History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 49

[579:A] Carpenter's Hall, inst.i.tuted in 1721 by the Company of Carpenters, is in a court a little back from Chestnut Street. There is in the Hall the following inscription: "Within these walls Henry, Hanc.o.c.k, and Adams inspired the delegates of the colonies with nerve and sinew for the toils of war resulting in our national independence." Two high-backed arm-chairs are preserved, marked "Continental Congress, 1774."

[579:B] See his Life and Works, ii. 366.

[579:C] Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry.

[580:A] Lord Brougham.

[580:B] Grigsby's Va. Convention of 1776, p. 150.

[581:A] Grigsby's Va. Convention of 1776, p. 148.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

1774.

Indian Hostilities--Battle of Point Pleasant--General Andrew Lewis--Death of Colonel Charles Lewis--Cornstalk--Indignation against Dunmore--General Lewis and his Brothers.

IN April, 1774, some extraordinary hostilities occurred between the Indians and the whites on the frontier of Virginia. On which side these outrages commenced was a matter of dispute, but the whites appear to have been probably the aggressors. An Indian war being apprehended, Dunmore appointed General Andrew Lewis, of Botetourt County, then a member of the a.s.sembly, to the command of the southern division of the forces raised in Botetourt, Augusta, and the adjoining counties east of the Blue Ridge, while his lords.h.i.+p in person took command of those levied in the northern counties, Frederick, Dunmore, and those adjacent.

According to the plan of campaign, as arranged at Williamsburg, Lewis was to march down the valley of the Kanawha[582:A] to Point Pleasant, where that river empties into the Ohio, there to be joined by the governor, who was to march by way of Fort Pitt, and thence descend the Ohio.

Late in August the _Virginia Gazette_ announced news from the frontier that Lord Dunmore was to march in a few days for the mouth of New River, where he was to be joined by Lewis.

Early in September the troops under his command made their rendezvous at Camp Union,[582:B] now Lewisburg, in the County of Greenbrier. They consisted of two regiments, under Colonel William Fleming, of Botetourt, and Colonel Charles Lewis, of Augusta, comprising about four hundred men. At Camp Union they were joined by a company under Colonel Field, of Culpepper, one from Bedford, under Colonel Buford, and two from the Holston settlement, (now Was.h.i.+ngton County,) under Captains Shelby and Harbert. These were part of the forces to be led on by Colonel Christian, who was to join the troops at Point Pleasant as soon as his regiment should be completed.

On the eleventh of September General Lewis, with eleven hundred men, commenced his march through the wilderness, piloted by Captain Matthew Arbuckle; flour, ammunition, and camp equipage being transported on pack-horses and bullocks driven in the rear of the little army. After a march of one hundred and sixty miles, they reached, on the thirtieth of September, Point Pleasant, at the junction of the Great Kanawha with the beautiful Ohio. "This promontory was elevated considerably above the high-water mark, and afforded an extensive and variegated prospect of the surrounding country. Here were seen hills, mountains, valleys, cliffs, plains, and promontories, all covered with gigantic forests, the growth of centuries, standing in their native grandeur and integrity, unsubdued, unmutilated by the hand of man, wearing the livery of the season, and raising aloft in mid-air their venerable trunks and branches as if to defy the lightning of the sky and the fury of the whirlwind.

This widely-extended prospect, though rudely magnificent and picturesque, wanted, nevertheless, some of those softer features which might embellish and beautify, or, if the expression were permitted, might civilize the savage wilderness of some of nature's n.o.blest efforts. Here were to be seen no villages nor hamlets, not a farm-house nor cottage, no fields nor meadows with their appropriate furniture, shocks of corn, nor herds of domestic animals. In its widest range the eye would in vain seek to discover a cultivated spot of earth on which to repose. Here were no marks of industry, nor of the exercise of those arts which minister to the comfort and convenience of man; here nature had for ages on ages held undisputed empire. In the deep and dismal solitude of these woodlands the lone wanderer would have been startled by the barking of the watch-dog, or the shrill clarion of a chanticleer.

