Six hundred Indians attack Boonesborough—Boone and Captain Smith go out to treat with the enemy under a flag of truce, and are extricated from a treacherous attempt to detain them as prisoners—Defence of the fort—The Indians defeated—Boone goes to North Carolina to bring bark his family.
It will naturally be supposed that foes less wary and intelligent, than those from whom Boone had escaped, after they had abandoned the hope of recapturing him, would calculate to find Boonesborough in readiness for their reception.
Boonesborough, though the most populous and important station in Kentucky, had been left by the abstraction of so many of the select inhabitants in the captivity of the Blue Licks, by the absence of Colonel Clarke in Illinois, and by the actual decay of the pickets, almost defenceless. Not long before the return of Boone, this important post had been put under the care of Major Smith, an active and intelligent officer. He repaired thither, and put the station, with great labor and fatigue, in a competent state of defence. Learning from the return of some of the prisoners, captured at the Blue Licks, the great blow which the Shawnese meditated against this station, he deemed it advisable to anticipate their movements, and to fit out an expedition to meet them on their own ground.—Leaving twenty young men to defend the place, he marched with thirty chosen men towards the Shawnese towns.
At the Blue Licks, a place of evil omen to Kentucky, eleven of the men, anxious for the safety of the families they had left behind and deeming their force too small for the object contemplated, abandoned the enterprise and retreated to the fort. The remaining nineteen, not discouraged by the desertion of their companions, heroically persevered. They crossed the Ohio to the present site of Cincinnati, on rafts. They then painted their faces, and in other respects assumed the guise and garb of savages, and marched upon the Indian towns.
When arrived within twenty miles of these towns they met the force with which Boone had set out. Discouraged by his escape, the original party had returned, had been rejoined by a considerable reinforcement, the whole amounting to two hundred and fifty men on horse-back, and were again on their march against Boonesborough. Fortunately, Major Smith and his small party discovered this formidable body before they were themselves observed. But instead of endeavoring to make good their retreat from an enemy so superior in numbers, and mounted upon horses, they fired upon them and killed two of their number. An assault so unexpected alarmed the Indians; and without any effort to ascertain the number of their assailants, they commenced a precipitate retreat. If these rash adventurers had stopped here, they might have escaped unmolested. But, flushed with this partial success, they rushed upon the retreating foe, and repeated their fire. The savages, restored to self-possession, halted in their turn, deliberated a moment, and turned upon the assailants. Major Smith, perceiving the imprudence of having thus put the enemy at bay, and the certainty of the destruction of his little force, if the Indians should perceive its weakness, ordered a retreat in time; and being considerably in advance of the foe, succeeded in effecting it without loss. By a rapid march during the night, in the course of the next morning they reached Boonesborough in safety.
Scarcely an hour after the last of their number had entered the fort, a body of six hundred Indians, in three divisions of two hundred each, appeared with standards and much show of warlike array, and took their station opposite the fort. The whole was commanded by a Frenchman named Duquesne. They immediately sent a flag requesting the surrender of the place, in the name of the king of Great Britain. A council was held, and contrary to the opinion of Major Smith, it was decided to pay no attention to the proposal. They repeated their flag of truce, stating that they had letters from the commander at Detroit to Colonel Boone. On this, it was resolved that Colonel Boone and Major Smith should venture out, and hear what they had to propose.
Fifty yards from the fort three chiefs met them with great parade, and conducted them to the spot designated for their reception, and spread a panther's skin for their seat, while two other Indians held branches over their heads to protect them from the fervor of the sun. The chiefs then commenced an address five minutes in length, abounding in friendly assurances, and the avowal of kind sentiments. A part of the advanced warriors grounded their arms, and came forward to shake hands with them.
The letter from Governor Hamilton of Detroit was then produced, and read. It proposed the most favorable terms of surrender, provided the garrison would repair to Detroit. Major Smith assured them that the proposition seemed a kind one; but that it was impossible, in their circumstances, to remove their women and children to Detroit. The reply was that this difficulty should be removed, for that they had brought forty horses with them, expressly prepared for such a contingency.
In a long and apparently amicable interview, during which the Indians smoked with them, and vaunted their abstinence in not having killed the swine and cattle of the settlement, Boone and Smith arose to return to the fort, and make known these proposals, and to deliberate upon their decision. Twenty Indians accompanied their return as far as the limits stipulated between the parties allowed. The negotiators having returned, and satisfied the garrison that the Indians had no cannon, advised to listen to no terms, but to defend the fort to the last extremity. The inmates of the station resolved to follow this counsel.
In a short time the Indians sent in another flag, with a view, as they stated, to ascertain the result of the deliberations of the fort. Word was sent them, that if they wished to settle a treaty, a place of conference must be assigned intermediate between their camp and the fort. The Indians consented to this stipulation, and deputed thirty chiefs to arrange the articles, though such appeared to be their distrust, that they could not be induced to come nearer than eighty yards from the fort. Smith and Boone with four others were deputed to confer with them. After a close conference of two days, an arrangement was agreed upon, which contained a stipulation, that neither party should cross the Ohio, until after the terms had been decided upon by the respective authorities on either side. The wary heads of this negotiation considered these terms of the Indians as mere lures to beguile confidence.
When the treaty was at last ready for signature, an aged chief, who had seemed to regulate all the proceedings, remarked that he must first go to his people, and that he would immediately return, and sign the instrument. He was observed to step aside in conference with some young warriors. On his return the negotiators from the garrison asked the chief why he had brought young men in place of those who had just been assisting at the council? His answer was prompt and ingenious. It was, that he wished to gratify his young warriors, who desired to become acquainted with the ways of the whites. It was then proposed, according to the custom of both races, that the parties should shake hands. As the two chief negotiators, Smith and Boone, arose to depart, they were both seized from behind.
Suspicious of treachery, they had posted twenty-five men in a bastion, with orders to fire upon the council, as soon as they should see any marks of treachery or violence. The instant the negotiators were seized, the whole besieging force fired upon them, and the fire was as promptly returned by the men in the bastion. The powerful savages who had grasped Boone and Smith, attempted to drag them off as prisoners. The one who held Smith was compelled to release his grasp by being shot dead. Colonel Boone was slightly wounded. A second tomahawk, by which his skull would have been cleft asunder, he evaded, and it partially fell on Major Smith; but being in a measure spent, it did not inflict a dangerous wound. The negotiators escaped to the fort without receiving any other injury. The almost providential escape of Boone and Smith can only be accounted for by the confusion into which the Indians were thrown, as soon as these men were seized, and by the prompt fire of the men concealed in the bastion. Added to this, the two Indians who seized them were both shot dead, by marksmen who knew how to kill the Indians, and at the same time spare the whites, in whose grasp they were held.
The firing on both sides now commenced in earnest, and was kept up without intermission from morning dawn until dark. The garrison, at once exasperated and cheered by the meditated treachery of the negotiation and its result, derided the furious Indians, and thanked them for the stratagem of the negotiation, which had given them time to prepare the fort for their reception. Goaded to desperation by these taunts, and by Duquesne, who harangued them to the onset, they often rushed up to the fort, as if they purposed to storm it. Dropping dead under the cool and deliberate aim of the besieged, the remainder of the forlorn hope, raising a yell of fury and despair, fell back. Other infuriated bands took their place; and these scenes were often repeated, invariably with the same success, until both parties were incapable of taking aim on account of the darkness.
They then procured a quantity of combustible matter, set fire to it, and approached under covert of the darkness, so near the palisades as to throw the burning materials into the fort. But the inmates had availed themselves of the two days' consultation, granted them by the treacherous foe, to procure an ample supply of water; and they had the means of extinguishing the burning faggots as they fell.
