Effect of a Log Field-piece.

Arrival of Succor.

Abandonment of the Siege.

Escape of M'Culloch

The assailants renewed the attack at half past two o'clock. Again they took possession of the cabins near the fort, and were thus covered from the fire of the Republicans. They also attempted to force the gate of the fort, but were obliged to abandon it after six of their number were shot down. Still they eagerly sought to secure their prey within. Approaching darkness did not end the conflict. The Indians converted a hollow maple log into a field piece, and after dark conveyed it within sixty yards of the fort. It was bound with chains, filled to the muzzle with stones, pieces of iron, and other missiles, and discharged against the gates of the fort. The log burst into a thousand fragments, and its projectiles were scattered in all directions. Several Indians were killed, but not a picket of the fort was injured. This failure of their artillery discouraged the assailants, and the conflict ceased for the night. At four o'clock in the morning, a Colonel Swearingen and four- a Sept. 28, teen men arrived, and fought their way into the fort without losing a man; and at daybreak Major M Culloch arrived with forty mounted men. His followers entered the fort in safety, but he, being separated from his companions, was obliged to flee to the open country. He narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the Indians, who thirsted for his blood, for he was their most skillful enemy. They hated him intensely, and yearned to subject him to their keenest tortures.'

2

1777.

Girty and his fellow-savages abandoned all hope of capturing the fort, after this augmentation of the garrison, and, setting fire to the houses and fences outside of the palisades, and killing about three hundred head of cattle belonging to the settlers, they raised the siege and departed for the wilderness. Not a man of the garrison was lost during the siege; twentythree of the forty-two in the fort were slain at the first attack, before the siege commenced. The loss of the enemy was between sixty and one hundred.' The defense of Fort Henry was one of the most remarkable for courage, on record, and deserves far more prominence in the catalogue of battles for independence than has generally been awarded to it by historians.

Early in 1778, Congress sent three commissioners to Pittsburgh to make observations, and determine the importance of Detroit as a place of rendezvous for the hostile tribes. They reported the activity of the commander, and his influence among the Indians, and represented the necessity of sending an expedition against that post immediately. Congress resolved to do so, but the financial embarrassments of the government, then fearfully increasing, rendered an expedition so expensive quite incompatible. The design was reluctantly abandoned, and in lieu thereof, General Lachlin M'Intosh, then commanding the western department, was ordered to march from Fort Pitt (his head-quarters), with a sufficient force, against the principal Indian towns in the Ohio country, and so to chastise them

brought two of the savages down almost insensible. These she dispatched with the ax. The only remaining savage now tried to force his way in through the door. Across his cheek Mrs. Merrill drew the keen blade of the ax. With a horrid yell, he fled to the woods, and, arriving at Chillicothe, gave a terrible account of the strength and fury of the "long knife squaw." I might fill pages with similar recitals. For such records, see M'Clung's Sketches of Western Adventure.-Hildreth's Early Settlers of Ohio.

The Indians might have killed Major M'Culloch, but they determined to take him alive and torture him. His horse was fleet, but the savages managed to hem him in on three sides, while on the fourth was an almost perpendicular precipice of one hundred and fifty feet descent, with Wheeling Creek at its base. He had the single alternative, surrender to the Indians, or leap the precipice. His horse was a powerful animal. Gathering his reins tightly in his right hand, and grasping his rifle in his left, M'Culloch spurred his charger to the brow of the declivity and made the momentous leap. They reached the foot of the bluff in safety, and the noble animal dashed through the creek, and bore his rider far away from his pursuers. Simon Girty was the offspring of crime. His father, a native of Ireland, and settler in Pennsylvania, was a sot; his mother was a bawd. They had four sons; Simon was the second. With two brothers, he was captured by the Indians after Braddock's defeat. His brother James was adopted by the Delawares, and became the fiercest savage of the tribe. Simon was adopted by the Senecas, became a great hunter, and exercised his innate wickedness to its fullest extent. For twenty years the name of Simon Girty was a terror to the women and children of the Ohio country. He possessed the redeeming quality of honesty in all his transactions. It was his earnest wish that he might die in battle. That wish was not gratified, for he died a natural death about the year 1815.