Here the whistling of the plough-boy, or the milk-maid's song, sounds elsewhere heard with pleasing emotions, would have been incongruous and out of place."[583:A]

Dunmore, who had marched across the country to the Shawnee towns, failing to join Lewis, runners were sent out by him toward Fort Pitt in quest of his lords.h.i.+p. October the sixth the _Williamsburg Gazette_ announced advices from the frontier that the Earl of Dunmore had concluded a treaty of peace with the Delaware Indians. And before the return of the runners despatched from Point Pleasant, an express from the governor reached Point Pleasant on Sunday, the nineteenth of October, ordering General Lewis to march for the Chilicothe towns and there join him. Preparations were immediately made for crossing the Ohio.

In the mean time the Indians, headed by Cornstalk, had determined to cross the Ohio, some miles above Point Pleasant, and to march down during the night, so as to surprise the camp at daybreak. "Accordingly, on the evening of the ninth of October, soon after dark, they began to cross the river on rafts previously prepared. To ferry so many men over this wide river and on these clumsy transports must have required considerable time. But before morning they were all on the eastern bank, ready to proceed. Their route now lay down the margin of the river, through an extensive bottom. On this bottom was a heavy growth of timber, with a foliage so dense as in many places to intercept, in a great measure, the light of the moon and the stars. Beneath lay many trunks of fallen trees, strewed in different directions, and in various stages of decay. The whole surface of the ground was covered with a luxuriant growth of weeds, interspersed with entangling vines and creepers, and in some places with close-set thickets of spice-wood or other undergrowth. A journey through this in the night must have been tedious, tiresome, dark, and dreary. The Indians, however, entered on it promptly, and persevered until break of day, when, about a mile distant from the camp, one of those unforeseen incidents occurred which so often totally defeat or greatly mar the best concerted military enterprises."[584:A]

Two soldiers setting out very early from the camp on a hunting excursion, proceeded up the bank of the Ohio, and when they had gone about two miles they came suddenly upon a large body of Indians, who had crossed the river the evening before, and were now just rising from their encampment and preparing for battle. Espying the hunters they fired and killed one of them; the other escaping unhurt, ran back to the camp, where he arrived just before sunrise, and reported that "he had seen about five acres of ground covered with Indians as thick as they could stand one beside another." It was Cornstalk at the head of an army of Delawares, Mingoes, Cayugas, Iowas, Wyandots, and Shawnees, and but for the hunter's intelligence they would have surprised the camp. In a few moments two other men came in and confirmed the report, and then General Lewis lit his pipe, and sent forward the first division under his brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, and the second under Colonel Fleming; the first marching to the right at some distance from the Ohio, the bottom being a mile wide there; the second marching to the left along the bank of the river. General Andrew Lewis remained with the reserve to defend the camp. Colonel Lewis's division had not advanced along the river bottom quite half a mile from the camp when he was vigorously attacked in front, a little after sunrise, by the enemy, numbering between eight hundred and a thousand. Fleming's division was likewise attacked on the bank of the river. In a short time Colonel Charles Lewis was mortally wounded; this gallant and estimable officer, when struck by the bullet, fell at the foot of a tree, when he was, against his own wish, carried back to his tent by Captain Morrow and a private, and he died in a few hours, deeply lamented. Colonel Fleming also was severely wounded, two b.a.l.l.s pa.s.sing through his arm and one through his breast. After cheering on the officers and soldiers, he retired to the camp. The Augusta troops, upon the fall of their leader, Colonel Lewis, and several of the men, gave way, and retreated toward the camp, but being met by a re-enforcement of about two hundred and fifty, under Colonel Field, they rallied and drove back the enemy, and at this juncture this officer was killed. His place was taken by Captain Shelby. At length the Indians formed a line behind logs and trees, at right angles to the Ohio, through the woods to Crooked Creek, which empties into the Great Kanawha a little above its mouth. The engagement now became general, and was obstinately sustained in the bush-fighting manner on both sides. The Virginia troops being hemmed in between the two rivers, with the Indians in front, General Lewis employed the troops from the more eastern part of the colony (who were less experienced in Indian fighting) in throwing up a breastwork of the boughs and trunks of trees, across the delta between the Kanawha and Ohio. About twelve o'clock the Indian fire began to slacken, and the enemy slowly and reluctantly gave way, being driven back less than two miles during six or seven hours. A desultory fire was still kept up from behind trees, and the whites as they pressed on the savages were repeatedly ambuscaded. At length General Lewis detached three companies, commanded by Captains Shelby, Matthews, and Stuart, with orders to move secretly along the banks of the Kanawha and Crooked Creek, so as to gain the enemy's rear. This manoeuvre being successfully executed, the Indians, as some report, at four o'clock P.M., fled; according to other accounts, the firing continued until sunset. During the night they recrossed the Ohio. The loss of the Virginians in this action has been variously estimated at from forty to seventy-five killed and one hundred and forty wounded--a large proportion of the number of the troops actually engaged, who did not exceed five hundred and fifty, as one hundred of General Lewis's men, including his best marksmen, were absent in the woods hunting, and knew nothing of the battle until it was all over.

