[1] See "Boys' Book of Indian Warriors."
Several kinds of frontier fighters seem to have been needed in order that from the white strip along the Atlantic coast the American cabins should move, on to the Ohio River and into the red Northwest.
The patient, untiring Daniel Boone was one kind. He was a settler. He explored only to plant a family home; he killed Indians only to preserve the home, his people and himself. He commanded respect.
Simon Kenton was another kind. He was an adventurer. He planted no home of any value to the country; he took the trail as a scout, and killed Indians who got in his way. He won hatred as well as respect.
The Wetzel boys were a third kind. They were settlers, they were scouts, but they were professional Indian-hunters. The trail had one object to them: scalps and revenge. They spread fear and hatred both.
There were five Wetzel brothers: Martin, Lewis, Jacob, John and George. Not so much is heard about George, but the four others became famous bordermen.
The Wetzel family removed with the Zane families and neighbors from the South Branch of the Potomac River, West Virginia, in 1770, to help form the Wheeling settlement at the Ohio in the pan-handle. Father John Wetzel was a daring man; a great hunter, a venturesome explorer; and finally he took chances once too often and lost his life.
When he arrived in the Wheeling district he located his cabin fourteen miles up Wheeling Creek, where he had little company except his wife and children. Besides the five sons, two daughters were born: Susan and Christina. So the cabin did not lack excitement, even had there been no Indian scares.
Of the sons, Martin was the eldest. He and his father aided in the defense of Fort Henry, in 1775. Lewis was the next; he was born about 1764. Jacob probably was the next to Lewis.
It was in 1778, when Lewis was about fourteen and Jacob was about twelve that they two had their celebrated affair with the Indians, which proved them to be made of the right stuff for bordermen.
They were playing near the corn-crib some little distance from the cabin when Lewis, standing up, saw a rifle-muzzle pointing straight at his breast, from a corner of the crib. As quick as thought he sprang backward—but the ball was on its way. It tore across his breast, and took a piece of his breast bone. However, he had done well; the rifle had been aimed to kill, and only the smartness of his frontier training had saved his life. The children of the border days were brought up to act fast in self-defence.
He fell. Indians rushed him at once, seized him and little Jacob, and clapping a hand across their mouths carried them away.
These were a small party of Indians, prowling about in hopes of doing something just like this. When they had seen Lewis, they had decided to shoot him. He was a stout, chunky lad, and looked to be older than his real age; they feared that he would run from them and give the alarm.
Now they had him and Jacob too. In the timber, pretty soon they set the two down, and dragged them forward by the arms. There was no use fighting, there was no use crying; to cry would have been a sign of weakness, in a border boy, and to fight would have brought only a beating.
Lewis grew sick with his pain, for his breast had been laid open clear to the mangled bone. But he uttered never a whimper, and being the older he of course had to encourage Jacob to keep a stiff upper lip. He was resolved, though, that the Indians should pay for this, some day. And he did make them pay, not only for this but for other matters.
"Aren't you bad hurt, Lewis?" panted Jacob.
"Kinder. But if I complain they'll tomahawk me rather'n be pestered."
This night they all slept upon the ground in the woods north of Wheeling. The Indians tied the boys tightly. There was no chance of escape and it was a very uncomfortable night, what with Lewis's wound and Jacob's fear, and the cold and the hunger and the thought of the cabin on Wheeling Creek.
"Don't you beller, Jakie," Lewis bade. "We won't stay with 'em any longer'n we have to. We're Wetzels."
In the morning they were taken over the Ohio River in a canoe. That day they were made to travel twenty miles farther. Like other frontier boys (and like the girls too) they were raised bare-foot; by this time on their hustling journey their feet were cut and bleeding, so to-night the Indians did not tie the two prisoners.
They were foolish Indians; they had little idea of the nerve of white boys, especially these settler boys.
When all was quiet and the Indians were breathing deeply, Lewis sat up. It was bright moonlight, and he could see plainly. He could see Jacob, and the forms of the Indians stretched around. He moved more. Nobody else stirred, not a breath was interrupted. Then, to find out if the Indians were playing 'possum, he stood on his feet.
Not an Indian even so much as turned over. He began to walk about, treading carelessly, to test them out. He was a wise boy; he spent an hour, experimenting, while his heart beat more and more hopefully. He might have stolen off, but of course he had to take Jacob.