'American Pioneer.

* See Journals of Congress, iv., 245 and 305.

Fort McIntosh.

Expedition against Sandusky Towns.

Successful Expedition from Detroit against Kentucky Forts.

as to insure their future quiet. As soon as spring opened, M'Intosh descended the Ohio River about thirty miles, and erected a fort at Beavertown, at the mouth of Beaver Creek, to intercept the war parties on their marches toward the settlements, and to make effective demonstrations against the savages when opportunities should occur.' After considerable delay, he marched toward the Sandusky towns, on Sandusky Bay, with one thousand men. The season was so far advanced when they reached the Tuscarawas, that General McIntosh thought it imprudent to advance farther. He built a fort about half a mile below the present village of Bolivia, and named it Fort Laurens, in honor of the then president of Congress. a Leaving a garrison of one hundred and fifty men under the command of Colonel John Gibson (the embassador to poor Logan), he returned to Fort Pitt barren of the honors of an Indian fight.

a 1778.

On the first of June, 1780, an expedition was sent out from Detroit, composed of six hundred Canadians and Indians under Colonel Byrd. They took with them six pieces of artillery; their destination was some of the stations upon the Licking River, in Kentucky. Colonel Byrd went up the Licking as far as the forks, where he landed his artillery, and erected some huts upon the site of Falmouth. Gathering strength on his way, he marched from the forks, with nearly one thousand men and his artillery, for Ruddell's Station, on the south fork of the Licking, three miles below the junction of Hinkston and Stoner's branches of that stream. The Kentucky stockades, all wanting cannons, were quite powerless before the artillery of Colonel Byrd, and Captain Ruddell at once surrendered, after being assured that the people within should not be made the prisoners of the Indians. When the gates were opened, however, Byrd could not restrain his savage allies. They rushed in, and seizing men, women, and children promiscuously, claimed them as their own, and thus families were separated during a long captivity. All the property was destroyed or carried away, and the place was made a desolation. Elated with their success, the Indians proposed an attack upon Martin's, Bryant's, and Lexington Stations, all lying between the Licking and Kentucky Rivers. Colonel Byrd endeavored to dissuade them, for his humanity was shocked by the scenes at Ruddell's. The chiefs finally consented to allow all future prisoners to be under the control of their commander. The army then proceeded to Martin's Station, captured it without opposition, and, bearing away all the property found there, took up its line of march toward the fork of the Licking, leaving Bryant's and Lexington unmolested, except by marauding parties of Indians, who drove away many horses from each place. The whole expedition returned to Detroit by the way of the Great Miami, on the banks of which, at the point where they commenced their land journey toward Detroit, they concealed their artillery.

b 1780.

This incursion from Detroit aroused all the energies of Colonel Clarke. He visited Richmond in December,b and urged the Provincial Assembly to furnish him with means to chastise the enemy for his insolence. While there, Arnold invaded the state by Fort M'Intosh (as the redoubt was called) was erected under the general superintendence of the Chevalier De Cambray, a French engineer, who commanded the artillery in the western department. It was built of strong stockades furnished with bastions, and mounted six six-pounders, Cambray's chief officer was Captain William Sommerville, conductor of the artillery, who, from letters from De Cambray to him (copies of which are before me), appears to have been an officer of much merit. He was in the continental service four years and a half (more than two of which as conductor of artillery, with the rank of captain), when he resigned, and, at the close of the war, settled in the Valley of Virginia, in Berkeley county, where he died about 1825. The services of many of the subordinate officers of merit connected with the artillery department of the Continental army have failed to receive the attention of the historian. How many patriots of that struggle lie in forgotten graves!