Finding their efforts to fire the fort ineffectual, they returned again to their arms, and continued to fire upon the station for some days. Taught a lesson of prudence, however, by what had already befallen them, they kept at such a cautious distance, as that their fire took little effect. A project to gain the place, more wisely conceived, and promising better success, was happily discovered by Colonel Boone. The walls of the fort were distant sixty yards from the Kentucky river. The bosom of the current was easily discernible by the people within. Boone discovered in the morning that the stream near the shore was extremely turbid. He immediately divined the cause.
The Indians had commenced a trench at the water level of the river bank, mining upwards towards the station, and intending to reach the interior by a passage under the wall. He took measures to render their project ineffectual, by ordering a trench to be cut inside the fort, across the line of their subterraneous passage. They were probably apprised of the countermine that was digging within, by the quantity of earth thrown over the wall. But, stimulated by the encouragement of their French engineer, they continued to advance their mine towards the wall, until, from the friability of the soil through which it passed, it fell in, and all their labor was lost. With a perseverance that in a good cause would have done them honor, in no wise discouraged by this failure to intermit their exertions, they returned again to their fire arms, and kept up a furious and incessant firing for some days, but producing no more impression upon the station than before.
During the siege, which lasted eight days, they proposed frequent parleys, requesting the surrender of the place, and professing to treat the garrison with the utmost kindness. They were answered, that they must deem the garrison to be still more brutally fools than themselves, to expect that they would place any confidence in the proposals of wretches who had already manifested such base and stupid treachery. They were bidden to fire on, for that their waste of powder and lead gave the garrison little uneasiness, and were assured that they could not hope the surrender of the place, while there was a man left within it. On the morning of the ninth day from the commencement of the siege, after having, as usual, wreaked their disappointed fury upon the cattle and swine, they decamped, and commenced a retreat.
No Indian expedition against the whites had been known to have had such a disastrous issue for them. During the siege, their loss was estimated by the garrison at two hundred killed, beside a great number wounded. The garrison, on the contrary, protected by the palisades, behind which they could fire in safety, and deliberately prostrate every foe that exposed himself near enough to become a mark, lost but two killed, and had six wounded.
After the siege, the people of the fort, to whom lead was a great object, began to collect the balls that the Indians had fired upon them. They gathered in the logs of the fort, beside those that had fallen to the ground, a hundred and twenty-five pounds. The failure of this desperate attempt, with such a powerful force, seems to have discouraged the Indians and their Canadian allies from making any further effort against Boonesborough. In the autumn of this season, Colonel Boone returned to North Carolina to visit his wife and family.
When he was taken at the Blue Licks, with his associates, who had returned, while he was left behind in a long captivity, during which no more news of him transpired than as if he were actually among the dead, the people of the garrison naturally concluded that he had been killed. His wife and family numbered him as among the dead; and often had they shuddered on the bare recurrence of some one to the probability of the tortures he had undergone. Deeply attached to him, and inconsolable, they could no longer endure a residence which so painfully reminded them of their loss. As soon as they had settled their minds to the conviction that their head would return to them no more, they resolved to leave these forests that had been so fatal to them, and return to the banks of the Yadkin, where were all their surviving connections. A family so respectable and dear to the settlement would not be likely to leave without having to overcome many tender and pressing solicitations to remain, and many promises that if they would, their temporal wants should be provided for.
To all this Mrs. Boone could only object, that Kentucky had indeed been to her, as its name imported, a dark andBloody Ground. She had lost her eldest son by the savage fire before they had reached the country. Her daughter had been made a captive, and had experienced a forbearance from the Indians to her inexplicable. She would have been carried away to the savage towns, and there would have been forcibly married to some warrior, but for the perilous attempt, and improbable success of her father in recapturing her. Now the father himself, her affectionate husband, and the heroic defender of the family, had fallen a sacrifice, probably in the endurance of tortures on which the imagination dared not to dwell. Under the influence of griefs like these, next to the unfailing resource of religion, the heart naturally turns to the sympathy and society of those bound to it by the ties of nature and affinity. They returned to their friends in North Carolina.
It was nearly five years since this now desolate family had started in company with the first emigrating party of families, in high hopes and spirits, for Kentucky. We have narrated their disastrous rencounter with the Indians in Powell's valley, and their desponding return to Clinch river. We have seen their subsequent return to Boonesborough, on Kentucky river. Tidings of the party thus far had reached the relatives of Mrs. Boone's family in North Carolina; but no news from the country west of the Alleghanies had subsequently reached them. All was uncertain conjecture, whether they still lived, or had perished by famine, wild beasts, or the Indians.
At the close of the summer of 1778, the settlement on the Yadkin saw a company on pack horses approaching in the direction from the western wilderness. They had often seen parties of emigrants departing in that direction, but it was a novel spectacle to see one return from that quarter. At the head of that company was a blooming youth, scarcely yet arrived at the age of manhood. It was the eldest surviving son of Daniel Boone. Next behind him was a matronly woman, in weeds, and with a countenance of deep dejection. It was Mrs. Boone. Still behind was the daughter who had been a captive with the Indians. The remaining children were too young to feel deeply. The whole group was respectable in appearance, though clad in skins, and the primitive habiliments of the wilderness. It might almost have been mistaken for a funeral procession. It stopped at the house of Mr. Bryan, the father of Mrs. Boone.
The people of the settlement were not long in collecting to hear news from the west, and learn the fate of their former favorite, Boone, and his family. As Mrs. Boone, in simple and backwood's phrase, related the thrilling story of their adventures, which needed no trick of venal eloquence to convey it to the heart, an abundant tribute of tears from the hearers convinced the bereaved narrator that true sympathy is natural to the human heart. As they shuddered at the dark character of many of the incidents related, it was an hour of triumph, notwithstanding their pity, for those wiser ones, who took care, in an under tone, to whisper that it might be remembered that they had predicted all that had happened.
A sketch of the character and adventures of several other pioneers—Harrod, Kenton, Logan, Ray, McAffee, and others.
Colonel Boone having seen the formidable invasion of Boonesborough successfully repelled, and with such a loss as would not be likely to tempt the Indians to repeat such assaults—and having thus disengaged his mind from public duties, resigned it to the influence of domestic sympathies. The affectionate husband and father, concealing the tenderest heart under a sun-burnt and care-worn visage, was soon seen crossing the Alleghanies in pursuit of his wife and children. The bright star of his morning promise had been long under eclipse; for this journey was one of continued difficulties, vexations, and dangers—so like many of his sufferings already recounted, that we pass them by, fearing the effect of incidents of so much monotony upon the reader's patience. The frame and spirit of the western adventurer were of iron. He surmounted all, and was once more in the bosom of his family on the Yadkin, who, in the language of the Bible, hailed him as onewho had been dead and was alive again; who had been lost and was found.
Many incidents of moment and interest in the early annals of Kentucky occurred during this reunion of Boone with his family. As his name is forever identified with these annals, we hope it will not be deemed altogether an episode if we introduce here a brief chronicle of those incidents—though not directly associated with the subject of our memoir. In presenting those incidents, we shall be naturally led to speak of some of the other patriarchs of Kentucky—all Boones in their way—all strangely endowed with that peculiar character which fitted them for the time, place, and achievements. We thus discover the foresight of Providence in the arrangement of means to ends. This is no where seen more conspicuously than in the characters of the founders of states and institutions.