Jacob was asleep. Lewis crept to him and touched him and woke him.
"Come on," he whispered. "We're going."
Jacob shook his head, afraid.
"No."
"Yes."
Jacob's eyes widened.
"We'll be caught."
"No, we won't. They're asleep. Listen? I know they're asleep. Hurry up."
Jacob was only twelve. Lewis was his bigger brother, whom he admired. So he got up, staring—took long breath, and he holding to Lewis's hand, into the moonlit timber they scooted with never a backward look.
"We can follow our own trail back to the river," said Lewis. "It'll be easy."
"Ouch!" And Jacob began to limp.
Lewis stopped.
"You wait here. I'll get some moccasins."
"No, Lewis! They'll catch you."
"No, they won't. We've got to have moccasins."
Lewis scudded for the camp. In a minute he had found moccasins and had brought them. That was better. Now they might travel faster. But Lewis halted again.
"Wait. I'm going to get father a gun!"
"No, Lewis! Let's hurry. We don't want a gun."
"Yes, we do. Maybe we'll have to defend ourselves or kill meat. You wait right here."
Back Lewis scudded, a second time. He was a boy without fear. He brought a gun and ammunition. Then they hastened on. This time they had not gone far before they heard muffled voices behind them. The Indians had wakened and were on their trail.
"Hurry!" Jacob gasped. "Run!"
"No. They'd catch us sure. Our legs are too short. You do as I say, Jakie. When they get near, we'll hide and let 'em pass us. That's the way."
They hurried, but they kept listening. At what he thought ought to be the right time—when the voices and the twig-crackings were louder—Lewis grasped Jacob's arm.
"Now! Into the brush on this side, quick! No noise!"
They hid in a good place. Not a minute later two or three of the Indians filed past, like hounds upon the trail. Lewis, clutching Jacob to keep him quiet, waited. No more Indians came. Lewis chuckled.
"We'll follow on behind, but we'll have to be watching sharp for 'em to turn back," he whispered.
So they followed their pursuers, instead of their pursuers following them. The regular Indian trick had worked finely. But even a rabbit knows enough to do that: to hide beside its trail while its hunters race on. Lewis and Jacob felt smart indeed.
They kept their eyes and ears alert. Soon they heard the Indians coming back, on the trail, as if puzzled.
"Hide," Lewis whispered.
It was done at once, by a silent dart to the left and a squatting behind bushes. Again they held their breaths. Lewis's wound throbbed and stung, but he uttered not a murmur. The Indians passed; their keen eyes noted nothing suspicious; their sounds died away—
"All right, Jakie."
They set out once more, hastening on down the forest trail flecked by the moonlight; Lewis led, lugging the heavy gun, Jacob trotted close at his heels. Rabbits hopped and flattened, a fox or two glided, there was nothing dangerous, until—
"Listen!"
They two stopped short, and poised, heads turned. Lewis painfully stooped and put his ear to the ground.
"They're following us horseback. We'll have to hide again."
They came to a good spot, and hid. This time it was two Indians on horses, sure enough, moving rapidly to catch them. Morning was near. The forest paled with the first tinge of dawn. They straightened up cautiously.
"I think we'd better leave this trail, Jakie," Lewis said. "We'll strike right east, for the river. We can't get lost now."
The sun rose, and they were still trudging fast, and no Indians had followed them. The Indians had been fooled nicely. About eleven o'clock they sighted the Ohio—they came out almost opposite the mouth of Wheeling Creek! Their father and Martin could not have beaten this, for a scout feat.
"There's Zane's Island!" Lewis panted. "Hooray, Jakie! There's the smoke of Wheeling settlement. We're nearly home."
He was just about worn out. For a boy of fourteen, with a big gash across his chest, and a gun to carry, and a little boy to look after, it had been a tough stunt—that fifteen-mile tramp by night and day, on an empty stomach.
"Let's yell, Lewis, so somebody'll come for us."
"No. Injuns might hear us. We'll have to make a raft. We'll find logs and tie 'em together."
They did. They found two logs, lashed them together with grape-vine, and half swimming, half paddling, launched out. Shortly after noon they landed below Wheeling, and were safe.
The people of Wheeling were much astonished to see them toil in. Long before they had reached home they were heroes. They received many compliments upon their work. And it goes without saying that there was a great ado over them in the Wetzel cabin, which had given them up for lost.
