Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky
being nearly surrounded, fled as best they could in all directions. One
man hotly pursued, rushed along an Indian trail till he reached the Ohio
river. Here he chanced to find a bark canoe. He jumped into it and
pushed out into the rapid stream till beyond the reach of the Indian
arrows. The swift current bore him down the river, by curves and
head-lands, till he was far beyond the encampment.
To return against the strong flood, with the savages watching for him,
seemed perilous, if not impossible. It is said that he floated down the
whole length of the Ohio and of the Mississippi, a distance not less
probably, counting the curvatures of the stream, than two thousand
miles, and finally found his way by sea to Philadelphia, probably in
some vessel which he encountered near the coast. This is certainly one
of the most extraordinary voyages which ever occurred. It was
mid-summer, so that he could not suffer from cold. Grapes often hung in
rich clusters in the forests, which lined the river banks, and various
kinds of nutritious berries were easily gathered to satisfy hunger.
As these men never went into the forest without the rifle and a supply
of ammunition, and as they never lost a bullet by an inaccurate shot, it
is not probable that our adventurer suffered from hunger. But the
incidents of such a voyage must have been so wonderful, that it is
greatly to be regretted that we have no record of them.
The apprehensions of Lord Dunmore, respecting the conspiracy of the
Indians, proved to have been well founded. Though Boone, with his great
sagacity, led his little band by safe paths back to the settlements, a
very fierce warfare immediately blazed forth all along the Virginia
frontier. This conflict with the Indians, very brief and very bloody, is
usually called Lord Dunmore's war. The white men have told the story,
and they admit that the war "arose in consequence of cold-blooded
murders committed upon inoffensive Indians in the region of the upper
Ohio."
One of the provocatives to this war was the assassination by fiendlike
white men of the whole family of the renowned Indian chief, Logan, in
the vicinity of the city of Wheeling. Logan had been the friend of the
white man. But exasperated by these outrages, he seized his tomahawk
breathing only vengeance. General Gibson was sent to one of the
Shawanese towns to confer with Logan and to detach him from the
conspiracy against the whites. It was on this occasion that Logan made
that celebrated speech whose pathetic eloquence will ever move the human
heart:
"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin
hungry, and I gave him not meat; if ever he came cold or naked and I
gave him not clothing. During the course of the last long and bloody
war, Logan remained in his tent, an advocate of peace. Nay, such was my
love for the whites, that those of my own country pointed at me and
said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to live
with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last
spring, in cool blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of
Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of
my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for
revenge. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my
country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet do not harbor the thought
that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on
his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?"
This war, though it lasted but a few months, was very sanguinary. Every
exposed point on the extensive Virginia frontier was assailed. Cabins
were burned, harvests were trampled down, cattle driven off, and men,
women, and children either butchered or carried into captivity more
dreadful than death. The peril was so dreadful that the most
extraordinary efforts on the part of the Virginian Government were
requisite to meet it. An army of three thousand men was raised in the
utmost haste. This force was in two divisions. One of eleven hundred men
rendezvoused in what is now Green Briar county, and marched down the
valley of the Great Kanawha, to its entrance into the Ohio, at a place
now named Point Pleasant.
Lord Dunmore with the remaining nineteen hundred crossed the Cumberland
mountains to Wheeling, and thence descended the Ohio in boats, to form a
junction with the other party at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Thence
united, they were to march across the country about forty miles due
west, to the valley of the Scioto. The banks of this lovely stream were
lined with Indian villages, in a high state of prosperity. Corn-fields
waved luxuriantly around their humble dwellings. They were living at
peace with each other, and relied far more upon the produce of the soil,
than upon the chase, for their support.
It was the plan of Lord Dunmore to sweep this whole region with utter
desolation, and entirely to exterminate the Indians. But the savages did
not await his arrival in their own homes. Many of them had obtained guns
and ammunition from the French in Canada, with whom they seem to have
lived on the most friendly terms.
In a well-ordered army for Indian warfare, whose numbers cannot now with
certainty be known, they crossed the Ohio, below the mouth of the Great
Kanawha, and marching through the forest, in the rear of the hills, fell
by surprise very impetuously upon the rear of the encampment at Point
Pleasant. The Indians seemed to be fully aware that their only safety
was in the energies of desperation. One of the most bloody battles was
then fought, which ever occurred in Indian warfare. Though the
Virginians with far more potent weapons repelled their assailants, they
paid dearly for their victory. Two hundred and fifteen of the Virginians
fell dead or severely wounded beneath the bullets or arrows of their
foes. The loss which the savages incurred could never be ascertained
with accuracy. It was generally believed that several hundred of their
warriors were struck down on that bloody field.