The following extract from a letter of instruction, sent by Colonel De Cambray to Captain Sommerville, and dated "Fort Pitt, 6th January, 1779," is a fair specimen of that officer's diction in English: "For the supplies necessary to your department, you are to apply to the quarter-master (Colonel Archibald Steele), and, in case of refusal, to form your complaint against them. You must insist repeatedly for your store-house to be put in order, to secure the military stores, who, if continue to be neg. lected, in three months more ought to be unfit for service. If you insist, you shall not be accountable of it, but the commanding officer. If I did omit something, I leave to your discretion to supply it. I recommend to you once more the greatest care, and to be very scrupulous on the orders of issuing, for to avoid, if possible, the bad effects of the wasting genius who reign all over this department."

Colonel Clarke in Virginia.

Made a Brigadier.

Battle at the Blue Licks.

The Indians subdued

a 1781

way of the James River, and Clarke took a temporary command under Baron Steuben. He afterward succeeded in raising a considerable force for an expedition against Detroit, and the corps destined for the service was ordered to rendezvous at the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville), on the fifteenth of March.a Clarke was promoted to the rank of a brigadier, and joined his troops at the appointed time. Unexpected difficulties arose. Cornwallis was menacing all Virginia with desolation; the financial resources of Congress were at their lowest point, and operations on the western frontier were confined to defensive acts. Like a lion chained, Clarke beheld the British and their forest allies lording it over the chosen country of the pioneers, who were without strength sufficient to drive them away, or hardly able to beat them back when they came as assailants. Finally, the disastrous battle at the Blue Licks, which spread a pall of gloom over Kentucky, aroused his desponding spirit, and he raised a war-cry which awoke responsive echoes every where in that deep forest land. That battle was fought in August,b and in September, General Clarke, at the head of more than one thousand mounted riflemen, assembled at the mouth of the Licking (opposite the present city of Cincinnati), crossed the Ohio, and pressed forward to the Indian towns on the Sciota. He was accompanied by Simon Kenton as pilot, and who had command of a company on that occasion. The natives fled before the invaders and escaped; but five of their villages, and numerous corn-fields and orchards, were laid waste. The Kentuckians returned to the mouth of the Licking on the fourth of November." This expedition had a salutary effect; it awed the savages, and no formidable Indian war party ever afterward invaded Kentucky. For more than ten years subsequently, the Indians on our northwestern frontier were troublesome, and it was not until Wayne and a powerful force desolated their country, and wrung from them a general treaty of peace,d that they ceased their depredations.

b Aug. 19, 1782.

c 1794. d 1795.

Let us return from the "dark and bloody ground" west of the Alleghanics, and view the progress of events at Williamsburg and vicinity.

The battle at the Blue Licks, in Nicholas county, Kentucky, occurred on the nineteenth of August, 1782. For some time a strong body of Indians, partially under the control of Simon Girty, had committed depredations in the neighborhood, and it was finally resolved to pursue and chastise them. Daniel Boone with a party from Boonsborough, Trigg from Harrodsburgh, and Todd from Lexington, joined their forces at Bryant's Station, about five miles northeast of Lexington. The little army consisted of one hundred and eighty-two men. They marched on the eighteenth, notwithstanding the number of the enemy was nearly twice their own, but expecting to be joined by General Logan, then at Lincoln, within twenty-four hours. Early on the following morning they came within sight of the enemy at the lower Blue Licks, who were ascending the opposite bank of the stream. The Kentuckians held a council of war, and Boone proposed waiting for the arrival of Logan. They were generally inclined to adopt the prudent council of the veteran, when Major M'Gary, impetuous and imprudent like Meeker before the fatal battle of Minisink, raised 1 war-whoop, dashed with his horse into the stream, and, waving his hat, shouted, "Let all who are not cowards follow me!" Instantly the mounted men and footmen were dashing through the strong current of a deep ford in wild confusion. They ascended the bank and rushed forward in pursuit of the enemy, and, as Boone had suggested, fell into an ambuscade. The Indians, concealed in bushy ravines, almost surrounded the Kentuckians, who stood upon a bald elevation between. The Kentucky sharp-shooters fought like tigers, but the Indians, greatly superior in numbers, came up from the ravines, closed in upon their victims, and produced terrible slaughter. Most of the Kentucky leaders, including a son of Daniel Boone, were killed, and utter destruction seemed to await the pioneers. It was soon perceived that the Indians were extending their line to cut off the retreat of the Kentuckians. A retrograde movement was immediately ordered. A tumultuous retreat ensued, and great was the slaughter by the pursuing Indians. The mounted men escaped, but nearly every man on foot was slain. A large number were killed at the ford, and the waters of the river were reddened with the blood of the victims. Those who succeeded in crossing the river plunged into the buffalo thickets, and by various routes escaped to Bryant's Station.-See M'Clung's Sketches of Western Adventure.