Nine years later Father Wetzel was killed by the Indians. He and a companion had been down river in a canoe, hunting and fishing. Neighbors had warned him that this was risky business, but he only laughed. Now he and his partner were paddling upstream, along shore, about eight miles below Wheeling. From the brush a party of Indians hailed them and ordered them to land.
"What! Surrender to you, you yaller varmints?" old man Wetzel rapped. "Not whilst we live."
They turned the canoe and paddled fast, but the guns spoke and he received a ball through his body. He felt that he was wounded to death.
"Lie down in the bottom," he gasped. "That'll save you. I'm gone anyway, but I can get us out o' range."
He acted as target, while paddling his best. They made the opposite shore, at the mouth of Captina Creek, and he died at Baker's Bottom settlement, a short distance above. He was buried here. For some years a stone marked his grave. It said, only: "J. W., 1787."
At the Wetzel home the Wetzel boys vowed relentless war against all Indians. Their hatchets should never be dropped until not a redskin roamed the woods.
Lewis was now twenty-three: a borderman through and through and skilled almost beyond all others. He was not of the "long" type; instead, he was five feet eight inches; darker in complexion than his swarthy brothers, pitted with small-pox scars, broad-shouldered, thick in body, arms and legs, fiery black-eyed, and proud of his deeply black hair that when combed out fell in rippling waves to his calves.
All the brothers had long hair, black and oiled and curled. His was the longest; when not loose it formed a bunch under his fur cap.
He grew to be the most famous of the West Virginia Indian-fighters. In daring, and in trail-reading, he won first place. He practiced reloading his thirty-six-inch barreled, flint-lock patch-and-ball rifle on the run (no easy job), and by this trick out-witted many Indians who thought that they had him when his gun had been emptied. The West Virginians looked upon him as their Daniel Boone, and their "right arm of defence."
Lewis Wetzel loads on the run. (From an Old Print)Lewis Wetzel loads on the run.(From an Old Print)
Lewis Wetzel loads on the run. (From an Old Print)Lewis Wetzel loads on the run.(From an Old Print)
He was credited with twenty-seven scalps, on the West Virginia border, and as many more elsewhere on the frontier. His brothers swelled the number to over one hundred.
Jacob reached six feet in height, and a weight of two hundred pounds—a powerful man like Simon Kenton. He and John also were celebrated Indian-hunters. But although Lewis himself once was out-lawed by the military government for shooting an Indian needlessly, Martin was the really vindictive killer. No Indian of any kind, and whether surrendered or not, was safe from him, his rifle and his tomahawk.
Indian-hunting and Indian-killing was a business with the Wetzels, and the name "Wetzel" carried terror through the forests.
Strange to say they, like Simon Kenton and other bordermen who scorned danger, lived on to a round manhood in spite of the chances that they took. Lewis died in his bed, of a sickness, near Natchez on the southern Mississippi River, in the summer of 1808, aged forty-four. John had died, a few years before, at Wheeling, in similar manner. Martin and Jacob also passed away peacefully.
Such men as the Wetzel brothers were "shock" troops. They did not occupy a country, but they broke the enemy's line.
Samuel Brady the Ranger: the Captain of Spies, the Hero of Western Pennsylvania—he indeed was a famous frontier fighter in the years following the Revolution, when the Indians were determined that "no white cabin shall smoke beyond the Ohio." The struggle to keep the settlers out of present Ohio and Indiana (the Northwest Territory) proved long and bloody.
In western Pennsylvania and northern Ohio the name Captain Samuel Brady ranks with that of Daniel Boone in Kentucky and Kit Carson in the Far West. Up the Allegheny River above Pittsburgh there are Brady's Bend and East Brady, to remind people of his deeds; near Beaver, Pennsylvania, at the Ohio River below Pittsburgh, there are Brady's Run, Brady's Path and Brady's Hill; in Portage County, northeastern Ohio, over toward the Pennsylvania line, there are Brady's Leap and Brady's Lake. So Captain Samuel Brady left his mark upon the map.
He came of fighting Irish stock. He was born in Shippensburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1756, during the French and Indian War. His father, John Brady, was out upon the battle trail at the time.
When he was nineteen, or in 1775, he joined the volunteers from Pennsylvania, to march for Boston. The War of the Revolution was just bursting into flame, and he intended to be in the thick of it. The next year, 1776, his father and his younger brother, James, enlisted with the Pennsylvania troops, also to fight for liberty.
