Junction of the Armies of Dunmore and Lewis. Camp Charlotte. Logan and Cresap. stream into the Indian country, and when Lewis arrived, he was encamped on the left bank of Sippo Creek, about seven miles southwest of the present village of Circleville. Dunmore called his station Camp Charlotte,' and hither the Indians, dispirited by their engagement with Colonel Lewis, and perceiving the destruction of their towns to be inevitable, came to treat for peace. Dunmore had been met by a flag of truce from the Indians, borne by a white man named Elliot,' and his readiness to treat with the enemy, instead of striking a blow of annihilation, is adduced as evidence of his ulterior designs for making these warriors subservient to his use in enslaving Virginia. Colonel Lewis was greatly irritated because Dunmore would not allow him to crush the enemy within his grasp, and the Virginians, eager for revenge, almost mutinied.' The treaty was held in the presence of all the troops, amounting to twenty-five hundred in number. The Shawnee chiefs were quite numerous. Cornstalk was the principal speaker, and, in the course of his remarks, he adroitly charged upon the white people the causes of the war, in consequence, principally, of the murder of the family of Logan, a Mingo chief, a few months previously. Logan, 1 Camp Charlotte, according to Charles Whittlesy, Esq. (from whose discourse before the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, at Cincinnati, in 1840, the principal facts of this narrative have been gleaned), was upon the farm then (1840) owned by Thomas J. Winship, Esq. Camp Lewis was situated about four and a half miles southwest of Camp Charlotte. The Tory companion of Girty and M‘Kee. 3 From concurrent testimony, it appears that suspicions of Dunmore's treachery was rife in the camp, and for that reason Lewis was more disposed to disobey his orders. It is said that Dunmore, in the violence of his anger, because his subaltern insisted upon fighting, drew his sword upon Lewis, and threatened him with instant death if he persisted in his disobedience. This circumstance is alluded to on page 107, where a copy of Logan's speech to Dunmore, as preserved by Jefferson, is given. Mr. Brantz Mayer, in an able discourse delivered before the Maryland Historical Society in May, 1851, has adduced sufficient evidence to fully acquit Colonel Cresap of the charge. made in the reported speech of Logan, and removed the foul stain of cold-blooded murder which has so long rested upon the fair fame of a brave and honorable man. It appears that, in the spring of 1774, Michael Cresap was upon the Ohio, below Wheeling, engaged in planting a settlement. Some pioneers on their way to make a settlement in Kentucky, under the auspices of Colonel George Rogers Clarke, resolved to. attack an Indian town near the mouth of the Sciota, and solicited Cresap to command the expedition. He advised them to forbear, and, with him, they all repaired to Wheeling. Dr. Connelly, whom Lord Dunmore had appointed magistrate of West Augusta, sent Cresap word, on the 21st of April, that an Indian war was inevitable. Cresap, always vigilant, called a council of the pioneers, and on the 26th made solemn declaration of war against the Indians. They established a new post of defense, and the very next day two canoes, filled with painted savages, appeared. They were chased fifteen miles down the river, when a skirmish ensued. One man was killed, and several Indians were made prisoners. On the return of the pursuing party, an expedition against the settlement of Logan,* near the mouth of the Yellow Creek, thirty miles above Wheeling, was proposed. Cresap raised his voice against the proposed expedition, for the people of Logan's settlement seemed rather friendly than otherwise. His council prevailed, and the pioneers proceeded that evening to Red Stone Old Fort, at the mouth of Dunlap's Creek, on the Monongahela, now the site of Brownsville. Other white people upon the Ohio were less cautious and humane. On the bank of the Ohio, nearly opposite Logan's settlement, was the cabin of a man named Baker, where rum was sold to the Indians, which consequently augmented the savageism of their nature. On account of the shooting of two Indians near Yellow Creek, by a settler named Myers, the savages resolved to cross over and murder Baker's family. A squaw revealed the plot to Baker's wife, and twenty white men, armed, were concealed in and around his cabin. The next morning early, three squaws, with an infant and four Indian men, unarmed, came to Baker's. The whole party of red people became intoxicated, an affray occurred, and the whole of the Indians were massacred, except the infant. Logan's mother, brother, and sister, † were among the slain. The vengeance of the chief was aroused, and during nearly all of that summer Logan was out