The whites, accustomed to Indian warfare and skilled in the use of the
rifle, scarcely fired a shot which did not reach its mark. In the
cautious warfare between the tribes, fighting with arrows from behind
trees, the loss of fifteen or twenty warriors was deemed a great
calamity. Now, to find hundreds of their braves weltering in blood, was
awful beyond precedent, and gave them new ideas of the prowess of the
white man. In this conflict the Indians manifested a very considerable
degree of military ability. Having constructed a breastwork of logs,
behind which they could retreat in case of a repulse, they formed in a
long line extending across the point from the Kanawha to the Ohio. Then
they advanced in the impetuous attack through the forest, protected by
logs, and stumps, and trees. Had they succeeded in their assault, there
would have been no possible escape for the Virginian troops. They must
have been annihilated.
The Indians had assembled on that field nearly all the warriors of four
powerful tribes; the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo and Wyandotts. After the
repulse, panic-stricken, they fled through the wilderness, unable to
make any other stand against their foes. Lord Dunmore, with his
triumphant army flushed with victory and maddened by its serious loss,
marched rapidly down the left bank of the Ohio, and then crossed into
the valley of the Scioto to sweep it with flame. We have no account of
the details of this cruel expedition, but the following graphic
description of a similar excursion into the land belonging to the
Cherokees, will give one a vivid idea of the nature of these conflicts.
The celebrated Francis Marion, who was an officer in the campaign, and
an eye-witness of the scenes which he describes, gives the following
narrative of the events which ensued:
"Now commenced a scene of devastation scarcely paralleled in the annals
of this continent. For thirty days the army employed themselves in
burning and ravaging the settlements of the broken-spirited Indians. No
less than fourteen of their towns were laid in ashes; their granaries
were yielded to the flames, their corn-fields ravaged, while the
miserable fugitives, flying from the sword, took refuge with their
starving families among the mountains. As the lands were rich and the
season had been favorable, the corn was bending under the double weight
of lusty roasting ears and pods and clustering beans. The furrows seemed
to rejoice under their precious loads. The fields stood thick with
bread. We encamped the first night in the woods near the fields where
the whole army feasted on the young corn, which, with fat venison, made
a most delicious treat. The next morning, by order of Col. Grant, we
proceeded to burn down the Indian cabins.
"Some of our men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing very heartily
at the curling flames as they mounted loud crackling over the tops of
the huts. But to me it appeared a shocking sight. 'Poor creatures!'
thought I, 'we surely need not grudge you such miserable habitations.'
But when we came according to orders to cut down the fields of corn, I
could scarcely refrain from tears; for who could see the stalks that
stood so stately, with broad green leaves and gaily tasseled shocks,
filled with the sweet milky flour, the staff of life,--who, I say, could
see without grief these sacred plants sinking under our swords with all
their precious load, to wither and rot untasted in the fields.
"I saw everywhere around the footsteps of little Indian children, where
they had lately played under shelter of the rustling corn. No doubt they
had often looked up with joy to the swelling shocks, and were gladdened
when they thought of the abundant cakes for the coming winter. 'When we
are gone,' thought I, 'they will return, and peeping through the weeds,
with tearful eyes, will mark the ghastly ruin poured over their homes
and the happy fields where they had so often played.'"
Such was life among the comparatively intelligent tribes in the
beautiful and fertile valley of the Scioto. Such was the scene of
devastation, or of "punishing the Indians," as it was called, upon which
Lord Dunmore's army entered, intending to sweep the valley with fire and
sword from its opening at the Ohio to its head waters leagues away in
the North.
In this campaign the Indians, while with much sagacity they combined
their main force to encounter the army under Lord Dunmore, detached
separate bands of picked warriors to assail the settlements on the
frontier at every exposed point. These bands of painted savages,
emerging from the solitudes of the forests at midnight, would fall with
hideous yells upon the lone cabin of the settler, or upon a little
cluster of log huts, and in a few hours nothing would be left but
smouldering ruins and gory corpses.
To Daniel Boone, who had manifested wonderful skill in baffling all the
stratagems of Indian warfare, was assigned the difficult and infinitely
important task of protecting these frontiers. Three garrisons were
placed under his command, over which he exercised supreme control. He
located them at the most available points; noiselessly passed from one
to the other to see that they were fortified according to the most
approved principles of military engineering then known in the forest.
His scouts were everywhere, to give prompt notice of any approach of
hostile bands. Thus this quiet, silent man, with great efficiency,
fulfilled his mission to universal satisfaction. Without seeking fame,
without thinking even of such a reward for his services, his sagacity
and his virtues were rapidly giving him a very enviable reputation
throughout all those regions.