It was while the expedition was slowly winding its way down this hill above Cincinnati (then an unknown name, now a city with almost 120,000 inhabitants), that Captain M'Cracken, then dying from the effects of a wound in his arm, proposed that they should all enter into an agreement that, fifty years thereafter, the survivors should "meet there and talk over the affairs of the campaign." On the fourth of November, 1832, many of those veterans met in Cincinnati, and more would doubtless have been there, had not the ravages of the cholera prevented. Kenton was still living, but debility prevented his joining his old companions in arms.-See Collins's Kentucky.

Affairs at Williamsburg.

Patrick Henry's bold Resolutions in favor of Military Preparations. His eloquent Defense of them.

We left Governor Dunmore and the Virginia House of Burgesses in open rupture. The governor had dissolved them, and they had assembled at the Raleigh tavern in convention, and appointed delegates to represent Virginia in the approaching General Congress. Congress met; its acts have elsewhere been noticed in detail.1 The breach between the governor and the people continued to widen; the affairs of Great Britain and her American colonies rapidly approached a crisis. Every day the power of royal governors became weaker; every day the representatives of the people became bolder. To sagacious minds war appeared inevitable, and preparations for it were regarded as acts of common prudence. In the Virginia Legislature, convened at Richmond in March, 1775, Patrick Henry, in a series of resolutions, recommended a levy of volunteer troops in each county, for the better defense of the country; in other words, a standing army of minute-men, pledged to the republican cause. He had seen with impatience the temporizing spirit of his colleagues, and he determined to test their courage and patriotism by a bold proposition in the form of resolutions. Like his famous Stamp Act resolutions ten years before, these filled the House with consternation. His proposition was considered as premeditated rebellion, and it was opposed as rash and premature by several who afterward became his most zealous co-workOpposition aroused all the fire of Henry's genius, and he poured forth a flood of brilliant eloquence, such as the Virginia Assembly had never heard.a He closed his speech with a loud cry of "GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!" and when he sat down, not a murmur of applause or of disapprobation was heard.' After the trance

ers.

■ March 23, 1775.

1 See pages 58-63, inclusive.

2 Mr. Wirt, in his life of Patrick Henry, gives the following report of his speech on that occasion. Referring to the apparently gracious manner in which the king had received their petitions, he exclaimed: Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed by a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win us back to our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir! These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, gentlemen, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Has Great Britain any enemy

in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of armies and navies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying argument for the last ten years. . . . . We have petitioned; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded ; and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free; if we wish to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us. "They tell us, sir, that we are weak-unable to cope with so formidable an enemy. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week, or next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. And again, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest.* There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable! and let it come!! I repeat it, sir, let it come !!! It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace; but there is no peace! The

* The boldness of Mr. Henry, and the great influence which he exerted, caused him to be presented to the British govern. ment in a bill of attainder. His name, with that of Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and several others, were on that black list.