The men of the Brady family did well. Father Brady was appointed a captain; James Brady was wounded at the battle of Brandywine, soon after he had enlisted, and had to quit for a time; Sam was appointed a first lieutenant when he was twenty, and became captain.
Then, in 1778 his brother James was killed by a band of Senecas under Chiefs Bald Eagle and Corn Planter. He fought bravely, single-handed, against them all. They tomahawked him five times in the head, and scalped him, but he crawled to safety and even used a rifle. That was the Brady way. He told the story, and died.
In the nest year, 1779, old Captain John Brady, the father, was ambushed and murdered, by other Indians. Captain Samuel Brady had vowed vengeance for his brother James; now he vowed vengeance also for his father; he swore never to suffer torture, but to kill right and left, and henceforth, as the chronicles say, he "made Indian killing his business."
When he had the opportunity to be captain of spies against the Indians, he accepted gladly. This was in 1780, and by orders of General Washington.
The Indians of the upper country, above Pittsburgh, or Fort Pitt, were threatening trouble. General Washington decided to reconnoiter them. He directed Colonel Daniel Brodhead, commanding at Fort Pitt, to send out scouts, locate the Indians and count them. Colonel Brodhead well knew that for this kind of a job there was no better man than Captain Samuel Brady; and Captain Brady went.
The renowned Captain Brady of Pennsylvania. (From an Old Print)The renowned Captain Brady of Pennsylvania.(From an Old Print)
The renowned Captain Brady of Pennsylvania. (From an Old Print)The renowned Captain Brady of Pennsylvania.(From an Old Print)
He took with him John Williamson, Martin Wetzel, and several Chickasaws. The three whites dressed as Indians, in paint and feathers. Captain Samuel spoke the Wyandot tongue. They set their trail for the great Wyandot Huron town of Upper Sandusky, in north central Ohio.
This was the heart of the Indian country. The sound of a white man's voice, the print of a white man's foot, in all that region, would call the rifle, the tomahawk and the stake. It was forbidden ground.
When near the town, the Chickasaws deserted, taking part of the ammunition with them. Likely enough they had gone on, to the Wyandots, with their news. But the three white Indians did not turn back; they continued, until at dusk one evening they reached the Sandusky River, close to the Wyandot town.
Captain Brady made his arrangements. He left Scout Wetzel, and taking John Williamson waded the river to an island separated from the town by only a narrow channel. Here he and John hid themselves in the brush, and waited for morning.
The morning dawned in such a fog that they could not see a rod. Captain Samuel fidgeted. He hated to waste time.
"If it does not clear, I shall go into the village and see what I can see at close quarters," he said.
However, about eleven o'clock the fog lifted. All the great town, of hundreds of lodges, lay spread before them, with thousands of Indians hastening to and fro, preparing to race horses.
It was a gala day for the savage Wyandots. A war party of them had returned from the south, bringing a fine bag of Virginia and Kentucky blooded animals. The starting post of the races was squarely in front of the two spies' hiding place; they could have thrown a stone to it. For several hours they watched. There was one gray horse that won every race, until two Indians together mounted him, as a handicap; and then he barely lost. Captain Brady's fingers itched to grasp that gray champion's bridle thong—and he was the kind of a man to do so, with half a chance. But it was not to be, this time.
At dusk that night he boldly entered the town. He did not find the horse; nevertheless he slipped about, as much an Indian as any Wyandot—and his heart was in his throat at every step. The air fairly bristled with danger. One false move on his part, and another Brady would have fallen to the hatchet.
He strolled carelessly—he gained the edge of the town again and away he went, to John Williamson on the island.
"Did you make it, Sam?"
"Yes; but be quick. We must cut loose. They suspicioned me—they smelt a mouse."
They lost no time in joining Scout Wetzel. All this night they traveled hard, to the southward. At daylight they sighted the sign of Indians, on their trail. They set out again. Now it was Indian against Indian, for they three were up to all Indian tricks. They took to the streams, they stepped from dry log to dry log, and from rock to rock. On the afternoon of the third day they thought that they had out-witted their pursuers, and halted to rest.
John Williamson stood guard. Captain Brady had only one fault, on the trail: he was a prodigious snorer. He began to snore so loudly that the very trees quivered.