During the absence of Colonel Boone, there was a general disposition in Kentucky to retaliate upon the Shawnese some of the injuries and losses which they had so often inflicted upon the infant settlement. Colonel Bowman, with a force of a hundred and sixty men, was selected to command the expedition; and it was destined against Old Chillicothe—the den where the red northern savages had so long concentrated their expeditions against the settlements south of the Ohio.
The force marched in the month of July, 1779, and reached its destination undiscovered by the Indians. A contest commenced with the Indians at early dawn, which lasted until ten in the morning. But, although Colonel Bowman's force sustained itself with great gallantry, the numbers and concealment of the enemy precluded the chance of a victory. He retreated, with an inconsiderable loss, a distance of thirty miles. The Indians, collecting all their forces, pursued and overtook him. Another engagement of two hours ensued, more to the disadvantage of the Kentuckians than the former. Colonel Harrod proposed to mount a number of horse, and make a charge upon the Indians, who continued the fight with great fury. This apparently desperate measure was followed by the happiest results. The Indian front was broken, and their force thrown into irreparable confusion. Colonel Bowman, having sustained a loss of nine killed and one wounded, afterwards continued an unmolested retreat.
In June of the next year, 1780, six hundred Indians and Canadians, commanded by Colonel Bird, a British officer, attacked Riddle's and Martin's stations, at the forks of the Licking, with six pieces of cannon. They conducted this expedition with so much secrecy, that the first intimation of it which the unsuspecting inhabitants had, was being fired upon. Unprepared to resist so formidable a force, provided moreover with cannon, against which their palisade walls would not stand, they were obliged to surrender at discretion. The savages immediately prostrated one man and two women with the tomahawk. All the other prisoners, many of whom were sick, were loaded with baggage and forced to accompany their return march to the Indian towns. Whoever, whether male or female, infant or aged, became unable, from sickness or exhaustion, to proceed, was immediately dispatched with the tomahawk.
The inhabitants, exasperated by the recital of cruelties to the children and women, too horrible to be named, put themselves under the standard of the intrepid and successful General Clarke, who commanded a regiment of United States' troops at the falls of Ohio. He was joined by a number of volunteers from the country, and they marched against Pickaway, one of the principal towns of the Shawnese, on the Great Miami. He conducted this expedition with his accustomed good fortune. He burnt their town to ashes. Beside the dead, which, according to their custom, the Indians carried off, seventeen bodies were left behind. The loss of General Clarke was seventeen killed.
We here present brief outlines of some of the other more prominent western pioneers, the kindred spirits, the Boones of Kentucky. High spirited intelligent, intrepid as they were, they can never supplant the reckless hero of Kentucky and Missouri in our thoughts. It is true, these men deserve to have their memories perpetuated in monumental brass, and the more enduring page of history. But there is a sad interest attached to the memory of Daniel Boone, which can never belong, in an equal degree, to theirs. They foresaw what this beautiful country would become in the hands of its new possessors. Extending their thoughts beyond the ken of a hunter's calculations, they anticipated the consequences of buts and bounds, officers of registry and record, and courts of justice. In due time, they secured a fair and adequate reversion in the soil which they had planted and so nobly defended. Hence, their posterity, with the inheritance of their name and renown, enter into the heritage of their possessions, and find an honorable and an abundant residence in the country which their fathers settled. Boone, on the contrary, was too simple-minded, too little given to prospective calculations, and his heart in too much what was passing under his eye, to make this thrifty forecast. In age, in penury, landless, and without a home, he is seen leaving Kentucky, then an opulent and flourishing country, for a new wilderness and new scenes of adventure.
Among the names of the conspicuous backwoodsmen who settled the west, we cannot fail to recognize that of James Harrod. He was from the banks of the Monongahela, and among the earliest immigrants to the "Bloody Ground." He descended the Great Kenhawa, and returned to Pennsylvania in 1774. He made himself conspicuous with a party of his friends at the famous contest with the Indians at the "Point," Next year he returned to Kentucky with a party of immigrants, fixing himself at one of the earliest settlements in the country, which, in honor of him, was called Harrodsburgh.
Nature had moulded him of a form and temperament to look the formidable red man in the face. He was six feet, muscular, broad chested, of a firm and animated countenance, keen and piercing eyes, and sparing of speech. He gained himself an imperishable name in the annals of Kentucky, under the extreme disadvantage of not knowing how to read or write! Obliging and benevolent to his neighbors, he was brave and active in their defence. A successful, because a persevering and intelligent hunter, he was liberal to profuseness in the distribution of the spoils. Vigilant and unerring with his rifle, it was at one time directed against the abundant game for the sake of his friends rather than himself; and at others, against the enemies of his country. Guided by the inexplicable instinct of forest skill, he could conduct the wanderer in the woods from point to point through the wilderness, as the needle guides the mariner upon the ocean. So endowed, others equally illiterate, and less gifted, naturally, and from instinct, arranged themselves under his banner, and fearlessly followed such a leader.
If it was reported, that a family, recently arrived in the country, and not yet acquainted with the backwood's modes of supply, was in want of food, Harrod was seen at the cabin door, offering the body of a deer or buffalo, which he had just killed. The commencing farmer, who had lost his oxen, or plough horse, in the range, and unused to the vocation of hunting them, or fearful of the Indian rifle, felt no hesitancy, from his known character, in applying to Harrod. He would disappear in the woods, and in the exercise of his own wonderful tact, the lost beast was soon seen driving to the door.
But the precincts of a station, or the field of a farm, were too uncongenial a range for such a spirit as his. To breathe the fresh forest air—to range deserts where man was not to be seen—to pursue the wild deer and buffalo—to trap the bear and the wolf, or beside the still pond, or the unexplored stream, to catch otters and beavers—to bring down the wild turkey from the summit of the highest trees; such were the congenial pursuits in which he delighted.
But, in a higher sphere, and in the service of his country, he united the instinctive tact and dexterity of a huntsman with the bravery of a soldier. No labor was too severe for his hardihood; no enterprise too daring and forlorn for his adventure; no course too intricate and complicated for his judgment, so far as native talent could guide it. As a Colonel of the militia, he conducted expeditions against the Indians with uncommon success. After the country had become populous, and he a husband and a father, in the midst of an affectionate family, possessed of every comfort—such was the effect of temperament, operating upon habit, that he became often silent and thoughtful in the midst of the social circle, and was seen in that frame to wander away into remote forests, and to bury himself amidst the unpeopled knobs, where, in a few weeks, he would reacquire his cheerfulness. In one of these excursions he disappeared, and was seen no more, leaving no trace to determine whether he died a natural death, was slain by wild beasts, or the tomahawk of the savage.
Among the names of many of the first settlers of Harrodsburgh, are those that are found most prominent in the early annals of Kentucky. In the first list of these we find the names of McGary, Harland, McBride, and Chaplain. Among the young settlers, none were more conspicuous for active, daring, and meritorious service, than James Ray. Prompt at his post at the first moment of alarm, brave in the field, fearless and persevering in the pursuit of the enemy, scarcely a battle, skirmish, or expedition took place in which he had not a distinguished part. Equally expert as a woodsman, and skilful and successful as a hunter, he was often employed as a spy. It is recorded of him that he left his garrison, when short of provisions, by night marched to a forest at the distance of six miles, killed a buffalo, and, loaded with the choice parts of the flesh, returned to regale the hungry inhabitants in the morning. He achieved this enterprise, too, when it was well known that the vicinity was thronged with Indians, lurking for an opportunity to kill. These are the positions which try the daring and skill, the usefulness and value of men, furnishing a criterion which cannot be counterfeited between reality and resemblance.
