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.



CHAPTER XII.

Boone's brother killed, and Boone himself narrowly escapes from the Indians—Assault upon Ashton's station—and upon the station near Shelbyville—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.



CHAPTER XIII.

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 a station, and the peculiar mode of attack and defence in 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.

The terrible blow which the savages had struck at the Blue Licks, excited a general and immediate purpose of retaliation through Kentucky. General Clarke was appointed commander-in-chief, and Colonel Logan next under him in command of the expedition, to be raised for that purpose. The forces were to rendezvous at Licking. The last of September, 1782, General Clarke, with one thousand men, marched from the present site of Cincinnati, for the Indian towns on the Miami. They fell in on their route with the camp of Simon Girty, who would have been completely surprised with his Indians, had not a straggling savage espied the advance, and reported it to them just in season to enable them to scatter in every direction. They soon spread the intelligence that an army from Kentucky was marching upon their towns.

As the army approached the towns on their route, they found that the inhabitants had evacuated them, and fled into the woods. All the cabins at Chillicothe, Piqua, and Willis were burned. Some skirmishing took place, however, in which five Indians were killed, and seven made prisoners, without any loss to the Kentuckians, save the wounding of one man, which afterwards proved mortal. One distinguished Indian surrendered himself, and was afterwards inhumanly murdered by one of the troops, to the deep regret and mortification of General Clarke.

In October, 1785, Mr. McClure and family, in company with a number of other families, were assailed on Skegg's creek. Six of the family were killed, and Mrs. McClure, a child, and a number of other persons made prisoners. The attack took place in the night. The circumstances of the capture of Mrs. McClure, furnish an affecting incident illustrating the invincible force of natural tenderness. She had concealed herself, with her four children, in the brush of a thicket, which, together with the darkness, screened her from observation. Had she chosen to have left her infant behind, she might have escaped. But she grasped it, and held it to her bosom, although aware that its shrieks would betray their covert. The Indians, guided to the spot by its cries, killed the three larger children, and took her and her infant captives. The unfortunate and bereaved mother was obliged to accompany their march on an untamed and unbroken horse.

Intelligence of these massacres and cruelties circulated rapidly. Captain Whitley immediately collected twenty-one men from the adjoining stations, overtook, and killed two of these savages, retook the desolate mother, her babe, and a negro servant, and the scalps of the six persons whom they had killed. Ten days afterwards, another party of immigrants, led by Mr. Moore, were attacked, and nine of their number killed. Captain Whitley pursued the perpetrators of this bloody act, with thirty men. On the sixth day of pursuit through the wilderness, he came up with twenty Indians, clad in the dresses of those whom they had slain. They dismounted and dispersed in the woods though not until three of them were killed. The pursuers recovered eight scalps, and all the plunder which the Indians had collected at the late massacre.

An expedition of General Clarke, with a thousand men, against the Wabash Indians, failed in consequence of the impatience and discouragement of his men from want of provisions. Colonel Logan was more successful in an expedition against the Shawnese Indians on the Scioto. He surprised one of the towns, and killed a number of the warriors, and took some prisoners.

In October, 1785, the General Government convoked a meeting of all the Lake and Ohio tribes to meet at the mouth of the Great Miami. The Indians met the summons with a moody indifference and neglect, alleging the continued aggressions of the Kentuckians as a reason for refusing to comply with the summons.

The horrors of Indian assault were occasionally felt in every settlement. We select one narrative in detail, to convey an idea of Indian hostility on the one hand, and the manner in which it was met on the other. A family lived on Coope's run, in Bourbon county, consisting of a mother, two sons of a mature age, a widowed daughter, with an infant in her arms, two grown daughters, and a daughter of ten years. The house was a double cabin. The two grown daughters and the smaller girl were in one division, and the remainder of the family in the other. At evening twilight, a knocking was heard at the door of the latter division, asking in good English, and the customary western phrase, "Who keeps house?" As the sons went to open the door, the mother forbade them, affirming that the persons claiming admittance were Indians. The young men sprang to their guns. The Indians, finding themselves refused admittance at that door, made an effort at the opposite one. That door they soon beat open with a rail, and endeavored to take the three girls prisoners. The little girl sprang away, and might have escaped from them in the darkness and the woods. But the forlorn child, under the natural impulse of instinct, ran for the other door and cried for help. The brothers within, it may be supposed, would wish to go forth and protect the feeble and terrified wailer. The mother, taking a broader view of expedience and duty, forbade them. They soon hushed the cries of the distracted child by the merciless tomahawk. While a part of the Indians were engaged in murdering this child, and another in confining one of the grown girls that they had made captive, the third heroically defended herself with a knife, which she was using at a loom at the moment of attack. The intrepidity she put forth was unavailing. She killed one Indian, and was herself killed by another. The Indians, meanwhile, having obtained possession of one half the house, fired it. The persons shut up in the other half had now no other alternative than to be consumed in the flames rapidly spreading towards them, or to go forth and expose themselves to the murderous tomahawks, that had already laid three of the family in their blood. The Indians stationed themselves in the dark angles of the fence, where, by the bright glare of the flames, they could see every thing, and yet remain themselves unseen. Here they could make a sure mark of all that should escape from within. One of the sons took charge of his aged and infirm mother, and the other of his widowed sister and her infant. The brothers emerged from the burning ruins, separated, and endeavored to spring over the fence. The mother was shot dead as her son was piously aiding her over the fence. The other brother was killed as he was gallantly defending his sister. The widowed sister, her infant, and one of the brothers escaped the massacre, and alarmed the settlement. Thirty men, commanded by Colonel Edwards, arrived next day to witness the appalling spectacle presented around the smoking ruins of this cabin. Considerable snow had fallen, and the Indians were obliged to leave a trail, which easily indicated their path. In the evening of that day, they came upon the expiring body of the young woman, apparently murdered but a few moments before their arrival. The Indians had been premonished of their pursuit by the barking of a dog that followed them. They overtook and killed two of the Indians that had staid behind, apparently as voluntary victims to secure the retreat of the rest.