upon the war-path. Michael Cresap was known to be a leader among the pioneers upon the Ohio, and Logan supposed he was concerned in the affair. The researches of Mr. Mayer show that, at the time of the massacre, Cresap was * The Indian name of Logan, according to competent authority quoted by Mr. Mayer, was Ta-ga-jute, which means "short dress." This squaw was the wife for the time of John Gibson, the Indian trader, to whom the reputed speech of Logan was communicated. Her infant, who was saved, was cared for by Gibson. Logan evidently held Cresap responsible, as appears by the following note, quoted by Mr. Mayer, page 56. It was written with ink made of gunpowder and water, at the command of Logan, by William Robinson, who had been made a prisoner by that chief nine days before: "CAPTAIN CRESAP,-What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga, a John Gibson. Logan's Speech. His Death. Sketch of Colonel Cresap. who was then at Old Chillicothe, disdained to meet the white men in council, and sat sullenly in his cabin while the treaty was in progress, Dunmore sent a messenger (John Gibson') to Logan, to invite him to attend the council. The chief took Gibson into the woods, and sitting down upon a mossy root, he told him the story of his wrongs, and, as that officer related, shedding many bitter tears. He refused to go to the council, but, unwilling to disturb the deliberations by seeming opposition, he sent a speech, in the mouth of Gibson, to Governor DunThat speech, as preserved in print,' has been greatly admired for its pathetic eloquence.' more. with his young family in Maryland, and had nothing to do with the matter.* It is also demonstrated that at about the hour when the massacre took place, two canoes, with Indians painted and prepared for war, approached. The appearance fully corroborated the disclosures of the squaw, and justified the vigilance (but not the murder of women and unarmed men) by the neighbors of Baker. 1 John Gibson, who afterward became a major general, was an Indian trader, and an active man among the settlers on the Ohio. Washington esteemed him as a brave and honest man, and in 1781 intrusted him with the command of the western military department. He was succeeded by General Irvine in 1782. He was a member of the Pennsylvania convention in 1788; was major general of militia, and was secretary of Indian territory during the administrations of Jefferson and Madison. He was at one time associate judge of the Common Pleas of Alleghany county, in Pennsylvania. Colonel George Gibson, who was mortally wounded at St. Clair's defeat in Ohio, was his brother. * Gibson repeated the substance to Dunmore and other officers. They wrote it down, and, on returning to Williamsburg, caused it to be published in the Virginia Gazette, February 4, 1775. This was the name of the first newspaper published in Virginia. It was first issued at Williamsburg in 1736, a sheet about twelve inches by six in size. It was printed weekly by William Parks, at fifteen shillings per annum. No other paper was published in Virginia until the Stamp Act excitement in 1765-6. The Gazette was so much under government control, that Jefferson and others got Mr. Rind to come from Maryland and publish a paper, which was also called "The Virginia Gazette." It was professedly open to all parties, but influenced by none. This was the paper in which Logan's speech was published. Another "Virginia Gazette" was printed at Williamsburg in 1775, and published weekly for several years.-See Thomas's History of Printing. 3 Logan, whose majestic person and mental accomplishments were the theme of favorable remark, became a victim to the vice of intemperance. Earlier than the time when Dunmore called him to council, he was addicted to the habit. The last years of his life were very melancholy. Notwithstanding the miseries he had suffered at the hands of the white man, his benevolence made him the prisoner's friend, until intemperance blunted his sensibilities, and in 1780 we find him among the marauders at Ruddell's Station (see page 294). The manner of his death is differently related. The patient researches of Mr. Mayer lead me to adopt his as the correct one, as it was from the lips of an aged man who knew Logan well, and corresponds in all essential particulars with an account I received from an aged Mohawk whom I saw at Caghnawaga, twelve miles from Montreal, in the summer of 1848. His mother was a Shawnee woman and when he was a boy, he often saw Logan. In a drunken phrensy near Detroit, in 1780, Logan struck his wife to the ground. Believing her dead, he filed to the wilderness. Between Detroit and Sandusky, he was overtaken by a troop of Indian men, women, and children. Not yet sober, he imagined that the penalty of his crime was about to be inflicted by a relative. Being well armed, he declared