"You're enough to alarm all the Indians betwixt here and Sandusky," John Williamson complained; and got up and turned him over, hoping to quiet him.
John sat down again by the fire. Then he heard a twig crack, and looked, and amidst the forest aisles he saw an Indian cautiously stealing forward.
He did not move; he pretended to have heard and seen nothing. The Indian stole on, rifle and tomahawk ready. John seemed to be nodding—until, just at the right time, he whirled, leveled his own rifle, it cracked sharply, and with a single bound the Indian crumpled, dead.
Up sprang Captain Brady and Scout Wetzel, their own guns in hand.
"What's that?"
"A dead Injun. Get out o' here. There may be more—drat your confounded snoring!"
They dived for shelter; but evidently the warrior had been alone, for no others were seen until they had arrived at the Big Beaver, not far north of Fort McIntosh which is to-day Beaver City.
By this time they were out of food. Captain Brady shot an old otter, but the flesh was so musty that they could not eat it. Now the charge in his reloaded gun was the only ammunition they had. He found a fresh deer track in a narrow trail, and left them eating strawberries while he followed the track.
"I'll bring back meat, or my name's not Brady," he promised.
He trailed the deer, and came upon it standing broadside while it browsed. Good! He took aim, but the rifle flashed in the pan. Off ran the deer.
"Tarnation!" muttered Captain Brady, and sat down to prick the touch-hole. Then he determinedly set out after the deer.
He had gone only a little way, when at a bend in the trail he saw, before him, a large Indian, horseback, with a white baby held in front and a white woman on the horse's rump, behind. There they were, coming, the three on one horse, the baby tied fast to the warrior.
Captain Brady sank down, out of sight. His quick eye had taken it all in. The woman's face was bruised; her arm broken; her hair was flowing loosely—she was a captive, and heknewher! The baby's head was rolling from side to side. It was asleep! Close following the Indian, there rode in single file a full company of other Indians. They were a returning war party, laden with spoils.
Captain Brady raised his rifle. He had only the one load, but he did not hesitate to use it. He waited; he must take care not to harm the baby or the mother. Presently he had fair show. The rifle spoke; off from the horse plunged the big Indian, bringing the baby and mother with him.
"Why did you risk your one shot?" Captain Brady was afterward asked.
"Well," he grinned, "I figgered on getting plenty more powder off the Injun."
At the rifle's crack the file of warriors bolted hither-thither, scattering like quail for covert. Captain Brady rushed forward, shouting loudly.
"Surround 'em, boys! Kill the rascals! At 'em, at 'em! Give 'em Brandywine."
The Indians would think that he had an army. He ran to the fallen brave and the struggling woman and baby. First he grabbed at the powder-horn—but he could not tear it free.
The woman glared at him wildly. He looked like an Indian, himself.
"Why did you shoot your brother?" she cried. She did not understand.
"Jenny Stupe (or did he really say: "Jenny, stoop!"?), I'm Sam Brady. Quick, now! Come with me and I'll save you both."
The Indians dared not charge, but they pelted him with bullets as he dashed through the brush, carrying the baby and dragging Jenny by the hand. Never a ball touched them.
They gained the strawberry patch. It was vacant—for his whoops had alarmed Rangers Williamson and Wetzel as well as the Indians; and being without ammunition they had legged it. Sam Brady had stirred up a hornets' nest. There was no use in their staying.
The next day he and Jenny Stupe and the baby, tired and hungry, entered Fort McIntosh on the Ohio River at the mouth of the Big Beaver. His gun was still empty, but that had not mattered.
As an expert at leaving a blind trail or no trail at all, Captain Sam Brady had no equal. Nothing pleased him more than to lose himself to his own men; while to deceive the Indians, and lure them on, was his constant joy. Consequently when, along in 1781, they captured him, quite by accident, in his lone camp up the Beaver, they gladly hustled him northward for a jubilee.
All the Wyandot town of Sandusky welcomed him with clubs and shrieks. He was painted black—the paint of death—and tied loosely to the stake by the ankles and the waist, so that he might squirm. He had been pretty well beaten, and seemed so exhausted that they had no fears of his escaping.
The next year the Wyandots ceased to burn prisoners. But now they heaped the fagots around Captain Brady, and applied the torch for a slow fire.
"We got you, Sam Brady," they jeered. "You no lose Injun; Injun no lose Sam."