To prevent immigrants from reaching the country, the Indians infested the Ohio river, and concealed themselves in small parties at different points from Pittsburgh to Louisville, where they laid in ambush and fired upon the boats as they passed. They frequently attempted by false signals to decoy the boats ashore, and in several instances succeeded by these artifices in capturing and murdering whole families, and plundering them of their effects. They even armed and manned some of the boats and scows they had taken, and used them as a kind of floating battery, by means of which they killed and captured many persons approaching the settlements.

The last boat which brought immigrants to the country down the Ohio, that was known to have been attacked by the Indians, was assaulted in the spring of 1791. This circumstance gives it a claim to be mentioned in this place. It was commanded by Captain Hubbel, and brought immigrants from Vermont. The whole number of men, women, and children amounted to twenty persons. These persons had been forewarned by various circumstances that they noted, that hostile Indians were along the shore waiting to attack them. They came up with other boats descending the river, and bound in the same direction with themselves. They endeavored ineffectually to persuade the passengers to join them, that they might descend in the strength of numbers and union. They continued to move down the river alone. The first attempt upon them was a customary Indian stratagem. A person, affecting to be a white man, hailed them, and requested them to lie by, that he might come on board. Finding that the boat's crew were not to be allured to the shore by this artifice, the Indians put off from the shore in three canoes, and attacked the boat. Never was a contest of this sort maintained with more desperate bravery. The Indians attempted to board the boat, and the inmates made use of all arms of annoyance and defence. Captain Hubbel, although he had been severely wounded in two places, and had the cock of his gun shot off by an Indian fire, still continued to discharge his mutilated gun by a fire-brand. After a long and desperate conflict, in which all the passengers capable of defence but four, had been wounded, the Indians paddled off their canoes to attack the boats left behind. They were successful against the first boat they assailed. The boat yielded to them without opposition. They killed the Captain and a boy, and took the women on board prisoners. Making a screen of these unfortunate women, by exposing them to the fire of Captain Hubbel's boat, they returned to the assault. It imposed upon him the painful alternative, either to yield to the Indians, or to fire into their canoes at the hazard of killing the women of their own people. But the intrepid Captain remarked, that if these women escaped their fire, it would probably be to suffer a more terrible death from the savages. He determined to keep up his fire, even on these hard conditions; and the savages were beaten off a second time. In the course of the engagement, the boat, left to itself, had floated with the current near the north shore, where four or five hundred Indians were collected, who poured a shower of balls upon the boat. All the inmates could do, was to avoid exposure as much as possible, and exercise their patience until the boat should float past the Indian fire. One of the inmates of the boat, seeing, as it slowly drifted on, a fine chance for a shot at an Indian, although warned against it, could not resist the temptation of taking his chance. He raised his head to take aim, and was instantly shot dead. When the boat had drifted beyond the reach of the Indian fire, but two of the nine fighting men on board were found unhurt. Two were killed, and two mortally wounded. The noble courage of a boy on board deserves to be recorded. When the boat was now in a place of safety, he requested his friends to extract a ball that had lodged in the skin of his forehead. When this ball had been extracted, he requested them to take out a piece of bone that had been fractured in his elbow by another shot. When asked by his mother why he had not complained or made known his suffering during the engagement, he coolly replied, intimating that there was noise enough without his, that the Captain had ordered the people to make no noise.

All attempts of the General Government to pacify the Indians, having proved ineffectual, an expedition was planned against the hostile tribes north-west of the Ohio. The object was to bring the Indians to a general engagement; or, if that might not be, to destroy their establishments on the waters of the Scioto and the Wabash. General Harmar was appointed to the command of this expedition. Major Hamtranck, with a detachment, was to make a diversion in his favor up the Wabash.

On the 13th of September, 1791, General Harmar marched from Fort Washington, the present site of Cincinnati, with three hundred and twenty regulars, and effected a junction with the militia of Pennsylvania and Kentucky, which had advanced twenty-five miles in front. The whole force amounted to one thousand four hundred and fifty-three men. Col. Hardin, who commanded the Kentucky militia, was detached with six hundred men, chiefly militia, to reconnoiter. On his approach to the Indian settlements, the Indians set fire to their villages and fled. In order, if possible, to overtake them, he was detached with a smaller force, that could be moved more rapidly. It consisted of two hundred and ten men. A small party of Indians met and attacked them; and the greater part of the militia behaved badly,—leaving a few brave men, who would not fly, to their fate. Twenty-three of the party fell, and seven only made their escape and rejoined the army. Notwithstanding this check, the army succeeded so far as to reduce the remaining towns to ashes, and destroy their provisions.

On their return to Fort Washington, Gen. Harmar was desirous of wiping off, in another action, the disgrace which public opinion had impressed upon his arms. He halted eight miles from Chillicothe, and late at night detached Col. Hardin, with orders to find the enemy, and bring them to an engagement. Early in the morning this detachment reached the enemy, and a severe engagement ensued. The savages fought with desperation. Some of the American troops shrunk; but the officers conducted with great gallantry. Most of them fell, bravely discharging their duty. More than fifty regulars and one hundred militia, including the brave officers, Fontaine, Willys, and Frothingham, were slain.

Harmar, in his official account of this affair, claimed the victory, although the Americans seem clearly to have had the worst of it. At his request, he was tried by a court martial, and honorably acquitted. The enemy had suffered so severely, that they allowed him to return unmolested to Fort Washington.