that the whole party should be destroyed. In defense, his nephew, Tod-kah-dohs, killed him on the spot, by a shot from his gun. His wife recovered from his blow. great while ago, and I thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to war since. But the Indians are not angry-only myself. "July 21st, 1774. CAPTAIN JOHN LOGAN." This note was attached to a war-club, and left in the house of a man whose whole family had been murdered by the savages. * Michael Cresap was the son of a hardy pioneer, who was one of the Ohio Company in 1752. He was born in Maryland (Alleghany county), on the 29th of June, 1742. While yet a minor, he married a Miss Whitehead, of Philadelphia. He became a merchant and trader, and at length a bold pioneer upon the Ohio. He raised a company of volunteers in the summer of 1774, and proceeded to aid his countrymen on the Ohio, when he was stopped by Connolly. Dunmore, however, valuing his services, sent him a commission of captain in the militia of Hampshire county, in Virginia. He then proceeded to the Ohio, and was engaged in Dunmore's expedition of that year. When Gibson reported Logan's speech, the charge against Cresap was laughed at as ridiculous; and George Rogers Clarke, who was standing by, said, "He must be a very great man, as the Indians palmed every thing that happened upon his shoulders." Cresap returned to Maryland after the conclusion of Dunmore's expedition, and early in the spring he again went to the Ohio, and almost to the wilderness of Kentucky. On his return, he was informed that he had been appointed to the command of a company of Maryland riflemen, raised by a resolution of Congress. Although suffering from ill health, he immediately went to Boston with his company, and joined the continental army under Washington. His sickness continuing, he left the army for his home among the mountains. At New York he sunk, exhausted, where he died on the 18th of October, 1775, at the age of thirty-three years. His remains were buried in Trinity church-yard with military honors, in the presence of a vast concourse of people, where they yet rest. See Mayer's Discourse; also Jacob's Life of Cresap. In the appendix to his Discourse, Mr. Mayer presents the results of patient investigation, concerning the authenticity of Logan's speech. It appears probable that the sentiment was Logan's, delivered, not as a speech or message, but as the natural expressions of the feelings of a man who felt that he had been greatly injured, the composition was evidently the work of some hand in Dunmore's camp. Treaty with the Indians. Sentiments of Dunmore's Officers. Indian Wars in the West. Daniel Boone. a 1774. At the conclusion of the treaty, Dunmore and his troops returned to Virginia, by the way of Fort Gower. At that place, the officers held a meeting on the fifth of Novembera for the purpose of considering the "grievances of British America." The proceedings were not at all palatable to Lord Dunmore, notwithstanding one of the resolutions highly complimented him personally. The speech of one of the officers, and the resolution which followed, notwithstanding the attestations of loyalty freely expressed, evidently implied a determination no longer to submit to royal rule. Dunmore was offended, and both parties returned home dissatisfied. Before resuming our record of events in the progress of the Virginia colony toward independence, let us take a brief survey of succeeding Indian hostilities on the Virginia frontier, until the close of the war. It is a wide and romantic field, but we must not be tempted into minute details. We will note the most prominent features of those events, and refer the reader to fuller details drawn by other pens. I briefly referred to the Indian war in this region on page 264, volume i., and promised a more extended notice. fulfill that promise. Here I will For a while after the treaty on the Sciota, the western Indians made no concerted attacks upon the white settlements on the frontiers; but small parties continually harassed those civil heroes who went over the Alleghany ranges and explored the broad forests which stretched between the Cherokees, Creeks, and Catawbas of the south, and the Shawnees, Delawares, and Wyandots, of the north, now the state of Kentucky. The first of these Daniel Bome bold pioneers was Daniel Boone,' a hero in the a 1 Daniel Boone was born about the year 1734. His parents, who came from Bradninch, in England, went from Pennsylvania to the banks of the Yadkin River, in North Carolina, and his childhood was spent in the forest. In 1769, he was induced to accompany John Finley in the wilds west of the mountains, within the limits of the present state of Kentucky. From that period his own history is identified with that of the state. During his first visit there, he was captured by the Indians, but escaped