits, the priest tried a rather doubtful shift. He sold,
or pretended to sell, a great natural meadow, known as la prairie du
pont, which the people of Cahokia claimed as a common pasture for their
cattle. His conduct drew forth a sharp remonstrance from the Cahokians,
in the course of which they frankly announced that they believed the
priest should confine himself to ecclesiastical matters, and should not
meddle with land grants, especially when the land he granted did not
belong to him. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 41. Petition
of J. B. La Croix and A. Girardin.]

It grew steadily more difficult to get the Creoles to furnish supplies;
Todd had to forbid the exportation of any provisions whatever, and,
finally, the soldiers were compelled to levy on all that they needed.
Todd paid for these impressed goods, as well as for what the contractors
furnished, at the regulation prices--one third in paper-money and two
thirds in peltries; and thus the garrisons at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and
Vincennes were supplied with powder, lead, sugar, flour, and, above all,
hogsheads of taffia, of which they drank an inordinate quantity.

The justices did not have very much work; in most of the cases that came
before them the plaintiff and defendant were both of the same race. One
piece of recorded testimony is rather amusing, being to the effect that
"Monsieur Smith est un grand vilain coquin." [Footnote: This and most of
the other statements for which no authority is quoted, are based on
Todd's MS. "Record Book."]

    Burning of Negroes Accused of Sorcery.

Yet there are two entries in the proceedings of the Creole courts for
the summer of 1779, as preserved in Todd's "Record Book," which are of
startling significance. To understand them it must be remembered that
the Creoles were very ignorant and superstitious, and that they one and
all including, apparently, even, their priests, firmly believed in
witchcraft and sorcery. Some of their negro slaves had been born in
Africa, the others had come from the Lower Mississippi or the West
Indies; they practised the strange rites of voudooism, and a few were
adepts in the art of poisoning. Accordingly the French were always on
the look-out lest their slaves should, by spell or poison, take their
lives. It must also be kept in mind that the pardoning power of the
commandant did not extend to cases of treason or murder--a witchcraft
trial being generally one for murder,--and that he was expressly
forbidden to interfere with the customs and laws, or go counter to the
prejudices, of the inhabitants.

At this time the Creoles were smitten by a sudden epidemic of fear that
their negro slaves were trying to bewitch and poison them. Several of
the negroes were seized and tried, and in June two were condemned to
death. One, named Moreau, was sentenced to be hung outside Cahokia. The
other, a Kaskaskian slave named Manuel, suffered a worse fate. He was
sentenced "to be chained to a post at the water-side, and there to be
burnt alive and his ashes scattered." [Footnote: The entries merely
record the sentences, with directions that they be immediately executed.
But there seems very little doubt that they were for witchcraft, or
voudouism, probably with poisoning at the bottom--and that they were
actually carried out. See Mason's pamphlet, p. 59.] These two sentences,
and the directions for their immediate execution, reveal a dark chapter
in the early history of Illinois. It seems a strange thing that, in the
United States, three years after the declaration of independence, men
should have been burnt and hung for witchcraft, in accordance with the
laws, and with the decision of the proper court. The fact that the
victim, before being burned, was forced to make "honorable fine" at the
door of the Catholic church, shows that the priest at least acquiesced
in the decision. The blame justly resting on the Puritans of
seventeenth-century New England must likewise fall on the Catholic
French of eighteenth-century Illinois.

Early in the spring of 1780 Clark left the country; he did not again
return to take command, for after visiting the fort on the Mississippi,
and spending the summer in the defence of Kentucky, he went to Virginia
to try to arrange for an expedition against Detroit. Todd also left
about the same time, having been elected a Kentucky delegate to the
Virginia Legislature. He afterwards made one or two flying visits to
Illinois, but exerted little influence over her destiny, leaving the
management of affairs entirely in the hands of his deputy, or
lieutenant-commandant for the time being. He usually chose for this
position either Richard Winston, the Virginian, or else a Creole named
Timothea Demunbrunt.

    Disorders in the Government.

Todd's departure was a blow to the country; but Clark's was a far more
serious calamity. By his personal influence he had kept the Indians in
check, the Creoles contented, and the troops well fed and fairly
disciplined. As soon as he went, trouble broke out. The officers did not
know how to support their authority; they were very improvident, and one
or two became implicated in serious scandals. The soldiers soon grew
turbulent, and there was constant clashing between the civil and
military rulers. Gradually the mass of the Creoles became so angered
with the Americans that they wished to lay their grievances before the
French Minister at Philadelphia; and many of them crossed the
Mississippi and settled under the Spanish flag. The courts rapidly lost
their power, and the worst people, both Americans and Creoles, practised
every kind of rascality with impunity. All decent men joined in
clamoring for Clark's return; but it was impossible for him to come
back. The freshets and the maladministration combined to produce a
dearth, almost a famine, in the land. The evils were felt most severely
in Vincennes, where Helm, the captain of the post, though a brave and
capable man, was utterly unable to procure supplies of any kind. He did
not hear of Clark's success against Piqua and Chillicothe until October.

Then he wrote to one of the officers at the Falls, saying that he was
"sitting by the fire with a piece of lightwood and two ribs of an old
buffloe, which is all the meat we have seen this many days. I
congratulate your success against the Shawanohs, but there's never
doubts where that brave Col. Clark commands; we well know the loss of
him in Illinois.... Excuse Haste as the Lightwood's Just out and mouth
watering for part of the two ribs." [Footnote: Calendar of Va. State
Papers, I., pp. 380, 382, 383, Oct. 24-29, 1780.]

    La Balme's Expedition.

In the fall of 1780 a Frenchman, named la Balme, led an expedition
composed purely of Creoles against Detroit. He believed that he could
win over the French at that place to his side, and thus capture the fort
as Clark had captured Vincennes. He raised some fifty volunteers round
Cahokia and Kaskaskia, perhaps as many more on the Wabash, and marched
to the Maumee River. Here he stopped to plunder some British traders;
and in November the neighboring Indians fell on his camp, killed him and
thirty or forty of his men, and scattered the rest. [Footnote: Haldimand
MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, Nov. 16, 1780.] His march had been so
quick and unexpected that it rendered the British very uneasy, and they
were much rejoiced at his discomfiture and death.

The following year a new element of confusion was added. In 1779 Spain
declared war on Great Britain. The Spanish commandant at New Orleans was
Don Bernard de Galvez, one of the very few strikingly able men Spain has
sent to the western hemisphere during the past two centuries. He was
bold, resolute, and ambitious; there is reason to believe that at one
time he meditated a separation from Spain, the establishment of a
Spanish-American empire, and the founding of a new imperial house.
However this may be, he threw himself heart and soul into the war
against Britain; and attacked British West Florida with a fiery energy
worthy of Wolfe or Montcalm. He favored the Americans; but it was patent
to all that he favored them only the better to harass the British.
[Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 50, p. 109.]

Besides the Creoles and the British garrisons, there were quite a number
of American settlers in West Florida. In the immediate presence of
Spanish and Indian foes, these, for the most part, remained royalists.
In 1778 a party of armed Americans, coming down the Ohio and
Mississippi, tried to persuade them to turn whig, but, becoming
embroiled with them, the militant missionaries were scattered and driven
off. Afterwards the royalists fought among themselves; but this was a
mere faction quarrel, and was soon healed. Towards the end of 1779,
Galvez, with an army of Spanish and French Creole troops, attacked the
forts along the Mississippi--Manchac, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and one or
two smaller places,--speedily carrying them and capturing their
garrisons of British regulars and royalist militia. During the next
eighteen months he laid siege to and took Mobile and Pensacola. While he
was away on his expedition against the latter place, the royalist
Americans round Natchez rose and retook the fort from the Spaniards; but
at the approach of Galvez they fled in terror, marching overland towards
Georgia, then in the hands of the tories. On the way they suffered great
loss and damage from the Creeks and Choctaws.

    A Spanish Attempt on St. Joseph.

The Spanish commander at St. Louis was inspired by the news of these
brilliant victories to try if he, too, could not gain a small wreath at
the expense of Spain's enemies. Clark had already become thoroughly
convinced of the duplicity of the Spaniards on the upper Mississippi; he
believed that they were anxious to have the British retake Illinois, so
that they, in their turn, might conquer and keep it. [Footnote: Clark to
Todd, March, 1780. Va. State Papers, I., 338.] They never had the chance
to execute this plan; but, on January 2, 1781, a Spanish captain, Don
Eugénio Pierro, led a hundred and twenty men, chiefly Indians and
Creoles, against the little French village, or fur post, of St. Joseph,
where they burned the houses of one or two British traders, claimed the
country round the Illinois River as conquered for the Spanish king, and
forthwith returned to St. Louis, not daring to leave a garrison of any
sort behind them, and being harassed on their retreat by the Indians. On
the strength of this exploit Spain afterwards claimed a large stretch of
country to the east of the Mississippi. In reality it was a mere
plundering foray. The British at once retook possession of the place,
and, indeed, were for some time ignorant whether the raiders had been
Americans or Spaniards. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to De
Peyster, April 10, 1781. Report of Council at St. Joseph, March 11,
1781.] Soon after the recapture, the Detroit authorities sent a scouting
party to dislodge some Illinois people who had attempted to make a
settlement at Chicago. [Footnote: _Do._ Haldimand to De Peyster, May 19,
1782. This is the first record of an effort to make a permanent
settlement at Chicago.]

At the end of the year 1781 the unpaid troops in Vincennes were on the
verge of mutiny, and it was impossible longer even to feed them, for the
inhabitants themselves were almost starving. The garrison was therefore
withdrawn; and immediately the Wabash Indians joined those of the Miami,
the Sandusky, and the Lakes in their raids on the settlements.
[Footnote: Va. State Papers, III., 502.] By this time, however,
Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, and the British were even more
exhausted than the Americans. Some of the French partisans of the
British at Detroit, such as Rocheblave and Lamothe, who had been
captured by Clark, were eager for revenge, and desired to be allowed to
try and retake Vincennes and the Illinois; they saw that the Americans
must either be exterminated or else the land abandoned to them.
[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter of Rocheblave, Oct. 7, 1781; of
Lamothe, April 24, 1782.] But the British commandant was in no condition
to comply with their request, or to begin offensive operations. Clark
had not only conquered the land, but he had held it firmly while he
dwelt therein; and even when his hand was no longer felt, the order he
had established took some little time before crumbling. Meanwhile, his
presence at the Falls, his raids into the Indian country, and his
preparations for an onslaught on Detroit kept the British authorities at
the latter place fully occupied, and prevented their making any attempt
to recover what they had lost. By the beginning of 1782 the active
operations of the Revolutionary war were at an end, and the worn-out
British had abandoned all thought of taking the offensive anywhere,
though the Indian hostilities continued with unabated vigor. Thus the
grasp with which the Americans held the conquered country was not
relaxed until all danger that it would be taken from them had ceased.

    Confusion at Vincennes.

In 1782 the whole Illinois region lapsed into anarchy and confusion. It
was perhaps worst at Vincennes, where the departure of the troops had
left the French free to do as they wished. Accustomed for generations to
a master, they could do nothing with their new-found liberty beyond
making it a curse to themselves and their neighbors. They had been
provided with their own civil government in the shape of their elective
court, but the judges had literally no idea of their proper functions as
a governing body to administer justice. At first they did nothing
whatever beyond meet and adjourn. Finally it occurred to them that
perhaps their official position could be turned to their own advantage.
Their townsmen were much too poor to be plundered; but there were vast
tracts of fertile wild land on every side, to which, as far as they
knew, there was no title, and which speculators assured them would
ultimately be of great value. Vaguely remembering Todd's opinion, that
he had power to interfere under certain conditions with the settlement
of the lands, and concluding that he had delegated this power, as well
as others, to themselves, the justices of the court proceeded to make
immense grants of territory, reciting that they did so under "_les
pouvoirs donnés a Mons'rs Les Magistrats de la cour de Vincennes par le
Snr. Jean Todd, colonel et Grand Judge civil pour les États Unis_";
Todd's title having suffered a change and exaltation in their memories.
They granted one another about fifteen thousand square miles of land
round the Wabash; each member of the court in turn absenting himself for
the day on which his associates granted him his share.

This vast mass of virgin soil they sold to speculators at nominal
prices, sometimes receiving a horse or a gun for a thousand acres. The
speculators of course knew that their titles were worthless, and made
haste to dispose of different lots at very low prices to intending
settlers. These small buyers were those who ultimately suffered by the
transaction, as they found they had paid for worthless claims. The
speculators reaped the richest harvest; and it is hard to decide whether
to be amused or annoyed at the childish and transparent rascality of the
French Creoles. [Footnote: State Department MSS., Nos. 30 and 48. Laws
"Vincennes."]

    Lawlessness in the Illinois.

In the Illinois country proper the troops, the American settlers,
speculators, and civil officials, and the Creole inhabitants all
quarrelled together indiscriminately. The more lawless new-comers stole
horses from the quieter Creoles; the worst among the French, the idle
coureurs-des-bois, voyageurs, and trappers plundered and sometimes
killed the peaceable citizens of either nationality. The soldiers became
little better than an unruly mob; some deserted, or else in company with
other ruffians, both French and American, indulged in furious and
sometimes murderous orgies, to the terror of the Creoles who had
property. The civil authorities, growing day by day weaker, were finally
shorn of all power by the military. This, however, was in nowise a
quarrel between the French and the Americans. As already explained, in
Todd's absence the position of deputy was sometimes filled by a Creole
and sometimes by an American. He had been particular to caution them in
writing to keep up a good understanding with the officers and troops,
adding, as a final warning: "If this is not the case you will be
unhappy." Unfortunately for one of the deputies, Richard Winston, he
failed to keep up the good understanding, and, as Todd had laconically
foretold, he in consequence speedily became very "unhappy." We have only
his own account of the matter. According to this, in April, 1782, he was
taken out of his house "in despite of the civil authority, disregarding
the laws and on the malitious alugation of Jno. Williams and Michel
Pevante." Thus a Frenchman and an American joined in the accusation, for
some of the French supported the civil, others the military,
authorities. The soldiers had the upper hand, however, and Winston
records that he was forthwith "confined by tyrannick military force."
From that time the authority of the laws was at an end, and as the
officers of the troops had but little control, every man did what
pleased him best.

In January, 1781, the Virginia Legislature passed an act ceding to
Congress, for the benefit of the United States, all of Virginia's claim
to the territory northwest of the Ohio; but the cession was not
consummated until after the close of the war with Great Britain, and the
only immediate effect of the act was to still further derange affairs in
Illinois. The whole subject of the land cessions of the various States,
by which the northwest territory became Federal property, and the heart
of the Union, can best be considered in treating of post-revolutionary
times.

The French Creoles had been plunged in chaos. In their deep distress
they sent to the powers that the chances of war had set above them
petition after petition, reciting their wrongs and praying that they
might be righted. There is one striking difference between these
petitions and the similar requests and complaints made from time to time
by the different groups of American settlers west of the Alleghanies.
Both alike set forth the evils from which the petitioners suffered, and
the necessity of governmental remedy. But whereas the Americans
invariably asked that they be allowed to govern themselves, being
delighted to undertake the betterment of their condition on their own
account, the French, on the contrary, habituated through generations to
paternal rule, were more inclined to request that somebody fitted for
the task should be sent to govern them. They humbly asked Congress
either to "immediately establish some form of government among them, and
appoint officers to execute the same," or else "to nominate
commissioners to repair to the Illinois and inquire into the situation."
[Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 30, p. 453. Memorial of François
Carbonneaux, agent for the inhabitants of Illinois.]

One of the petitions is pathetic in its showing of the bewilderment into
which the poor Creoles were thrown as to who their governors really
were. It requests "their Sovereign Lords," [Footnote: "Nos Souverains
Seigneurs." The letter is ill-written and worse spelt, in an
extraordinary French patois. State Department MSS., No. 30, page 459. It
is dated December 3, 1782. Many of the surnames attached are marked with
a cross; others are signed. Two are given respectively as "Bienvenus
fils" and "Blouin fils."] whether of the Congress of the United States
or of the Province of Virginia, whichever might be the owner of the
country, to nominate "a lieutenant or a governor, whomever it may please
our Lords to send us." [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 30, p. 459,
"de nomer un lieutenant ou un gouverneur tel qu'il plaira a nos
Seigneurs de nous l'envoyer."] The letter goes on to ask that this
governor may speak French, so that he may preside over the court; and it
earnestly beseeches that the laws may be enforced and crime and
wrong-doing put down with a strong hand.

The conquest of the Illinois Territory was fraught with the deepest and
most far-reaching benefits to all the American people; it likewise
benefited, in at least an equal degree, the boldest and most energetic
among the French inhabitants, those who could hold their own among
freemen, who could swim in troubled waters; but it may well be doubted
whether to the mass of the ignorant and simple Creoles it was not a
curse rather than a blessing.




CHAPTER VII.

KENTUCKY UNTIL THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 1782-1783.

Seventeen hundred and eighty-two proved to be Kentucky's year of blood.
The British at Detroit had strained every nerve to drag into the war the
entire Indian population of the northwest. They had finally succeeded in
arousing even the most distant tribes--not to speak of the twelve
thousand savages immediately tributary to Detroit. [Footnote: Haldimand
MSS. Census for 1782, 11,402.] So lavish had been the expenditure of
money and presents to secure the good-will of the savages and enlist
their active services against the Americans, that it had caused serious
complaint at headquarters. [Footnote: _Do._ Haldimand to De Peyster,
April 10, October 6, 1781.]

    Renewal of the Indian Forays.

Early in the spring the Indians renewed their forays; horses were
stolen, cabins burned, and women and children carried off captive. The
people were confined closely to their stockaded forts, from which small
bands of riflemen sallied to patrol the country. From time to time these
encountered marauding parties, and in the fights that followed sometimes
the whites, sometimes the reds, were victorious.

One of these conflicts attracted wide attention on the border because of
the obstinacy with which it was waged and the bloodshed that accompanied
it. In March a party of twenty-five Wyandots came into the settlements,
passed Boonsborough, and killed and scalped a girl within sight of
Estill's Station. The men from the latter, also to the number of
twenty-five, hastily gathered under Captain Estill, and after two days'
hot pursuit overtook the Wyandots. A fair stand-up fight followed, the
better marksmanship of the whites being offset, as so often before, by
the superiority their foes showed in sheltering themselves. At last
victory declared for the Indians. Estill had despatched a lieutenant and
seven men to get round the Wyandots and assail them in the rear; but
either the lieutenant's heart or his judgment failed him, he took too
long, and meanwhile the Wyandots closed in on the others, killing nine,
including Estill, and wounding four, who, with their unhurt comrades,
escaped. It is said that the Wyandots themselves suffered heavily.
[Footnote: Of course not as much as their foes. The backwoodsmen (like
the regular officers of both the British and American armies in similar
cases, as at Grant's and St. Clair's defeats) were fond of consoling
themselves for their defeats by snatching at any wild tale of the losses
of the victors. In the present instance it is even possible that the
loss of the Wyandots was very light instead of very heavy.]

These various ravages and skirmishes were but the prelude to a far more
serious attack. In July the British captains Caldwell and McKee came
down from Detroit with a party of rangers, and gathered together a great
army of over a thousand Indians [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter from
Capt. Caldwell, August 26, 1782; and letter of Captain McKee, August 28,
1782. These two letters are very important, as they give for the first
time the British and Indian accounts of the battle of the Blue Licks; I
print them in the Appendix.]--the largest body of either red men or
white that was ever mustered west of the Alleghanies during the
Revolution. They meant to strike at Wheeling; but while on their march
thither were suddenly alarmed by the rumor that Clark intended to attack
the Shawnee towns. [Footnote: This rumor was caused by Clark's gunboat,
which, as will be hereafter mentioned, had been sent up to the mouth of
the Licking; some Shawnees saw it, and thought Clark was preparing for
an inroad.] They at once countermarched, but on reaching the threatened
towns found that the alarm had been groundless. Most of the savages,
with characteristic fickleness of temper, then declined to go farther;
but a body of somewhat over three hundred Hurons and Lake Indians
remained. With these, and their Detroit rangers, Caldwell and McKee
crossed the Ohio and marched into Kentucky, to attack the small forts of
Fayette County.

Fayette lay between the Kentucky and the Ohio rivers, and was then the
least populous and most exposed of the three counties into which the
growing young commonwealth was divided. In 1782 it contained but five of
the small stockaded towns in which all the early settlers were obliged
to gather. The best defended and most central was Lexington, round which
were grouped the other four--Bryan's (which was the largest), McGee's,
McConnell's, and Boon's. Boon's Station, sometimes called Boon's new
station, where the tranquil, resolute old pioneer at that time dwelt,
must not be confounded with his former fort of Boonsborough, from which
it was several miles distant, north of the Kentucky. Since the
destruction of Martin's and Ruddle's stations on the Licking, Bryan's on
the south bank of the Elkhorn was left as the northernmost outpost of
the settlers. Its stout, loopholed palisades enclosed some forty cabins,
there were strong block-houses at the corners, and it was garrisoned by
fifty good riflemen.

These five stations were held by backwoodsmen of the usual Kentucky
stamp, from the up-country of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North
Carolina. Generations of frontier life had made them with their fellows
the most distinctive and typical Americans on the continent, utterly
different from their old-world kinsfolk. Yet they still showed strong
traces of the covenanting spirit, which they drew from the
Irish-Presbyterian, the master strain in their mixed blood. For years
they had not seen the inside of a church; nevertheless, mingled with men
who were loose of tongue and life, there still remained many
Sabbath-keepers and Bible-readers, who studied their catechisms on
Sundays, and disliked almost equally profane language and debauchery.
[Footnote: McAfee MSS.]

    Patterson and Reynolds.

An incident that occurred at this time illustrates well their feelings.
In June a fourth of the active militia of the county was ordered on
duty, to scout and patrol the country. Accordingly forty men turned out
under Captain Robert Patterson. They were given ammunition, as well as
two pack-horses, by the Commissary Department. Every man was entitled to
pay for the time he was out. Whether he would ever get it was
problematical; at the best it was certain to be given him in worthless
paper-money. Their hunters kept them supplied with game, and each man
carried a small quantity of parched corn.