The terrors and the annoyance of Indian hostilities still hung over the western settlements. The call was loud and general from the frontiers, for ample and efficient protection. Congress placed the means in the hands of the executive. Major General Arthur St. Clair was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces to be employed in the meditated expedition. The objects of it were, to destroy the Indian settlements between the Miamies; to expel them from the country; and establish a chain of posts which should prevent their return during the war. This army was late in assembling in the vicinity of Fort Washington. They marched directly towards the chief establishments of the enemy, building and garrisoning in their way the two intermediate forts, Hamilton and Jefferson. After the detachments had been made for these garrisons, the effective force that remained amounted to something less than two thousand men. To open a road for their march, was a slow and tedious business. Small parties of Indians were often seen hovering about their march; and some unimportant skirmishes took place. As the army approached the enemy's country, sixty of the militia deserted in a body. To prevent the influence of such an example, Major Hamtranck was detached with a regiment in pursuit of the deserters. The army now consisting of one thousand four hundred men continued its march. On the third of November 1792, it encamped fifteen miles south of the Miami villages. Having been rejoined by Major Hamtranck, General St. Clair proposed to march immediately against them.

Half an hour before sunrise, the militia was attacked by the savages, and fled in the utmost confusion. They burst through the formed line of the regulars into the camp. Great efforts were made by the officers to restore order; but not with the desired success. The Indians pressed upon the heels of the flying militia, and engaged General Butler with great intrepidity. The action became warm and general; and the fire of the assailants passing round both flanks of the first line, in a few minutes was poured with equal fury upon the rear. The artillerists in the centre were mowed down, and the fire was the more galling, as it was directed by an invisible enemy, crouching on the ground, or concealed behind trees. In this manner they advanced towards the very mouths of the cannon; and fought with the infuriated fierceness with which success always animates savages. Some of the soldiers exhibited military fearlessness, and fought with great bravery. Others were timid and disposed to fly. With a self-devotion which the occasion required, the officers generally exposed themselves to the hottest of the contest, and fell in great numbers, in desperate efforts to restore the battle.

The commanding general, though he had been for some time enfeebled with severe disease, acted with personal bravery, and delivered his orders with judgment and self-possession. A charge was made upon the savages with the bayonet: and they were driven from their covert with some loss, a distance of four hundred yards. But as soon as the charge was suspended, they returned to the attack. General Butler was mortally wounded; the left of the right wing broken, and the artillerists killed almost to a man. The guns were seized and the camp penetrated by the enemy. A desperate charge was headed by Colonel Butler, although he was severely wounded, and the Indians were again driven from the camp, and the artillery recovered. Several charges were repeated with partial success. The enemy only retreated, to return to the charge, flashed with new ardor. The ranks of the troops were broken, and the men pressed together in crowds, and were shot down without resistance. A retreat was all that remained, to save the remnant of the army. Colonel Darke was ordered to charge a body of savages that intercepted their retreat. Major Clark, with his battalion, was directed to cover the rear. These orders were carried into effect, and a most disorderly retreat commenced. A pursuit was kept up four miles, when, fortunately for the surviving Americans, the natural greediness of the savage appetite for plunder, called back the victorious Indians to the camp, to divide the spoils. The routed troops continued their flight to fort Jefferson, throwing away their arms on the road. The wounded were left here, and the army retired upon fort Washington.

In this fatal battle, fell thirty-eight commissioned officers, and five hundred and ninety-three non-commissioned officers and privates. Twenty-one commissioned officers, many of whom afterwards died of their wounds, and two hundred and forty-two non-commissioned officers and privates were wounded.

The savage force, in this fatal engagement, was led by a Mississago chief, who had been trained to war under the British, during the revolution. So superior was his knowledge of tactics, that the Indian chiefs, though extremely jealous of him, yielded the entire command to him; and he arranged and fought the battle with great combination of military skill. Their force amounted to four thousand; and they stated the Americans killed, at six hundred and twenty, and their own at sixty-five; but it was undoubtedly much greater. They took seven pieces of cannon and two hundred oxen, and many horses. The chief, at the close of the battle, bade the Indians forbear the pursuit of the Americans, as he said they had killed enough.

General Scott, with one thousand mounted volunteers from Kentucky, soon after marched against a party of the victors, at St. Clair's fatal field. He found the Indians rioting in their plunder, riding the oxen in the glee of triumph, and acting as if the whole body was intoxicated. General Scott immediately attacked them. The contest was short but decisive. The Indians had two hundred killed on the spot. The cannon and military stores remaining, were retaken, and the savages completely routed. The loss of the Kentuckians was inconsiderable.

The reputation of the government was now committed in the fortunes of the war. Three additional regiments were directed to be raised. On the motion in congress for raising these regiments, there was an animated, and even a bitter debate. It was urged on one hand, that the expense of such a force would involve the necessity of severe taxation; that too much power was thrown into the hands of the president; that the war had been badly managed, and ought to have been entrusted to the militia of the west, under their own officers; and with more force they urged that no success could be of any avail, so long as the British held those posts within our acknowledged limits, from which the savages were supplied with protection, shelter, arms, advice, and instigation to the war.

On the other hand, the justice of the cause, as a war of defence, and not of conquest, was unquestionable. It was proved, that between 1783 and 1790, no less than one thousand five hundred people of Kentucky had been massacred by the savages, or dragged into a horrid captivity; and that the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia had suffered a loss not much less. It was proved that every effort had been made to pacify the savages without effect. They showed that in 1790, when a treaty was proposed to the savages at the Miami, they first refused to treat, and then asked thirty days for deliberation. It was granted. In the interim, they stated that not less than one hundred and twenty persons had been killed and captured, and several prisoners roasted alive; at the term of which horrors, they refused any answer at all to the proposition to treat. Various other remarks were made in defence of the bill. It tried the strength of parties in congress, and was finally carried.