They danced about him, awaiting his agonies. He said no word, but he had his wits keenly sharpened. He was not a "gone coon" yet. The squaws were worse than the men. There was one squaw, a chief's squaw, with a baby in her arms, especially aggravating. She darted in, to strike him. Instantly his two hands flew out, tore the baby from her and dropped it into the blaze.
She screamed; she and the warriors dived to rescue it—and on the second Captain Brady had snapped his bonds and was plunging at top speed for freedom. He knocked down two warriors, and cleared a way, then he was into the open, and out and on like a deer, with the town in pursuit.
Bullets and hatchets missed him. He bounded into the nearest brush; won the river, first; wading and swimming crossed it, and a wide country lay before.
He knew better than to turn south for Fort McIntosh. That was expected of him, but only in the unexpected might he find safety. So he headed eastward for the Pennsylvania border. He ran steadily, using every trick in his pack. Up hill and down he ran, day and night, scarcely pausing to rest; a party of the Indians continued to press him closely, and at the end of one hundred miles he was being forced to the Cuyahoga River in present Portage County, northeastern Ohio.
He knew of a ford there—the Standing Stone, it was called. But when he had almost arrived, naked and torn and bleeding, he found himself out-guessed. The Indian whoops sounded; the enemy were there before him—they held the ford and they hemmed him in on either flank.
Straight onward, in front, the river had cut a gorge, thirty feet deep and some twenty-five feet in width: a sheer up-and-down. That was the trap laid for him; and just a moment he despaired. Had he come so far, merely to be taken at last?
No! Not yet. He increased his speed, and set all his muscles. The Indians were yelling triumphantly. They had Sam Brady again. But their yells suddenly died. What was that? They had witnessed a marvelous sight. From the brink of the gorge the figure of Sam Brady had launched itself into the air; arms and legs extended it had been out-lined for an instant, in space, then had landed—Crash!—amidst the thin bushes clinging to the opposite edge, had scrambled, recovered, hauled itself a few feet, and was disappearing.
Their rifles cracked hastily. But with a bullet in his leg Captain Brady ran on.
The Indians clustered for just a moment, to stare with amazement.
"White man jump; Injun no jump," they jabbered, excited. So they crossed by the ford, and striking his blood spatters easily followed his trail.
Captain Brady was about all in. His wounded leg bothered him, his great leap had shaken him. But he knew of a lake, ahead, and made for it. It was his last resort. He got there, in time, and like a mad thing surged neck deep among the pond lilies. By quick work (he heard the yells coming nearer) he snapped a lily stem; and sinking to the bottom he held himself down, with the hollow stem in his mouth and the other end at the surface. He might stay there, and breathe!
The broad leaves of the pond lilies covered his hiding place; the stem gave him air. The Indians reached the pond, and saw his tracks leading in. He faintly heard them splashing about. All that day they searched and waited; they were there until late into the night; soaked and cold and cramped, he felt as though he could not stand it much longer; but he gritted his teeth and determined that he would die, of himself, rather than yield them his scalp.
At last, having heard no muffled sounds through the water or through the hollow stem for some time, he risked rising to the surface. All was quiet. The darkness concealed him. He might straighten his limbs and breathe freely. By thunder, he was safe!
Several days afterward, Captain Sam Brady limped into Fort Pitt. For a long time the Indians believed that he had drowned himself. They never quite understood how he had managed to leap that gorge. Even the exact spot of the famous Brady's Leap is disputed. One gorge, claimed to be the place, measures twenty-five feet across. Another measured twenty-seven feet and a half.
Here the Indians, traveling to view it, carved a turkey foot in a rock.
"Sam Brady no man; he turkey. No jump; flew," they declared.
None of them ever managed to capture Sam Brady and keep him. He defied them and lived on. In 1786 he married the lovely Drusilla Swearingen—daughter of another noted soldier and Indian fighter, Captain Van Swearingen who was called "Indian Van."
Captain Swearingen did not favor the match.
"It will only make Dru a widow," he said. "I do not wish her to mate with a man who is always on the trail."
They were married, just the same; and to state the truth, the young wife did suffer "untold miseries" while waiting for her daring Sam to return from his long forays. He was lame, from the wound in his leg; and partially deaf from his plunge beneath the pond; but he hated to leave the Injun trail.
Finally he was worn out, and consented to spend a few years at home, in West Liberty, West Virginia. Here he died, aged about forty-four, or in 1800, an old man before his time, but with his years crammed to over-flowing with brave memories.