We may perhaps in this place most properly introduce another of the famous partisans in savage warfare, Simon Kenton, alias Butler, who, from humble beginnings, made himself conspicuous by distinguished services and achievements in the first settlements of this country, and ought to be recorded as one of the patriarchs of Kentucky. He was born in Virginia, in 1753. He grew to maturity without being able to read or write; but from his early exploits he seems to have been endowed with feelings which the educated and those born in the upper walks of life, appear to suppose a monopoly reserved for themselves. It is recorded of him, that at the age of nineteen, he had a violent contest with another competitor for the favor of the lady of his love. She refused to make an election between them, and the subject of this notice indignantly exiled himself from his native place. After various peregrinations on the long rivers of the west, he fixed himself in Kentucky, and soon became a distinguished partisan against the savages. In 1774, he joined himself to Lord Dunmore, and was appointed one of his spies. He made various excursions, and performed important services in this employ. He finally selected a place for improvement on the site where Washington now is. Returning one day from hunting, he found one of his companions slain by the Indians, and his body thrown into the fire. He left Washington in consequence, and joined himself to Colonel Clarke in his fortunate and gallant expedition against Vincennes and Kaskaskia. He was sent by that commander with despatches for Kentucky. He passed through the streets of Vincennes, then in possession of the British and Indians, without discovery. Arriving at White river, he and his party made a raft on which to cross with their guns and baggage, driving their horses into the river and compelling them to swim it. A party of Indians was concealed on the opposite bank, who took possession of the horses as they mounted the bank from crossing the river. Butler and his party seeing this, continued to float down the river on their raft without coming to land. They concealed themselves in the bushes until night, when they crossed the river, pursued their journey, and delivered their despatches.
After this, Butler made a journey of discovery to the northern regions of the Ohio country, and was made prisoner by the Indians. They painted him black, as is their custom when a victim is destined for their torture, and informed him that he was to be burned at Chillicothe. Meanwhile, for their own amusement, and as a prelude of his torture, they manacled him hand and foot, and placed him on an unbridled and unbroken horse, and turned the animal loose, driving it off at its utmost speed, with shouts, delighted at witnessing its mode of managing with its living burden. The horse unable to shake off this new and strange encumbrance, made for the thickest covert of the woods and brambles, with the speed of the winds. It is easy to conjecture the position and suffering of the victim. The terrified animal exhausted itself in fruitless efforts to shake off its burden, and worn down and subdued, brought Butler back amidst the yells of the exulting savages to the camp.
Arrived within a mile of Chillicothe, they halted, took Butler from his horse and tied him to a stake, where he remained twenty-four hours in one position. He was taken from the stake to "run the gauntlet." The Indian mode of managing this kind of torture was as follows: The inhabitants of the tribe, old and young, were placed in parallel lines, armed with clubs and switches. The victim was to make his way to the council house through these files, every member of which struggled to beat him as he passed as severely as possible. If he reached the council house alive, he was to be spared. In the lines were nearly six hundred Indians, and Butler had to make his way almost a mile in the endurance of this infernal sport. He was started by a blow; but soon broke through the files, and had almost reached the council house, when a stout warrior knocked him down with a club. He was severely beaten in this position, and taken back again into custody.
It seems incredible that they sometimes adopted their prisoners, and treated them with the utmost lenity and even kindness. At other times, ingenuity was exhausted to invent tortures, and every renewed endurance of the victim seemed to stimulate their vengeance to new discoveries of cruelty. Butler was one of these ill-fated subjects. No way satisfied with what they had done, they marched him from village to village to give all a spectacle of his sufferings. He run the gauntlet thirteen times. He made various attempts to escape; and in one instance would have effected it, had he not been arrested by some savages who were accidentally returning to the village from which he was escaping. It was finally determined to burn him at the Lower Sandusky, but an apparent accident changed his destiny.
In passing to the stake, the procession went by the cabin of Girty, of whom we have already spoken. This renegado white man lived among these Indians, and had just returned from an unsuccessful expedition against the whites on the frontiers of Pennsylvania. The wretch burned with disappointment and revenge, and hearing that there was a white man going to the torture, determined to wreak his vengeance on him. He found the unfortunate Butler, threw him to the ground, and began to beat him. Butler, who instantly recognized in Girty the quondam companion and playmate of youth, at once made himself known to him. This sacramental tie of friendship, on recognition, caused the savage heart of Girty to relent. He raised him up, and promised to save him. He procured the assemblage of a council, and persuaded the savages to relinquish Butler to him. He took the unfortunate man home, fed, and clothed him, and Butler began to recruit from his wounds and torture. But the relenting of the savages was only transient and momentary. After five days they repented of their relaxation in his favor, reclaimed him, and marched him to Lower Sandusky to be burned there, according to their original purpose. By a fortunate coincidence, he there met the Indian agent from Detroit, who, from motives of humanity, exerted his influence with the savages for his release, and took him with him to Detroit. Here he was paroled by the Governor. He escaped; and being endowed, like Daniel Boone, to be at home in the woods, by a march of thirty days through the wilderness, he reached Kentucky.
In 1784, Simon Kenton reoccupied the settlement, near Washington, which he had commenced in 1775. Associated with a number of people, he erected a block-house, and made a station here. This became an important point of covering and defence for the interior country. Immigrants felt more confidence in landing at Limestone. To render this confidence more complete, Kenton and his associates built a block-house at Limestone. Two men, of the name of Tanner, had made a small settlement the year preceding at Blue Lick, and were now making salt there. The route from Limestone to Lexington became one of the most general travel for immigrants, and many stations sprang up upon it. Travellers to the country had hitherto been compelled to sleep under the open canopy, exposed to the rains and dews of the night. But cabins were now so common, that they might generally repose under a roof that sheltered them from the weather, and find a bright fire, plenty of wood, and with the rustic fare, a most cheerful and cordial welcome. The people of these new regions were hospitable from native inclination. They were hospitable from circumstances. None but those who dwell in a wilderness, where the savages roam and the wolves howl, can understand all the pleasant associations connected with the sight of a stranger of the same race. The entertainer felt himself stronger from the presence of his guest. His offered food and fare were the spoils of the chase. He heard news from the old settlements and the great World; and he saw in the accession of every stranger a new guaranty of the security, wealth, and improvement of the infant country where he had chosen his resting place.
Among other worthy associates of Boone, we may mention the family of McAffee. Two brothers, James and Robert, emigrated from the county of Botetourt, Virginia, and settled on Salt river, six miles from Harrodsburgh. Having revisited their parent country, on their return they brought with them William and George McAffee. In 1777, the Indians destroyed the whole of their valuable stock of cattle, while they were absent from Kentucky. In 1779 they returned, and settled McAffee's station, which was subsequently compelled to take its full share in the sufferings and dangers of Indian hostilities.
Benjamin Logan immigrated to the country in 1775, as a private citizen. But he was a man of too much character to remain unnoted. As his character developed, he was successively appointed a magistrate, elected a member of the legislature and rose, as a military character, to the rank of general. His parents were natives of Ireland, who emigrated, while young, to Pennsylvania, where they married, and soon afterwards removed to Augusta county, Virginia.
Benjamin, their oldest son, was born there; and at the age of fourteen, lost his father. Charged, at this early age, with the care of a widowed mother, and children still younger than himself, neither the circumstances of his family, of the country, or his peculiar condition, allowed him the chances of education. Almost as unlettered as James Harrod, he was a memorable example of a self-formed man. Great natural acuteness, and strong intellectual powers, were, however, adorned by a disposition of uncommon benevolence. Under the eye of an excellent father, he commenced with the rudiments of common instruction, the soundest lessons of Christian piety and morality, which were continued by the guidance and example of an admirable mother, with whom he resided until he was turned of twenty-one.