General St. Clair resigned, and Major General Anthony Wayne was appointed to succeed him. This officer commanded the confidence of the western people, who confided in that reckless bravery, which had long before procured him the appellation of "Mad Anthony." There was a powerful party who still affected to consider this war unnecessary, and every impediment was placed in the way of its success, which that party could devise. To prove to them that the government was still disposed to peace, two excellent officers and valuable men, Col. Hardin, and Major Truman, were severally despatched with propositions of peace. They were both murdered by the savages. These unsuccessful attempts at negotiation, and the difficulties and delays naturally incident to the preparation of such a force, together with the attempts that had been made in congress, to render the war unpopular, had worn away so much time that the season for operations for the year had almost elapsed. But as soon as the negotiations had wholly failed, the campaign was opened with as much vigor as the nature of the case would admit. The general was able, however, to do no more this autumn, than to advance into the forest towards the country of the savages, six miles in advance of fort Jefferson. He took possession of the ground on which the fatal defeat of St. Clair had taken place, in 1792. He here erected a fortification, with the appropriate name of Fort Recovery. His principal camp was called Greenville.

In Kentucky, meanwhile, many of the people clamored against these measures, and loudly insisted that the war ought to be carried on by militia, to be commanded by an officer taken from their state. It was believed, too, by the executive, that the British government, by retaining their posts within our limits, and by various other measures, at least countenanced the Indians in their hostilities. That government took a more decisive measure early in the spring. A British detachment from Detroit, advanced near fifty miles south of that place, and fortified themselves on the Miami of the lakes. In one of the numerous skirmishes which took place between the savages and the advance of General Wayne, it was affirmed, that the British were mingled with the Indians.

On the 8th of August, 1794, General Wayne reached the confluence of the Au Glaize, and the Miami of the lakes. The richest and most extensive settlements of the western Indians were at this place. It was distant only about thirty miles from the post on the Miami, which the British; had recently occupied. The whole strength of the enemy, amounting to nearly two thousand warriors, was collected in the vicinity of that post. The regulars of General Wayne were not much inferior in numbers. A reinforcement of one thousand one hundred mounted Kentucky militia, commanded by General Scott, gave a decided superiority to the American force. The general was well aware that the enemy were ready to give him battle, and he ardently desired it. But in pursuance of the settled policy of the United States, another effort was made for the attainment of peace, without the shedding of blood. The savages were exhorted by those who were sent to them, no longer to follow the counsels of the bad men at the foot of the Rapids, who urged them on to the war, but had neither the power nor the inclination to protect them; that to listen to the propositions of the government of the United States, would restore them to their homes, and rescue them from famine. To these propositions they returned only an evasive answer.

On the 20th of August, the army of General Wayne marched in columns. A select battalion, under Major Price, moved as a reconnoitering force in front. After marching five miles, he received so heavy a fire from the savages, concealed as usual, that he was compelled to retreat. The savages had chosen their ground with great judgment. They had moved into a thick wood, in advance of the British works, and had taken a position behind fallen timber, prostrated by a tornado. This rendered their position almost inaccessible to horse. They were formed in three regular lines, according to Indian custom, very much extended in front. Their first effort was to turn the left flank of the American army.

The American legion was ordered to advance with trailed arms, and rouse the enemy from his covert at the point of the bayonet, and then deliver its fire. The cavalry, led by Captain Campbell, was ordered to advance between the Indians and the river, where the wood permitted them to penetrate, and charge their left flank. General Scott, at the head of the mounted volunteers, was commanded to make a considerable circuit and turn their right. These, and all the complicated orders of General Wayne, were promptly executed. But such was the impetuosity of the charge made by the first line of infantry, so entirely was the enemy broken by it, and so rapid was the pursuit, that only a small part of the second line, and of the mounted volunteers could take any part in the action. In the course of an hour, the savages were driven more than two miles, and within gun-shot of the British fort.

General Wayne remained three days on the field of battle, reducing the houses and corn-fields, above and below the fort, and some of them within pistol shot of it, to ashes. The houses and stores of Col. M'Kee, an English trader, whose great influence among the savages had been uniformly exerted for the continuance of the war, was burned among the rest. Correspondence upon these points took place between General Wayne and Major Campbell, who commanded the British fort. That of General Wayne was sufficiently firm; and it manifested that the latter only avoided hostilities with him, by acquiescing in the destruction of British property within the range of his guns.

On the 28th the army returned to Au Glaize, destroying all the villages and corn within fifty miles of the river. In this decisive battle, the American loss, in killed and wounded, amounted to one hundred and seven, including officers. Among those that fell, were Captain Campbell and Lieutenant Towles. The general bestowed great and merited praise, for their bravery and promptitude in this affair, to all his troops.

The hostility of the Indians still continuing, the whole country was laid waste: and forts were erected in the heart of their settlements, to prevent their return. This seasonable victory, and this determined conduct on the part of the United States, rescued them from a general war with all the nations north-west of the Ohio. The Six Nations had manifested resentments, which were only appeased for the moment, by the suspension of a settlement, which Pennsylvania was making at Presqu' Isle, within their alleged limits. The issue of this battle dissipated the clouds at once which had been thickening in that quarter. Its influence was undoubtedly felt far to the south. The Indian inhabitants of Georgia, and still farther to the south had been apparently on the verge of a war, and had been hardly restrained from hostility by the feeble authority of that state.

No incidents of great importance occurred in this quarter, until August 3d, of the next year when a definitive treaty was concluded by General Wayne, with the hostile Indians north-west of the Ohio. By this treaty, the destructive war which had so long desolated that frontier, was ended in a manner acceptable to the United States. An accommodation was also brought about with the southern Indians, notwithstanding the intrigues of their Spanish neighbors. The regions of the Mississippi valley were opened on all sides to immigration, and rescued from the dread of Indian hostilities.