The company was ordered to the mouth of the Kentucky to meet the armed
row-boat, sent by Clark from the Falls. On the way Patterson was much
annoyed by a "very profane, swearing man" from Bryan's Station, named
Aaron Reynolds. Reynolds was a good-hearted, active young fellow, with a
biting tongue, not only given to many oaths, but likewise skilled in the
rough, coarse banter so popular with the backwoodsmen. After having
borne with him four days Patterson made up his mind that he would have
to reprove him, and, if no amendment took place, send him home. He
waited until, at a halt, Reynolds got a crowd round him, and began to
entertain them "with oaths and wicked expressions," whereupon he
promptly stepped in "and observed to him that he was a very wicked and
profane man," and that both the company as well as he, the Captain,
would thank him to desist. On the next day, however, Reynolds began to
swear again; this time Patterson not only reproved him severely, but
also tried the effect of judicious gentleness, promising to give him a
quart of spirits on reaching the boat if he immediately "quit his
profanity and swearing." Four days afterwards they reached the boat, and
Aaron Reynolds demanded the quart of spirits. Patterson suggested a
doubt as to whether he had kept his promise, whereupon he appealed to
the company, then on parade, and they pronounced in his favor, saying
that they had not heard him swear since he was reproved. Patterson, who
himself records the incident, concludes with the remark: "The spirits
were drank." [Footnote: Patterson's paper, given by Col. John Mason
Brown, in his excellent pamphlet on the "Battle of the Blue Licks"
(Franklin, Ky., 1882). I cannot forbear again commenting on the really
admirable historic work now being done by Messrs. Brown, Durrett, Speed,
and the other members of the Louisville "Filson Club."] Evidently the
company, who had so impartially acted as judges between their
fellow-soldier and their superior officer, viewed with the same
equanimity the zeal of the latter and the mixed system of command,
entreaty, and reward by which he carried his point. As will be seen, the
event had a striking sequel at the battle of the Blue Licks.

Throughout June and July the gunboat patrolled the Ohio, going up to the
Licking. Parties of backwoods riflemen, embodied as militia, likewise
patrolled the woods, always keeping their scouts and spies well spread
out, and exercising the greatest care to avoid being surprised. They
greatly hampered the Indian war bands, but now and then the latter
slipped by and fell on the people they protected. Early in August such a
band committed some ravages south of the Kentucky, beating back with
loss a few militia who followed it. Some of the Fayette men were about
setting forth to try and cut off its retreat, when the sudden and
unlooked-for approach of Caldwell and McKee's great war party obliged
them to bend all their energies to their own defence.

The blow fell on Bryan's Station. The rangers and warriors moved down
through the forest with the utmost speed and stealth, hoping to take
this, the northernmost of the stockades, by surprise. If they had
succeeded, Lexington and the three smaller stations north of the
Kentucky would probably likewise have fallen.

    The Attack on Bryan's Station.

The attack was made early on the morning of the 16th of August. Some of
the settlers were in the corn-fields, and the rest inside the palisade
of standing logs; they were preparing to follow the band of marauders
who had gone south of the Kentucky. A few outlying Indian spies were
discovered, owing to their eagerness; and the whites being put on their
guard, the attempt to carry the fort by the first rush was, of course,
foiled. Like so many other stations--but unlike Lexington,--Bryan's had
no spring within its walls; and as soon as there was reason to dread an
attack, it became a matter of vital importance to lay in a supply of
water. It was feared that to send the men to the spring would arouse
suspicion in the minds of the hiding savages; and, accordingly, the
women went down with their pails and buckets as usual. The younger girls
showed some nervousness, but the old housewives marshalled them as
coolly as possible, talking and laughing together, and by their
unconcern completely deceived the few Indians who were lurking near
by--for the main body had not yet come up. [Footnote: Caldwell's letter
says that a small party of Indians was sent ahead first; the watering
incident apparently took place immediately on this small party being
discovered.] This advance guard of the savages feared that, if they
attacked the women, all chance of surprising the fort would be lost; and
so the water-carriers were suffered to go back unharmed. [Footnote: This
account rests on tradition; it is recorded by McClung, a most
untrustworthy writer; his account of the battle of the Blue Licks is
wrong from beginning to end. But a number of gentlemen in Kentucky have
informed me that old pioneers whom they knew in their youth had told
them that they had themselves seen the incident, and that, as written
down, it was substantially true. So with Reynold's speech to Girty. Of
course, his exact words, as given by McClung, are incorrect; but Mr. L.
C. Draper informs me that, in his youth, he knew several old men who had
been in Bryan's Station, and had themselves heard the speech. If it were
not for this I should reject it, for the British accounts do not even
mention that Girty was along, and do not hint at the incident. It was
probably an unauthorized ruse of Girty's. The account of the decoy party
of Indians is partially confirmed by the British letters. Both Marshall
and McClung get this siege and battle very much twisted in their
narratives; they make so many mistakes that it is difficult to know what
portion of their accounts to accept. Nevertheless it would be a great
mistake to neglect all, even of McClung's statements. Thus Boon and Levi
Todd in their reports make no mention of McGarry's conduct; and it might
be supposed to be a traditional myth, but McClung's account is
unexpectedly corroborated by Arthur Campbell's letter, hereafter to be
quoted, which was written at the time.

Marshall is the authority for Netherland's feat at the ford. Boon's
description in the Filson narrative differs on several points from his
earlier official letter, one or two grave errors being made; it is one
of the incidents which shows how cautiously the Filson sketch must be
used, though it is usually accepted as unquestionable authority.] Hardly
were they within the fort, however, when some of the Indians found that
they had been discovered, and the attack began so quickly that one or
two of the men who had lingered in the corn-fields were killed, or else
were cut off and fled to Lexington, while, at the same time,
swift-footed runners were sent out to carry the alarm to the different
stockades, and summon their riflemen to the rescue.

At first but a few Indians appeared, on the side of the Lexington road;
they whooped and danced defiance to the fort, evidently inviting an
attack. Their purpose was to lure the defenders into sallying out after
them, when their main body was to rush at the stockade from the other
side. But they did not succeed in deceiving the veteran Indian fighters
who manned the heavy gates of the fort, stood behind the loopholed
walls, or scanned the country round about from the high block-houses at
the corners. A dozen active young men were sent out on the Lexington
road to carry on a mock skirmish with the decoy party, while the rest of
the defenders gathered behind the wall on the opposite side. As soon as
a noisy but harmless skirmish had been begun by the sallying party, the
main body of warriors burst out of the woods and rushed towards the
western gate. A single volley from the loopholes drove them back, while
the sallying party returned at a run and entered the Lexington gate
unharmed, laughing at the success of their counter-stratagem.

The Indians surrounded the fort, each crawling up as close as he could
find shelter behind some stump, tree, or fence. An irregular fire began,
the whites, who were better covered, having slightly the advantage, but
neither side suffering much. This lasted for several hours, until early
in the afternoon a party from Lexington suddenly appeared and tried to
force its way into the fort.

The runners who slipped out of the fort at the first alarm went straight
to Lexington. There they found that the men had just started out to cut
off the retreat of the marauding savages who were ravaging south of the
Kentucky. Following their trail they speedily overtook the troops, and
told of the attack on Bryan's. Instantly forty men under Major Levi Todd
countermarched to the rescue. Being ignorant of the strength of the
Indians they did not wait for the others, but pushed boldly forward,
seventeen being mounted and the others on foot. [Footnote: Va. State
Papers, III., p. 300. McClung's and  Collins' accounts of this incident
are pure romance.]

The road from Lexington to Bryan's for the last few hundred yards led
beside a field of growing corn taller than a man. Some of the Indians
were lying in this field when they were surprised by the sudden
appearance of the rescuers, and promptly fired on them. Levi Todd and
the horsemen, who were marching in advance, struck spurs into their
steeds, and galloping hard through the dust and smoke reached the fort
in safety. The footmen were quickly forced to retreat towards Lexington;
but the Indians were too surprised by the unlooked-for approach to
follow, and they escaped with the loss of one man killed and three
wounded. [Footnote: _Do._]

That night the Indians tried to burn the fort, shooting flaming arrows
onto the roofs of the cabins and rushing up to the wooden wall with
lighted torches. But they were beaten off at each attempt. When day
broke they realized that it was hopeless to make any further effort,
though they still kept up a desultory fire on the fort's defenders; they
had killed most of the cattle and pigs, and some of the horses, and had
driven away the rest.

Girty, who was among the assailants, as a last shift, tried to get the
garrison to surrender, assuring them that the Indians were hourly
expecting reinforcements, including the artillery brought against
Ruddle's and Martin's stations two years previously; and that if forced
to batter down the walls no quarter would be given to any one. Among the
fort's defenders was young Aaron Reynolds, the man whose profanity had
formerly roused Captain Patterson's ire; and he now undertook to be
spokesman for the rest. Springing up into sight he answered Girty in the
tone of rough banter so dear to the backwoodsmen, telling the renegade
that he knew him well, and despised him, that the men in the fort feared
neither cannon nor reinforcements, and if need be, could drive Girty's
tawny followers back from the walls with switches; and he ended by
assuring him that the whites, too, were expecting help, for the country
was roused, and if the renegade and his followers dared to linger where
they were for another twenty-four hours, their scalps would surely be
sun-dried on the roofs of the cabins.

The Indians knew well that the riflemen were mustering at all the
neighboring forts; and, as soon as their effort to treat failed, they
withdrew during the forenoon of the 17th. [Footnote: There are four
contemporary official reports of this battle: two American, those of
Boon and Levi Todd; and two British, those of McKee and Caldwell. All
four agree that the fort was attacked on one day, the siege abandoned on
the next, pursuit made on the third, and the battle fought on the
fourth. Boon and Todd make the siege begin on August 16th, and the
battle take place on the 19th; Caldwell makes the dates the 15th and
18th; McKee makes them the 18th and 21st. I therefore take Boon's and
Todd's dates.

McClung and Marshall make the siege last three or four days instead of
less than two.

All the accounts of the battle of the Blue Licks, so far, have been very
inaccurate, because the British reports have never been even known to
exist, and the reports of the American commanders, printed in the
Virginia State papers, have but recently seen the light. Mr. Whitsitt,
in his recent excellent "Life of Judge Wallace," uses the latter, but
makes the great mistake of incorporating into his narrative some of the
most glaring errors of McClung and Marshall.] They were angry and sullen
at their discomfiture. Five of their number had been killed and several
wounded. Of the fort's defenders four had been killed and three wounded.
Among the children within its walls during the siege there was one, the
youngest, a Kentucky-born baby, named Richard Johnson; over thirty years
later he led the Kentucky mounted riflemen at the victory of the Thames,
when they killed not only the great Indian chief Tecumseh, but also, it
is said, the implacable renegade Simon Girty himself, then in extreme
old age.

    Battle Of the Blue Licks.

All this time the runners sent out from Bryan's had been speeding
through the woods, summoning help from each of the little walled towns.
The Fayette troops quickly gathered. As soon as Boon heard the news he
marched at the head of the men of his station, among them his youngest
son Israel, destined shortly to be slain before his eyes. The men from
Lexington, McConnell's, and McGee's, rallied under John Todd, who was
County Lieutenant, and, by virtue of his commission in the Virginia
line, the ranking officer of Kentucky, second only to Clark. Troops also
came from south of the Kentucky River; Lieutenant-Colonel Trigg and
Majors McGarry and Harlan led the men from Harrodsburg, who were soonest
ready to march, and likewise brought the news that Logan, their County
Lieutenant, was raising the whole force of Lincoln in hot haste, and
would follow in a couple of days.

These bands of rescuers reached Bryan's Station on the afternoon of the
day the Indians had left. The men thus gathered were the very pick of
the Kentucky pioneers; sinewy veterans of border strife, skilled hunters
and woodsmen, long wonted to every kind of hardship and danger. They
were men of the most dauntless courage, but unruly and impatient of all
control. Only a few of the cooler heads were willing to look before they
leaped; and even their chosen and trusted leaders were forced to advise
and exhort rather than to command them. All were eager for battle and
vengeance, and were excited and elated by the repulse that had just been
inflicted on the savages; and they feared to wait for Logan lest the foe
should escape. Next morning they rode out in pursuit, one hundred and
eighty-two strong, all on horseback, and all carrying long rifles. There
was but one sword among them, which Todd had borrowed from Boon--a rough
weapon, with short steel blade and buckhorn hilt. As with most frontier
levies, the officers were in large proportion; for, owing to the system
of armed settlement and half-military organization, each wooden fort,
each little group of hunters or hard-fighting backwoods farmers, was
forced to have its own captain, lieutenant, ensign, and sergeant.
[Footnote: For the American side of the battle of Blue Licks I take the
contemporary reports of Boon, Levi Todd, and Logan, Va. State Papers,
Vol. III., pp. 276, 280, 300, 333. Boon and Todd both are explicit that
there were one hundred and eighty-two riflemen, all on horseback, and
substantially agree as to the loss of the frontiersmen. Later reports
underestimate both the numbers and loss of the whites. Boon's Narrative,
written two years after the event, from memory, conflicts in one or two
particulars with his earlier report. Patterson, writing long afterwards,
and from memory, falls into gross errors, both as to the number of
troops and as to some of them being on foot; his account must be relied
on chiefly for his own adventures. Most of the historians of Kentucky
give the affair very incorrectly. Butler follows Marshall; but from the
Clark papers he got the right number of men engaged. Marshall gives a
few valuable facts; but he is all wrong on certain important points. For
instance, he says Todd hurried into action for fear Logan would
supersede him in the command; but in reality Todd ranked Logan.
McClung's ornate narrative, that usually followed, hangs on the very
slenderest thread of truth; it is mainly sheer fiction. Prolix, tedious
Collins follows the plan he usually does when his rancorous prejudices
do not influence him, and presents half a dozen utterly inconsistent
accounts, with no effort whatever to reconcile them. He was an
industrious collector of information, and gathered an enormous quantity,
some of it very useful; he recorded with the like complacency authentic
incidents of the highest importance and palpable fabrications or
irrelevant trivialities; and it never entered his head to sift evidence
or to exercise a little critical power and judgment.]

The Indians, in their unhurried retreat, followed the great buffalo
trace that led to the Blue Licks, a broad road, beaten out through the
forest by the passing and repassing of the mighty herds through
countless generations. They camped on the farther side of the river;
some of the savages had left, but there were still nearly three hundred
men in all--Hurons and lake Indians, with the small party of rangers.
[Footnote: Caldwell says that he had at first "three hundred Indians and
Rangers," but that before the battle "nigh 100 Indians left." McKee says
that there were at first "upwards of three hundred Hurons and Lake
Indians," besides the rangers and a very few Mingos, Delawares, and
Shawnees. Later he says of the battle: "We were not much superior to
them in numbers, they being about two hundred."

Levi Todd put the number of the Indians at three hundred, which was
pretty near the truth; Boon thought it four hundred; later writers
exaggerate wildly, putting it even at one thousand.]

The backwoods horsemen rode swiftly on the trail of their foes, and
before evening came to where they had camped the night before. A careful
examination of the camp-fires convinced the leaders that they were
heavily outnumbered; nevertheless they continued the pursuit, and
overtook the savages early the following morning, the 19th of August.

As they reached the Blue Licks, they saw a few Indians retreating up a
rocky ridge that led from the north bank of the river. The backwoodsmen
halted on the south bank, and a short council was held. All turned
naturally to Boon, the most experienced Indian fighter present, in whose
cool courage and tranquil self-possession all confided. The wary old
pioneer strongly urged that no attack be made at the moment, but that
they should await the troops coming up under Logan. The Indians were
certainly much superior in numbers to the whites; they were aware that
they were being followed by a small force, and from the confident,
leisurely way in which they had managed their retreat, were undoubtedly
anxious to be overtaken and attacked. The hurried pursuit had been quite
proper in the first place, for if the Indians had fled rapidly they
would surely have broken up into different bands, which could have been
attacked on even terms, while delay would have permitted them to go off
unscathed. But, as it was, the attack would be very dangerous; while the
delay of waiting for Logan would be a small matter, for the Indians
could still be overtaken after he had arrived.

Well would it have been for the frontiersmen had they followed Boon's
advice. [Footnote: Va. State Papers, III., 337. Col. Campbell's letter
of Oct. 3, 1782. The letter is interesting as showing by contemporary
authority that Boon's advice and McGarry's misbehavior are not mere
matters of tradition. It is possible that there was some jealousy
between the troops from Lincoln and those from Fayette; the latter had
suffered much from the Indians, and were less rash in consequence; while
many of the Lincoln men were hot for instant battle.] Todd and Trigg
both agreed with him, and so did many of the cooler riflemen--among
others a man named Netherland, whose caution caused the young hotheads
to jeer at him as a coward. But the decision was not suffered to rest
with the three colonels who nominally commanded. Doubtless the council
was hasty and tumultuous, being held by the officers in the open,
closely pressed upon, and surrounded by a throng of eager, unruly
soldiers, who did not hesitate to offer advice or express
dissatisfaction. Many of the more headlong and impatient among the bold
spirits looking on desired instant action; and these found a sudden
leader in Major Hugh McGarry. He was a man utterly unsuited to command
of any kind; and his retention in office after repeated acts of violence
and insubordination shows the inherent weakness of the frontier militia
system. He not only chafed at control, but he absolutely refused to
submit to it; and his courage was of a kind better fitted to lead him
into a fight than to make him bear himself well after it was begun. He
wished no delay, and was greatly angered at the decision of the council;
nor did he hesitate to at once appeal therefrom. Turning to the crowd of
backwoodsmen he suddenly raised the thrilling war-cry, and spurred his
horse into the stream, waving his hat over his head and calling on all
who were not cowards to follow him. The effect was electrical. In an
instant all the hunter-soldiers plunged in after him with a shout, and
splashed across the ford of the shallow river in huddled confusion.

Boon and Todd had nothing to do but follow. On the other side they got
the men into order, and led them on, the only thing that was possible
under the circumstances. These two leaders acted excellently throughout;
and they now did their best to bring the men with honor through the
disaster into which they had been plunged by their own headstrong folly.

As the Indians were immediately ahead, the array of battle was at once
formed. The troops spread out into a single line. The right was led by
Trigg, the centre by Colonel-Commandant Todd in person, with McGarry
under him, and an advance guard of twenty-five men under Harlan in
front; while the left was under Boon. The ground was equally favorable
to both parties, the timber being open and good. [Footnote: Levi Todd's
letter, Aug. 26, 1782.] But the Indians had the advantage in numbers,
and were able to outflank the whites.

In a minute the spies brought word that the enemy were close in front.
[Footnote: It is absolutely erroneous to paint the battle as in any way
a surprise. Boon says: "We discovered the enemy lying in wait for us; on
this discovery we formed our columns into a single line, and marched up
in their front." There was no ambush, except that of course the Indians,
as usual, sheltered themselves behind trees or in the long grass. From
what Boon and Levi Todd say, it is evident that the firing began on both
sides at the same time. Caldwell says the Indians fired one gun
whereupon the Kentuckians fired a volley.] The Kentuckians galloped up
at speed to within sixty yards of their foes, leaped from their horses,
and instantly gave and received a heavy fire. [Footnote: Levi Todd's
letter.] Boon was the first to open the combat; and under his command
the left wing pushed the Indians opposite them back for a hundred yards.
The old hunter of course led in person; his men stoutly backed him up,
and their resolute bearing and skilful marksmanship gave to the whites
in this part of the line a momentary victory.

But on the right of the Kentucky advance, affairs went badly from the
start. The Indians were thrown out so as to completely surround Triggs'
wing. Almost as soon as the firing became heavy in front, crowds of
painted warriors rose from some hollows of long grass that lay on
Trigg's right and poured in a close and deadly volley. Rushing forward,
they took his men in rear and flank, and rolled them up on the centre,
killing Trigg himself. Harlan's advance guard was cut down almost to a
man, their commander being among the slain. The centre was then assailed
from both sides by overwhelming numbers. Todd did all he could by voice
and example to keep his men firm, and cover Boon's successful advance,
but in vain. Riding to and fro on his white horse, he was shot through
the body, and mortally wounded. He leaped on his horse again, but his
strength failed him; the blood gushed from his mouth; he leaned forward,
and fell heavily from the saddle. Some say that his horse carried him to
the river, and that he fell into its current. With his death the centre
gave way; and of course Boon and the men of the left wing, thrust in
advance, were surrounded on three sides. A wild rout followed, every one
pushing in headlong haste for the ford. "He that could remount a horse
was well off; he that could not, had no time for delay," wrote Levi
Todd. The actual fighting had only occupied five minutes. [Footnote:
Levi Todd's letter.]

In a mad and panic race the Kentuckians reached the ford, which was
fortunately but a few hundred yards from the battle-field, the Indians
being mixed in with them. Among the first to cross was Netherland, whose
cautious advice had been laughed at before the battle. No sooner had he
reached the south bank, than he reined up his horse and leaped off,
calling on his comrades to stop and cover the flight of the others; and
most of them obeyed him. The ford was choked with a struggling mass of
horsemen and footmen, fleeing whites and following Indians. Netherland
and his companions opened a brisk fire upon the latter, forcing them to
withdraw for a moment and let the remainder of the fugitives cross in
safety. Then the flight began again. The check that had been given the
Indians allowed the whites time to recover heart and breath. Retreating
in groups or singly through the forest, with their weapons reloaded,
their speed of foot and woodcraft enabled such as had crossed the river
to escape without further serious loss.

Boon was among the last to leave the field. His son Israel was slain,
and he himself was cut off from the river; but turning abruptly to one
side, he broke through the ranks of the pursuers, outran them, swam the
river, and returned unharmed to Bryan's Station.