His father had deceased intestate, and, in virtue of the laws then in force, the whole extensive inheritance of his father's lands descended to him, to the exclusion of his brothers and sisters. His example ought to be recorded for the benefit of those grasping children in these days, who, dead to all natural affection, and every sentiment but avarice, seize all that the law will grant, whether equity will sanction it or not. Disregarding this claim of primogeniture, he insisted that the whole inheritance should be parceled into equal shares, of which he accepted only his own. But the generous impulses of his noble nature, were not limited to the domestic circle. His heart was warm with the more enlarged sentiments of patriotism. At the age of twenty-one, he accompanied Colonel Beauquette, as a serjeant, in a hostile expedition against the Indians of the north. Having provided for the comfortable settlement of his mother and family on James River, Virginia, he moved to the Holston, where he settled and married.
Having been in the expedition of Lord Dunmore against the Indians, and having thus acquired a taste for forest marches and incident, he determined, in 1775, to try his fortunes in Kentucky, which country had then just become a theme of discussion. He set forth from his mother's family with three slaves, leaving the rest to her. In Powell's valley he met with Boone, Henderson, and other kindred spirits, and pursued his journey towards Kentucky in company with them. He parted from them, before they reached Boonesborough, and selected a spot for himself, afterwards called Logan's fort, or station.
In the winter of 1776, he removed his family from Holston, and in March, arrived with it in Kentucky. It was the same year in which the daughter of Col. Boone, and those of Col. Calloway were made captives. The whole-country being in a state of alarm, he endeavored to assemble some of the settlers that were dispersed in the country called the Crab Orchard, to join him at his cabins, and there form a station of sufficient strength to defend itself against Indian assault. But finding them timid and unresolved, he was himself obliged to desert his incipient settlement, and move for safety to Harrodsburgh. Yet, such was his determination not to abandon his selected spot, that he raised a crop of corn there, defenceless and surrounded on all sides by Indian incursion.
In the winter of 1777, and previous to the attack of Harrodsburgh, he found six families ready to share with him the dangers of the selected spot; and he removed his family with them to his cabins, where the settlement immediately united in the important duty of palisading a station.
Before these arrangements were fully completed as the females of the establishment, on the twentieth of May, were milking their cows, sustained by a guard of their husbands and fathers, the whole party was suddenly assailed by a large body of Indians, concealed in a cane-brake. One man was killed, and two wounded, one mortally, the other severely. The remainder reached the interior of the palisades in safety. The number in all was thirty, half of whom were women and children. A circumstance was now discovered, exceedingly trying to such a benevolent spirit as that of Logan. While the Indians were still firing, and the inmates part exulting in their safety, and the others mourning over their dead and wounded, it was perceived, that one of the wounded, by the name of Harrison, was still alive, and exposed every moment to be scalped by the Indians. All this his wife and family could discern from within. It is not difficult to imagine their agonizing condition, and piercing lamentations for the fate of one so dear to them. Logan discovered, on this occasion, the same keen sensibility to tenderness, and insensibility to danger, that characterized his friend Boone in similar predicaments. He endeavored to rally a few of the small number of the male inmates of the place to join him, and rush out, and assist in attempting to bring the wounded man within the palisades. But so obvious was the danger, so forlorn appeared the enterprise, that no one could be found disposed to volunteer his aid, except a single individual by the name of John Martin. When they had reached the gate, the wounded man raised himself partly erect, and made a movement, as if disposed to try to reach the fort himself. On this, Martin desisted from the enterprise, and left Logan to attempt it alone. He rushed forward to the wounded man. He made some efforts to crawl onwards by the aid of Logan; but weakened by the loss of blood, and the agony of his wounds, he fainted, and Logan taking him up in his arms, bore him towards the fort. A shower of bullets was discharged upon them, many of which struck the palisades close to his head, as he brought the wounded man safe within the gate, and deposited him in the care of his family.
The station, at this juncture, was destitute of both powder and ball; and there was no chance of supply nearer than Holston. All intercourse between station and station was cut off. Without ammunition the station could not be defended against the Indians. The question was, how to obviate this pressing emergency, and obtain a supply? Captain Logan selected two trusty companions, left the fort by night, evaded the besieging Indians, reached the woods, and with his companions made his way in safety to Holston, procured the necessary supply of ammunition, packed it under their care on horseback, giving them directions how to proceed. He then left them, and traversing the forests by a shorter route on foot, he reached the fort in safety, in ten days from his departure. The Indians still kept up the siege with unabated perseverance. The hopes of the diminished garrison had given way to despair. The return of Logan inspired them with renewed confidence.
Uniting the best attributes of a woodsman and a soldier to uncommon local acquaintance with the country, his instinctive sagacity prescribed to him, on this journey, the necessity of deserting the beaten path, where, he was aware, he should be intercepted by the savages. Avoiding, from the same calculation, the passage of the Cumberland Gap, he explored a track in which man, or at least the white man, had never trodden before. We may add, it has never been trodden since. Through cane-brakes and tangled thickets, over cliffs and precipices, and pathless mountains, he made his solitary way. Following his directions implicitly, his companions, who carried the ammunition, also reached the fort, and it was saved.
His rencounters with the Indians, and his hairbreadth escapes make no inconsiderable figure in the subsequent annals of Kentucky. The year after the siege of his fort, on a hunting excursion, he discovered an Indian camp, at Big Flat Spring, two miles from his station. Returning immediately he raised a party, with which he attacked the camp, from which the Indians fled with precipitation, without much loss on their part, and none on his. A short time after he was attacked at the same place, by another party of Indians. His arm was broken by their fire, and he was otherwise slightly wounded in the breast. They even seized the mane of his horse, and he escaped them from their extreme eagerness to take him alive.
No sooner were his wounds healed, than we find him in the fore front of the expedition against the Indians. In 1779, he served as a captain in Bowman's campaign. He signalized his bravery in the unfortunate battle that ensued, and was with difficulty compelled to retire, when retreat became necessary. The next year a party travelling from Harrodsburgh towards Logan's fort, were fired upon by the Indians, and two of them mortally wounded One, however, survived to reach the fort, and give an account of the fate of his wounded companion. Logan immediately raised a small party of young men, and repaired to the aid of the wounded man, who had crawled out of sight of the Indians behind a clump of bushes. He was still alive. Logan took him on his shoulders, occasionally relieved in sustaining the burden by his younger associates, and in this way conveyed him to the fort. On their return from Harrodsburgh, Logan's party were fired upon, and one of the party wounded. The assailants were repelled with loss; and it was Logan's fortune again to be the bearer of the wounded man upon his shoulders for a long distance, exposed, the while, to the fire of the Indians.
His reputation for bravery and hospitality, and the influence of a long train of connections, caused him to be the instrument of bringing out many immigrants to Kentucky. They were of a character to prove an acquisition to the country. Like his friends, Daniel Boone, and James Harrod, his house was open to all the recent immigrants. In the early stages of the settlement of the country, his station, like Boone's and Harrod's, was one of the main pillars of the colony. Feeling the importance of this station, as a point of support to the infant settlements, he took effectual measures to keep up an intercourse with the other stations, particularly those of Boone and Harrod. Dangerous as this intercourse was, Logan generally travelled alone, often by night, and universally with such swiftness of foot, that few could be found able to keep speed with him.