Among the killed were Colonel Charles Lewis, Colonel Field, who had served in Braddock's war, Captains Buford, Morrow, Murray, Ward, Cundiff, Wilson, and McClenachan, Lieutenants Allen, Goldsby, and Dillon. Of the officers present at the battle of Point Pleasant many became afterwards distinguished men.[586:A]

The loss of the savages was never ascertained; the bodies of thirty-three slain were found, but many had been thrown into the Ohio during the engagement. The number of the Indian army was not known certainly, but it comprised the flower of the northern confederated tribes, led on by Red Hawk, a Delaware chief; Scoppathus, a Mingo; Chiyawee, a Wyandot; Logan, a Cayuga; and Ellinipsico, and his father, Cornstalk, Shawnees. But some say that Logan was not present in the battle. The Shawnees were a formidable tribe, who had played a prominent part on many a b.l.o.o.d.y field. Cornstalk displayed great skill and courage at Point Pleasant. It is said that on the day before the battle he had proposed to his people to send messengers to General Lewis to see whether a treaty of peace could be effected, but his followers rejected the proposal. During the battle, when one of his warriors evinced a want of firmness, he slew him with one blow of his tomahawk; and during the day his sonorous voice was heard amid the din of arms exclaiming, in his native tongue, "Be strong, be strong."

On the morning after the battle General Lewis buried his dead. They were interred without the pomp of war, but the cheeks of hardy mountaineers were bedewed with tears at the fate of their brave comrades. "The dead bodies of the Indians who fell in battle were left to decay on the ground where they expired, or to be devoured by birds or beasts of prey.

The mountain eagle, lord of the feathered race, while from his lofty cairn with piercing eye he surveyed the varied realms around and far beneath, would not fail to descry the sumptuous feast prepared for his use. Here he might whet his beak, and feast, and fatten, and exult. Over these the gaunt wolf, grim tyrant of the forest, might prolong his midnight revelry and howl their funeral dirge. While far remote in the deepest gloom of the wilderness, whither they had fled for safety, the surviving warriors might wail their fate, or chant a requiem to their departed spirits."[587:A]

General Lewis, after caring for the wounded, erected a small fort at Point Pleasant, and leaving a garrison there, marched to overtake Dunmore, who, with a thousand men, lay entrenched at Camp Charlotte, called after the queen, near the Shawnee town, (Chilicothe,) on the banks of the Scioto. The Indians having sued to him for peace, his lords.h.i.+p determined to make a treaty with them, and sent orders to Lewis to halt, or, according to others, to return to Point Pleasant. Lewis, suspecting the governor's good faith, and finding himself threatened by a superior force of Indians, who hovered in his rear, disregarded the order, and advanced to within three miles of his camp. His lords.h.i.+p, accompanied by the Indian chief, White Eyes, visited the camp of Lewis, who (as some report) with difficulty restrained his men from killing the governor and his Indian companion. Lewis, to his great chagrin, received orders to return home with his troops, and he obeyed reluctantly, as it seemed a golden opportunity to give the savage enemy a fatal blow.