within a week or ten days afterward. He started with his family for Kentucky in 1773, but, meeting Indians, they fell back and settled on the Clinch River. In 1774 he accompanied a party of surveyors to the Falls of the Ohio, and was active in expeditions against the Indians during that year. He removed to the locality of the present Boonsborough, and built a fort there in 1775. In the course of three or four years, many other settlers came to his vicinity. While at the Blue Lick, on the Licking River, making salt for his garrison, in February, 1778, he and his companions were captured by a party of Indians, and taken to Chillicothe. The Indians became much attached to him. A family adopted him as a son, according to the Indian custom, and an offer of $500 for his ransom, made by Governor Hamilton of Canada, was refused. Seven months after his capture, he learned that five hundred warriors were preparing to march against Boons Boone's Family on the Kain-tuck-ee. Boone's Fort assailed by Indians. Capture of Boone's Daughter and Companions and daughters, the first white women who ever stood upon the banks of the Kain-tuck-ee. were with him and engaged his solicitude. Kenton, Henderson, Logan, the M'Afees, Hardin, Harrod, Hart, Ray, the Irvines, Bryants, Rogers, and others, soon followed; and in the course of seven or eight years the "western precinct of Fincastle county," as Kentucky was called, contained scores of adventurers planting small settlements along the water-courses. A record of the adventures of the settlers with the Indians would fill volumes. I have space to notice only a few of the prominent events of that period which have a direct relation with the history of our war for Independence.' In the spring of 1775, Daniel Boone erected a fort on the western bank of the Kentucky River, the site of the present village of Boonsborough. It was the first fortification built in that region; and the British, who had forts north of the Ohio, at once excited the jealous fears of the Indians respecting it. In December of that year, a a party of Indians assailed it, but a Dec. 24, were repulsed; the little garrison lost but one man. On the fourteenth of July following, one of Boone's daughters, and two other girls who were amusing themselves near the fort, were caught and carried away by the Indians, but were speedily rescued." BOONE'S FORT.2 1775. In 1774, Harrodsburg, in Mercer county, Kentucky, was founded, and several log-cabins were borough. He effected his escape on the 16th of July, and arrived home on the 20th, having traveled one hundred and sixty miles, and eaten only one meal, during four days. He arrived in time to assist in preparing the fort for the expected attack mentioned in the text. Boone's wife, with his children, in the mean while, had returned to the house of her father, on the Yadkin, where Boone visited them in 1779. He remained there until the next year, when he returned to Kentucky. He subsequently accompanied George Rogers Clarke in his expeditions against the Indians on the Ohio, and was an active partisan until the close of the war. From that time, until 1798, he resided alternately in Kentucky and Virginia. In consequence of a defect in his title to lands in Kentucky, he was dispossessed of what was an ample estate, and made poor. The region he had explored, and helped to defend, now contained a population of half a million. Indignant because of being dispossessed, he shouldered his rifle, left Kentucky forever, and, with some followers, plunged into the interminable forests of Missouri, west of the Mississippi. "Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer, Who passes for in life and death most lucky, Was happiest among mortals any where; BYRON'S DON JUAN, VIII., Ixi. At They settled upon the Little Osage in 1799, and the following year explored the head waters of the Arkansas. At the age of eighty years, accompanied by only two men (one white and the other black), he made a hunting excursion to the great Osage, where they trapped many beavers and other game. about that time (1812), Boone addressed a memorial to the Legislature of Kentucky, setting forth that he owned not an acre of ground on the face of the earth, and, at the age of fourscore, had nowhere to lay his bones. He asked for a confirmation of his title to lands in Louisiana, given him by the Spanish government in 1794, before that territory was ceded to the United States. The Legislature instructed their de!egates in Congress to solicit a confirmation of this grant, and two thousand acres were secured to him. He died on the twenty-sixth of September, 1820, at the age of almost ninety years. On that occasion, the Legislature of Missouri, then in session, agreed to wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days, as a token of respect. The grave of Boone is by the side of that of his wife, in the Cemetery at Frankfort, Kentucky, but no stone identifies it to the eye of a stranger. 