Among the men in the battle were Capt. Robert Patterson and young Aaron
Reynolds. When the retreat began Patterson could not get a horse. He was
suffering from some old and unhealed wounds received in a former Indian
fight, and he speedily became exhausted. As he was on the point of
sinking, Reynolds suddenly rode up beside him, jumped off his horse, and
without asking Patterson whether he would accept, bade him mount the
horse and flee. Patterson did so, and was the last man over the ford. He
escaped unhurt, though the Indians were running alongside and firing at
him. Meanwhile Reynolds, who possessed extraordinary activity, reached
the river in safety and swam across. He then sat down to take off his
buckskin trowsers, which, being soaked through, hampered him much; and
two Indians suddenly pounced on and captured him. He was disarmed and
left in charge of one. Watching his chance, he knocked the savage down,
and running off into the woods escaped with safety. When Patterson
thanked him for saving his life, and asked him why he had done it, he
answered, that ever since Patterson had reproved him for swearing, he
had felt a strong and continued attachment for him. The effect of the
reproof, combined with his narrow escape, changed him completely, and he
became a devout member of the Baptist Church. Patterson, to show the
gratitude he felt, gave him a horse and saddle, and a hundred acres of
prime land, the first he had ever owned.

The loss of the defeated Kentuckians had been very great. Seventy were
killed outright, including Colonel Todd and Lieutenant-Colonel Trigg,
the first and third in command. Seven were captured, and twelve of those
who escaped were badly wounded. [Footnote: Those are the figures of
Boon's official report, and must be nearly accurate. The later accounts
give all sorts of numbers.] The victors lost one of the Detroit rangers
(a Frenchman), and six Indians killed and ten Indians wounded.
[Footnote:  Caldwell's letter. But there are some slight discrepancies
between the letters of McKee and Caldwell. Caldwell makes the loss at
Bryan's Station and the Blue Licks together twelve killed and twelve
wounded; McKee says eleven killed and fourteen wounded. Both exaggerate
the American loss, but not as much as the Americans exaggerated that of
the Indians, Boon in his narrative giving the wildest of all the
estimates.] Almost their whole loss was caused by the successful advance
of Boon's troops, save what was due to Netherland when he rallied the
flying backwoodsmen at the ford.

Of the seven white captives four were put to death with torture; three
eventually rejoined their people. One of them owed his being spared to a
singular and amusing feat of strength and daring. When forced to run the
gauntlet he, by his activity, actually succeeded in reaching the
council-house unharmed; when almost to it, he turned, seized a powerful
Indian and hurled him violently to the ground, and then, thrusting his
head between the legs of another pursuer, he tossed him clean over his
back, after which he sprang on a log, leaped up and knocked his heels
together, crowed in the fashion of backwoods victors, and rallied the
Indians as a pack of cowards. One of the old chiefs immediately adopted
him into the tribe as his son.

All the little forted villages north of the Kentucky, and those lying
near its southern bank, were plunged into woe and mourning by the
defeat. [Footnote: Arthur Campbell, in the letter already quoted,
comments with intense bitterness on the defeat, which, he says, was due
largely to McGarry's "vain and seditious expressions." He adds that Todd
and Trigg had capacity but no experience, and Boon experience but no
capacity, while Logan was "a dull and narrow body," and Clark "a sot, if
nothing worse." Campbell was a Holston Virginian, an able but very
jealous man, who disliked the Kentucky leaders, and indeed had no love
for Kentucky itself; he had strenuously opposed its first erection as a
separate county.] In every stockade, in almost every cabin, there was
weeping for husband or father, son, brother, or lover. The best and
bravest blood in the land had been shed like water. There was no one who
had not lost some close and dear friend, and the heads of all the people
were bowed and their hearts sore stricken.

The bodies of the dead lay where they had fallen, on the hill-slope, and
in the shallow river; torn by wolf, vulture, and raven, or eaten by
fishes. In a day or two Logan came up with four hundred men from south
of the Kentucky, tall Simon Kenton marching at the head of the troops,
as captain of a company. [Footnote: McBride's "Pioneer Biography," I.,
210] They buried the bodies of the slain on the battle-field, in long
trenches, and heaped over them stones and logs. Meanwhile the victorious
Indians, glutted with vengeance, recrossed the Ohio and vanished into
the northern forests.

The Indian ravages continued throughout the early fall months; all the
outlying cabins were destroyed, the settlers were harried from the
clearings, and a station on Salt River was taken by surprise,
thirty-seven people being captured. Stunned by the crushing disaster at
the Blue Licks, and utterly disheartened and cast down by the continued
ravages, many of the settlers threatened to leave the country. The
county officers sent long petitions to the Virginia Legislature,
complaining that the troops posted at the Falls were of no assistance in
checking the raids of the Indians, and asserting that the operations
carried on by order of the Executive for the past eighteen months had
been a detriment rather than a help. The utmost confusion and
discouragement prevailed everywhere. [Footnote: Va. State Papers, III.,
pp. 301, 331. Letter of William Christian, September 28th. Petition of
Boon, Todd, Netherland, etc., September 11th. In Morehead's "address" is
a letter from Nathaniel Hart. He was himself as a boy, witness of what
he describes. His father, who had been Henderson's partner and bore the
same name as himself, was from North Carolina. He founded in Kentucky a
station known as White Oak Springs; and was slain by the savages during
this year. The letter runs: "It is impossible at this day to make a just
impression of the sufferings of the pioneers about the period spoken of.
The White Oak Springs fort in 1782, with perhaps one hundred souls in it
was reduced in August to three fighting white men--and I can say with
truth that for two or three weeks my mother's family never unclothed
themselves to sleep, nor were all of them within that time at their
meals together, nor was any household business attempted. Food was
prepared and placed where those who chose could eat. It was the period
when Bryant's station was beseiged, and for many days before and after
that gloomy event we were in constant expectation of being made
prisoners. We made application to Col. Logan for a guard and obtained
one, but not until the danger was measureably over. It then consisted of
two men only. Col. Logan did every thing in his power, as County
Lieutenant, to sustain the different forts--but it was not a very easy
matter to order a married man from a fort where his family was to defend
some other when his own was in imminent danger.

"I went with my mother in January, 1783, to Logan's station to prove my
father's will. He had fallen in the preceding July. Twenty armed men
were of the party. Twenty-three widows were in attendance upon the court
to obtain letters of administration on the estates of their husbands who
had been killed during the past year."

The letter also mentions that most of the original settlers of the fort
were from Pennsylvania, "orderly respectable people and the men good
soldiers. But they were unaccustomed to Indian warfare, and the
consequence was that of some ten or twelve men all were killed but two
or three." This incident illustrates the folly of the hope, at one time
entertained, that the Continental troops, by settling in the west on
lands granted them, would prove a good barrier against the Indians; the
best Continentals in Washington's army would have been almost as
helpless as British grenadiers in the woods.]

    Clark's Counter-Stroke.

At last the news of repeated disaster roused Clark into his old-time
energy. He sent out runners through the settlements, summoning all the
able-bodied men to make ready for a blow at the Indians. The pioneers
turned with eager relief towards the man who had so often led them to
success. They answered his call with quick enthusiasm; beeves,
pack-horses, and supplies were offered in abundance, and every man who
could shoot and ride marched to the appointed meeting-places. The men
from the eastern stations gathered at Bryan's, under Logan; those from
the western, at the Falls, under Floyd. The two divisions met at the
mouth of the Licking, where Clark took supreme command. On the 4th of
November, he left the banks of the Ohio and struck off northward through
the forest, at the head of one thousand and fifty mounted riflemen. On
the 10th he attacked the Miami towns. His approach was discovered just
in time to prevent a surprise. The Indians hurriedly fled to the woods,
those first discovered raising the alarm-cry, which could be heard an
incredible distance, and thus warning their fellows. In consequence no
fight followed, though there was sharp skirmishing between the advance
guard and the hindermost Indians. Ten scalps were taken and seven
prisoners, besides two whites being recaptured. Of Clark's men, one was
killed and one wounded. The flight of the Indians was too hasty to
permit them to save any of their belongings. All the cabins were burned,
together with an immense quantity of corn and provisions--a severe loss
at the opening of winter. McKee, the Detroit partisan, attempted to come
to the rescue with what Indians he could gather, but was met and his
force promptly scattered. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter of Alex.
McKee, November 15, 1782. He makes no attempt to hide the severity of
the blow; his letter shows a curious contrast in tone to the one he
wrote after the Blue Licks. He states that the victory has opened the
road to Detroit to the Americans.] Logan led a detachment to the head of
the Miami, and burned the stores of the British traders. The loss to the
savages at the beginning of cold weather was very great; they were
utterly cast down and panic-stricken at such a proof of the power of the
whites, coming as it did so soon after the battle of the Blue Licks. The
expedition returned in triumph, and the Kentuckians completely regained
their self-confidence; and though for ten years longer Kentucky suffered
from the inroads of small parties of savages, it was never again
threatened by a serious invasion. [Footnote: Va. State Papers, p. 381.
Clark's letter of November 27, 1782.]

    Wonderful Growth of Kentucky.

At the beginning of 1783, when the news of peace was spread abroad,
immigration began to flow to Kentucky down the Ohio, and over the
Wilderness road, in a flood of which the volume dwarfed all former
streams into rivulets. Indian hostilities continued at intervals
throughout this year, [Footnote: _Do_., p. 522. Letter of Benjamin
Logan, August 11, 1783.] but they were not of a serious nature. Most of
the tribes concluded at least a nominal peace, and liberated over two
hundred white prisoners, though they retained nearly as many more.
[Footnote: _Pennsylvania Packet_, No. 1,079, August 12, 1783.]
Nevertheless in the spring one man of note fell victim to the savages,
for John Floyd was waylaid and slain as he was riding out with his
brother. Thus within the space of eight months, two of the three county
lieutenants had been killed, in battle or ambush.

The inrush of new settlers was enormous, [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] and
Kentucky fairly entered on its second stage of growth. The days of the
first game hunters and Indian fighters were over. By this year the herds
of the buffalo, of which the flesh and hides had been so important to
the earlier pioneers, were nearly exterminated; though bands still
lingered in the remote recesses of the mountains, and they were
plentiful in Illinois. The land claims began to clash, and interminable
litigation followed. This rendered very important the improvement in the
judiciary system which was begun in March by the erection of the three
counties into the "District of Kentucky," with a court of common law and
chancery jurisdiction coextensive with its limits. The name of Kentucky,
which had been dropped when the original county was divided into three,
was thus permanently revived. The first court sat at Harrodsburg, but as
there was no building where it could properly be held, it adjourned to
the Dutch Reformed Meeting-house six miles off. The first grand jury
empanelled presented nine persons for selling liquor without license,
eight for adultery and fornication, and the clerk of Lincoln County for
not keeping a table of fees; besides several for smaller offences.
[Footnote: Marshall, I., 159.] A log court-house and a log jail were
immediately built.

Manufactories of salt were started at the licks, where it was sold at
from three to five silver dollars a bushel. [Footnote: McAfee MSS.] This
was not only used by the settlers for themselves, but for their stock,
which ranged freely in the woods; to provide for the latter a tree was
chopped down and the salt placed in notches or small troughs cut in the
trunk, making it what was called a lick-log. Large grist-mills were
erected at some of the stations; wheat crops were raised; and small
distilleries were built. The gigantic system of river commerce of the
Mississippi had been begun the preceding year by one Jacob Yoder, who
loaded a flat-boat at the Old Redstone Fort, on the Monongahela, and
drifted down to New Orleans, where he sold his goods, and returned to
the Falls of the Ohio by a roundabout course leading through Havana,
Philadelphia, and Pittsburg. Several regular schools were started. There
were already meeting-houses of the Baptist and Dutch Reformed
congregations, the preachers spending the week-days in clearing and
tilling the fields, splitting rails, and raising hogs; in 1783 a
permanent Presbyterian minister arrived, and a log church was speedily
built for him. The sport-loving Kentuckians this year laid out a race
track at Shallowford Station. It was a straight quarter of a mile
course, within two hundred yards of the stockade; at its farther end was
a canebrake, wherein an Indian once lay hid and shot a rider, who was
pulling up his horse at the close of a race. There was still but one
ferry, that over the Kentucky River at Boonsborough; the price of
ferriage was three shillings for either man or horse. The surveying was
still chiefly done by hunters, and much of it was in consequence very
loose indeed. [Footnote: McAfee MSS. Marshall, Collins, Brown's
pamphlets.]

The first retail store Kentucky had seen since Henderson's, at
Boonsborough, was closed in 1775, was established this year at the
Falls; the goods were brought in wagons from Philadelphia to Pittsburg,
and thence down the Ohio in flat-boats. The game had been all killed off
in the immediate neighborhood of the town at the Falls, and Clark
undertook to supply the inhabitants with meat, as a commercial
speculation. Accordingly he made a contract with John Saunders, the
hunter who had guided him on his march to the Illinois towns; the latter
had presumably forgiven his chief for having threatened him with death
when he lost the way. Clark was to furnish Saunders with three men, a
packhorse, salt, and ammunition; while Saunders agreed to do his best
and be "assiduously industrious" in hunting. Buffalo beef, bear's meat,
deer hams, and bear oil were the commodities most sought after. The meat
was to be properly cured and salted in camp, and sent from time to time
to the Falls, where Clark was to dispose of it in market, a third of the
price going to Saunders. The hunting season was to last from November
1st to January 15th. [Footnote: Original agreement in Durrett MSS.;
bound volume of "Papers Relating to G. R. Clark." This particular
agreement is for 1784; but apparently he entered into several such in
different years.]

Thus the settlers could no longer always kill their own game; and there
were churches, schools, mills, stores, race tracks, and markets in
Kentucky.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE HOLSTON SETTLEMENTS, 1777-1779.

    Organization of the Holston Settlements.

The history of Kentucky and the Northwest has now been traced from the
date of the Cherokee war to the close of the Revolution. Those portions
of the southwestern lands that were afterwards made into the State of
Tennessee, had meanwhile developed with almost equal rapidity. Both
Kentucky and Tennessee grew into existence and power at the same time,
and were originally settled and built up by precisely the same class of
American backwoodsmen. But there were one or two points of difference in
their methods of growth. Kentucky sprang up afar off in the wilderness,
and as a separate entity from the beginning. The present State has grown
steadily from a single centre, which was the part first settled; and the
popular name of the commonwealth has always been Kentucky. Tennessee, on
the other hand, did not assume her present name until a quarter of a
century after the first exploration and settlement had begun; and the
State grew from two entirely distinct centres. The first settlements,
known as the Watauga, or afterwards more generally as the Holston,
settlements, grew up while keeping close touch with the Virginians, who
lived round the Tennessee head-waters, and also in direct communication
with North Carolina, to which State they belonged. It was not until 1779
that a portion of these Holston people moved to the bend of the
Cumberland River and started a new community, exactly as Kentucky had
been started before. At first this new community, known as the
Cumberland settlement, was connected by only the loosest tie with the
Holston settlements. The people of the two places were not grouped
together; they did not even have a common name. The three clusters of
Holston, Cumberland, and Kentucky settlements developed independently of
one another, and though their founders were in each case of the same
kind, they were at first only knit one to another by a lax bond of
comradeship.

In 1776 the Watauga pioneers probably numbered some six hundred souls in
all. Having at last found out the State in which they lived, they
petitioned North Carolina to be annexed thereto as a district or county.
The older settlements had evidently been jealous of them, for they found
it necessary to deny that they were, as had been asserted, "a lawless
mob"; it may be remarked that the Transylvanian colonists had been
obliged to come out with a similar statement. In their petition they
christened their country "Washington District," in honor of the great
chief whose name already stood first in the hearts of all Americans. The
document was written by Sevier. It set forth the history of the
settlers, their land purchases from the Indians, their successful effort
at self-government, their military organization, with Robertson as
captain, and finally their devotion to the Revolutionary cause; and
recited their lack of proper authority to deal promptly with felons,
murderers, and the like, who came in from the neighboring States, as the
reason why they wished to become a self-governing portion of North
Carolina. [Footnote: The petition, drawn up in the summer of '76, was
signed by 112 men. It is given in full by Ramsey, p. 138. See also
Phelan, p. 40.] The legislature of the State granted the prayer of the
petitioners, Washington District was annexed, and four representatives
therefrom, one of them Sevier, took their seats that fall in the
Provincial Congress at Halifax. But no change whatever was made in the
government of the Watauga people until 1777. In the spring of that year
laws were passed providing for the establishment of courts of pleas and
quarter sessions in the district, as well as for the appointment of
justices of the peace, sheriffs, and militia officers; and in the fall
the district was made a county, under the same name. The boundaries of
Washington County were the same as those of the present State of
Tennessee, and seem to have been outlined by Sevier, the only man who at
that time had a clear idea as to what should be the logical and definite
limits of the future State.

    Upholding the Law.

The nominal change of government worked little real alteration in the
way the Holston people managed their affairs. The members of the old
committee became the justices of the new court, and, with a slight
difference in forms, proceeded against all offenders with their former
vigor. Being eminently practical men, and not learned in legal
technicalities, their decisions seem to have been governed mainly by
their own ideas of justice, which, though genuine, were rough. As the
war progressed and the southern States fell into the hands of the
British, the disorderly men who had streamed across the mountains became
openly defiant towards the law. The tories gathered in bands, and every
man who was impatient of legal restraint, every murderer, horse-thief,
and highway robber in the community flocked to join them. The militia
who hunted them down soon ceased to discriminate between tories and
other criminals, and the courts rendered decisions to the same effect.
The caption of one indictment that has been preserved reads against the
defendant "in toryism." He was condemned to imprisonment during the war,
half his goods was confiscated to the use of the State, and the other
half was turned over for the support of his family. In another case the
court granted a still more remarkable order, upon the motion of the
State attorney, which set forth that fifteen hundred pounds, due to a
certain H., should be retained in the hands of the debtor, because
"there is sufficient reason to believe that the said H's estate will be
confiscated to the use of the State for his misdemeanours."

There is something refreshing in the solemnity with which these
decisions are recorded, and the evident lack of perception on the part
of the judges that their records would, to their grandchildren, have a
distinctly humorous side. To tories, and evil-doers generally, the humor
was doubtless very grim; but as a matter of fact, the decisions, though
certainly of unusual character, were needful and just. The friends of
order had to do their work with rough weapons, and they used them most
efficiently. Under the stress of so dire an emergency as that they
confronted they were quite right in attending only to the spirit of law
and justice, and refusing to be hampered by the letter. They would have
discredited their own energy and hard common-sense had they acted
otherwise, and, moreover, would have inevitably failed to accomplish
their purpose.

In the summer of '78, when Indian hostilities almost entirely ceased,
most of the militia were disbanded, and, in consequence, the parties of
tories and horse-thieves sprang into renewed strength, and threatened to
overawe the courts and government officers. Immediately the leaders
among the whigs, the friends of order and liberty, gathered together and
organized a vigilance committee. The committee raised two companies of
mounted riflemen, who were to patrol the country and put to death all
suspicious characters who resisted them or who refused to give security
to appear before the committee in December. The proceedings of the
committee were thus perfectly open; the members had no idea of acting
secretly or against order. It was merely that in a time of general
confusion they consolidated themselves into a body which was a most
effective, though irregular, supporter of the cause of law. The mounted
riflemen scoured the country and broke up the gangs of evil-doers,
hanging six or seven of the leaders, while a number of the less
prominent were brought before the committee, who fined some and
condemned others to be whipped or branded. All of doubtful loyalty were
compelled to take the test oath. [Footnote:  Haywood, p. 58. As
Haywood's narrative is based largely on what the pioneers in their old
age told him, his dates, and especially his accounts of the numbers and
losses of the Indians in their battles, are often very inaccurate. In
this very chapter he gives, with gross inaccuracy of detail, an account
of one of Sevier's campaigns as taking place in 1779, whereas it really
occurred after his return from King's Mountain. There is therefore need
to be cautious in using him.]

Such drastic measures soon brought about peace; but it was broken again
and again by similar risings and disturbances. By degrees most of the
worst characters fled to the Cherokees, or joined the British as their
forces approached the up-country. Until the battle of Kings Mountain,
the pioneers had to watch the tories as closely as they did the Indians;
there was a constant succession of murders, thefts, and savage
retaliations. Once a number of tories attempted to surprise and murder
Sevier in his own house; but the plot was revealed by the wife of the
leader, to whom Sevier's wife had shown great kindness in her time of
trouble. In consequence the tories were themselves surprised and their
ringleaders slain. Every man in the country was obliged to bear arms the
whole time, not only because of the Indian warfare, but also on account
of the inveterate hatred and constant collisions between the whigs and
the loyalists. Many dark deeds were done, and though the tories, with
whom the criminal classes were in close alliance, were generally the
first and chief offenders, yet the patriots cannot be held guiltless of
murderous and ferocious reprisals. They often completely failed to
distinguish between the offenders against civil order, and those whose
only crime was an honest, if mistaken, devotion to the cause of the
king.

    Land laws

Early in '78 a land office was opened in the Holston settlements, and
the settlers were required to make entries according to the North
Carolina land laws. Hitherto they had lived on their clearings
undisturbed, resting their title upon purchase from the Indians and upon
their own mutual agreements. The old settlers were given the prior right
to the locations, and until the beginning of '79 in which to pay for
them. Each head of a family was allowed to take up six hundred and forty
acres for himself, one hundred for his wife, and one hundred for each of
his children, at the price of forty shillings per hundred acres, while
any additional amount cost at the rate of one hundred shillings, instead
of forty. All of the men of the Holston settlements were at the time in
the service of the State as militia, in the campaign against the
Indians; and when the land office was opened, the money that was due
them sufficed to pay for their claims. They thus had no difficulty in
keeping possession of their lands, much to the disappointment of the
land speculators, many of whom had come out at the opening of the
office. Afterwards large tracts were given as bounty, or in lieu of pay,
to the Revolutionary soldiers. All the struggling colonies used their
wild land as a sort of military chest; it was often the only security of
value in their possession.

The same year that the land office was opened, it was enacted that the
bridle path across the mountains should be chopped out and made into a
rough wagon road. [Footnote: However this was not actually done until
some years later.] The following spring the successful expedition
against the Chicamaugas temporarily put a stop to Indian troubles. The
growing security, the opening of the land office, and the increase of
knowledge concerning the country, produced a great inflow of settlers in
1779, and from that time onward the volume of immigration steadily
increased.