Following the last attack, in 1778, upon Boonesborough, Colonel John Bowman of Harrod's Station had led a revenge expedition into the Ohio country. At Little Chillicothe, where Daniel Boone had been son to Chief Black Fish, he had fought the Shawnees and their allies the Wyandots and others; and although he had been driven back his men had killed old Black Fish. That was a blow to the enemy.
More important than this, beginning in 1778 the great Long Knife chief, General George Rogers Clark, had "captured" the Illinois country clear to the Mississippi River at Kaskaskia below St. Louis; had marched northward one hundred and fifty miles, laid siege to the British garrison of St. Vincents (Vincennes, Indiana), and taken prisoner no less a personage than the noted Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton of Detroit; and in 1780 had destroyed the Shawnee towns of Pickaway and Little Chillicothe also.
These events and others stirred the Northern Confederacy to action afresh. They saw the Ohio Valley being cut in two. They had given up Boonesborough; but there were many other forts and stations and settlements and they sent their parties against the Americans of western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the outskirts of Kentucky along the Ohio.
The principal Wyandot town of Upper Sandusky (where Simon Kenton had been rescued by Pierre Drouillard the British Indian agent), in central north Ohio, seemed to be the rallying place for the bloody forays. General Washington could spare no regular troops yet, to campaign on the Indian trail; so in order to "shake up" the red rascals volunteer militiamen and Rangers for miles back in southwestern Pennsylvania and northwestern West Virginia and adjacent Kentucky were summoned to gather, secretly, May 20, 1782, at Mingo Bottom (present Mingo Junction, Ohio) on the west side of the Ohio River about forty miles up from Fort Pitt.
Three hundred had been called for; four hundred and eighty arrived—mainly Pennsylvanians, and the bulk of them crack-shot bordermen in moccasins, leggins, fringed buckskin hunting shirts, armed with the long patch-and-ball rifle, tomahawk and scalping-knife, and mounted upon the best of their horses. It was to be an earnest expedition—a stroke at the heart of the Indian country. Before leaving home, many of the men had made their wills.
The popular William Crawford was elected commander. He had been an ensign with Washington in the General Braddock campaign of the fatal 1755; had been colonel under General Washington in the Buff-and-Blue Continental Army, and was General Washington's intimate friend: but Lord Cornwallis, the British general, had surrendered at Yorktown last fall, the War of the Revolution appeared to be almost over, and he had returned home as a veteran.
The guides were Jonathan Zane of Wheeling (one of the fighting Zanes) and John Slover, another Virginian.
Much dependence was placed upon John Slover. When eight years old, or about in 1760, he had been captured by the Miami Indians and taken to Upper Sandusky town. He had lived there among the Miamis and Wyandots, had mingled with the Shawnees, Delawares and Mingo Iroquois, for twelve years, and they had treated him well. He rather liked being an Indian. Then during a peace council at Fort Pitt in 1773 he had met his real kindred again. They had persuaded him to be a white man; therefore he had bade his Indian brothers goodby, and had walked away with his new-found relatives.
He, also, had served in the Revolution, as a sharpshooter. Now he felt badly at having been asked to guide the Long Knife column against his old-time Indian friends, and the town that had sheltered him; it seemed to him not an honorable thing to do. Still, he was an American soldier and citizen; there was war between the white and the red, and dreadful deeds had been done by hatchet and knife, upon his very neighbors. His duty was plain. He could not stay behind or refuse to aid. Therefore he consented to guide and fight, in the cause of his fellow settlers and the protection of the women and children.
The surgeon of the column was Dr. John Knight—a small but gritty little man. Among the Rangers was James Paull, of West Virginia, a young Buckskin of twenty-two who had left his widowed mother in order to march to Sandusky.
The column met with such a defeat as had been known but once since the day of Braddock's Field. For the Indians were ready. Their spies had reported upon the secret gathering at the old Mingo town of Mingo Bottom. To all the villages of the north and even to Detroit the word traveled that the Long Knives were coming.