In the year 1780, he received his commission as Colonel, and was soon after a member of the Virginia legislature at Richmond. In the year 1781, the Indians attacked Montgomery's station, consisting of six families, connected by blood with Colonel Logan. The father and brother of Mrs. Logan were killed, and her sister-in-law, with four children, taken prisoners. This disaster occurred about ten miles from Logan's fort. His first object was to rescue the prisoners, and his next to chastise the barbarity of the Indians. He immediately collected a party of his friends, and repaired to the scene of action. He was here joined by the bereaved relatives of Montgomery's family. He commanded a rapid pursuit of the enemy, who were soon overtaken, and briskly attacked. They faced upon their assailants, but were beaten after a severe conflict. William Montgomery killed three Indians, and wounded a fourth. Two women and three children were rescued. The savages murdered the other child to prevent its being re-taken. The other prisoners would have experienced the same fate, had they not fled for their lives into the thickets.
It would be very easy to extend this brief sketch of some of the more conspicuous pioneers of Kentucky. Their heroic and disinterested services, their lavish prodigality of their blood and property, gave them that popularity which is universally felt to be a high and priceless acquisition. Loved, and trusted, and honored as fathers of their country; while they lived, they had the persuasion of such generous minds as theirs, that their names would descend with blessings to their grateful posterity.
Boone's brother killed, and Boone himself narrowly escapes from theIndians—Assault upon Ashton's station—and upon the station nearShelbyville—Attack upon McAffee's station.
We have already spoken of the elder brother of Col. Boone and his second return to the Yadkin. A fondness for the western valleys seems to have been as deeply engraven in his affections, as in the heart of his brother. He subsequently returned once more with his family to Kentucky. In 1780 we find a younger brother of Daniel Boone resident with him. The two brothers set out on the sixth of October of that year, to revisit the blue Licks. It may well strike us as a singular fact, that Colonel Boone should have felt any disposition to revisit a place that was connected with so many former disasters. But, as a place convenient for the manufacture of salt, it was a point of importance to the rapidly growing settlement. They had manufactured as much salt as they could pack, and were returning to Boonesborough, when they were overtaken by a party of Indians. By the first fire Colonel Boone's brother fell dead by his side. Daniel Boone faced the enemy, and aimed at the foremost Indian, who appeared to have been the slayer of his brother. That Indian fell. By this time he discovered a host advancing upon him. Taking the still loaded rifle of his fallen brother, he prostrated another foe, and while flying from his enemy found time to reload his rifle. The bullets of a dozen muskets whistled about his head; but the distance of the foe rendered them harmless. No scalp would have been of so much value to his pursuers as that of the well known Daniel Boone; and they pursued him with the utmost eagerness. His object was so far to outstrip them, as to be able to conceal his trail, and put them to fault in regard to his course. He made for a little hill, behind which was a stream of water. He sprang into the water and waded up its current for some distance, and then emerged and struck off at right angles to his former course. Darting onward at the height of his speed, he hoped that he had distanced them, and thrown them off his trail. To his infinite mortification, he discovered that his foe, either accidentally, or from their natural sagacity, had rendered all his caution fruitless, and were fiercely pursuing him still. His next expedient was that of a swing by the aid of a grape-vine, which had so well served him on a like occasion before. He soon found one convenient for the experiment, and availed himself of it, as before. This hope was also disappointed. His foe still hung with staunch perseverance on his trail. He now perceived by their movements, that they were conducted by a dog, that easily ran in zig-zag directions, when at fault, until it had re-scented his course. The expedient of Boone was the only one that seemed adequate to save him. His gun was reloaded. The dog was in advance of the Indians, still scenting his track. A rifle shot delivered him from his officious pursuer. He soon reached a point convenient for concealing his trail, and while the Indians were hunting for it, gained so much upon them as to be enabled to reach Boonesborough in safety.
At the close of the autumn of 1780, Kentucky, from being one county, was divided into three, named Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln. William Pope, Daniel Boone, and Benjamin Logan, were appointed to the important offices of commanding the militia of their respective counties.
During this year Col. Clarke descended the Ohio, with a part of his Virginia regiment, and after entering the Mississippi, at the first bluff on the eastern bank, he landed and built Fort Jefferson. The occupation of this fort, for the time, added the Chickasaws to the number of hostile Indians that the western people had to encounter. It was soon discovered, that it would be advisable to evacuate it, as a mean of restoring peace. It was on their acknowleged territory. It had been erected without their consent. They boasted it, as a proof of their friendship, that they had never invaded Kentucky; and they indignantly resented this violation of their territory. The evacuation of the fort was the terms of a peace which the Chickasaws faithfully observed.
The winter of 1781, was one of unusual length and distress for the young settlement of Kentucky. Many of the immigrants arrived after the close of the hunting season; and beside, were unskilful in the difficult pursuit of supplying themselves with game. The Indians had destroyed most of the corn of the preceding summer, and the number of persons to be supplied had rapidly increased. These circumstances created a temporary famine, which, added to the severity of the season, inflicted much severe suffering upon the settlement. Boone and Harrod were abroad, breasting the keen forest air, and seeking the retreat of the deer and buffalo, now becoming scarce, as the inhabitants multiplied. These indefatigable and intrepid men supplied the hungry immigrants with the flesh of buffaloes and deers; and the hardy settlers, accustomed to privations, and not to over delicacy in their food, contented themselves to live entirely on meat, until, in the ensuing autumn, they once more derived abundance from the fresh and fertile soil.
In May, 1782, a body of savages assaulted Ashton's station, killed one man, and took another prisoner. Captain Ashton, with twenty-five men, pursued and overtook them. An engagement, which lasted two hours, ensued. But the great superiority of the Indians in number, obliged Captain Ashton to retreat. The loss of this intrepid party was severe. Eight were killed, and four mortally wounded—their brave commander being among the number of the slain. Four children were taken captive from Major Hoy's station, in August following. Unwarned by the fate of Captain Ashton's party. Captain Holden, with the inadequate force of seventeen men, pursued the captors, came up with them, and were defeated with the loss of four men killed, and one wounded.
This was one of the most disastrous periods since the settlement of the country. A number of the more recent and feeble stations, were so annoyed by savage hostility as to be broken up. The horses were carried off, and the cattle killed in every direction. Near Lexington, a man at work in his field, was shot dead by a single Indian, who ran upon his foe to scalp him, and was himself shot dead from the fort, and fell on the body of his foe.
During the severity of winter, the fury of Indian incursion was awhile suspended, and the stern and scarred hunters had a respite of a few weeks about their cabin fires. But in March, the hostilities were renewed, and several marauding parties of Indians entered the country from north of the Ohio. Col. William Lyn, and Captains Tipton and Chapman, were killed by small detachments that waylaid them upon the Beargrass. In pursuit of one of these parties, Captain Aquila White, with seventeen men trailed the Indians to the Falls of the Ohio. Supposing that they had crossed, he embarked his men in canoes to follow them on the other shore. They had just committed themselves to the stream, when they were fired upon from the shore they had left. Nine of the party were killed or wounded. Yet, enfeebled as the remainder were, they relanded, faced the foe, and compelled them to retreat.