1 The reader, desirous of possessing minute information respecting this exciting portion of our early his tory, will be amply rewarded by a perusal of " Kentucky, its History, Antiquities, and Biography," an ex cellent work of nearly six hundred large octavo pages, with forty engravings, by Lewis Collins of Mays ville, Kentucky. This sketch is from a drawing by Colonel Henderson, and published in Collin's Historical Collections of Kentucky, page 417. It was composed of a number of log-houses disposed in the form of an oblong square. Those at each corner, intended particularly for block-houses, were larger and stronger than the others. length of the fort was about two hundred and fifty feet, and the width about one hundred and fifty feet. Betsey and Frances Calloway, the youngest about thirteen years of age, were the companions of Mi The Construction of other Forts. Indian Assaults. Expedition against the Kentucky Settlements. George Rogers Clarke. built. Early in 1776, Colonel Benjamin Logan, and a small party of settlers, encamped about a mile west of the present town of Stanford, in Lincoln county, and erected a log fortification, which they called Logan's Fort. These two settlements and Boone's Fort were simultaneously attacked by a large party of Indians on the fifteenth of April, 1777. assailants, having neither artillery nor scaling-ladders, made but little impression upon Boonsborough. A few men of the garrison were killed, and a quantity of corn and cattle belonging to the settlers was destroyed. Many of the assailants were killed. On the fourth of July following, about two hundred warriors attacked Boonsborough with great vigor. The assailants were repulsed with the loss of seven of their number, while the garrison had but one man killed, and two wounded. The siege lasted two days and nights. On the ninth of September, 1778, a third attack was made upon Boonsborough. The Indians, five hundred in number, were led by Captain Duquesne, and other skillful Canadian officers. When the enemy appeared in front of the fort, the British flag was displayed, and a formal demand for the surrender of the fortress was made. Boone requested an allowance of two days for consideration. It was granted, and in the mean while the garrison, consisting of only fifty men, prepared for a vigorous defense. Boone assembled the defenders, and set before them the actual state of things. To surrender might insure them their lives, but they would lose all their property; to resist and be overcome, would result in the death of every man, woman, and child. Every one res olutely determined to defend the fort to the last, and this decision Boone communicated to Captain Duquesne. The Canadian was chagrined, and sought to obtain by stratagem what he feared he might not accomplish by force.' The siege was commenced, and lasted nine days, when the assailants, having lost many of their number, and. unable to make any impression on the fort, retreated suddenly and in great confusion. This was the last time that Boonsborough was assailed, for the garrisons of other forts between it and the Ohio were rapidly augmenting in numbers and strength, and made it dangerous for the cnemy to penetrate far into Kentucky. With the single exception of Dunmore's expedition in 1774, hostilities west of the Alleghanies were nothing but a series of border conflicts, each little party acting upon its own responsibility, until 1778, when Major George Rogers Clarke led a regular expedition against the frontier posts of the enemy in the wilderness Clarke first went toward Kentucky in 1772, when he paddled down the Ohio with the Reverend David Jones, Boone on that occasion. Their screams alarmed the people in the fort. It was just at sunset when the Indians carried off their victims. Boone and soven others started in pursuit. On the 11th, they came up with the savages, forty-five miles distant from Boonsborough, furiously attacked them, and rescued the girls, who had received no farther injury than that produced by the effect of excessive fright. 1 Duquesne, professing great humanity, proposed to Boone to send out nine of the principal men of his garrison to treat for an accommodation, the entire safety of the people within the fort being the basis. Unsuspicious of treachery, Boone and eight others went out to the camp of the enemy. While engaged in council, at a concerted signal, two strong warriors for each man attempted to sieze and carry off the delegation. The whole nine succeeded in releasing themselves, and escaping to the fort amid a shower of bullets from the enemy. Only one man was wounded. The siege immediately commenced. 2 George Rogers Clarke was born in Albermarle county, Virginia, on the nineteenth of November. 1752. |