CHAPTER XIV.

Rejoicings on account of the peace—Boone indulges his propensity for hunting—Kentucky increases in population—Some account of their conflicting land titles—Progress of civil improvement destroying the range of the hunter—Litigation of land titles—Boone loses his lands—Removes from Kentucky to the Kanawha—Leaves the Kanawha and goes to Missouri, where he is appointed Commandant.

The peace which followed the defeat of the northern tribes of Indians by General Wayne, was most grateful to the harassed settlers of the west. The news of it was received every where with the most lively joy. Every one had cause of gratulation. The hardy warriors, whose exploits we have recounted, felt that they were relieved from the immense responsibilities which rested upon them as the guardians and protectors of the infant settlements. The new settlers could now clear their wild lands, and cultivate their rich fields in peace—without fearing the ambush and the rifles of a secret foe; and the tenants of the scattered cabins could now sleep in safety, and without the dread of being wakened by the midnight war-whoop of the savage. Those who had been pent up in forts and stations joyfully sallied forth, and settled wherever the soil and local advantages appeared the most inviting.

Colonel Boone, in particular, felt that a firm and resolute perseverance had finally triumphed over every obstacle. That the rich and boundless valleys of the great west—the garden of the earth—and the paradise of hunters, had been won from the dominion of the savage tribes, and opened as an asylum for the oppressed, the enterprising, and the free of every land. He had travelled in every direction through this great valley. He had descended from the Alleghanies into the fertile regions of Tennessee, and traced the courses of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. He had wandered with delight through the blooming forests of Kentucky. He had been carried prisoner by the Indians through the wilderness which is now the state of Ohio to the great lakes of the north; he had traced the head waters of the Kentucky, the Wabash, the Miamies, the Scioto, and other great rivers of the west, and had followed their meanderings to their entrance into the Ohio; he had stood upon the shores of this beautiful river, and gazed with admiration, as he pursued its winding and placid course through endless forests to mingle with the Mississippi; he had caught some glimmerings of the future, and saw with the prophetic eye of a patriot, that this great valley must soon become the abode of millions of freemen; and his heart swelled with joy, and warmed with a transport which was natural to a mind so unsophisticated and disinterested as his.

Boone rejoiced in a peace which put an end to his perils and anxieties, and which now gave him full leisure and scope to follow his darling pursuit of hunting. He had first been led to the country by that spirit of the hunter, which in him amounted almost to a passion. This propensity may be said to be natural to man. Even in cities and populous places we find men so fond of this pastime that they ransack the cultivated fields and enclosures of the farmer, for the purpose of killing the little birds and squirrels, which, from their insignificance, have ventured to take up their abode with civilized man. What, then, must have been the feelings of Boone, to find himself in the grand theatre of the hunter—filled with buffaloes, deer, bears, wild turkeys, and other noble game?

The free exercise of this darling passion had been checked and restrained, ever since the first settlement of the country, by the continued wars and hostile incursions of the Indians. The path of the hunter had been ambushed by the wily savage, and he seldom ventured beyond the purlieus of his cabin, or the station where he resided. He was now free to roam in safety through the pathless wilderness—to camp out in security whenever he was overtaken by night; and to pursue the game wherever it was to be found in the greatest abundance.

Civilization had not yet driven the primitive tenants of the forest from their favorite retreats. Most of the country was still in a state of nature—unsettled and unappropriated. Few fences or inclosures impeded the free range of the hunter, and very few buts and bounds warned him of his being about to trespass upon the private property of some neighbor. Herds of buffaloes and deer still fed upon the rich cane-brake and rank vegetation of the boundless woods, and resorted to the numerous Licks for salt and drink.

Boone now improved this golden opportunity of indulging in his favorite pursuit. He loved to wander alone, with his unerring rifle upon his shoulder, through the labyrinths of the tangled forests, and to rouse the wild beast from his secret lair. There was to him a charm in these primeval solitudes which suited his peculiar temperament, and he frequently absented himself on these lonely expeditions for days together. He never was known to return without being loaded with the spoils of the chase. The choicest viands and titbits of all the forest-fed animals were constantly to be found upon his table. Not that Boone was an epicure; far from it. He would have been satisfied with a soldier's fare. In common with other pioneers of his time, he knew what it was to live upon roots and herbs for days together. He had suffered hunger and want in all its forms without a murmur or complaint. But when peace allowed him to follow his profession of a hunter, and to exercise that tact and superiority which so much distinguished him, he selected from the abundance and profusion of the game which fell victims to his skill, such parts as were most esteemed. His friends and neighbors were also, at all times, made welcome to a share of whatever he killed. And he continued to live in this primitive simplicity—enjoying the luxury of hunting, and of roving in the woods, and indulging his generous and disinterested disposition towards his neighbors, for several years after the peace.

In the meantime, while Boone had been thus courting solitude, and absorbed by the engrossing excitement of hunting, the restless spirit of immigration, and of civil and physical improvement, had not been idle. After the peace the tide of population poured into the country in a continual stream and the busy spirit of civilization was every where making inroads into the ancient forests, and encroaching upon the dominions of the hunter.

In order, however, that the reader may more readily comprehend the causes which operated as grievances to Boone, and finally led him to abandon Kentucky, and seek a home in regions more congenial, it will be necessary to allude to the progress made in population, and the civil polity, and incidents attending the settlement of the country.