    Character and Life of the Settlers.

Many of these new-comers were "poor whites," or crackers; lank, sallow,
ragged creatures, living in poverty, ignorance, and dirt, who regarded
all strangers with suspicion as "outlandish folks." [Footnote: Smythe's
Tours, I., 103, describes the up-country crackers of North Carolina and
Virginia.] With every chance to rise, these people remained mere squalid
cumberers of the earth's surface, a rank, up-country growth, containing
within itself the seeds of vicious, idle pauperism, and
semi-criminality. They clustered in little groups, scattered throughout
the backwoods settlements, in strong contrast to the vigorous and manly
people around them.

By far the largest number of the new-comers were of the true, hardy
backwoods stock, fitted to grapple with the wilderness and to hew out of
it a prosperous commonwealth. The leading settlers began, by thrift and
industry, to acquire what in the backwoods passed for wealth. Their
horses, cattle, and hogs throve and multiplied. The stumps were grubbed
out of the clearings, and different kinds of grains and roots were
planted. Wings were added to the houses, and sometimes they were roofed
with shingles. The little town of Jonesboro, the first that was not a
mere stockaded fort, was laid off midway between the Watauga and the
Nolichucky.

As soon as the region grew at all well settled, clergymen began to come
in. Here, as elsewhere, most of the frontiersmen who had any religion at
all professed the faith of the Scotch-Irish; and the first regular
church in this cradle-spot of Tennessee was a Presbyterian log
meeting-house, built near Jonesboro in 1777, and christened Salem
Church. Its pastor was a pioneer preacher, who worked with fiery and
successful energy to spread learning and religion among the early
settlers of the southwest. His name was Samuel Doak. He came from New
Jersey, and had been educated in Princeton. Possessed of the vigorous
energy that marks the true pioneer spirit, he determined to cast in his
lot with the frontier folk. He walked through Maryland and Virginia,
driving before him an old "flea-bitten grey" horse, loaded with a
sackful of books; crossed the Alleghanies, and came down along blazed
trails to the Holston settlements. The hardy people among whom he took
up his abode were able to appreciate his learning and religion as much
as they admired his adventurous and indomitable temper; and the stern,
hard, God-fearing man became a most powerful influence for good
throughout the whole formative period of the southwest. [Footnote: See
"East Tennessee a Hundred Years Ago," by the Hon. John Allison,
Nashville, 1887, p. 8.]

Not only did he found a church, but near it he built a log high-school,
which soon became Washington College, the first institution of the kind
west of the Alleghanies. Other churches, and many other schools, were
soon built. Any young man or woman who could read, write, and cipher
felt competent to teach an ordinary school; higher education, as
elsewhere at this time in the west, was in the hands of the clergy.

As elsewhere, the settlers were predominantly of Calvinistic stock; for
of all the then prominent faiths Calvinism was nearest to their feelings
and ways of thought. Of the great recognized creeds it was the most
republican in its tendencies, and so the best suited to the
backwoodsmen. They disliked Anglicanism as much as they abhorred and
despised Romanism--theoretically at least, for practically then as now
frontiersmen were liberal to one another's religious opinions, and the
staunch friend and good hunter might follow whatever creed he wished,
provided he did not intrude it on others. But backwoods Calvinism
differed widely from the creed as first taught. It was professed by
thorough-going Americans, essentially free and liberty-loving, who would
not for a moment have tolerated a theocracy in their midst. Their
social, religious, and political systems were such as naturally
flourished in a country remarkable for its temper of rough and
self-asserting equality. Nevertheless the old Calvinistic spirit left a
peculiar stamp on this wild border democracy. More than any thing else,
it gave the backwoodsmen their code of right and wrong. Though they were
a hard, narrow, dogged people, yet they intensely believed in their own
standards and ideals. Often warped and twisted, mentally and morally, by
the strain of their existence, they at least always retained the
fundamental virtues of hardihood and manliness.

Presbyterianism was not, however, destined even here to remain the
leading frontier creed. Other sects still more democratic, still more in
keeping with backwoods life and thought, largely supplanted it.
Methodism did not become a power until after the close of the
Revolution; but the Baptists followed close on the heels of the
Presbyterians. They, too, soon built log meeting-houses here and there,
while their preachers cleared the forest and hunted elk and buffalo like
the other pioneer settlers. [Footnote: Ramsey, 144.]

To all the churches the preacher and congregation alike went armed, the
latter leaning their rifles in their pews or near their seats, while the
pastor let his stand beside the pulpit. On week-days the clergymen
usually worked in the fields in company with the rest of the settlers;
all with their rifles close at hand and a guard stationed. In more than
one instance when such a party was attacked by Indians the servant of
the Lord showed himself as skilled in the use of carnal weapons as were
any of his warlike parishioners.

The leaders of the frontiersmen were drawn from among several families,
which, having taken firm root, were growing into the position of
backwoods gentry. Of course the use of this term does not imply any
sharp social distinctions in backwoods life, for there were none such.
The poorest and richest met on terms of perfect equality, slept in one
another's houses, and dined at one another's tables. But certain
families, by dint of their thrift, the ability they showed in civil
affairs, or the prowess of some of their members in time of war, had
risen to acknowledged headship.

The part of Washington County northwest of the Holston was cut off and
made into the county of Sullivan by the North Carolina Legislature in
1779. In this part the Shelbys were the leading family; and Isaac Shelby
was made county lieutenant. It had been the debatable ground between
Virginia and North Carolina, the inhabitants not knowing to which
province they belonged, and sometimes serving the two governments
alternately. When the line was finally drawn, old Evan Shelby's estate
was found to lie on both sides of it; and as he derived his title from
Virginia, he continued to consider himself a Virginian, and held office
as such. [Footnote: Campbell MSS. Notes by Gov. David Campbell.]

In Washington County Sevier was treated as practically commander of the
militia some time before he received his commission as county
lieutenant. He was rapidly becoming the leader of the whole district. He
lived in a great, rambling one-story log house on the Nolichucky, a
rude, irregular building with broad verandas and great stone
fire-places. The rooms were in two groups, which were connected by a
covered porch--a "dog alley," as old settlers still call it, because the
dogs are apt to sleep there at night. Here he kept open house to all
comers, for he was lavishly hospitable, and every one was welcome to bed
and board, to apple-jack and cider, hominy and corn-bread, beef,
venison, bear meat, and wild fowl. When there was a wedding or a
merrymaking of any kind he feasted the neighborhood, barbecuing
oxen--that is, roasting them whole on great spits,--and spreading board
tables out under the trees. He was ever on the alert to lead his mounted
riflemen against the small parties of marauding Indians that came into
the country. He soon became the best commander against Indians that
there was on this part of the border, moving with a rapidity that
enabled him again and again to overtake and scatter their roving
parties, recovering the plunder and captives, and now and then taking a
scalp or two himself. His skill and daring, together with his unfailing
courtesy, ready tact, and hospitality, gained him unbounded influence
with the frontiersmen, among whom he was universally known as
"Nolichucky Jack." [Footnote: MSS. "Notes of Conversations with Old
Pioneers," by Ramsey, in Tenn. Hist. Soc. Campbell MSS.]

The Virginian settlements on the Holston, adjoining those of North
Carolina, were in 1777 likewise made into a county of Washington. The
people were exactly the same in character as those across the line; and
for some years the fates of all these districts were bound up together.
Their inhabitants were still of the usual backwoods type, living by
tilling their clearings and hunting; the elk and buffalo had become very
scarce, but there were plenty of deer and bear, and in winter countless
wild swans settled down on the small lakes and ponds. The boys followed
these eagerly; one of them, when an old man, used to relate how his
mother gave him a pint of cream for every swan he shot, with the result
that he got the pint almost every day. [Footnote: "Sketch of Mrs.
Elizabeth Russell," by her grandson, Thomas L. Preston, Nashville, 1888,
p. 29. An interesting pamphlet.]

The leading family among these Holston Virginians was that of the
Campbells, who lived near Abingdon. They were frontier farmers, who
chopped down the forest and tilled the soil with their own hands. They
used the axe and guided the plow as skilfully as they handled their
rifles; they were also mighty hunters, and accustomed from boyhood to
Indian warfare. The children received the best schooling the back
country could afford, for they were a book-loving race, fond of reading
and study as well as of out-door sports. The two chief members were
cousins, Arthur and William. Arthur was captured by the northern Indians
when sixteen, and was kept a prisoner among them several years; when
Lord Dunmore's war broke out he made his escape, and acted as scout to
the Earl's army. He served as militia colonel in different Indian
campaigns, and was for thirty years a magistrate of the county; he was a
man of fine presence, but of jealous, ambitious, overbearing temper. He
combined with his fondness for Indian and hunter life a strong taste for
books, and gradually collected a large library. So keen were the
jealousies, bred of ambition, between himself and his cousin William
Campbell, they being the two ranking officers of the local forces, that
they finally agreed to go alternately on the different military
expeditions; and thus it happened that Arthur missed the battle of
King's Mountain, though he was at the time County Lieutenant.

William Campbell stood next in rank. He was a man of giant strength,
standing six feet two inches in height, and straight as a spear-shaft,
with fair complexion, red hair, and piercing, light blue eyes. A firm
friend and staunch patriot, a tender and loving husband and father,
gentle and courteous in ordinary intercourse with his fellows, he was,
nevertheless, if angered, subject to fits of raging wrath that impelled
him to any deed of violence. [Footnote: Campbell MSS. Notes, by Gov.
David Campbell.] He was a true type of the Roundheads of the frontier,
the earnest, eager men who pushed the border ever farther westward
across the continent. He followed Indians and tories with relentless and
undying hatred; for the long list of backwoods virtues did not include
pity for either public or private foes. The tories threatened his life
and the lives of his friends and families; they were hand in glove with
the outlaws who infested the borders, the murderers, horse-thieves, and
passers of counterfeit money. He hunted them down with a furious zest,
and did his work with merciless thoroughness, firm in the belief that he
thus best served the Lord and the nation. One or two of his deeds
illustrate admirably the grimness of the times, and the harsh contrast
between the kindly relations of the border folks with their friends, and
their ferocity towards their foes. They show how the better
backwoodsmen, the upright, church-going men, who loved their families,
did justice to their neighbors, and sincerely tried to serve God, not
only waged an unceasing war on the red and white foes of the State and
of order, but carried it on with a certain ruthlessness that indicated
less a disbelief in, than an utter lack of knowledge of, such a virtue
as leniency to enemies.

One Sunday Campbell was returning from church with his wife and some
friends, carrying his baby on a pillow in front of his saddle, for they
were all mounted. Suddenly a horseman crossed the road close in front of
them, and was recognized by one of the party as a noted tory. Upon being
challenged, he rode off at full speed. Instantly Campbell handed the
baby to a negro slave, struck spur into his horse, and galloping after
the fugitive, overtook and captured him. The other men of the party came
up a minute later. Several recognized the prisoner as a well-known tory;
he was riding a stolen horse; he had on him letters to the British
agents among the Cherokees, arranging for an Indian rising. The party of
returning church-goers were accustomed to the quick and summary justice
of lynch law. With stern gravity they organized themselves into a court.
The prisoner was adjudged guilty, and was given but a short shrift; for
the horsemen hung him to a sycamore tree before they returned to the
road where they had left their families.

On another occasion, while Campbell was in command of a camp of militia,
at the time of a Cherokee outbreak, he wrote a letter to his wife, a
sister of Patrick Henry, that gives us a glimpse of the way in which he
looked at Indians. His letter began, "My dearest Betsy"; in it he spoke
of his joy at receiving her "sweet and affectionate letter"; he told how
he had finally got the needles and pins she wished, and how pleased a
friend had been with the apples she had sent him. He urged her to buy a
saddle-horse, of which she had spoken, but to be careful that it did not
start nor stumble, which were bad faults, "especially in a woman's
hackney." In terms of endearment that showed he had not sunk the lover
in the husband, he spoke of his delight at being again in the house
where he had for the first time seen her loved face, "from which happy
moment he dated the hour of all his bliss," and besought her not to
trouble herself too much about him, quoting to her Solomon's account of
a good wife, as reminding him always of her; and he ended by commending
her to the peculiar care of Heaven. It was a letter that it was an honor
to a true man to have written; such a letter as the best of women and
wives might be proud to have received. Yet in the middle of it he
promised to bring a strange trophy to show his tender and God-fearing
spouse. He was speaking of the Indians; how they had murdered men,
women, and children near-by, and how they had been beaten back; and he
added: "I have now the scalp of one who was killed eight or nine miles
from my house about three weeks ago. The first time I go up I shall take
it along to let you see it." Evidently it was as natural for him to
bring home to his wife and children the scalp of a slain Indian as the
skin of a slain deer. [Footnote: See Preston's pamphlet on Mrs. Russell,
pp. 11-18.]

The times were hard, and they called for men of flinty fibre. Those of
softer, gentler mould would have failed in the midst of such
surroundings. The iron men of the border had a harsh and terrible task
allotted them; and though they did it roughly, they did it thoroughly
and on the whole well. They may have failed to learn that it is good to
be merciful, but at least they knew that it is still better to be just
and strong and brave; to see clearly one's rights, and to guard them
with a ready hand.

These frontier leaders were generally very jealous of one another. The
ordinary backwoodsmen vied together as hunters, axemen, or wrestlers; as
they rose to leadership their rivalries grew likewise, and the more
ambitious, who desired to become the civil and military chiefs of the
community, were sure to find their interests clash. Thus old Evan Shelby
distrusted Sevier; Arthur Campbell was jealous of both Sevier and Isaac
Shelby; and the two latter bore similar feelings to William Campbell.
When a great crisis occurred all these petty envies were sunk; the
nobler natures of the men came uppermost; and they joined with unselfish
courage, heart and hand, to defend their country in the hour of her
extreme need. But when the danger was over the old jealousies cropped
out again.

Some one or other of the leaders was almost always employed against the
Indians. The Cherokees and Creeks were never absolutely quiet and at
peace.

    Indian Troubles.

After the chastisement inflicted upon the former by the united forces of
all the southern backwoodsmen, treaties were held with them, [Footnote:
See _ante_, Chapter XI. of Vol. I.] in the spring and summer of 1777.
The negotiations consumed much time, the delegates from both sides
meeting again and again to complete the preliminaries. The credit of the
State being low, Isaac Shelby furnished on his own responsibility the
goods and provisions needed by the Virginians and Holston people in
coming to an agreement with the Otari, or upper Cherokees [ Footnote:
Shelby's MS. autobiography, copy in Col. Durrett's library.]; and some
land was formally ceded to the whites.

But the chief Dragging Canoe would not make peace. Gathering the boldest
and most turbulent of the young braves about him, he withdrew to the
great whirl in the Tennessee, [Footnote: Va. State Papers, III., 271;
the settlers always spoke of it as the "suck" or "whirl."] at the
crossing-place of the Creek war parties, when they followed the trail
that led to the bend of the Cumberland River. Here he was joined by many
Creeks, and also by adventurous and unruly members from almost all the
western tribes [Footnote: Shelby MS.]--Chickasaws, Chocktaws, and
Indians from the Ohio. He soon had a great band of red outlaws round
him. These freebooters were generally known as the Chickamaugas, and
they were the most dangerous and least controllable of all the foes who
menaced the western settlements. Many tories and white refugees from
border justice joined them, and shared in their misdeeds. Their shifting
villages stretched from Chickamauga Creek to Running Water. Between
these places the Tennessee twists down through the sombre gorges by
which the chains of the Cumberland ranges are riven in sunder. Some
miles below Chickamauga Creek, near Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain towers
aloft into the clouds; at its base the river bends round Moccasin Point,
and then rushes through a gap between Walden's Ridge and the Raccoon
Hills. Then for several miles it foams through the winding Narrows
between jutting cliffs and sheer rock walls, while in its boulder-strewn
bed the swift torrent is churned into whirlpools, cataracts, and rapids.
Near the Great Crossing, where the war parties and hunting parties were
ferried over the river, lies Nick-a-jack Cave, a vast cavern in the
mountain side. Out of it flows a stream, up which a canoe can paddle two
or three miles into the heart of the mountain. In these high fastnesses,
inaccessible ravines, and gloomy caverns the Chickamaugas built their
towns, and to them they retired with their prisoners and booty after
every raid on the settlements.

No sooner had the preliminary treaty been agreed to in the spring of '77
than the Indians again began their ravages. In fact, there never was any
real peace. After each treaty the settlers would usually press forward
into the Indian lands, and if they failed to do this the young braves
were sure themselves to give offence by making forays against the
whites. On this occasion the first truce or treaty was promptly broken
by the red men. The young warriors refused to be bound by the promises
of the chiefs and headmen, and they continued their raids for scalps,
horses, and plunder. Within a week of the departure of the Indian
delegates from the treaty ground in April, twelve whites were murdered
and many horses stolen. Robertson, with nine men, followed one of these
marauding parties, killed one Indian, and retook ten horses; on his
return he was attacked by a large band of Creeks and Cherokees, and two
of his men were wounded; but he kept hold of the recaptured horses and
brought them safely in. [Footnote: Chas. Robertson to Captain-General of
North Carolina, April 27, 1777.] On the other hand, a white scoundrel
killed an Indian on the treaty ground, in July, the month in which the
treaties were finally completed in due form. By act of the Legislature
the Holston militia were kept under arms throughout most of the year,
companies of rangers, under Sevier's command, scouring the woods and
canebrakes, and causing such loss to the small Indian war parties that
they finally almost ceased their forays. Bands of these Holston rangers
likewise crossed the mountains by Boon's trail, and went to the relief
of Boonsborough and St. Asaphs, in Kentucky, then much harassed by the
northwestern warriors. [Footnote: See _ante_ Chap. I.] Though they did
little or no fighting, and stayed but a few days, they yet by their
presence brought welcome relief to the hard-pressed Kentuckians.
[Footnote: Monette (followed by Ramsey and others) hopelessly confuses
these small relief expeditions; he portrays Logan as a messenger from
Boon's Station, is in error as to the siege of the latter, etc.]
Kentucky during her earliest and most trying years received
comparatively little help from sorely beset Virginia; but the
backwoodsmen of the upper Tennessee valley--on both sides of the
boundary--did her real and lasting service.

In 1778 the militia were disbanded, as the settlements were very little
harried; but as soon as the vigilance of the whites was relaxed the
depredations and massacres began again, and soon became worse than ever.
Robertson had been made superintendent of Indian affairs for North
Carolina; and he had taken up his abode among the Cherokees at the town
of Chota in the latter half of the year 1777. He succeeded in keeping
them comparatively quiet and peaceable during 1778, and until his
departure, which took place the following year, when he went to found
the settlements on the Cumberland River.

But the Chickamaugas refused to make peace, and in their frequent and
harassing forays they were from time to time joined by parties of young
braves from all the Cherokee towns that were beyond the reach of
Robertson's influence--that is, by all save those in the neighborhood of
Chota. The Chickasaws and Choctaws likewise gave active support to the
king's cause; the former scouted along the Ohio, the latter sent bands
of young warriors to aid the Creeks and Cherokees in their raids against
the settlements. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter of Rainsford and Tait
to Hamilton. April 9, 1779.]

The British agents among the southern Indians had received the letters
Hamilton sent them after he took Vincennes; in these they were urged at
once to send out parties against the frontier, and to make ready for a
grand stroke in the spring. In response the chief agent, who was the
Scotch captain Cameron, a noted royalist leader, wrote to his official
superior that the instant he heard of any movement of the northwestern
Indians he would see that it was backed up, for the Creeks were eager
for war, and the Cherokees likewise were ardently attached to the
British cause; as a proof of the devotion of the latter, he added: "They
keep continually killing and scalping in Virginia, North Carolina, and
the frontier of Georgia, although the rebels are daily threatening to
send in armies from all quarters and extirpate the whole tribe."
[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Series B., Vol. 117, p. 131. Letter of
Alexander Cameron, July 15, 1779.] It would certainly be impossible to
desire better proof than that thus furnished by this royal officer, both
of the ferocity of the British policy towards the frontiersmen, and of
the treachery of the Indians, who so richly deserved the fate that
afterwards befell them.

While waiting for the signal from Hamilton, Cameron organized two Indian
expeditions against the frontier, to aid the movements of the British
army that had already conquered Georgia. A great body of Creeks,
accompanied by the British commissaries and most of the white traders
(who were, of course, tories), set out in March to join the king's
forces at Savannah; but when they reached the frontier they scattered
out to plunder and ravage. A body of Americans fell on one of their
parties and crushed it; whereupon the rest returned home in a fright,
save about seventy, who went on and joined the British. At the same time
three hundred Chickamaugas, likewise led by the resident British
commissaries, started out against the Carolina frontier. But Robertson,
at Chota, received news of the march, and promptly sent warning to the
Holston settlements [Footnote: _Do_. "A rebel commissioner in Chote
being informed of their movements here sent express into Holston river."
This "rebel commissioner" was in all probability Robertson.]; and the
Holston men, both of Virginia and North Carolina, decided immediately to
send an expedition against the homes of the war party. This would not
only at once recall them from the frontier, but would give them a
salutary lesson.