In April following, a station settled by Boone's elder brother, near the present site where Shelbyville now stands, became alarmed by the appearance of parties of Indians in its vicinity. The people, in consternation, unadvisedly resolved to remove to Beargrass. The men accordingly set out encumbered with women, children, and baggage. In this defenceless predicament, they were attacked by the Indians near Long Run. They experienced some loss, and a general dispersion from each other in the woods. Colonel Floyd, in great haste, raised twenty-five men, and repaired to the scene of action, intent alike upon administering relief to the sufferers, and chastisement to the enemy. He divided his party, and advanced upon them with caution. But their superior knowledge of the country, enabled the Indians to ambuscade both divisions, and to defeat them with the loss of half his men; a loss poorly compensated by the circumstance, that a still greater number of the savages fell in the engagement. The number of the latter were supposed to be three times that of Colonel Floyd's party. The Colonel narrowly escaped with his life, by the aid of Captain Samuel Wells, who, seeing him on foot, pursued by the enemy, dismounted and gave him his own horse, and as he fled, ran by his side to support him on the saddle, from which he might have fallen through weakness from his wounds.—This act of Captain Wells was the more magnanimous, as Floyd and himself were not friends at the time. Such noble generosity was not thrown away upon Floyd. It produced its natural effect, and these two persons lived and died friends. It is pleasant to record such a mode of quelling animosity.
Early in May, two men, one of whom was Samuel McAffee, left James McAffee's station, to go to a clearing at a short distance. They had advanced about a fourth of a mile, when they were fired upon. The companion of McAffee fell. The latter turned and fled towards the station. He had not gained more than fifteen steps when he met an Indian. Both paused a moment to raise their guns, in order to discharge them. The muzzles almost touched. Both fired at the same moment. The Indian's gun flashed in the pan, and he fell. McAffee continued his retreat; but before he reached the station, its inmates had heard the report of the guns; and James and Robert, brothers of McAffee, had come out to the aid of those attacked. The three brothers met, Robert, notwithstanding the caution he received from his brother, ran along the path to see the dead Indian. The party of Indians to which he had belonged, were upon the watch among the trees, and several of them placed themselves between Robert and the station, to intercept his return. Soon made aware of the danger to which his thoughtlessness had exposed him, he found all his dexterity and knowledge of Indian warfare requisite to ensure his safety. He sprang from behind one tree to another, in the direction of the station, pursued by an Indian until he reached a fence within a hundred yards of it, which he cleared by a leap. The Indian had posted himself behind a tree to take safe aim.—McAffee was now prepared for him. As the Indian put his head out from the cover of his tree, to look for his object, he caught McAffee's ball in his mouth, and fell. McAffee reached the station in safety.
James, though he did not expose himself as his brother had done, was fired upon by five Indians who lay in ambush. He fled to a tree for protection. Immediately after he had gained one, three or four aimed at him from the other side. The balls scattered earth upon him, as they struck around his feet, but he remained unharmed. He had no sooner entered the inclosure of the station in safety, than Indians were seen approaching in all directions. Their accustomed horrid yells preceded a general attack upon the station. Their fire was returned with spirit, the women running balls as fast as they were required. The attack continued two hours, when the Indians withdrew.
The firing had aroused the neighborhood; and soon after the retreat of the Indians, Major McGary appeared with forty men. It was determined to pursue the Indians, as they could not have advanced far. This purpose was immediately carried into execution. The Indians were overtaken and completely routed. The station suffered inconvenience from the loss of their domestic animals, which were all killed by the Indians, previous to their retreat. One white man was killed and another died of his wounds in a few days. This was the last attack upon this station by the Indians, although it remained for some years a frontier post.
We might easily swell these annals to volumes, by entering into details of the attack of Kincheloe's station, and its defence by Colonel Floyd; the exploits of Thomas Randolph; the captivity of Mrs. Bland and Peake; and the long catalogue of recorded narratives of murders, burnings, assaults, heroic defences, escapes, and the various incidents of Indian warfare upon the incipient settlements. While their barbarity and horror chill the blood, they show us what sort of men the first settlers of the country were, and what scenes they had to witness, and what events to meet, before they prepared for us our present peace and abundance. The danger and apprehension of their condition must have been such, that we cannot well imagine how they could proceed to the operations of building and fencing, with sufficient composure and quietness of spirit, to complete the slow and laborious preliminaries of founding such establishments, as they have transmitted to their children. Men they must have been, who could go firmly and cheerfully to the common occupations of agriculture, with their lives in their hands, and under the constant expectation of being greeted from the thickets and cane-brakes with the rifle bullet and the Indian yell. Even the women were heroes, and their are instances in abundance on record, where, in defence of their children and cabins, they conducted with an undaunted energy of attack or defence, which would throw into shade the vaunted bravery in the bulletins of regular battles.
These magnanimous pioneers seem to have had a presentiment that they had a great work to accomplish—laying the foundations of a state in the wilderness—a work from which they were to be deterred, neither by hunger, nor toil, nor danger, nor death. For tenderness and affection, they had hearts of flesh. For the difficulties and dangers of their positions, their bosoms were of iron. THEY FEARED GOD, AND HAD NO OTHER FEAR.
Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks—General Clarke's expedition against the Miami towns—Massacre of McClure's family—The horrors of Indian assaults throughout the settlements—General Harmar's expedition—Defeat of General St. Clair—Gen. Wayne's victory, and a final peace with the Indians.
Here, in the order of the annals of the country, would be the place to present the famous attack of Bryant's station, which we have anticipated by an anachronism, and given already, in order to present the reader with a clear view of astation, and the peculiar mode ofattack and defencein these border wars. The attack upon Bryant's station was made by the largest body of Indians that had been seen in Kentucky, the whole force amounting at least to six hundred men. We have seen that they did not decamp until they had suffered a severe loss of their warriors. They departed with so much precipitation as to have left their tents standing, their fires burning, and their meat roasting. They took the road to the lower Blue Licks.
Colonel Todd, of Lexington, despatched immediate intelligence of this attack to Colonel Trigg, near Harrodsburgh, and Colonel Boone, who had now returned with his family from North Carolina to Boonesborough. These men were prompt in collecting volunteers in their vicinity. Scarcely had the Indians disappeared from Bryant's station, before a hundred and sixty-six men were assembled to march in pursuit of nearly triple their number of Indians. Besides Colonels Trigg, Todd, and Boone, Majors McGary and Harland, from the vicinity of Harrodsburgh, had a part in this command: A council was held, in which, after considering the disparity of numbers, it was still determined to pursue the Indians. Such was their impetuosity, that they could not be persuaded to wait for the arrival of Colonel Logan, who was known to be collecting a strong party to join them.
The march was immediately commenced upon their trail. They had not proceeded far before Colonel Boone, experienced in the habits of Indians and the indications of their purposes, announced that he discovered marks that their foe was making demonstrations of willingness to meet them. He observed that they took no pains to conceal their route, but carefully took measures to mislead their pursuers in regard to their number. Their first purpose was indicated by cutting trees on their path—the most palpable of all directions as to their course. The other was equally concealed by a cautious concentration of their camp, and by the files taking particular care to step in the foot prints of their file leaders, so that twenty warriors might be numbered from the foot-marks only as one.
Still no Indians were actually seen, until the party arrived on the southern bank of the Licking, at the point of the Blue Licks. A body of Indians was here discovered, mounting the summit of an opposite hill, moving leisurely, and apparently without hurry or alarm—retiring slowly from sight, as on a common march.
The party halted. The officers assembled, and a general consultation took place, respecting what was to be done. The alternatives were, whether it was best to cross the Licking at the hazard of an engagement with the Indians; or to wait where they were, reconnoiter the country, act on the defensive, and abide the coming up of Colonel Logan with his force.