The state of Kentucky was not surveyed by the government and laid off into sections and townships as has been the case with all the lands north of the Ohio. But the government of Virginia had issued land warrants, or certificates entitling the holder to locate wherever he might choose, the number of acres named in the warrant. They also grave to actual settlers certain pre-emption rights to such lands as they might occupy and improve by building a cabin, raising a crop, &c. The holders of these warrants, after selecting the land which they intended to cover, with their titles, were required to enter a survey and description of the tracts selected, in the Land office, which had been opened for the purpose, to be recorded there, for the information of others, and to prevent subsequent holders of warrants from locating the same lands. Yet notwithstanding these precautions, such was the careless manner in which these surveys were made, that many illiterate persons, ignorant of the forms of law, and the necessity of precision in the specification and descriptions of the tracts on which they had laid their warrants, made such loose and vague entries in the land office, as to afford no accurate information to subsequent locators, who frequently laid their warrants on the same tracts. It thus happened that the whole or a part of almost every tract was covered with different and conflicting titles—forming what have been aptly called 'shingle titles'—overlaying and lapping upon each other, as shingles do upon the roof of a building. In this way twice the existing acres of land were sold and the door opened for endless controversy about boundaries and titles. The following copy of an entry may serve as a specimen of the vagueness of the lines, buts, and bounds of their claims, and as accounting for the flood of litigation that ensued.

"George Smith enters nine hundred acres of land on a treasury warrant, lying on the north side of Kentucky river, a mile below a creek; beginning about twenty poles below a lick; and running down the river westwardly, and northwestwardly for quantity."

It will easily be seen that a description, so general and indefinite in its terms, could serve as no guide to others who might wish to avoid entering the same lands. This defect in providing for the certainty and safety of land titles, proved a sore evil to the state of Kentucky. As these lands increased in value and importance, controversies arose as to the ownership of almost every tract: and innumerable suits, great strife and excitement, prevailed in every neighborhood, and continued until within a late period, to agitate the whole body of society. The legislature of the state, by acts of limitation and judicious legislation upon the subject, have finally quieted the titles of the actual occupants.

Among others who made these loose and unfortunate entries, was Daniel Boone. Unaccustomed to the forms of law and technical precision, he was guided by his own views of what was proper and requisite, and made such brief and general entries, as were afterwards held not sufficient to identify the land. He had discovered and explored the country when it was all one vast wilderness—unoccupied, and unclaimed. He and a few other hardy pioneers, by almost incredible hardships, dangers, and sacrifices, had won it from the savage foe; and judging from his own single and generous mind, he did not suppose that question would ever be made of his right to occupy such favorite portions as he might select and pay for. He did not think it possible that any one, knowing these circumstances, could be found so greedy or so heartless, as to grudge him the quiet and unmolested enjoyment of what he had so dearly earned. But in this he was sadly mistaken. A set of speculators and interlopers, who, following in the train of civilization and wealth, came to enrich themselves by monopolizing the rich lands which had thus been won for them, and by the aid of legal advisers, following all the nice requisitions of the law, pounced, among others, upon the lands of our old pioneer. He was not at first disturbed by these speculating harpies; and game being plenty, he gave himself little uneasiness about the claims and titles to particular spots, so long as he had such vast hunting grounds to roam in—which, however, he had the sorrow to see daily encroached upon by the new settlements of the immigrants.

But the inroads made by the frequent settlements in his accustomed hunting range, were not the only annoyances which disturbed the simple habits and patriarchal views of Boone. Civilization brought along with it all the forms of law, and the complicated organization of society and civil government, the progress of which had kept pace with the increasing population.

As early as 1783, the territory of Kentucky had been laid off into three counties, and was that year, by law, formed into one District, denominated the District of Kentucky. Regular courts of justice were organized—log court-houses and log jails were erected—judges, lawyers, sheriffs, and juries were engaged in the administration of justice—money began to circulate—cattle and flocks multiplied—reading and writing schools were commenced—more wealthy immigrants began to flock to the country, bringing with them cabinet furniture, and many of the luxuries of more civilized life—and merchandize began to be wagoned from Philadelphia across the mountains to fort Pitt, now Pittsburgh, from whence it was conveyed in flat boats to Maysville and Louisville.

In 1785 a convention was convoked at Danville, who adopted a memorial, addressed to the Legislature of Virginia, and another to the people of Kentucky—suggesting the propriety, and reasons for erecting the new country into an independent state. In the discussion of this question parties arose, and that warmth and excitement were elicited, which are inseparable from the free and unrestrained discussion of public measures.

In 1786 the legislature of Virginia enacted the preliminary provisions for the separation of Kentucky, as an independent state, provided that Congress should admit it into the Union. About this time another source of party discord was opened in agitating debates touching the claims of Kentucky and the West to the navigation of the Mississippi. The inhabitants were informed by malcontents in Western Pennsylvania, that the American Secretary of State was making propositions to the Spanish minister, to cede to Spain the exclusive right of navigation of the Mississippi for twenty-five years. This information as might be supposed, created a great sensation. It had been felt from the beginning of the western settlements, that the right to the free navigation of the Mississippi was of vital importance to the whole western country, and the least relinquishment of this right—even for the smallest space of time, would be of dangerous precedent and tendency. Circulars were addressed by the principal settlers to men of influence in the nation. But before any decisive measures could be taken, Virginia interfered, by instructing her representatives in Congress to make strong representations against the ruinous policy of the measure.

In 1787 commenced the first operations of that mighty engine, the press, in the western country. Nothing could have been wider from the anticipations, perhaps from the wishes of Boone, than this progress of things. But in the order of events, the transition of unlettered backwoods emigrants to a people with a police, and all the engines of civilization was uncommonly rapid. There was no other paper within five hundred miles of the one now established by Mr. Bradford, at Lexington. The political heart-burnings and slander that had hitherto been transmitted through oral channels, were now concentrated for circulation in this gazette.