Accordingly the backwoods levies gathered on Clinch River, at the mouth
of Big Creek, April 10th, and embarked in pirogues and canoes to descend
the Tennessee. There were several hundred of them [Footnote: State
Department MSS. No. 51, Vol. II., p. 17, a letter from the British
agents among the Creeks to Lord George Germaine, of July 12, 1779. It
says, "near 300 rebels"; Haywood, whose accounts are derived from oral
tradition, says one thousand. Cameron's letter of July 15th in the
Haldimand MSS. says seven hundred. Some of them were Virginians who had
been designed for Clark's assistance in his Illinois campaign, but who
were not sent him. Shelby made a very clever stroke, but it had no
permanent effect, and it is nonsense to couple it, as has been recently
done, with Clark's campaigns.] under the command of Evan Shelby; Isaac
Shelby having collected the supplies for the expedition by his
individual activity and on his personal credit. The backwoodsmen went
down the river so swiftly that they took the Chickamaugas completely by
surprise, and the few warriors who were left in the villages fled to the
wooded mountains without offering any resistance. Several Indians were
killed [Footnote: Cameron in his letter says four, which is probably
near the truth. Haywood says forty, which merely represents the
backwoods tradition on the subject, and is doubtless a great
exaggeration.] and a number of their towns were burnt, together with a
great deal of corn; many horses and cattle were recaptured, and among
the spoils were large piles of deer hides, owned by a tory trader. The
troops then destroyed their canoes and returned home on foot, killing
game for their food; and they spread among the settlements many stories
of the beauty of the lands through which they had passed, so that the
pioneers became eager to possess them. The Chickamaugas were alarmed and
confounded by this sudden stroke; their great war band returned at once
to the burned towns, on being informed by swift runners of the
destruction that had befallen them. All thoughts of an immediate
expedition against the frontier were given up; peace talks were sent to
Evan Shelby [Footnote: State Department MSS. No. 71, Vol. I., p. 255,
letter of Evan Shelby, June 4, 1779.]; and throughout the summer the
settlements were but little molested.

Yet all the while they were planning further attacks; at the same time
that they sent peace talks to Shelby they sent war talks to the
Northwestern Indians, inviting them to join in a great combined movement
against the Americans. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Series B., Vol. 117, p.
157. A talk from the Cherokees to the envoy from the Wabash and other
Indians, July 12, 1779. One paragraph is interesting: "We cannot forget
the talk you brought us some years ago into this Nation, which was to
take up the hatchet against the Virginians. We heard and listened to it
with great attention, and before the time that was appointed to lift it
we took it up and struck the Virginians. Our Nation was alone and
surrounded by them. They were numerous and their hatchets were sharp;
and after we had lost some of our best warriors, we were forced to leave
our towns and corn to be burnt by them, and now we live in the grass as
you see us. But we are not yet conquered, and to convince you that we
have not thrown away your talk here are 4 strands of whampums we
received from you when you came before as a messenger to our Nation."]
When the news of Hamilton's capture was brought it wrought a momentary
discouragement; but the efforts of the British agents were unceasing,
and by the end of the year most of the southwestern Indians were again
ready to take up the hatchet. The rapid successes of the royal armies in
the southern States had turned the Creeks into open antagonists of the
Americans, and their war parties were sent out in quick succession, the
British agents keeping alive the alliance by a continued series of
gifts--for the Creeks were a venal, fickle race whose friendship could
not otherwise be permanently kept. [Footnote: State Department MSS.
Papers Continental Congress. Intercepted Letters, No. 51. Vol. II.
Letter of British Agents Messrs. Rainsford, Mitchell, and Macullagh, of
July 12, 1779. "The present unanimity of the Creek Nation is no doubt
greatly owing to the rapid successes of His Majesty's forces in the
Southern provinces, as they have now no cause to apprehend the least
danger from the Rebels ... we have found by experience that without
presents the Indians are not to be depended on."]

As for the Cherokees, they had not confined themselves to sending the
war belt to the northwestern tribes, while professing friendship for the
Americans; they had continued in close communication with the British
Indian agents, assuring them that their peace negotiations were only
shams, intended to blind the settlers, and that they would be soon ready
to take up the hatchet. [Footnote: _Do_., No. 71, Vol. II., p. 189.
Letter of David Tait to Oconostota. "I believe what you say about
telling lies to the Virginians to be very right."] This time Cameron
himself marched into the Cherokee country with his company of fifty
tories, brutal outlaws, accustomed to savage warfare, and ready to take
part in the worst Indian outrages. [Footnote: _Do_., No. 51, Vol. II.
Letter of the three agents. "The Cherokees are now exceedingly well
disposed. Mr. Cameron is now among them ... Captain Cameron has his
company of Loyal Refugees with him, who are well qualified for the
service they are engaged in.... He carried up with him a considerable
quantity of presents and ammunition which are absolutely necessary to
engage the Indians to go upon service."] The ensuing Cherokee war was
due not to the misdeeds of the settlers--though doubtless a few lawless
whites occasionally did wrong to their red neighbors--but to the
short-sighted treachery and ferocity of the savages themselves, and
especially to the machinations of the tories and British agents. The
latter unceasingly incited the Indians to ravage the frontier with torch
and scalping knife. They deliberately made the deeds of the torturers
and women-killers their own, and this they did with the approbation of
the British Government, and to its merited and lasting shame.

Yet by the end of 1779 the inrush of settlers to the Holston regions had
been so great that, as with Kentucky, there was never any real danger
after this year that the whites would be driven from the land by the red
tribes whose hunting-ground it once had been.




CHAPTER IX.

KING'S MOUNTAIN, 1780.

    The British in the Southern States.

During the Revolutionary war the men of the west for the most part took
no share in the actual campaigning against the British and Hessians.
Their duty was to conquer and hold the wooded wilderness that stretched
westward to the Mississippi; and to lay therein the foundations of many
future commonwealths. Yet at a crisis in the great struggle for liberty,
at one of the darkest hours for the patriot cause, it was given to a
band of western men to come to the relief of their brethren of the
seaboard and to strike a telling and decisive blow for all America. When
the three southern provinces lay crushed and helpless at the feet of
Cornwallis, the Holston backwoodsmen suddenly gathered to assail the
triumphant conqueror. Crossing the mountains that divided them from the
beaten and despairing people of the tidewater region, they killed the
ablest lieutenant of the British commander, and at a single stroke undid
all that he had done.

By the end of 1779 the British had reconquered Georgia. In May, 1780,
they captured Charleston, speedily reduced all South Carolina to
submission, and then marched into the old North State. Cornwallis, much
the ablest of the British generals, was in command over a mixed force of
British, Hessian, and loyal American regulars, aided by Irish volunteers
and bodies of refugees from Florida. In addition, the friends to the
king's cause, who were very numerous in the southernmost States, rose at
once on the news of the British successes, and thronged to the royal
standards; so that a number of regiments of tory militia were soon
embodied. McGillivray, the Creek chief, sent bands of his warriors to
assist the British and tories on the frontier, and the Cherokees
likewise came to their help. The patriots for the moment abandoned hope,
and bowed before their victorious foes.

Cornwallis himself led the main army northward against the American
forces. Meanwhile he entrusted to two of his most redoubtable officers
the task of scouring the country, raising the loyalists, scattering the
patriot troops that were still embodied, and finally crushing out all
remaining opposition. These two men were Tarleton the dashing
cavalryman, and Ferguson the rifleman, the skilled partisan leader.

    Colonel Ferguson.

Patrick Ferguson, the son of Lord Pitfour, was a Scotch soldier, at this
time about thirty-six years old, who had been twenty years in the
British army. He had served with distinction against the French in
Germany, had quelled a Carib uprising in the West Indies, and in 1777
was given the command of a company of riflemen in the army opposed to
Washington. [Footnote: "Biographical Sketch or Memoir of
Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Ferguson," by Adam Ferguson, LL.D.,
Edinburgh, 1817, p. 11. The copy was kindly lent me by Mr. Geo. H. Moore
of the Lenox Library.] He played a good part at Brandywine and Monmouth.
At the former battle he was wounded by an American sharpshooter, and had
an opportunity, of which he forbore taking advantage, to himself shoot
an American officer of high rank, who unsuspectingly approached the
place where he lay hid; he always insisted that the man he thus spared
was no less a person than Washington. While suffering from his wound,
Sir William Howe disbanded his rifle corps, distributing it among the
light companies of the different regiments; and its commander in
consequence became an unattached volunteer in the army. But he was too
able to be allowed to remain long unemployed. When the British moved to
New York he was given the command of several small independent
expeditions, and was successful in each case; once, in particular, he
surprised and routed Pulaski's legion, committing great havoc with the
bayonet, which was always with him a favorite weapon. His energy and
valor attracted much attention; and when a British army was sent against
Charleston and the South he went along, as a lieutenant-colonel of a
recently raised regular regiment, known as the American Volunteers.
[Footnote: Though called volunteers they were simply a regular regiment
raised in America instead of England; Ferguson's "Memoir" p. 30, etc.,
always speaks of them as regulars. The British gave an absurd number of
titles to their various officers; thus Ferguson was a brigadier-general
of militia, lieutenant-colonel of volunteers, a major in the army, etc.]

Cornwallis speedily found him to be peculiarly fitted for just such
service as was needed; for he possessed rare personal qualities. He was
of middle height and slender build, with a quiet, serious face and a
singularly winning manner; and withal, he was of literally dauntless
courage, of hopeful, eager temper, and remarkably fertile in shifts and
expedients. He was particularly fond of night attacks, surprises, and
swift, sudden movements generally, and was unwearied in drilling and
disciplining his men. Not only was he an able leader, but he was also a
finished horseman, and the best marksman with both pistol and rifle in
the British army. Being of quick, inventive mind, he constructed a
breech-loading rifle, which he used in battle with deadly effect. This
invention had been one of the chief causes of his being brought into
prominence in the war against America, for the British officers
especially dreaded the American sharpshooters. [Footnote: Ferguson's
"Memoir," p. 11.] It would be difficult to imagine a better partisan
leader, or one more fitted by his feats of prowess and individual skill,
to impress the minds of his followers. Moreover, his courtesy stood him
in good stead with the people of the country; he was always kind and
civil, and would spend hours in talking affairs over with them and
pointing out the mischief of rebelling against their lawful sovereign.
He soon became a potent force in winning the doubtful to the British
side, and exerted a great influence over the tories; they gathered
eagerly to his standard, and he drilled them with patient perseverance.

After the taking of Charleston Ferguson's volunteers and Tarleton's
legion, acting separately or together, speedily destroyed the different
bodies of patriot soldiers. Their activity and energy was such that the
opposing commanders seemed for the time being quite unable to cope with
them, and the American detachments were routed and scattered in quick
succession. [Footnote: "History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781,"
Lt.-Col. Tarleton, London (1787). See also the "Strictures" thereon, by
Roderick Mackenzie, London, same date.] On one of these occasions, the
surprise at Monk's Corners, where the American commander, Huger, was
slain, Ferguson's troops again had a chance to show their skill in the
use of the bayonet.

Tarleton did his work with brutal ruthlessness; his men plundered and
ravaged, maltreated prisoners, outraged women, and hung without mercy
all who were suspected of turning from the loyalist to the whig side.
His victories were almost always followed by massacres; in particular,
when he routed with small loss a certain Captain Buford, his soldiers
refused to grant quarter, and mercilessly butchered the beaten.
Americans. [Footnote: It is worth while remembering that it was not
merely the tories who were guilty of gross crimes; the British regulars,
including even some of their officers, often behaved with abhorrent
brutality.]

Ferguson, on the contrary, while quite as valiant and successful a
commander, showed a generous heart, and treated the inhabitants of the
country fairly well. He was especially incensed at any outrage upon
women, punishing the offender with the utmost severity, and as far as
possible he spared his conquered foes. Yet even Ferguson's tender
mercies must have seemed cruel to the whigs, as may be judged by the
following extract from a diary kept by one of his lieutenants [Footnote:
Diary of Lt. Anthony Allaire, entry for March 24, 1780.]: "This day Col.
Ferguson got the rear guard in order to do his King and country justice,
by protecting friends and widows, and destroying rebel property; also to
collect live stock for the use of the army. All of which we effect as we
go by destroying furniture, breaking windows, etc., taking all their
horned cattle, horses, mules, sheep, etc., and their negroes to drive
them." When such were the authorized proceedings of troops under even
the most merciful of the British commanders, it is easy to guess what
deeds were done by uncontrolled bodies of stragglers bent on plunder.

When Ferguson moved into the back country of the two Carolinas still
worse outrages followed. In the three southernmost of the thirteen
rebellious colonies there was a very large tory party. [Footnote: Gates
MSS., _passim_, for July-October, 1780. _E.g._, letter of Mr. Ramsey,
August 9, 1780, describes how "the Scotch are all lying out," the number
of tories in the "Drowning Creek region," their resistance to the levy
of cattle, etc. In these colonies, as in the middle colonies, the tory
party was very strong.] In consequence the struggle in the Carolinas and
Georgia took the form of a ferocious civil war. Each side in turn
followed up its successes by a series of hangings and confiscations,
while the lawless and violent characters fairly revelled in the
confusion. Neither side can be held guiltless of many and grave
misdeeds; but for reasons already given the bulk--but by no means the
whole--of the criminal and disorderly classes espoused the king's cause
in the regions where the struggle was fiercest. They murdered, robbed,
or drove off the whigs in their hour of triumph; and in turn brought
down ferocious reprisals on their own heads and on those of their
luckless associates.

Moreover Cornwallis and his under-officers tried to cow and overawe the
inhabitants by executing some of the men whom they deemed the chief and
most criminal leaders of the rebellion, especially such as had sworn
allegiance and then again taken up arms; [Footnote: Gates MSS. See Letter
from Sumter, August 12th and _passim_, for instances of hanging by
express command of the British officers.] of course retaliation in kind
followed. Ferguson himself hung some men; and though he did his best to
spare the country people, there was much plundering and murdering by his
militia.

In June he marched to upper South Carolina, moving to and fro, calling
out the loyal militia. They responded enthusiastically, and three or
four thousand tories were embodied in different bands. Those who came to
Ferguson's own standard were divided into companies and regiments, and
taught the rudiments of discipline by himself and his subalterns. He
soon had a large but fluctuating force under him; in part composed of
good men, loyal adherents of the king (these being very frequently
recent arrivals from England, or else Scotch highlanders), in part also
of cut-throats, horse-thieves, and desperadoes of all kinds who wished
for revenge on the whigs and were eager to plunder them. His own regular
force was also mainly composed of Americans, although it contained many
Englishmen. His chief subordinates were Lieutenant-Colonels De
Peyster [Footnote: A relative of the Detroit commander.] and Cruger; the
former usually serving under him, the latter commanding at Ninety-Six.
They were both New York loyalists, members of old Knickerbocker
families; for in New York many of the gentry and merchants stood by the
king.

    Ferguson Approaches the Mountains.

Ferguson moved rapidly from place to place, breaking up the bodies of
armed whigs; and the latter now and then skirmished fiercely with
similar bands of tories, sometimes one side winning sometimes the other.
Having reduced South Carolina to submission the British commander then
threatened North Carolina; and Col. McDowell, the commander of the whig
militia in that district, sent across the mountains to the Holston men
praying that they would come to his help. Though suffering continually
from Indian ravages, and momentarily expecting a formidable inroad, they
responded nobly to the call. Sevier remained to patrol the border and
watch the Cherokees, while Isaac Shelby crossed the mountains with a
couple of hundred mounted riflemen, early in July. The mountain men were
joined by McDowell, with whom they found also a handful of Georgians and
some South Carolinians; who when their States were subdued had fled
northward, resolute to fight their oppressors to the last.

The arrival of the mountain men put new life into the dispirited whigs.
On July 30th a mixed force, under Shelby and two or three local militia
colonels, captured Thickett's fort, with ninety tories, near the
Pacolet. They then camped at the Cherokee ford of Broad River, and sent
out parties of mounted men to carry on a guerilla or partisan warfare
against detachments, not choosing to face Ferguson's main body. After a
while they moved south to Cedar Spring. Here, on the 8th of August, they
were set upon by Ferguson's advanced guard, of dragoons and mounted
riflemen. These they repulsed, handling the British rather roughly; but,
as Ferguson himself came up, they fled, and though he pursued them
vigorously he could not overtake them. [Footnote: Shelby's MS.
Autobiography, and the various accounts he wrote of these affairs in his
old age (which Haywood and most of the other local American historians
follow or amplify), certainly greatly exaggerate the British force and
loss, as well as the part Shelby himself played, compared to the Georgia
and Carolina leaders. The Americans seemed to have outnumbered
Ferguson's advance guard, which was less than two hundred strong, about
three to one. Shelby's account of the Musgrove affair is especially
erroneous. See p. 120 of L. C. Draper's "King's Mountain and Its Heroes"
(Cincinnati, 1881). Mr. Draper has with infinite industry and research
gathered all the published and unpublished accounts and all the
traditions concerning the battle; his book is a mine of information on
the subject. He is generally quite impartial, but some of his
conclusions are certainly biassed; and the many traditional statements,
as well as those made by very old men concerning events that took place
fifty or sixty years previously, must be received with extreme caution.
A great many of them should never have been put in the book at all. When
they take the shape of anecdotes, telling how the British are overawed
by the mere appearance of the Americans on some occasion (as pp. 94, 95,
etc.), they must be discarded at once as absolutely worthless, as well
as ridiculous. The British and tory accounts, being forced to explain
ultimate defeat, are, if possible, even more untrustworthy, when taken
solely by themselves, than the American.]

On the 18th of the month the mountain men, assisted as usual by some
parties of local militia, all under their various colonels, performed
another feat; one of those swift, sudden strokes so dear to the hearts
of these rifle-bearing horsemen. It was of a kind peculiarly suited to
their powers; for they were brave and hardy, able to thread their way
unerringly through the forests, and fond of surprises; and though they
always fought on foot, they moved on horseback, and therefore with great
celerity. Their operations should be carefully studied by all who wish
to learn the possibilities of mounted riflemen. Yet they were impatient
of discipline or of regular service, and they really had no one
commander. The different militia officers combined to perform some
definite piece of work, but, like their troops, they were incapable of
long-continued campaigns; and there were frequent and bitter quarrels
between the several commanders, as well as between the bodies of men
they led.

It seems certain that the mountaineers were, as a rule, more formidable
fighters than the lowland militia, beside or against whom they battled;
and they formed the main strength of the attacking party that left the
camp at the Cherokee ford before sunset on the 17th. Ferguson's army was
encamped southwest of them, at Fair Forest Shoals; they marched round
him, and went straight on, leaving him in their rear. Sometimes they
rode through open forest, more often they followed the dim wood roads;
their horses pacing or cantering steadily through the night. As the day
dawned they reached Musgrove's Ford, on the Enoree, having gone forty
miles. Here they hoped to find a detachment of tory militia; but it had
been joined by a body of provincial regulars, the united force being
probably somewhat more numerous than that of the Americans. The latter
were discovered by a patrol, and the British after a short delay marched
out to attack them. The Americans in the meantime made good use of their
axes, felling trees for a breastwork, and when assailed they beat back
and finally completely routed their assailants. [Footnote: Shelby's
account of this action, written in his old age, is completely at fault;
he not only exaggerates the British force and loss, but he likewise
greatly overestimates the number of the Americans--always a favorite
trick of his. Each of the militia colonels of course claimed the chief
share of the glory of the day. Haywood, Ramsey, and even Phelan simply
follow Shelby. Draper gives all the different accounts; it is quite
impossible to reconcile them; but all admit that the British were
defeated.

I have used the word "British"; but though there were some Englishmen
and Scotchmen among the tories and provincials, they were mainly
loyalist Americans.] However, the victory was of little effect, for just
as it was won word was brought to Shelby that the day before Cornwallis
had met Gates at Camden, and had not only defeated but practically
destroyed the American army; and on the very day of the fight on the
Enoree, Tarleton surprised Sumter, and scattered his forces to the four
winds. The panic among the whigs was tremendous, and the mountaineers
shared it. They knew that Ferguson, angered at the loss of his
detachment, would soon be in hot pursuit, and there was no time for
delay. The local militia made off in various directions; while Shelby
and his men pushed straight for the mountains, crossed them, and
returned each man to his own home. Ferguson speedily stamped out the few
remaining sparks of rebellion in South Carolina, and crossing the
boundary into the North State he there repeated the process. On
September 12th he caught McDowell and the only remaining body of militia
at Cane Creek, of the Catawba, and beat them thoroughly, [Footnote:
Draper apparently endorses the absurd tradition that makes this a whig
victory instead of a defeat. It seems certain (see Draper), contrary to
the statements of the Tennessee historians, that Sevier had no part in
these preliminary operations.] the survivors, including their commander,
fleeing over the mountains to take refuge with the Holston men. Except
for an occasional small guerilla party there was not a single organized
body of American troops left south of Gates' broken and dispirited army.

All the southern lands lay at the feet of the conquerors. The British
leaders, overbearing and arrogant, held almost unchecked sway throughout
the Carolinas and Georgia; and looking northward they made ready for the
conquest of Virginia. [Footnote: The northern portion of North Carolina
was still in possession of the remainder of Gates' army, but they could
have been brushed aside without an effort.] Their right flank was
covered by the waters of the ocean, their left by the high mountain
barrier-chains, beyond which stretched the interminable forest; and they
had as little thought of danger from one side as from the other.

    The Mountaineers Gather to the Attack.

Suddenly and without warning, the wilderness sent forth a swarm of
stalwart and hardy riflemen, of whose very existence the British had
hitherto been ignorant. [Footnote: "A numerous army now appeared on the
frontier drawn from Nolachucky and other settlements beyond the
mountains, whose very names had been unknown to us." Lord Rawdon's
letter of October 24, 1780. Clarke of Georgia had plundered a convoy of
presents intended for the Indians, at Augusta, and the British wrongly
supposed this to be likewise the aim of the mountaineers.] Riders
spurring in hot haste brought word to the king's commanders that the
backwater men had come over the mountains. The Indian fighters of the
frontier, leaving unguarded their homes on the western waters, had
crossed by wooded and precipitous defiles, and were pouring down to the
help of their brethren of the plains.

Ferguson had pushed his victories to the foot of the Smoky and the
Yellow mountains. Here he learned, perhaps for the first time, that
there were a few small settlements beyond the high ranges he saw in his
front; and he heard that some of these backwoods mountaineers had
already borne arms against him, and were now harboring men who had fled
from before his advance. By a prisoner whom he had taken he at once sent
them warning to cease their hostilities, and threatened that if they did
not desist he would march across the mountains, hang their leaders, put
their fighting men to the sword, and waste their settlements with fire.
He had been joined by refugee tories from the Watauga, who could have
piloted him thither; and perhaps he intended to make his threats good.
It seems more likely that he paid little heed to the mountaineers,
scorning their power to do him hurt; though he did not regard them with
the haughty and ignorant disdain usually felt for such irregulars by the
British army officers.