Effect of Henry's Speech. Seizure of Powder by Dunmore. Patrick Henry with a Military Force. A Compromise. of a moment," says Wirt, "several members started from their seats. The cry to arms! seemed to quiver on every lip, and gleam from every eye. Richard Henry Lee arose, and supported Mr. Henry with his usual spirit and eloquence, but his melody was lost amid the agitations of that ocean which the master spirit of the storm had lifted on high. That supernatural voice still sounded in their ears, and shivered along their arteries. They heard, in every pause, the cry of Liberty or Death! They became impatient of speech-their souls were on fire for action." The resolutions were adopted by a large majority.

1775.

b April 20.

During the spring of 1775, secret orders came from the British ministry to the royal governors to remove the military stores out of the reach of the colonists, if there should appear symptoms of rebellion. The attempt by Governor Gage, of Boston, to execute their a April 19, orders, produced the conflicts at Lexington and Concord;a and a similar attempt made by Governor Dunmore, on the very next day,b brought the Virginians out in open rebellion. The British man-of-war Magdalen, Captain Collins, was lying at anchor in the York River, a little below Williamsburg, and at midnight Dunmore had the powder in the old magazine secretly removed to that vessel. The movement was discovered, and at dawn the minute-men of Williamsburg assembled, with their arms, and were with dif ficulty restrained from seizing the governor. The people also assembled, and sent a respectful remonstrance to Dunmore, complaining of the act as specially wrong at that time, when a servile insurrection was apprehended. Dunmore made an evasive reply. He pretended that he feared a slave insurrection in a neighboring county, and said that in case a rising of the negroes in James City county should occur, the powder should be restored. His reply was quite unsatisfactory, and the people demanded the immediate surrender of the ammunition. Patrick Henry was then at his home in Hanover county. When intelligence of the movement reached him, he assembled a corps of volunteers at New Castle,' and marched immediately for the Capitol to secure the treasury from a like outrage, and to procure a restoration of the powder. His corps augmented on its march, and numbered about one hundred and fifty well-armed men when he arrived at Doncaster's ordinary, within sixteen miles of the capital. There he was met by some of the Virginia delegation to Congress, on their way to Philadelphia, and was informed that his approach had frightened the governor. There he also met Corbin, the receiver-general, who came with authority from the governor to compromise the matter. Henry demanded and received the value for the powder (three hundred and thirty pounds), and immediately sent it to the treasury at Williamsburg. The volunteers were disbanded, and they returned c May 4, to their homes. Henry departed for Philadelphia a week afterward, he being a 1775. delegate to Congress.

Dunmore was greatly irritated by the result, and menaced the people. He swore by war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!* Our brethren are already in the field! What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me," he cried, with both arms extended aloft, his brow knit, every feature marked with the resolute purpose of his soul, and with his voice swelled to its loudest note, 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!'"

1 See page 225.

All the arms and ammunition in the magazine were not sufficient to cause a disturbance, for they were too small in amount to have been of much service to either party. The amount of powder removed by Dunmore was fifteen half barrels, containing fifty pounds each. In fact, it was not the value of the powder, nor the harm that might result from its removal, which probably induced Patrick Henry to summon to his standard the volunteers of Hanover. He deemed it of higher importance that the blow, which must be struck sooner or later, should be struck at once, before an overwhelming royal force should enter the colony The Honorable Charles Augustus Murray, a Scotch gentleman, who visited this country in 1836 (and in 1851 was married to a lady of New York, since dead), is a lineal descendant of Lord Dunmore. In his published narrative of his travels, he mentions, as a rather singular coincidence, that when he went down the Chesapeake from Baltimore for the purpose of visiting Williamsburg, the steam-boat that conveyed him was named Patrick Henry.

* This prediction was speedily fulfilled; for almost "the next gale from the north" conveyed the boom of the signal-gun of freedom at Lexington.