In April, 1792, Kentucky was admitted into the Union as an independent state; improvements were steadily and rapidly progressing, and notwithstanding the hostility of the Indians, the population of the state was regularly increasing until the peace which followed the victory of Gen. Wayne. After which, as has been observed, the tide of emigration poured into the country with unexampled rapidity.

Litigation in regard to land titles now began to increase, and continued until it was carried to a distressing height. Col. Boone had begun to turn his attention to the cultivation of the choice tracts he had entered; and he looked forward with the consoling thought that he had enough to provide for a large and rising family, by securing to each of his children, as they became of age, a fine plantation. But in the vortex of litigation which ensued, he was not permitted to escape. The speculators who had spread their greedy claims over the lands which had been previously located and paid for by Boone, relying upon his imperfect entries, and some legal flaws in his titles, brought their ejectments against him, and dragged him into a court of law. He employed counsel, and from term to term, was compelled to dance attendance at court. Here the old hunter listened to the quibbles—the subtleties, and to him, inexplicable jargon of the lawyers. His suits were finally decided against him, and he was cast out of the possession of all, or nearly all the lands which he had looked upon as being indubitably his own. The indignation of the old pioneer can well be imagined, as he saw himself thus stript, by the quibbles and intricacies of the law, of all the rewards of his exposures, labors, sufferings, and dangers in the first settlement of Kentucky. He became more than ever disgusted with the grasping and avaricious spirit—the heartless intercourse and technical forms of what is called civilized society.

But having expended his indignation in a transient paroxysm, he soon settled back to his customary mental complacency and self-possession; and as he had no longer any pledge of consequence remaining to him in the soil of Kentucky—and as it was, moreover, becoming on all sides subject to the empire of the cultivator's axe and plough, he resolved to leave the country. He had witnessed with regret the dispersion of the band of pioneers, with whom he had hunted and fought, side by side, and like a band of brothers, shared every hardship and every danger; and he sighed for new fields of adventure, and the excitement of a hunter's life.

Influenced by these feelings, he removed from Kentucky to the great Kanawha; where he settled near Point Pleasant. He had been informed that buffaloes and deer were still to be found in abundance on the unsettled bottoms of this river, and that it was a fine country for trapping. Here he continued to reside several years. But he was disappointed in his expectations of finding game. The vicinity of the settlements above and below this unsettled region, had driven the buffaloes from the country; and though there were plenty of deer, yet he derived but little success from his trapping. He finally commenced raising stock, and began to turn his attention to agriculture.

While thus engaged, he met with some persons who had returned from a tour up the Missouri, who described to him the fine country bordering upon that river. The vast prairies—the herds of buffaloes—the grizzly bears—the beavers and otters; and above all, the ancient and unexplored forests of that unknown region, fired his imagination, and produced at once a resolve to remove there.

Accordingly, gathering up such useful articles of baggage as were of light carriage, among which his trusty rifle was not forgotten, he started with his family, driving his whole stock of cattle along with him, on a pilgrimage to this new land of promise. He passed through Cincinnati on his way thither in 1798. Being enquired of as to what had induced him to leave all the comforts of home, and so rich and flourishing a country as his dear Kentucky, which he had discovered, and might almost call his own, for the wilds of Missouri? "Too much crowded," replied he—"too crowded—I want more elbow room." He proceeded about forty-five miles above St. Louis, and settled in what is now St. Charles county. This country being still in the possession of the French and Spanish, the ancient laws by which these territories were governed were still in force there. Nothing could be more simple than their whole system of administration. They had no constitution, no king, no legislative assemblies, no judges, juries, lawyers, or sheriffs. An officer, called the Commandant, and the priests, exercised all the functions of civil magistrates, and decided the few controversies which arose among these primitive in habitants, who held and occupied many things in common. They suffered their ponies, their cattle, their swine, and their flocks, to ramble and graze on the same common prairies and pastures—having but few fences or inclosures, and possessing but little of that spirit of speculation, enterprise, and money-making, which has always characterized the Americans.

These simple laws and neighborly customs suited the peculiar habits and temper of Boone. And as his character for honesty, courage, and fidelity followed him there, he was appointed Commandant for the district of St. Charles by the Spanish Commandant. He retained this command, and continued to exercise the duties of his office with credit to himself, and to the satisfaction of all concerned, until the government of the United States went into effect.



CHAPTER XV.

Anecdotes of Colonel Boone, related by Mr. Audubon—A remarkable instance of memory.

As an evidence of the development of backwoods skill, and a vivid picture of Daniel Boone, we give the following from Mr. Audubon:

"Daniel Boone, or as he was usually called in the Western country, Colonel Boone, happened to spend a night under the same roof with me, more than twenty years ago. We had returned from a shooting excursion, in the course of which his extraordinary skill in the management of a rifle had been fully displayed. On retiring to the room appropriated to that remarkable individual and myself for the night, I felt anxious to know more of his exploits and adventures than I did, and accordingly took the liberty of proposing numerous questions to him. The stature and general appearance of this wanderer of the western forests, approached the gigantic. His chest was broad and prominent; his muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; his countenance gave indication of his great courage, enterprise, and perseverance; and when he spoke, the very motion of his lips brought the impression, that whatever he uttered could not be otherwise than strictly true. I undressed, whilst he merely took off his hunting shirt, and arranged a few folds of blankets on the floor; choosing rather to lie there, as he observed, than on the softest bed. When we had both disposed of ourselves, each after his own fashion, he related to me the following account of his powers of memory, which I lay before you, kind reader, in his own words, hoping that the simplicity of his style may prove interesting to you.