When the Holston men learned that Ferguson had come to the other side of
the mountains, and threatened their chiefs with the halter and their
homes with the torch, a flame of passionate anger was kindled in all
their hearts. They did not wait for his attack; they sallied from their
strongholds to meet him. Their crops were garnered, their young men were
ready for the march; and though the Otari war bands lowered like
thunder-clouds on their southern border, they determined to leave only
enough men to keep the savages at bay for the moment, and with the rest
to overwhelm Ferguson before he could retreat out of their reach.
Hitherto the war with the British had been something afar off; now it
had come to their thresholds and their spirits rose to the danger.

Shelby was the first to hear the news. He at once rode down to Sevier's
home on the Nolichucky; for they were the two county lieutenants,
[Footnote: Shelby was regularly commissioned as county lieutenant.
Sevier's commission was not sent him until several weeks later; but he
had long acted as such by the agreement of the settlers, who paid very
little heed to the weak and disorganized North Carolina government.] who
had control of all the militia of the district. At Sevier's log-house
there was feasting and merry-making, for he had given a barbecue, and a
great horse race was to be run, while the backwoods champions tried
their skill as marksmen and wrestlers. In the midst of the merry-making
Shelby appeared, hot with hard riding, to tell of the British advance,
and to urge that the time was ripe for fighting, not feasting. Sevier at
once entered heartily into his friend's plan, and agreed to raise his
rifle-rangers, and gather the broken and disorganized refugees who had
fled across the mountains under McDowell. While this was being done
Shelby returned to his home to call out his own militia and to summon
the Holston Virginians to his aid. With the latter purpose he sent one
of his brothers to Arthur Campbell, the county lieutenant of his
neighbors across the border. Arthur at once proceeded to urge the
adoption of the plan on his cousin, William Campbell, who had just
returned from a short and successful campaign against the tories round
the head of the Kanawha, where he had speedily quelled an attempted
uprising.

Gates had already sent William Campbell an earnest request to march down
with his troops and join the main army. This he could not do, as his
militia had only been called out to put down their own internal foes,
and their time of service had expired. [Footnote: Gates MSS. Letter of
William Campbell, Sept. 6, 1780. He evidently at the time failed to
appreciate the pressing danger; but he ended by saying that "if the
Indians were not harassing their frontier," and a corps of riflemen were
formed, he would do all in his power to forward them to Gates.] But the
continued advance of the British at last thoroughly alarmed the
Virginians of the mountain region. They promptly set about raising a
corps of riflemen, [Footnote: Gates MSS. Letter of William Preston,
Sept. 18, 1780. The corps was destined to join Gates, as Preston says;
hence Campbell's reluctance to go with Shelby and Sevier. There were to
be from five hundred to one thousand men. See letter of Wm. Davidson,
Sept. 18, 1780.] and as soon as this course of action was determined on
Campbell was foremost in embodying all the Holston men who could be
spared, intending to march westward and join any Virginia army that
might be raised to oppose Cornwallis. While thus employed he received
Shelby's request, and, for answer, at first sent word that he could not
change his plans; but on receiving a second and more urgent message he
agreed to come as desired. [Footnote: Shelby's MS. Autobiography.
Campbell MSS., especially MS. letters of Col. Arthur Campbell of Sept.
3, 1810, Oct. 18, 1810, etc.; MS. notes on Sevier in Tenn. Hist. Soc.
The latter consist of memoranda by his old soldiers, who were with him
in the battle; many of their statements are to be received cautiously,
but there seems no reason to doubt their account of his receiving the
news while giving a great barbecue. Shelby is certainly entitled to the
credit of planning and starting the campaign against Ferguson.]

The appointed meeting-place was at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga.
There the riflemen gathered on the 25th of September, Campbell bringing
four hundred men, Sevier and Shelby two hundred and forty each, while
the refugees under McDowell amounted to about one hundred and sixty.
With Shelby came his two brothers, one of whom was afterwards slightly
wounded at King's Mountain; while Sevier had in his regiment no less
than six relations of his own name, his two sons being privates, and his
two brothers captains. One of the latter was mortally wounded in the
battle.

To raise money for provisions Sevier and Shelby were obliged to take, on
their individual guaranties, the funds in the entry-taker's offices that
had been received from the sale of lands. They amounted in all to nearly
thirteen thousand dollars, every dollar of which they afterward
refunded.

    The March to the Battle.

On the 26th [Footnote: "State of the proceedings of the western army
from Sept. 25, 1780, to the reduction of Major Ferguson and the army
under his command," signed by Campbell, Shelby, and Cleavland. The
official report; it is in the Gates MSS. in the N. Y. Hist. Society. It
was published complete at the time, except the tabulated statement of
loss, which has never been printed; I give it further on.] they began
the march, over a thousand strong, most of them mounted on swift, wiry
horses. They were led by leaders they trusted, they were wonted to
Indian warfare, they were skilled as horsemen and marksmen, they knew
how to face every kind of danger, hardship, and privation. Their fringed
and tasselled hunting-shirts were girded in by bead-worked belts, and
the trappings of their horses were stained red and yellow. On their
heads they wore caps of coon-skin or mink-skin, with the tails hanging
down, or else felt hats, in each of which was thrust a buck-tail or a
sprig of evergreen. Every man carried a small-bore rifle, a tomahawk,
and a scalping knife. A very few of the officers had swords, and there
was not a bayonet nor a tent in the army. [Footnote: Gen. Wm. Lenoir's
account, prepared for Judge A. D. Murphy's intended history of North
Carolina. Lenoir was a private in the battle.] Before leaving their
camping-ground at the Sycamore Shoals they gathered in an open grove to
hear a stern old Presbyterian preacher [Footnote: Rev. Samuel Doak.
Draper, 176. A tradition, but probably truthful, being based on the
statements of Sevier and Shelby's soldiers in their old age. It is the
kind of an incident that tradition will often faithfully preserve.]
invoke on the enterprise the blessing of Jehovah. Leaning on their long
rifles, they stood in rings round the black-frocked minister, a grim and
wild congregation, who listened in silence to his words of burning zeal
as he called on them to stand stoutly in the battle and to smite their
foes with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.

The army marched along Doe River, driving their beef cattle with them,
and camped that night at the "Resting-Place," under Shelving Rock,
beyond Crab Orchard. Next morning they started late, and went up the
pass between Roan and Yellow mountains. The table-land on the top was
deep in snow. [Footnote: Diary of Ensign Robert Campbell.] Here two
tories who were in Sevier's band deserted and fled to warn Ferguson; and
the troops, on learning of the desertion, abandoned their purpose of
following the direct route, and turned to the left, taking a more
northerly trail. It was of so difficult a character that Shelby
afterwards described it as "the worst route ever followed by an army of
horsemen." [Footnote: Shelby MS.] That afternoon they partly descended
the east side of the range, camping in Elk Hollow, near Roaring Run. The
following day they went down through the ravines and across the spurs by
a stony and precipitous path, in the midst of magnificent scenery, and
camped at the mouth of Grassy Creek. On the 29th they crossed the Blue
Ridge at Gillespie's Gap, and saw afar off, in the mountain coves and
rich valleys of the upper Catawba, the advanced settlements of the
Carolina pioneers,--for hitherto they had gone through an uninhabited
waste. The mountaineers, fresh from their bleak and rugged hills, gazed
with delight on the soft and fertile beauty of the landscape. That night
they camped on the North Fork of the Catawba, and next day they went
down the river to Quaker Meadows, McDowell's home.

At this point they were joined by three hundred and fifty North Carolina
militia from the counties of Wilkes and Surrey, who were creeping along
through the woods hoping to fall in with some party going to harass the
enemy. [Footnote: Shelby MS. Autobiography. See also Gates MSS. Letter
of Wm. Davidson, Sept. 14, 1780. Davidson had foreseen that there would
be a fight between the western militia and Ferguson, and he had sent
word to his militia subordinates to join any force--as McDowell's--that
might go against the British leader. The alarm caused by the latter had
prevented the militia from joining Davidson himself.] They were under
Col. Benjamin Cleavland, a mighty hunter and Indian fighter, and an
adventurous wanderer in the wilderness. He was an uneducated
backwoodsman, famous for his great size, and his skill with the rifle,
no less than for the curious mixture of courage, rough good humor, and
brutality in his character. He bore a ferocious hatred to the royalists,
and in the course of the vindictive civil war carried on between the
whigs and tories in North Carolina he suffered much. In return he
persecuted his public and private foes with ruthless ferocity, hanging
and mutilating any tories against whom the neighboring whigs chose to
bear evidence. As the fortunes of the war veered about he himself
received many injuries. His goods were destroyed, and his friends and
relations were killed or had their ears cropped off. Such deeds often
repeated roused to a fury of revenge his fierce and passionate nature,
to which every principle of self-control was foreign. He had no hope of
redress, save in his own strength and courage, and on every favorable
opportunity he hastened to take more than ample vengeance. Admitting all
the wrongs he suffered, it still remains true that many of his acts of
brutality were past excuse. His wife was a worthy helpmeet. Once, in his
absence, a tory horse-thief was brought to their home, and after some
discussion the captors, Cleavland's sons, turned to their mother, who
was placidly going on with her ordinary domestic avocations, to know
what they should do with the prisoner. Taking from her mouth the
corn-cob pipe she had been smoking, she coolly sentenced him to be hung,
and hung he was without further delay or scruple. [Footnote: Draper,
448.] Yet Cleavland was a good friend and neighbor, devoted to his
country, and also a staunch Presbyterian. [Footnote: Allaire's Diary,
entry for October 29th.]

The tories were already on the alert. Some of them had been harassing
Cleavland, and they had ambushed his advance guard, and shot his
brother, crippling him for life. But they did not dare try to arrest the
progress of so formidable a body of men as had been gathered together at
Quaker Meadows; and contented themselves with sending repeated warnings
to Ferguson.

On October 1st the combined forces marched past Pilot Mountain, and
camped near the heads of Cane and Silver creeks. Hitherto each colonel
had commanded his own men, there being no general head, and every
morning and evening the colonels had met in concert to decide the day's
movements. The whole expedition was one of volunteers, the agreement
between the officers and the obedience rendered them by the soldiers
simply depending on their own free-will; there was no legal authority on
which to go, for the commanders had called out the militia without any
instructions from the executives of their several States. [Footnote:
Gates MSS. Letter of Campbell, Shelby, Cleavland, etc., Oct. 4, 1780.]
Disorders had naturally broken out. The men of the different companies
felt some rivalry towards one another; and those of bad character, sure
to be found in any such gathering, could not be properly controlled.
Some of Cleavland's and McDowell's people were very unruly; and a few of
the Watauga troops also behaved badly, plundering both whigs and tories,
and even starting to drive the stolen stock back across the mountains.
[Footnote: Deposition of Col. Matthew Willoughby (who was in the fight),
April 30, 1823, _Richmond Enquirer_, May 9, 1823.]

At so important a crisis the good-sense and sincere patriotism of the
men in command made them sink all personal and local rivalries. On the
2d of October they all gathered to see what could be done to stop the
disorders and give the army a single head; for it was thought that in a
day or two they would close in with Ferguson. They were in Col. Charles
McDowell's district, and he was the senior officer; but the others
distrusted his activity and judgment, and were not willing that he
should command. To solve the difficulty Shelby proposed that supreme
command should be given to Col. Campbell, who had brought the largest
body of men with him, and who was a Virginian, whereas the other four
colonels were North Carolinians. [Footnote: Though by birth three were
Virginians, and one, Shelby, a Marylander. All were Presbyterians.
McDowell, like Campbell, was of Irish descent; Cleavland of English,
Shelby of Welsh, and Sevier of French Huguenot. The families of the
first two had originally settled in Pennsylvania.] Meanwhile McDowell
should go to Gates' army to get a general to command them, leaving his
men under the charge of his brother Joseph, who was a major. This
proposition was at once agreed to; and its adoption did much to ensure
the subsequent success. Shelby not only acted wisely, but magnanimously;
for he was himself of superior rank to Campbell, and moreover was a
proud, ambitious man, desirous of military glory.

The army had been joined by two or three squads of partisans, including
some refugee Georgians. They were about to receive a larger
reinforcement; for at this time several small guerilla bands of North
and South Carolina whigs were encamped at Flint Hill, some distance west
of the encampment of the mountain men. These Flint Hill bands numbered
about four hundred men all told, under the leadership of various militia
colonels--Hill, Lacey, Williams, Graham, and Hambright. [Footnote:
Hambright was a Pennsylvania German, the father of eighteen children.
Hill, who was suffering from a severe wound, was unfit to take an active
part in the King's Mountain fight. His MS. narrative of the campaign is
largely quoted by Draper.] Hill and Lacey were two of Sumter's
lieutenants, and had under them some of his men; Williams, [Footnote:
Bancroft gives Williams an altogether undeserved prominence. As he had a
commission as brigadier-general, some of the British thought he was in
supreme command at King's Mountain; in a recent magazine article Gen. De
Peyster again sets forth his claims. In reality he only had a small
subordinate or independent command, and had no share whatever in
conducting the campaign, and very little in the actual battle, though he
behaved with much courage and was killed.] who was also a South
Carolinian, claimed command of them because he had just been
commissioned a brigadier-general of militia. His own force was very
small, and he did not wish to attack Ferguson, but to march southwards
to Ninety-Six. Sumter's men, who were more numerous, were eager to join
the mountaineers, and entirely refused to submit to Williams. A hot
quarrel, almost resulting in a fight, ensued; Hill and Lacey accusing
Williams of being bent merely on plundering the wealthy tories and of
desiring to avoid a battle with the British. Their imputation on his
courage was certainly unjust; but they were probably quite right when
they accused him of a desire to rob and plunder the tories. A succession
of such quarrels speedily turned this assemblage of militia into an
armed and warlike rabble. Fortunately Hill and Lacey prevailed, word was
sent to the mountaineers, and the Flint Hill bands marched in loose
order to join them at the Cowpens. [Footnote: Gates MSS. Letter of Gen.
Wm. Davidson, Oct. 3, 1780. Also Hill's Narrative.]

The mountain army had again begun its march on the afternoon of the
third day of the month. Before starting the colonels summoned their men,
told them the nature and danger of the service, and asked such as were
unwilling to go farther to step to the rear; but not a man did so. Then
Shelby made them a short speech, well adapted to such a levy. He told
them when they encountered the enemy not to wait for the word of
command, but each to "be his own officer," and do all he could,
sheltering himself as far as possible, and not to throw away a chance;
if they came on the British in the woods they were "to give them Indian
play," and advance from tree to tree, pressing the enemy unceasingly. He
ended by promising them that their officers would shrink from no danger,
but would lead them everywhere, and, in their turn, they must be on the
alert and obey orders.

When they set out their uncertainty as to Ferguson's movements caused
them to go slowly, their scouts sometimes skirmishing with lurking
tories. They reached the mouth of Cane Creek, near Gilbert Town, on
October 4th. With the partisans that had joined them they then numbered
fifteen hundred men. McDowell left them at this point to go to Gates
with the request for the appointment of a general to command them.
[Footnote: Gates MSS. (in New York Hist. Soc.). It is possible that
Campbell was not chosen chief commander until this time; Ensign Robert
Campbell's account (MSS. in Tenn. Hist. Soc.) explicitly states this to
be the case. The Shelby MS. and the official report make the date the
1st or 2d. One letter in the Gates MSS. has apparently escaped all
notice from historians and investigators; it is the document which
McDowell bore with him to Gates. It is dated "Oct. 4th, 1780, near
Gilbert town," and is signed by Cleavland, Shelby, Sevier, Campbell,
Andrew Hampton, and J. Winston. It begins: "We have collected at this
place 1500 good men drawn from the counties of Surrey, Wilkes, Burk,
Washington, and Sullivan counties (_sic_) in this State and Washington
County in Virginia." It says that they expect to be joined in a few days
by Clark of Ga. and Williams of S. C. with one thousand men (in reality
Clark, who had nearly six hundred troops, never met them); asks for a
general; says they have great need of ammunition, and remarks on the
fact of their "troops being all militia, and but little acquainted with
discipline." It was this document that gave the first impression to
contemporaries that the battle was fought by fifteen hundred Americans.
Thus General Davidson's letter of Oct. 10th to Gates, giving him the
news of the victory, has served as a basis for most subsequent writers
about the numbers. He got his particulars from one of Sumter's men, who
was in the fight; but he evidently mixed them up in his mind, for he
speaks of Williams, Lacey, and their companions as joining the others at
Gilbert Town, instead of the Cowpens; makes the total number three
thousand, whereas, by the official report of October 4th, Campbell's
party only numbered fifteen hundred, and Williams, Lacey, etc., had but
four hundred, or nineteen hundred in all; says that sixteen hundred good
horses were chosen out, evidently confusing this with the number at
Gilbert Town; credits Ferguson with fourteen hundred men, and puts the
American loss at only twenty killed.] For some days the men had been
living on the ears of green corn which they plucked from the fields, but
at this camping-place they slaughtered some beeves and made a feast.

The mountaineers had hoped to catch Ferguson at Gilbert Town, but they
found that he had fled towards the northeast, so they followed after
him. Many of their horses were crippled and exhausted, and many of the
footmen footsore and weary; and the next day they were able to go but a
dozen miles to the ford of Green River.

That evening Campbell and his fellow-officers held a council to decide
what course was best to follow. Lacey, riding over from the militia
companies who were marching from Flint Hill, had just reached their
camp; he told them the direction in which Ferguson had fled, and at the
same time appointed the Cowpens as the meeting-place for their
respective forces. Their whole army was so jaded that the leaders knew
they could not possibly urge it on fast enough to overtake Ferguson, and
the flight of the latter made them feel all the more confident that they
could beat him, and extremely reluctant that he should get away. In
consequence they determined to take seven or eight hundred of the least
tired, best armed, and best mounted men, and push rapidly after their
foe, picking up on the way any militia they met, and leaving the other
half of their army to follow as fast as it could.

At daybreak on the morning of the sixth the picked men set out, about
seven hundred and fifty in number. [Footnote: MS. narrative of Ensign
Robert Campbell (see also Draper, 221) says seven hundred; and about
fifty of the footmen who were in good training followed so quickly after
them that they were able to take part in the battle. Lenoir says the
number was only five or six hundred. The modern accounts generally fail
to notice this Green River weeding out of the weak men, or confuse it
with what took place at the Cowpens; hence many of them greatly
exaggerate the number of Americans who fought in the battle.] In the
afternoon they passed by several large bands of tories, who had
assembled to join Ferguson; but the Holston men were resolute in their
determination to strike at the latter, and would not be diverted from
it, nor waste time by following their lesser enemies.

Riding all day they reached the Cowpens when the sun had already set, a
few minutes after the arrival of the Flint Hill militia under Lacey,
Hill, and Williams. The tired troops were speedily engaged in skinning
beeves for their supper, roasting them by the blazing camp-fires; and
fifty acres of corn, belonging to the rich tory who owned the Cowpens,
materially helped the meal. Meanwhile a council was held, in which all
the leading officers, save Williams, took part. Campbell was confirmed
as commander-in-chief, and it was decided to once more choose the
freshest soldiers, and fall on Ferguson before he could either retreat
or be reinforced. The officers went round, picking out the best men, the
best rifles, and the best horses. Shortly after nine o'clock the choice
had been made, and nine hundred and ten [Footnote: The official report
says nine hundred; Shelby, in all his earlier narratives, nine hundred
and ten; Hill, nine hundred and thirty-three. The last authority is
important because he was one of the four hundred men who joined the
mountaineers at the Cowpens, and his testimony confirms the explicit
declaration of the official report that the nine hundred men who fought
in the battle were chosen after the junction with Williams, Lacey, and
Hill. A few late narratives, including that of Shelby in his old age,
make the choice take place before the junction, and the total number
then amount to thirteen hundred; evidently the choice at the Cowpens is
by these authors confused with the choice at Green River. Shelby's
memory when he was old was certainly very treacherous; in similar
fashion he, as has been seen, exaggerated greatly his numbers at the
Enoree. On the other hand, Robert Campbell puts the number at only seven
hundred, and Lenoir between six and seven hundred. Both of these thus
err in the opposite direction.] picked riflemen, well mounted, rode out
of the circle of flickering firelight, and began their night journey. A
few determined footmen followed, going almost as fast as the horse, and
actually reached the battle-field in season to do their share of the
fighting.

    Ferguson Makes Ready.

All this time Ferguson had not been idle. He first heard of the advance
of the backwoodsmen on September 30th, from the two tories who deserted
Sevier on Yellow Mountain. He had furloughed many of his loyalists, as
all formidable resistance seemed at an end; and he now sent out
messengers in every direction to recall them to his standard. Meanwhile
he fell slowly back from the foot-hills, so that he might not have to
face the mountaineers until he had time to gather his own troops. He
instantly wrote for reinforcements to Cruger, at Ninety-Six. Cruger had
just returned from routing the Georgian Colonel Clark, who was besieging
Augusta. In the chase a number of Americans were captured, and thirteen
were hung. The British and tories interpreted the already sufficiently
severe instructions of their commander-in-chief with the utmost
liberality, even the officers chronicling the hanging with exultant
pleasure, as pointing out the true way by which to end the war.
[Footnote: Draper, p. 201, quotes a printed letter from a British
officer to this effect.]

Cruger, in his answer to Ferguson, explained that he did not have the
number of militia regiments with which he was credited; and he did not
seem to quite take in the gravity of the situation, [Footnote: Probably
Ferguson himself failed to do so at this time.] expressing his pleasure
at hearing how strongly the loyalists of North Carolina had rallied to
Ferguson's support, and speaking of the hope he had felt that the North
Carolina tories would by themselves have proved "equal to the mountain
lads." However, he promptly set about forwarding the reinforcements that
were demanded; but before they could reach the scene of action the fate
of the campaign had been decided.