Colonels Todd and Trigg, little acquainted with the Indians, were desirous to be guided by the judgment of Colonel Boone. His opinion being called for, he gave it with his usual clearness and circumspection. As regarded the number of the enemy, his judgment was, that it should be counted from three to five hundred. From the careless and leisurely manner of the march of the body, they had seen, he was aware, that the main body was near, and that the show of this small party was probably, with a view to draw on the attack, founded upon an entire ignorance of their numbers. With the localities of the country about the Licks, from his former residence there, he was perfectly acquainted. The river forms, by its curves, an irregular ellipsis, embracing the great ridge and buffalo road leading from the Licks. Its longest line of bisection leads towards Limestone, and is terminated by two ravines heading together in a point, and diverging thence in opposite directions to the river. In his view, it was probable that the Indians had formed an ambuscade behind these ravines, in a position as advantageous for them as it would be dangerous to the party, if they continued their march. He advised that the party should divide; the one half march up the Licking on the opposite side, and crossing at the mouth of a small branch, called Elk creek, fall over upon the eastern curve of the ravine; while the other half should take a position favorable for yielding them prompt co-operation in case of an attack. He demonstrated, that in this way the advantage of position might be taken from the enemy, and turned in their favor. He was decided and pressing, that if it was determined to attack a force superior, before the arrival of Colonel Logan, they ought at least to send out spies and explore the country before they marched the main body over the river.
This wise counsel of Colonel Boone was perfectly accordant with the views of Colonels Todd and Trigg, and of most of the persons consulted on the occasion. But while they were deliberating, Major McGary, patriotic, no doubt, in his intentions, but ardent, rash, hot-headed, and indocile to military rule, guided his horse into the edge of the river, raised the war-whoop in Kentucky style, and exclaimed, in a voice of gay confidence, "All those that are not cowards will follow me; I will show them where the Indians are!" Saying this, he spurred his horse into the water. One and another, under the impulse of such an appeal to their courage, dashed in after him. The council was thus broken up by force. A part caught the rash spirit by sympathy. The rest, who were disposed to listen to better counsels, were borne along, and their suggestions drowned in the general clamor. All counsel and command were at an end. And it is thus that many of the most important events of history have been determined.
The whole party crossed the river, keeping straight forward in the beaten buffalo road. Advanced a little, parties flanked out from the main body, as the irregularity and unevenness of the ground would allow. The whole body moved on in reckless precipitation and disorder, over a surface covered with rocks, laid bare by the trampling of buffaloes, and the washing of the rain of ages. Their course led them in front of the high ridge which extends for some distance to the left of the road. They were decoyed on in the direction of one of the ravines of which we have spoken, by the reappearance of the party of Indians they had first seen.
The termination of this ridge sloped off in a declivity covered with a thick forest of oaks. The ravines were thick set on their banks with small timber, or encumbered with burnt wood, and the whole area before them had been stripped bare of all herbage by the buffaloes that had resorted to the Licks. Clumps of soil here and there on the bare rock supported a few trees, which gave the whole of this spot of evil omen a most singular appearance. The advance of the party was headed by McGary, Harland, and McBride. A party of Indians, as Boone had predicted, that had been ambushed in the woods here met them. A warm and bloody action immediately commenced, and the rifles on either side did fatal execution. It was discovered in a moment that the whole line of the ravine concealed Indians, who, to the number of thrice that of their foes, rushed upon them. Colonels Todd and Trigg, whose position had been on the right, by the movement in crossing, were thrown in the rear. They fell in their places, and the rear was turned. Between twenty and thirty of these brave men had already paid the forfeit of their rashness, when a retreat commenced under the edge of the tomahawk, and the whizzing of Indian bullets. When the party first crossed the river all were mounted. Many had dismounted at the commencement of the action. Others engaged on horseback. On the retreat, some were fortunate enough to recover their horses, and fled on horseback. Others retreated on foot. From the point where the engagement commenced to the Licking river was about a mile's distance. A high and rugged cliff environed either shore of the river, which sloped off to a plain near the Licks. The ford was narrow, and the water above and below it deep. Some were overtaken on the way, and fell under the tomahawk. But the greatest slaughter was at the river. Some were slain in crossing, and some on either shore.
A singular spectacle was here presented in the case of a man by the name of Netherland, who had been derided for his timidity. He was mounted on a fleet and powerful horse, the back of which he had never left for a moment. He was one of the first to recross the Licking. Finding himself safe upon the opposite shore, a sentiment of sympathy came upon him as he looked back and took a survey of the scene of murder going on in the river and on its shore. Many had reached the river in a state of faintness and exhaustion, and the Indians were still cutting them down. Inspired with the feeling of a commander, he cried out in a loud and authoritative voice, "Halt! Fire on the Indians. Protect the men in the river." The call was obeyed. Ten or twelve men instantly turned, fired on the enemy, and checked their pursuit for a moment, thus enabling some of the exhausted and wounded fugitives to evade the tomahawk, already uplifted to destroy them. The brave and benevolent Reynolds, whose reply to Girty has been reported, relinquished his own horse to Colonel Robert Patterson, who was infirm from former wounds, and was retreating on foot. He thus enabled that veteran to escape. While thus signalizing his disinterested intrepidity, he fell himself into the hands of the Indians. The party that took him consisted of three. Two whites passed him on their retreat. Two of the Indians pursued, leaving him under the guard of the third. His captor stooped to tie his moccasin, and he sprang away from him and escaped. It is supposed that one-fourth of the men engaged in this action were commissioned officers. The whole number engaged was one hundred and seventy-six. Of these, sixty were slain, and eight made prisoners. Among the most distinguished names of those who fell, were those of Colonels Todd and Trigg, Majors Harland and Bulger, Captains Gordon and McBride, and a son of Colonel Boone. The loss of the savages has never been ascertained. It could not have equalled that of the assailants, though some supposed it greater. This sanguinary affair took place August 19, 1782.
Colonel Logan, on arriving at Bryant's station, with a force of three hundred men, found the troops had already marched. He made a rapid advance in hopes to join them before they should have met with the Indians. He came up with the survivors, on their retreat from their ill-fated contest, not far from Bryant's station. He determined to pursue his march to the battle ground to bury the dead, if he could not avenge their fall. He was joined by many friends of the killed and missing, from Lexington and Bryant's station. They reached the battle ground on the 25th. It presented a heartrending spectacle. Where so lately had arisen the shouts of the robust and intrepid woodsmen, and the sharp yell of the savages, as they closed in the murderous contest, the silence of the wide forest was now unbroken, except by birds of prey, as they screamed and sailed over the carnage. The heat was so excessive, and the bodies were so changed by it and the hideous gashes and mangling of the Indian tomahawk and knife, that friends could no longer recognize their dearest relatives. They performed the sad rights of sepulture as they might, upon the rocky ground.
The Indian forces that had fought at the Blue Licks, in the exultation of victory and revenge, returned homeward with their scalps. Those from the north—and they constituted the greater numbers—returned quietly. The western bands took their route through Jefferson county, in hopes to add more scalps to the number of their trophies. Colonel Floyd led out a force to protect the country. They marched through the region on Salt river, and saw no traces of Indians. They dispersed on their return. The greater number of them reached their station, and laid down, fatigued and exhausted, without any precaution against a foe. The Indians came upon them in this predicament in the night, and killed several women and children. A few escaped under the cover of the darkness. A woman, taken prisoner that night, escaped from her savage captors by throwing herself into the bushes, while they passed on. She wandered about the woods eighteen days, subsisting only on wild fruits, and was then found and carried to Lynn's station. She survived the extreme state of exhaustion in which she was discovered. Another woman, taken with four children, at the same time, was carried to Detroit.