"I was once," said he, "on a hunting expedition on the banks of the Green river, when the lower parts of this (Kentucky,) were still in the hands of nature, and none but the sons of the soil were looked upon as its lawful proprietors. We Virginians had for some time been waging a war of intrusion upon them, and I, amongst the rest, rambled through the woods, in pursuit of their race, as I now would follow the tracks of any ravenous animal. The Indians outwitted me one dark night, and I was as unexpectedly as suddenly made a prisoner by them. The trick had been managed with great skill; for no sooner had I extinguished the fire of my camp, and laid me down to rest, in full security, as I thought, than I felt myself seized by an indistinguishable number of hands, and was immediately pinioned, as if about to be led to the scaffold for execution. To have attempted to be refractory, would have proved useless and dangerous to my life; and I suffered myself to be removed from my camp to theirs, a few miles distant, without uttering even a word of complaint. You are aware, I dare say, that to act in this manner, was the best policy, as you understand that by so doing, I proved to the Indians at once, that I was born and bred as fearless of death as any of themselves.

"When we reached the camp, great rejoicings were exhibited. Two squaws, and a few papooses, appeared particularly delighted at the sight of me, and I was assured, by very unequivocal gestures and words, that, on the morrow, the mortal enemy of the Red-skins would cease to live. I never opened my lips, but was busy contriving some scheme which might enable me to give the rascals the slip before dawn. The women immediately fell a searching about my hunting shirt for whatever they might think valuable, and fortunately for me, soon found my flask, filled with Monongahela, (that is, reader, strong whisky.) A terrific grin was exhibited on their murderous countenances, while my heart throbbed with joy at the anticipation of their intoxication. The crew immediately began to beat their bellies and sing, as they passed the bottle from mouth to mouth. How often did I wish the flask ten times its size, and filled with aquafortis! I observed that the squaws drank more freely than the warriors, and again my spirits were about to be depressed, when the report of a gun was heard at a distance. The Indians all jumped on their feet. The singing and drinking were both brought to a stand; and I saw with inexpressible joy, the men walk off to some distance, and talk to the squaws. I knew that they were consulting about me, and I foresaw, that in a few moments the warriors would go to discover the cause of the gun having been fired so near their camp. I expected the squaws would be left to guard me. Well, sir, it was just so. They returned; the men took up their guns and walked away. The squaws sat down again, and in less than five minutes they had my bottle up to their dirty mouths, gurgling down their throats the remains of the whisky.

"With what pleasure did I see them becoming more and more drunk, until the liquor took such hold of them that it was quite impossible for these women to be of any service. They tumbled down, rolled about, and began to snore; when I, having no other chance of freeing myself from the cords that fastened me, rolled over and over towards the fire, and after a short time burned them asunder. I rose on my feet; stretched my stiffened sinews; snatched up my rifle, and, for once in my life, spared that of Indians. I now recollect how desirous I once or twice felt to lay open the skulls of the wretches with my tomahawk; but when I again thought upon killing beings unprepared and unable to defend themselves, it looked like murder without need, and I gave up the idea.

"But, sir, I felt determined to mark the spot, and walking to a thrifty ash sapling, I cut out of it three large chips, and ran off. I soon reached the river; soon crossed it, and threw myself deep into the cane-brakes, imitating the tracks of an Indian with my feet, so that no chance might be left for those from whom I had escaped to overtake me.

"It is now nearly twenty years since this happened, and more than five since I left the whites' settlements, which I might probably never have visited again, had I not been called on as a witness in a law-suit that was pending in Kentucky, and which, I really believe, would never have been settled, had I not come forward, and established the beginning of a certain boundary line. This is the story, sir.

"Mr. —— moved from old Virginia into Kentucky, and having a large tract granted to him in the new state, laid claim to a certain parcel of land adjoining Green river, and as chance would have it, he took for one of his corners the very ash tree on which I had made my mark, and finished his survey of some thousands of acres, beginning, as it is expressed in the deed, "at an ash marked by three distinct notches of the tomahawk of a white man."

"The tree had grown much, and the bark had covered the marks; but, some how or other, Mr. —— heard from some one all that I have already said to you, and thinking that I might remember the spot alluded to in the deed, but which was no longer discoverable, wrote for me to come and try at least to find the place on the tree. His letter mentioned, that all my expenses should be paid; and not caring much about once more going back to Kentucky, I started and met Mr.——. After some conversation, the affair with the Indians came to my recollection. I considered for a while, and began to think that after all, I could find the very spot, as well as the tree, if it was yet standing.

"Mr. —— and I mounted our horses, and off we went to the Green river bottoms. After some difficulties, for you must be aware, sir, that great changes had taken place in these woods, I found at last the spot where I had crossed the river, and waiting for the moon to rise, made for the course in which I thought the ash tree grew. On approaching the place, I felt as if the Indians were there still, and as if I was still a prisoner among them, Mr. —— and I camped near what I conceived the spot, and waited till the, return of day.

"At the rising of the sun I was on foot, and after a good deal of musing, thought that an ash tree then in sight must be the very one on which I had made my mark. I felt as if there could be no doubt of it, and mentioned my thought to Mr. ——. "Well, Colonel Boone," said he, "if you think so, I hope it may prove true, but we must have some witnesses; do you stay hereabout, and I will go and bring some of the settlers whom I know." I agreed. Mr. —— trotted off, and I, to pass the time, rambled about to see if a deer was still living in the land. But ah! sir, what a wonderful difference thirty years makes in the country! Why, at the time when I was caught by the Indians, you would not have walked out in any direction for more than a mile without shooting a buck or a bear. There were then thousands of buffaloes on the hills in Kentucky; the land looked as if it would never become poor; and to hunt in those days was a pleasure indeed. But when I was left to myself on the banks of Green river, I dare say for the last time in my life, a few signs only of deer were to be seen, and as to a deer itself, I saw none.