Ferguson had not waited for outside help. He threw himself into the work
of rallying the people of the plains, who were largely loyalists,
[Footnote: Gates MSS. Letter of Davidson, September 14th, speaks of the
large number of tories in the counties where Ferguson was operating.]
against the over-mountain men, appealing not only to their royalist
sentiments, but to their strong local prejudices, and to the dread many
of them felt for the wild border fighters. On the 1st of October he sent
out a proclamation, of which copies were scattered broadcast among the
loyalists. It was instinct with the fiery energy of the writer, and well
suited to goad into action the rough tories, and the doubtful men, to
whom it was addressed. He told them that the Back Water men had crossed
the mountains, with chieftains at their head who would surely grant
mercy to none who had been loyal to the king. He called on them to grasp
their arms on the moment and run to his standard, if they desired to
live and bear the name of men; to rally without delay, unless they
wished to be eaten up by the incoming horde of cruel barbarians, to be
themselves robbed and murdered, and to see their daughters and wives
abused by the dregs of mankind. In ending, he told them scornfully that
if they chose to be spat [Footnote: The word actually used was still
stronger.] upon and degraded forever by a set of mongrels, to say so at
once, that their women might turn their backs on them and look out for
real men to protect them.

Hoping to be joined by Cruger's regiments, as well as by his own
furloughed men, and the neighboring tories, he gradually drew off from
the mountains, doubling and turning, so as to hide his route and puzzle
his pursuers. Exaggerated reports of the increase in the number of his
foes were brought to him, and, as he saw how slowly they marched, he
sent repeated messages to Cornwallis, asking for reinforcements;
promising speedily to "finish the business," if three or four hundred
soldiers, part dragoons, were given him, for the Americans were
certainly making their "last push in this quarter." [Footnote: See
letter quoted by Tarleton.] He was not willing to leave the many loyal
inhabitants of the district to the vengeance of the whigs [Footnote:
Ferguson's "Memoir," p. 32.]; and his hopes of reinforcements were well
founded. Every day furloughed men rejoined him, and bands of loyalists
came into camp; and he was in momentary expectation of help from
Cornwallis or Cruger. It will be remembered that the mountaineers on
their last march passed several tory bands. One of these alone, near the
Cowpens, was said to have contained six hundred men; and in a day or two
they would all have joined Ferguson. If the whigs had come on in a body,
as there was every reason to expect, Ferguson would have been given the
one thing he needed--time; and he would certainly have been too strong
for his opponents. His defeat was due to the sudden push of the mountain
chieftains; to their long, swift ride from the ford of Green River, at
the head of their picked horse-riflemen.

The British were still in the dark as to the exact neighborhood from
which their foes--the "swarm of backwoodsmen," as Tarleton called them
[Footnote: "Tarleton's Campaigns," p. 169.]--really came. It was
generally supposed that they were in part from Kentucky, and that Boon
himself was among the number. [Footnote: British historians to the
present day repeat this. Even Lecky, in his "History of England," speaks
of the backwoodsmen as in part from Kentucky. Having pointed out this
trivial fault in Lecky's work, it would be ungracious not to allude to
the general justice and impartiality of its accounts of these
revolutionary campaigns--they are very much more trustworthy than
Bancroft's, for instance. Lecky scarcely gives the right color to the
struggle in the south; but when Bancroft treats of it, it is not too
much to say that he puts the contest between the whigs and the British
and tories in a decidedly false light. Lecky fails to do justice to
Washington's military ability, however; and overrates the French
assistance.] However, Ferguson probably cared very little who they were;
and keeping, as he supposed, a safe distance away from them, he halted
at King's Mountain in South Carolina on the evening of October 6th,
pitching his camp on a steep, narrow hill just south of the North
Carolina boundary. The King's Mountain range itself is about sixteen
miles in length, extending in a southwesterly course from one State into
the other. The stony, half isolated ridge on which Ferguson camped was
some six or seven hundred yards long and half as broad from base to
base, or two thirds that distance on top. The steep sides were clad with
a growth of open woods, including both saplings and big timber. Ferguson
parked his baggage wagons along the northeastern part of the mountain.
The next day he did not move; he was as near to the army of Cornwallis
at Charlotte as to the mountaineers, and he thought it safe to remain
where he was. He deemed the position one of great strength, as indeed it
would have been, if assailed in the ordinary European fashion; and he
was confident that even if the rebels attacked him, he could readily
beat them back. But as General Lee, "Light-Horse Harry," afterwards
remarked, the hill was much easier assaulted with the rifle than
defended with the bayonet.

The backwoodsmen, on leaving the camp at the Cowpens, marched slowly
through the night, which was dark and drizzly; many of the men got
scattered in the woods, but joined their commands in the morning--the
morning of October 7th. The troops bore down to the southward, a little
out of the straight route, to avoid any patrol parties; and at sunrise
they splashed across the Cherokee Ford. [Footnote: "Am. Pioneer," II.,
67. An account of one of the soldiers, Benj. Sharp, written in his old
age; full of contradictions of every kind (he for instance forgets they
joined Williams at the Cowpens); it cannot be taken as an authority, but
supplies some interesting details.] Throughout the forenoon the rain
continued but the troops pushed steadily onwards without halting,
[Footnote: Late in life Shelby asserted that this steadiness in pushing
on was due to his own influence. The other accounts do not bear him
out.] wrapping their blankets and the skirts of their hunting-shirts
round their gun-locks, to keep them dry. Some horses gave out, but their
riders, like the thirty or forty footmen who had followed from the
Cowpens, struggled onwards and were in time for the battle. When near
King's Mountain they captured two tories, and from them learned
Ferguson's exact position; that "he was on a ridge between two
branches," [Footnote: _I. e._, brooks.] where some deer hunters had
camped the previous fall. These deer hunters were now with the oncoming
backwoodsmen, and declared that they knew the ground well. Without
halting, Campbell and the other colonels rode forward together, and
agreed to surround the hill, so that their men might fire upwards
without risk of hurting one another. It was a bold plan; for they knew
their foes probably outnumbered them; but they were very confident of
their own prowess, and were anxious to strike a crippling blow. From one
or two other captured tories, and from a staunch whig friend, they
learned the exact disposition of the British and loyalist force, and
were told that their noted leader wore a light, parti-colored
hunting-shirt; and he was forthwith doomed to be a special target for
the backwoods rifles. When within a mile of the hill a halt was called,
and after a hasty council of the different colonels--in which Williams
did not take part,--the final arrangements were made, and the men, who
had been marching in loose order, were formed in line of battle. They
then rode forward in absolute silence, and when close to the west slope
of the battle-hill, beyond King's Creek, drew rein and dismounted. They
tied their horses to trees, and fastened their great coats and blankets
to the saddles, for the rain had cleared away. A few of the officers
remained mounted. The countersign of the day was "Buford," the name of
the colonel whose troops Tarleton had defeated and butchered. The final
order was for each man to look carefully at the priming of his rifle,
and then to go into battle and fight till he died.

    The Battle.

The foes were now face to face. On the one side were the American
backwoodsmen, under their own leaders, armed in their own manner, and
fighting after their own fashion, for the freedom and the future of
America; on the opposite side were other Americans--the loyalists, led
by British officers, armed and trained in the British fashion, and
fighting on behalf of the empire of Britain and the majesty of the
monarchy. The Americans numbered, all told, about nine hundred and fifty
men. [Footnote: Nine hundred and ten horsemen (possibly nine hundred, or
perhaps nine hundred and thirty-three) started out; and the footmen who
kept up were certainly less than fifty in number. There is really no
question as to the American numbers; yet a variety of reasons have
conspired to cause them to be generally greatly overstated, even by
American historians. Even Phelan gives them fifteen hundred men,
following the ordinary accounts. At the time, many outsiders supposed
that all the militia who were at the Cowpens fought in the battle; but
this is not asserted by any one who knew the facts. General J. Watts
DePeyster, in the _Mag. of Am. Hist._ for 1880,--"The Affair at King's
Mountain,"--gives the extreme tory view. He puts the number of the
Americans at from thirteen hundred to nineteen hundred. His account,
however, is only based on Shelby's later narratives, told thirty years
after the event, and these are all that need be considered. When Shelby
grew old, he greatly exaggerated the numbers on both sides in all the
fights in which he had taken part. In his account of King's Mountain, he
speaks of Williams and the four hundred Flint Hill men joining the
attacking body _after_, not _before_, the nine hundred and ten picked
men started. But his earlier accounts, including the official report
which he signed, explicitly contradict this. The question is thus purely
as to the time of the junction; as to whether it was after or before
this that the body of nine hundred actual fighters was picked out.
Shelby's later report contains the grossest self-contradictions. Thus it
enumerates the companies which fought the battle in detail, the result
running up several hundred more than the total he gives. The early and
official accounts are in every way more worthy of credence; but the
point is settled beyond dispute by Hill's narrative. Hill was one of the
four hundred men with Williams, and he expressly states that after the
junction at the Cowpens the force, from both commands, that started out
numbered nine hundred and thirty-three. The question is thus definitely
settled. Most of the later accounts simply follow the statements Shelby
made in his old age.] The British forces were composed in bulk of the
Carolina loyalists--troops similar to the Americans who joined the
mountaineers at Quaker Meadows and the Cowpens [Footnote: There were
many instances of brothers and cousins in the opposing ranks at King's
Mountain; a proof of the similarity in the character of the forces.];
the difference being that besides these low-land militia, there were
arrayed on one side the men from the Holston, Watauga, and Nolichucky,
and on the other the loyalist regulars. Ferguson had, all told, between
nine hundred and a thousand troops, a hundred and twenty or thirty of
them being the regulars or "American Volunteers," the remainder tory
militia. [Footnote: The American official account says that they
captured the British provision returns, according to which their force
amounted to eleven hundred and twenty-five men. It further reports, of
the regulars nineteen killed, thirty-five wounded and left on the ground
as unable to march, and seventy-eight captured; of the tories two
hundred and six killed, one hundred and twenty-eight wounded and left on
the ground unable to march, and six hundred and forty-eight captured.
The number of tories killed must be greatly exaggerated. Allaire, in his
diary, says Ferguson had only eight hundred men, but almost in the same
sentence enumerates nine hundred and six, giving of the regulars
nineteen killed, thirty-three wounded, and sixty-four captured (one
hundred and sixteen in all, instead of one hundred and thirty-two, as in
the American account), and of the tories one hundred killed, ninety
wounded, and "about" six hundred captured. This does not take account of
those who escaped. From Ramsey and De Peyster down most writers assert
that every single individual on the defeated side were killed or taken;
but in Colonel Chesney's admirable "Military Biography" there is given
the autobiography or memoir of a South Carolina loyalist who was in the
battle. His account of the battle is meagre and unimportant, but he
expressly states that at the close he and a number of others escaped
through the American lines by putting sprigs of white paper in their
caps, as some of the whig militia did--for the militia had no uniforms,
and were dressed alike on both sides. A certain number of men who
escaped must thus be added.] The forces were very nearly equal in
number. What difference there was, was probably in favor of the British
and tories. There was not a bayonet in the American army, whereas
Ferguson trusted much to this weapon. All his volunteers and regulars
were expert in its use, and with his usual ingenuity he had trained
several of his loyalist companies in a similar manner, improvising
bayonets out of their hunting-knives. The loyalists whom he had had with
him for some time were well drilled. The North Carolina regiment was
weaker on this point, as it was composed of recruits who had joined him
but recently. [Footnote: There were undoubtedly very many horse-thieves,
murderers, and rogues of every kind with Ferguson, but equally
undoubtedly the bulk of his troops were loyalists from principle, and
men of good standing, especially those from the seaboard. Many of the
worst tory bandits did not rally to him, preferring to plunder on their
own account. The American army itself was by no means free from
scoundrels. Most American writers belittle the character of Ferguson's
force, and sneer at the courage of the tories, although entirely unable
to adduce any proof of their statements, the evidence being the other
way. Apparently they are unconscious of the fact that they thus wofully
diminish the credit to be given to the victors. It may be questioned if
there ever was a braver or finer body of riflemen than the nine hundred
who surrounded and killed or captured a superior body of well posted,
well led, and courageous men, in part also well drilled, on King's
Mountain. The whole world now recognizes how completely the patriots
were in the right; but it is especially incumbent on American historians
to fairly portray the acts and character of the tories, doing justice to
them as well as to the whigs, and condemning them only when they deserve
it. In studying the Revolutionary war in the Southern States, I have
been struck by the way in which the American historians alter the facts
by relying purely on partisan accounts, suppressing the innumerable whig
excesses and outrages, or else palliating them. They thus really destroy
the force of the many grave accusations which may be truthfully brought
against the British and tories. I regret to say that Bancroft is among
the offenders. Hildreth is an honorable exception. Most of the British
historians of the same events are even more rancorous and less
trustworthy than the American writers; and while fully admitting the
many indefensible outrages committed by the whigs, a long-continued and
impartial examination of accessible records has given me the belief that
in the districts where the civil war was most ferocious, much the
largest number of the criminal class joined the tories, and the misdeeds
of the latter were more numerous than those of the whigs. But the
frequency with which both whigs and tories hung men for changing sides,
shows that quite a number of the people shifted from one party to the
other; and so there must have been many men of exactly the same stamp in
both armies. Much of the nominal changing of sides, however, was due to
the needless and excessive severity of Cornwallis and his lieutenants.]

The Americans were discovered by their foes when only a quarter of a
mile away. They had formed their forces as they marched. The right
centre was composed of Campbell's troops; the left centre of Shelby's.
These two bodies separated slightly so as to come up opposite sides of
the narrow southwestern spur of the mountain. The right wing was led by
Sevier, with his own and McDowell's troops. On the extreme right Major
Winston, splitting off from the main body a few minutes before, had led
a portion of Cleavland's men by a roundabout route to take the mountain
in the rear, and cut off all retreat. He and his followers "rode like
fox-hunters," as was afterwards reported by one of their number who was
accustomed to following the buck and the gray fox with horn and hound.
They did not dismount until they reached the foot of the mountain,
galloping at full speed through the rock-strewn woods; and they struck
exactly the right place, closing up the only gap by which the enemy
could have retreated. The left wing was led by Cleavland. It contained
not only the bulk of his own Wilkes and Surrey men, but also the North
and South Carolinians who had joined the army at the Cowpens under the
command of Williams, Lacey, Hambright, Chronicle, and others.
[Footnote: Draper gives a good plan of the battle. He also gives some
pictures of the fighting, in which the backwoodsmen are depicted in full
Continental uniform, which probably not a man--certainly very few of
them--wore.] The different leaders cheered on their troops by a few last
words as they went into the fight; being especially careful to warn them
how to deal with the British bayonet charges. Campbell had visited each
separate band, again requesting every man who felt like flinching not to
go into the battle. He bade them hold on to every inch of ground as long
as possible, and when forced back to rally and return at once to the
fight. Cleavland gave much the same advice; telling his men that when
once engaged they were not to wait for the word of command, but to do as
he did, for he would show them by his example how to fight, and they
must then act as their own officers. The men were to fire quickly, and
stand their ground as long as possible, if necessary sheltering
themselves behind trees. If they could do no better they were to
retreat, but not to run quite off; but to return and renew the struggle,
for they might have better luck at the next attempt. [Footnote: Ramsay
("Revolution in South Carolina"), writing in 1785, gives the speech
verbatim, apparently from Cleavland himself. It is very improbable that
it is verbally correct, but doubtless it represents the spirit of his
remarks.]

So rapid were the movements of the Americans, and so unexpected the
attack, that a loyalist officer, who had been out reconnoitring, had
just brought word to the British commander that there was no sign of
danger, when the first shots were heard; and by the time the officer had
paraded and posted his men, the assault had begun, his horse had been
killed, and he himself wounded. [Footnote: "Essays in Military
Biography," Col. Charles Cornwallis Chesney, London, 1874. On p. 323
begins a memoir of "A Carolina Loyalist in the Revolutionary War." It is
written by the loyalist himself, who was presumably a relation of Col.
Chesney's. It was evidently written after the event, and there are some
lapses. Thus he makes the war with the Cherokees take place in 1777,
instead of '76. His explanation of Tarleton's defeat at the Cowpens must
be accepted with much reserve. At King's Mountain he says the Americans
had fifteen hundred men, instead of twenty-five hundred, of which
Allaire speaks. Allaire probably consciously exaggerated the number.]

When Ferguson learned that his foes were on him, he sprang on his horse,
his drums beat to arms, and he instantly made ready for the fight.
Though surprised by the unexpected approach of the American, he exerted
himself with such energy that his troops were in battle array when the
attack began. The outcrops of slaty rock on the hill-sides made ledges
which, together with the boulders strewn on top, served as breastworks
for the less disciplined tories; while he in person led his regulars and
such of the loyalist companies as were furnished with the hunting-knife
bayonets. He hoped to be able to repulse his enemies by himself taking
the offensive, with a succession of bayonet charges; a form of attack in
which his experience with Pulaski and Huger had given him great
confidence.

At three o'clock in the afternoon the firing began, as the Americans
drove in the British pickets. The brunt of the battle fell on the
American centre, composed of Campbell's and Shelby's men, who sustained
the whole fight for nearly ten minutes [Footnote: Campbell MSS. Letter
of Col. Wm. Campbell, Oct. 10, 1780, says 10 minutes: the official
report (Gates MSS.) says 5 minutes.] until the two wings had had time to
get into place and surround the enemy. Campbell began the assault,
riding on horseback along the line of his riflemen. He ordered them to
raise the Indian war-whoop, which they did with a will, and made the
woods ring. [Footnote: _Richmond Enquirer_ (Nov. 12, 1822 and May 9,
1823) certificates of King's Mountain survivors--of James Crow, May 6,
1813; David Beattie, May 4, 1813, etc., etc. All the different
commanders claimed the honor of beginning the battle in after-life; the
official report decides it in favor of Campbell and Shelby, the former
being the first actually engaged, as is acknowledged by Shelby in his
letter to Arthur Campbell on October 12, 1780.] They then rushed upwards
and began to fire, each on his own account; while their war cries echoed
along the hill-side. Ferguson's men on the summit responded with heavy
volley firing, and then charged, cheering lustily. The mountain was
covered with smoke and flame, and seemed to thunder. [Footnote: Haywood,
71; doubtless he uses the language of one of the actors.]

Ferguson's troops advanced steadily, their officers riding at their
head, with their swords flashing; and the mountaineers, who had no
bayonets, could not withstand the shock. They fled down the hill-side,
and being sinewy, nimble men, swift of foot, they were not overtaken,
save a few of sullen temper, who would not retreat and were bayoneted.
One of their officers, a tall backwoodsman, six feet in height, was cut
down by Lieutenant Allaire, a New York loyalist, as the latter rode at
the head of his platoon. No sooner had the British charge spent itself
than Campbell, who was riding midway between the enemy and his own men,
called out to the latter in a voice of thunder to rally and return to
the fight, and in a minute or two they were all climbing the hill again,
going from tree to tree, and shooting at the soldiers on the summit.
Campbell's horse, exhausted by the breakneck galloping hither and
thither over the slope, gave out; he then led the men on foot, his voice
hoarse with shouting, his face blackened with powder; for he was always
in the front of the battle and nearest the enemy.

No sooner had Ferguson returned from his charge on Campbell than he
found Shelby's men swarming up to the attack on the other side. Shelby
himself was at their head. He had refused to let his people return the
dropping fire of the tory skirmishers until they were close up. Ferguson
promptly charged his new foes and drove them down the hill-side; but the
instant he stopped, Shelby, who had been in the thick of the fight,
closest to the British, brought his marksmen back, and they came up
nearer than ever, and with a deadlier fire. [Footnote: Shelby MS.] While
Ferguson's bayonet-men--both regulars and militia--charged to and fro,
the rest of the loyalists kept up a heavy fire from behind the rocks on
the hill-top. The battle raged in every part, for the Americans had by
this time surrounded their foes, and they advanced rapidly under cover
of the woods. They inflicted much more damage than they suffered, for
they were scattered out while the royalist troops were close together,
and moreover, were continually taken in flank. Ferguson, conspicuous
from his hunting-shirt, [Footnote: The "Carolina Loyalist" speaks as if
the hunting-shirt were put on for disguise; he says Ferguson was
recognized, "although wearing a hunting-shirt."] rode hither and thither
with reckless bravery, his sword in his left hand-for he had never
entirely regained the use of his wounded right--while he made his
presence known by the shrill, ear-piercing notes of a silver whistle
which he always carried. Whenever the British and tories charged with
the bayonet, under Ferguson, De Peyster, or some of their lieutenants,
the mountaineers were forced back down the hill; but the instant the red
lines halted and returned to the summit, the stubborn riflemen followed
close behind, and from every tree and boulder continued their irregular
and destructive fire. The peculiar feature of the battle was the success
with which, after every retreat, Campbell, Shelby, Sevier, and Cleavland
rallied their followers on the instant; the great point was to prevent
the men from becoming panic-stricken when forced to flee. The pealing
volleys of musketry at short intervals drowned the incessant clatter of
the less noisy but more deadly backwoods rifles. The wild whoops of the
mountain men, the cheering of the loyalists, the shouts of the officers,
and the cries of the wounded mingled with the reports of the firearms,
and shrill above the din rose the calling of the silver whistle.
Wherever its notes were heard the wavering British line came on, and the
Americans were forced back. Ferguson dashed from point to point, to
repel the attacks of his foes, which were made with ever-increasing
fury. Two horses were killed under him; [Footnote: Ferguson's "Memoir,"
p. 32.] but he continued to lead the charging parties; slashing and
hewing with his sword until it was broken off at the hilt. At last, as
he rode full speed against a part of Sevier's men, who had almost gained
the hill crest, he became a fair mark for the vengeful backwoods
riflemen. Several of them fired together and he fell suddenly from his
horse, pierced by half a dozen bullets almost at the same instant. The
gallant British leader was dead, while his foot yet hung in the stirrup.
[Footnote: The "South Carolina Loyalist" says he was killed just as he
had slain Col. Williams "with his left hand." Ramsey, on the other side,
represents Col. Williams as being shot while dashing forward to kill
Ferguson. Williams certainly was not killed by Ferguson himself; and in
all probability the latter was slain earlier in the action and in an
entirely different part of the line. The "Loyalist" is also in error as
to Cleavland's regiment being the first that was charged. There is no
ground whatever for the statement that Ferguson was trying to escape
when shot; nor was there any attempt at a charge of horsemen, made in
due form. The battle was purely one of footmen and the attempt to show
an effort at a cavalry charge at the end is a simple absurdity.]