Captain Pipe, the old war-chief of the Delawares, and his aide, Chief Wingenund, arrayed two hundred warriors and marched from the eastward to join the four hundred Wyandots of Chief Half King and Chief Shaus-sho-to, and defend the Sandusky. In the south the Shawnees of Black Hoof and Black Beard and all, prepared. The Miamis rallied from the west. The white captains, Alexander McKee and the Girty brothers, urged the warriors on. A messenger to the British father at Detroit brought back promise of reinforcements from there. The British father was sending his Butler's Mounted Rangers and three cannon, and the great white captain Matthew Elliott to command the whole army.
All the long, long way up from the Ohio River the Colonel William Crawford column had seen only two Indians. On June 4 they sighted their goal, the old Wyandot town of Upper Sandusky. It showed not a sign of life. They marched upon it. The buildings had been leveled and grass was growing in the crooked streets. Some months before, Chief Half King had moved his people eight miles northward, down the Sandusky.
Guide John Slover had led in vain. He, also, was mystified. The volunteers were disappointed; they wished to turn back. The council of officers decided upon one more day's march; then if nothing happened, back they would go and glad to get out of the land alive.
it was a wide, grassy, forest-dotted country strange to the Long Knives. Few of them, not even the Zanes and the Wetzels and their like, had ever been here except as prisoners. They did not know, John Slover did not know, that only eleven miles to the east was the eager village of Chief Pipe and his Delawares; that only eighteen miles north was the principal village of Chief Half King and his painted Hurons: and that six hundred warriors of the two nations had come together, with guns loaded and hatchets sharpened, to await the Shawnees, the Miamis and the British Rangers guided by Matthew Elliott, and wipe the Americans from the trail.
The Long Knives moved fearfully on. To them, the air was full of threat. The Delawares and Hurons met them, and held them in check. June 5 the Shawnees, Miamis and the Rangers tore in. Matthew Elliott, in his brilliant uniform, had taken command; his comrade renegade, Simon Girty, as his lieutenant raged hither-thither on a white horse. Beset amidst the timber islands and the cranberry swamps the Long Knives broke in retreat. Their horses mired. The best efforts of Jonathan Zane, Lewis Wetzel, brave Colonel Crawford the Continental, other men and officers, availed little.
Four hundred and eighty, the flower of the border, were over-matched by one thousand, the full strength of the Northern Confederacy.
The battle ended on the night of June 6. Three hundred of the Long Knives remained together, and reached the Ohio. By ones and twos and threes others straggled in. But many did not come. Among them were Colonel Crawford, his son John Crawford, Major John McClelland of a famous border family, Dr. Knight, John Slover, young James Paull—and he, and he, and he, a score of them whose fate might be guessed at only with a shudder.
Of these, few ever did return. The noble Colonel Crawford had been captured. He was the "Big Captain"—he must die, and Chief Pipe, another "Big Captain," ordered him to terrible torture. Boyish John Crawford and Major McClelland also were killed in the Indian way. But little Doctor Knight the surgeon, Guide John Slover and young James Paull finally turned up, at home, with remarkable stories now to be told.
Doctor Knight had been taken, along with his colonel and several comrades. They were eleven in number, prisoners to the Delawares. Captain Pipe had marched them to his own town. Their hopes had been flickering, they thought that Simon Girty might help them, but on the way Chief Pipe and Chief Wingenund had painted them black. Then nine of them were killed by a mob. And at Pipe's Town Doctor Knight had sickened in watching his colonel burned before his eyes. That was an afternoon and night of horror.
"You," said Chief Pipe to him, "will be taken to the Shawnee towns to see your friends."
To see his friends! Doctor Knight did not know whether this meant his "friends" the Shawnees, or his other friends who had been tortured like Colonel Crawford. It all amounted to the same thing. He resolved to escape or die while trying. Already he had been given a broken jaw.
In the morning he was painted black again, and sent away afoot in charge of a large Shawnee, who drove him with a hickory whip. They were bound for the Shawnee towns, forty miles southwest—probably to Wakatomica. The doctor, who was not much over five feet tall and weighed scarcely more than one hundred and twenty, trotted valiantly, glad that he had not been tied by a rope. But because he was so small, and was not a warrior, the Shawnee seemed to think him harmless.
A warrior armed with gun and hatchet and knife should have no fear of a midget white man who had been well beaten.
"There lie the bones of your Big Captain," the Shawnee jeered, when they passed the charred Crawford stake.
The doctor only smiled as well as he could, with such a jaw. He showed no fear. He pretended to feel safe, for he was going "to see his friends." He began to make up to his guard, whose name was Tutelu.