The silver whistle was now silent, but the disheartened loyalists were
rallied by De Peyster, who bravely continued the fight. [Footnote: In
his _Hist. Mag._ article Gen. Watts De Peyster clears his namesake's
reputation from all charge of cowardice; but his account of how De
Peyster counselled and planned all sorts of expedients that might have
saved the loyalists is decidedly mythical.] It is said that he himself
led one of the charges which were at this time made on Cleavland's line;
the "South Fork" men from the Catawba, under Hambright and Chronicle,
being forced back, Chronicle being killed and Hambright wounded. When
the Americans fled they were scarcely a gun's length ahead of their
foes; and the instant the latter faced about, the former were rallied by
their officers, and again went up the hill. One of the backwoodsmen was
in the act of cocking his rifle when a loyalist, dashing at him with the
bayonet, pinned his hand to his thigh; the rifle went off, the ball
going through the loyalist's body, and the two men fell together.
Hambright, though wounded, was able to sit in the saddle, and continued
in the battle. Cleavland had his horse shot under him, and then led his
men on foot. As the lines came close together, many of the whigs
recognized in the tory ranks their former neighbors, friends, or
relatives; and the men taunted and jeered one another with bitter
hatred. In more than one instance brother was slain by brother or cousin
by cousin. The lowland tories felt an especial dread of the
mountaineers; looking with awe and hatred on their tall, gaunt, rawboned
figures, their long, matted hair and wild faces. One wounded tory, as he
lay watching them, noticed their deadly accuracy of aim, and saw also
that the loyalists, firing from the summit, continually overshot their
foes.

The British regulars had lost half their number; the remainder had been
scattered and exhausted in their successive charges. The bayonet
companies of the loyalist militia were in the same plight; and the North
Carolina tories, the least disciplined, could no longer be held to their
work. Sevier's men gained the summit at the same time with Campbell's
and part of Shelby's. The three colonels were heading their troops; and
as Sevier saw Shelby, he swore, by God, the British had burned off part
of his hair; for it was singed on one side of his head.

When the Holston and Watauga men gained the crest the loyalists broke
and fled to the east end of the mountain, among the tents and baggage
wagons, where they again formed. But they were huddled together, while
their foes surrounded them on every hand. The fighting had lasted an
hour; all hope was gone; and De Peyster hoisted a white flag.

In the confusion the firing continued in parts of the lines on both
sides. Some of the backwoodsmen did not know what a white flag meant;
others disregarded it, savagely calling out, "Give them Buford's play,"
in allusion to Tarleton's having refused quarter to Buford's troops.
[Footnote: Deposition of John Long, in _Enquirer_, as quoted.] Others of
the men as they came up began shooting before they learned what had
happened; and some tories who had been out foraging returned at this
moment, and also opened fire. A number of the loyalists escaped in
turmoil, putting badges in their hats like those worn by certain of the
American militia, and thus passing in safety through the whig lines.
[Footnote: Chesney, p. 333.] It was at this time, after the white flag
had been displayed, that Col. Williams was shot, as he charged a few of
the tories who were still firing. The flag was hoisted again, and white
handkerchiefs were also waved, from guns and ramrods. Shelby, spurring
up to part of their line, ordered the tories to lay down their arms,
which they did. [Footnote: Shelby MS.] Campbell, at the same moment,
running among his men with his sword pointed to the ground, called on
them for God's sake to cease firing; and turning to the prisoners he
bade the officers rank by themselves, and the men to take off their hats
and sit down. He then ordered De Peyster to dismount; which the latter
did, and handed his sword to Campbell. [Footnote: Campbell MSS. Letter
of General George Rutledge (who was in the battle, an eye-witness of
what he describes), May 27, 1813. But there is an irreconcilable
conflict of testimony as to whether Campbell or Evan Shelby received De
Peyster's sword.] The various British officers likewise surrendered
their swords, to different Americans; many of the militia commanders who
had hitherto only possessed a tomahawk or scalping-knife thus for the
first time getting possession of one of the coveted weapons.

Almost the entire British and tory force was killed or captured; the
only men who escaped were the few who got through the American lines by
adopting the whig badges. About three hundred of the loyalists were
killed or disabled; the slightly wounded do not seem to have been
counted. [Footnote: For the loyalist losses, see _ante_, note discussing
their numbers. The "South Carolina Loyalist" says they lost about a
third of their number. It is worthy of note that the actual fighting at
King's Mountain bore much resemblance to that at Majuba Hill a century
later; a backwoods levy was much like a Boer commando.] The
colonel-commandant was among the slain; of the four militia colonels
present, two were killed, one wounded, [Footnote: In some accounts this
officer is represented as a major, in some as a colonel; at any rate he
was in command of a small regiment, or fragment of a regiment.] and the
other captured--a sufficient proof of the obstinacy of the resistance.
The American loss in killed and wounded amounted to less than half,
perhaps only a third, that of their foes. [Footnote: The official report
as published gave the American loss as twenty-eight killed and sixty
wounded. The original document (in the Gates MSS., N. Y. Hist. Soc.)
gives the loss in tabulated form in an appendix, which has not
heretofore been published. It is as follows:

RETURN OF KILLED AND WOUNDED.

                       KILLED        |              WOUNDED     |
              Col.                   |   Col.                   |
              |  Major.              |   |  Major.              |
              |  |  Capt.            |   |  |  Capt.            |
              |  |  |  Lieut.        |   |  |  |  Lieut.        |
              |  |  |  |  Ensign.    |   |  |  |  |  Ensign.    |
              |  |  |  |  |  Sergt.  |   |  |  |  |  |  Sergt.  |
              |  |  |  |  |  |  Private. |  |  |  |  |  |  Private.
REGIMENTS.    |  |  |  |  |  |  |  Total.|  |  |  |  |  |  |  Total.
              |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | |   |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | |Grand
              |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | |   |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  Total.
Campbell's..        1  2  4     5 12 |         1  3       17 21 33
McDowell's..                    4  4 |                     4  4  8
Thomas'.....                         |                     8  8  8
Cleavland's.                    8  8 |      1  2          10 13 21
Shelby's....                         |
Sevier's....                    2  2 |                    10 10 12
Hayes'......     1                 1 |                     3  3  4
Brannon's...                         |                     3  3  3
Col. Williams'1                    1 |                           1
             -----------------------------------------------------
              1  1  1  2  4    19 28 |      1  3  3       55 62 90

It will be seen that these returns are imperfect. They do not include
Shelby's loss; yet his regiment was alongside of Campbell's, did its
full share of the work, and probably suffered as much as Sevier's, for
instance. But it is certain that in the hurry not all the killed and
wounded were enumerated (compare Draper, pp. 302-304). Hayes', Thomas',
and "Brannon's" (Brandon's) commands were some of those joining at the
Cowpens. Winston's loss is doubtless included under Cleavland's. It will
be seen that Williams' troops could have taken very little part in the
action.] Campbell's command suffered more than any other, the loss among
the officers being especially great; for it bore the chief part in
withstanding the successive bayonet charges of the regulars, and the
officers had been forced to expose themselves with the utmost freedom,
in order to rally their men when beaten back. [Footnote: It would be
quite impossible to take notice of the countless wild absurdities of the
various writers who have given "histories" so-called, of the battle. One
of the most recent of them, Mr. Kirke, having accepted as the number of
the British dead two hundred and twenty-five, and the wounded one
hundred and eighty five, says that the disproportion shows "the
wonderful accuracy of the backwoods rifle"--the beauty of the argument
being that it necessarily implies that the backwoodsmen only fired some
four hundred and ten shots. Mr. Kirke's account of the battle having
been "won" owing to a remarkable ride taken by Sevier to rally the men
at the critical moment is, of course, without any historic basis
whatever.]

    After the Victory.

The mountain-men had done a most notable deed. They had shown in
perfection the best qualities of horse-riflemen. Their hardihood and
perseverance had enabled them to bear up well under fatigue, exposure,
and scanty food. Their long, swift ride, and the suddenness of the
attack, took their foes completely by surprise. Then, leaving their
horses, they had shown in the actual battle such courage, marksmanship,
and skill in woodland fighting, that they had not only defeated but
captured an equal number of well-armed, well-led, resolute men, in a
strong position. The victory was of far-reaching importance, and ranks
among the decisive battles of the Revolution. It was the first great
success of the Americans in the south, the turning-point in the southern
campaign, and it brought cheer to the patriots throughout the Union. The
loyalists of the Carolinas were utterly cast down, and never recovered
from the blow; and its immediate effect was to cause Cornwallis to
retreat from North Carolina, abandoning his first invasion of that
State. [Footnote: "Tarleton's Campaigns," p. 166.]

The expedition offered a striking example of the individual initiative
so characteristic of the backwoodsmen. It was not ordered by any one
authority; it was not even sanctioned by the central or State
governments. Shelby and Sevier were the two prime movers in getting it
up; Campbell exercised the chief command; and the various other leaders,
with their men, simply joined the mountaineers, as they happened to hear
of them and come across their path. The ties of discipline were of the
slightest. The commanders elected their own chief without regard to rank
or seniority; in fact the officer [Footnote: Williams.] who was by rank
entitled to the place was hardly given any share in the conduct of the
campaign. The authority of the commandant over the other officers, and
of the various colonels over their troops, resembled rather the control
exercised by Indian chiefs over their warriors than the discipline
obtaining in a regular army. But the men were splendid individual
fighters, who liked and trusted their leaders; and the latter were bold,
resolute, energetic, and intelligent.

Cornwallis feared that the mountain men would push on and attack his
flank; but there was no such danger. By themselves they were as little
likely to assail him in force in the open as Andreas Hofer's
Tyrolese--with whom they had many points in common--were to threaten
Napoleon on the Danubian plains. Had they been Continental troops, the
British would have had to deal with a permanent army. But they were only
militia [Footnote: The striking nature of the victory and its important
consequences must not blind us to the manifold shortcomings of the
Revolutionary militia. The mountaineers did well in spite of being
militia; but they would have done far better under another system. The
numerous failures of the militia as a whole must be balanced against the
few successes of a portion of them. If the States had possessed wisdom
enough to back Washington with Continentals, or with volunteers such as
those who fought in the Civil War, the Revolutionary contest would have
been over in three years. The trust in militia was a perfect curse. Many
of the backwoods leaders knew this. The old Indian fighter, Andrew
Lewis, about this time wrote to Gates (see Gates MSS., Sept. 30, 1780),
speaking of "the dastardly conduct of the militia," calling them "a set
of poltroons," and longing for Continentals.]after all, however
formidable from their patriotic purpose and personal prowess. The
backwoods armies were not unlike the armies of the Scotch Highlanders;
tumultuous gatherings of hardy and warlike men, greatly to be dreaded
under certain circumstances, but incapable of a long campaign, and
almost as much demoralized by a victory as by a defeat. Individually or
in small groups they were perhaps even more formidable than the
Highlanders; but in one important respect they were inferior, for they
totally lacked the regimental organization which the clan system gave
the Scotch Celts.

The mountaineers had come out to do a certain thing--to kill Ferguson
and scatter his troops. They had done it, and now they wished to go
home. The little log-huts in which their families lived were in daily
danger of Indian attack; and it was absolutely necessary that they
should be on hand to protect them. They were, for the most part, very
poor men, whose sole sources of livelihood were the stock they kept
beyond the mountains. They loved their country greatly, and had shown
the sincerity of their patriotism by the spontaneous way in which they
risked their lives on this expedition. They had no hope of reward; for
they neither expected nor received any pay, except in liquidated
certificates, worth two cents on the dollar. Shelby's share of these,
for his services as colonel throughout '80 and '81, was sold by him for
"six yards of middling broadcloth" [Footnote: Shelby's MS.
autobiography.]; so it can be readily imagined how little each private
got for the King's Mountain expedition. [Footnote: Among these privates
was the father of Davy Crockett.]

The day after the battle the Americans fell back towards the mountains,
fearing lest, while cumbered by prisoners and wounded, they should be
struck by Tarleton or perhaps Cruger. The prisoners were marched along
on foot, each carrying one or two muskets, for twelve hundred stand of
arms had been captured. The Americans had little to eat, and were very
tired; but the plight of the prisoners was pitiable. Hungry, footsore,
and heartbroken, they were hurried along by the fierce and boastful
victors, who gloried in the vengeance they had taken, and recked little
of such a virtue as magnanimity to the fallen. The only surgeon in
either force was Ferguson's. He did what he could for the wounded; but
that was little enough, for, of course, there were no medical stores
whatever. The Americans buried their dead in graves, and carried their
wounded along on horse-litters. The wounded loyalists were left on the
field, to be cared for by the neighboring people. The conquerors showed
neither respect nor sympathy for the leader who had so gallantly fought
them. [Footnote: But the accounts of indignity being shown him are not
corroborated by Allaire and Ryerson, the two contemporary British
authorities, and are probably untrue.] His body and the bodies of his
slain followers were cast into two shallow trenches, and loosely covered
with stones and earth. The wolves, coming to the carnage, speedily dug
up the carcasses, and grew so bold from feasting at will on the dead
that they no longer feared the living. For months afterwards King's
Mountain was a favorite resort for wolf hunters.

The victory once gained, the bonds of discipline over the troops were
forthwith loosened; they had been lax at the best, and only the strain
of the imminent battle with the British had kept them tense for the
fortnight the mountaineers had been away from their homes. All the men
of the different commands were bragging as to their respective merits in
the battle, and the feats performed by the different commanders.
[Footnote: Certificate of Matthew Willoughby, in _Richmond Enquirer_, as
quoted.] The general break up of authority, of course, allowed full play
to the vicious and criminal characters. Even before the mountaineers
came down the unfortunate Carolinas had suffered from the misdeeds of
different bodies of ill-disciplined patriot troops, [Footnote: Gates
MSS., Deposition of John Satty, and others, Sept. 7, 1780; of Wm.
Hamilton, Sept. 12th, etc., etc., etc.] almost as much as from the
British and tories. The case was worse now. Many men deserted from the
returning army for the especial purpose of plundering the people of the
neighborhood, paying small heed which cause the victims had espoused;
and parties continually left camp avowedly with this object. Campbell's
control was of the slightest; he was forced to entreat rather than
command the troops, complaining that they left their friends in "almost
a worse situation than the enemy would have done," and expressing what
was certainly a moderate "wish," that the soldiers would commit no
"unnecessary injury" on the inhabitants of the county. [Footnote:
Campbell's General Orders, Oct. 14th, and Oct. 26th.] Naturally such
very mild measures produced little effect in stopping the plundering.

However, Campbell spoke in stronger terms of an even worse set of
outrages. The backwoodsmen had little notion of mercy to beaten enemies,
and many of them treated the captured loyalists with great brutality,
even on the march, [Footnote: "Our captors ... cutting and striking us
in a most savage manner,"--"South Carolina Loyalist."] Col. Cleavland
himself being one of the offenders. [Footnote: Allaire's diary, entry of
Nov. 1st.] Those of their friends and relatives who had fallen into the
hands of the tories, or of Cornwallis' regulars, had fared even worse;
yet this cannot palliate their conduct. Campbell himself, when in a fit
of gusty anger, often did things he must have regretted afterwards; but
he was essentially manly, and his soul revolted at the continued
persecution of helpless enemies. He issued a sharp manifesto in
reference to the way the prisoners were "slaughtered and disturbed,"
assuring the troops that if it could not be prevented by moderate
measures, he would put a stop to it by taking summary vengeance on the
offenders. [Footnote: Campbell's General Orders, Oct. 11th.] After this
the prisoners were, on the whole, well treated. When they met a couple
of Continental officers, the latter were very polite, expressing their
sympathy for their fate in falling into such hands; for from Washington
and Greene down, the Continental troops disliked and distrusted the
militia almost as much as the British regulars did the tories.

There was one dark deed of vengeance. It had come to be common for the
victors on both sides to hang those whom they regarded as the chief
offenders among their conquered opponents. As the different districts
were alternately overrun, the unfortunate inhabitants were compelled to
swear allegiance in succession to Congress and to king; and then, on
whichever side they bore arms, they were branded as traitors. Moreover,
the different leaders, both British and American, from Tarleton and
Ferguson to Sumter and Marion, often embodied in their own ranks some of
their prisoners, and these were of course regarded as deserters by their
former comrades. Cornwallis, seconded by Rawdon, had set the example of
ordering all men found in the rebel ranks after having sworn allegiance
to the king, to be hung; his under-officers executed the command with
zeal, and the Americans, of course, retaliated. Ferguson's troops
themselves had hung some of their prisoners. [Footnote: Allaire's Diary,
entry for Aug. 20th; also see Aug. 2d. He chronicles these hangings with
much complacency, but is, of course, shocked at the "infamous" conduct
of the Americans when they do likewise.]

All this was fresh in the minds of the Americans who had just won so
decisive a victory. They were accustomed to give full vent to the
unbridled fury of their passions; they with difficulty brooked control;
they brooded long over their own wrongs, which were many and real, and
they were but little impressed by the misdeeds committed in return by
their friends. Inflamed by hatred and the thirst for vengeance, they
would probably have put to death some of their prisoners in any event;
but all doubt was at an end when on their return march they were joined
by an officer who had escaped from before Augusta, and who brought word
that Cruger's victorious loyalists had hung a dozen of the captured
patriots. [Footnote: Shelby MS.] This news settled the doom of some of
the tory prisoners. A week after the battle a number of them were tried,
and thirty were condemned to death. Nine, including the only tory
colonel who had survived the battle, were hung; then Sevier and Shelby,
men of bold, frank nature, could no longer stand the butchery, and
peremptorily interfered, saving the remainder. [Footnote: _Do._] Of the
men who were hung, doubtless some were murderers and marauders, who
deserved their fate; others, including the unfortunate colonel, were
honorable men, executed only because they had taken arms for the cause
they deemed right.

Leaving the prisoners in the hands of the lowland militia, the
mountaineers returned to their secure fastnesses in the high
hill-valleys of the Holston, the Watauga, and the Nollchucky. They had
marched well and fought valiantly, and they had gained a great victory;
all the little stockaded forts, all the rough log-cabins on the
scattered clearings, were jubilant over the triumph. From that moment
their three leaders were men of renown. The legislatures of their
respective states thanked them publicly and voted them swords for their
services. Campbell, next year, went down to join Greene's army, did
gallant work at Guilford Courthouse, and then died of camp-fever. Sevier
and Shelby had long lives before them. [Footnote: Thirty years after the
battle, when Campbell had long been dead, Shelby and Sevier started a
most unfortunate controversy as to his conduct in the battle. They
insisted that he had flinched, and that victory was mainly due to them.
Doubtless they firmly believed what they said; for as already stated,
the jealousies and rivalries among the backwoods leaders were very
strong; but the burden of proof, after thirty years' silence, rested on
them, and they failed to make their statements good--nor was their act a
very gracious one. Shelby bore the chief part in the quarrel, Campbell's
surviving relatives, of course, defending the dead chieftain. I have
carefully examined all the papers in the case, in the Tenn. Historical
Society, the Shelby, MSS., and the Campbell MSS., besides the files of
the _Richmond Enquirer_, etc.; and it is evident that the accusation was
wholly groundless.

    Shelby and Sevier rest their case:

1st, on their memory, thirty years after the event, of some remarks of
Campbell to them in private after the close of the battle, which they
construed as acknowledgments of bad conduct. Against these memories of
old men it is safe to set Shelby's explicit testimony, in a letter
written six days after the battle (see _Virginia Argus_, Oct. 26, 1810),
to the good-conduct of the "gallant commander" (Campbell).

2d, on the fact that Campbell was seen on a black horse in the rear
during the fighting; but a number of men of his regiment swore that he
had given his black horse to a servant who sat in the rear, while he
himself rode a bay horse in the battle. See their affidavits in the
_Enquirer_.

3d, on the testimony of one of Shelby's brothers, who said he saw him in
the rear. This is the only piece of positive testimony in the case. Some
of Campbell's witnesses (as Matthew Willoughby) swore that this brother
of Shelby was a man of bad character, engaged at the time in stealing
cattle from both Whigs and Tories.

4th, on the testimony of a number of soldiers who swore they did not see
Campbell in the latter part of the battle, nor until some moments after
the surrender. Of course, this negative testimony is simply valueless;
in such a hurly burly it would be impossible for the men in each part of
the line to see all the commanders, and Campbell very likely did not
reach the places where these men were until some time after the
surrender. On the other hand, forty officers and soldiers of Campbell's,
Sevier's, and Shelby's regiments, headed by General Rutledge, swore that
they had seen Campbell valiantly leading throughout the whole battle,
and foremost at the surrender. This positive testimony conclusively
settles the matter; it outweighs that of Shelby's brother, the only
affirmative witness on the other side. But it is a fair question as to
whether Campbell or another of Shelby's brothers received De Peyster's
sword.]




CHAPTER X.

THE HOLSTON SETTLEMENTS TO THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 1781-83.

    John Sevier.
John Sevier had no sooner returned from doing his share in defeating
foes who were of his own race, than he was called on to face another set
of enemies, quite as formidable and much more cruel. These were the red
warriors, the ancient owners of the soil, who were ever ready to take
advantage of any momentary disaster that befell their hereditary and
victorious opponents, the invading settlers.

For many years Sevier was the best Indian fighter on the border. He was
far more successful than Clark, for instance, inflicting greater loss on
his foes and suffering much less himself, though he never had any thing
like Clark's number of soldiers. His mere name was a word of dread to
the Cherokees, the Chickamaugas, and the upper Creeks. His success was
due to several causes. He wielded great influence over his own
followers, whose love for and trust in "Chucky Jack" were absolutely
unbounded; for he possessed in the highest degree the virtues most
prized on the frontier. He was open-hearted and hospitable, with winning
ways towards all, an