General Andrew Lewis lived on the Roanoke, in the County of Botetourt.

He was a native of Ireland, being one of five sons of John Lewis, who slew the Irish lord, settled Augusta County, founded the town of Staunton, and furnished several sons to fight the battles of their country. He was the son of Andrew Lewis and Mary Calhoun, his wife, and was born in Donegal County, Ireland, (1678,) and died in Virginia, (1762,) aged eighty-four: a brave man, and a firm friend of liberty. All his sons were born in Ireland except Charles, the youngest. Andrew Lewis was twice wounded at Fort Necessity; was appointed by Was.h.i.+ngton major of his regiment during the French and Indian war, and no officer more fully enjoyed his confidence. Major Lewis commanded the Sandy Creek expedition in 1756, and was made prisoner at Grant's defeat, where he exhibited signal prudence and bravery. His fort.i.tude while a prisoner was equal to his courage in battle, and commanded the respect of the French officers. He was upwards of six feet in stature, of uncommon activity and strength, and of a form of exact symmetry. His countenance was stern and invincible, his deportment reserved and distant. When he was a commissioner on behalf of Virginia at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in New York, in 1768, the governor of that colony remarked of him, that "the earth seemed to tremble under him as he walked along." At the commencement of the revolutionary war Was.h.i.+ngton considered him the foremost military man in America, and the one most worthy of the post of commander-in-chief of the American army. And it was to the country beyond the mountains that Was.h.i.+ngton looked as a place of refuge, in case he should be overpowered in the struggle, and there, defended by mountains and mountaineers, he hoped to defy the enemy. The statue of General Andrew Lewis is one of those to be placed on the monument in the capitol square, in Richmond.[589:A]

Dunmore remaining after the departure of Lewis, concluded a treaty with the Indians. Upon this occasion Cornstalk, in a long speech, charged the whites with having provoked the war, his tones of thunder resounding over a camp of twelve acres. The truth is that during the years which elapsed between Bouquet's treaty of 1764 and open war in 1774, a period of nominal peace was one of frequent actual collision and hostilities, and more lives were sacrificed on the frontier by the murderous Indians than during the whole of the year 1774, including the battle of Point Pleasant.[589:B]

FOOTNOTES:

[582:A] Or "River of the Woods," as the word signifies, or New River, as it was also sometimes called.

[582:B] Styled by Stuart, in his "Memoir of Indian Wars," Fort Savannah.

[583:A] Memoir of Battle of Point Pleasant, by Samuel L. Campbell, M.D.

[584:A] Dr. Campbell's Memoir of the Battle of Point Pleasant.

[586:A] There may be mentioned General Isaac Shelby, a native of Maryland, who distinguished himself at King's Mountain, and was subsequently the first governor of Kentucky; General William Campbell, the hero of King's Mountain, and Colonel John Campbell, who distinguished himself at Long Island; General Evan Shelby, who became an eminent citizen of Tennessee; Colonel William Fleming, a revolutionary patriot; Colonel John Stewart, of Greenbrier; Colonel William McKee, of Kentucky; Colonel John Steele, governor of the Mississippi Territory, and General George Matthews, who distinguished himself at Brandywine, Germantown, and Guilford, and was governor of Georgia, and United States senator from that State.--_Howe's Hist. Collections of Va._, 363.

[587:A] Dr. Campbell's Memoir of Battle of Point Pleasant.

[589:A] Thomas Lewis, eldest son of John Lewis, owing to a defective vision, was not actively engaged in the Indian wars. He was a man of learning, and representative of Augusta in the house of burgesses, and voted for Henry's resolutions of 1765; was a member of the conventions of 1776 and 1788. He married a Miss Strother, of Stafford. The second son, Samuel, died without issue. Andrew commanded at Point Pleasant.

William, of the Sweet Springs, was distinguished in the frontier wars, and was an officer in the revolutionary army. He married first, Anne Montgomery, of Delaware, secondly, a Miss Thomson, a relative of the poet of "The Seasons." The fifth son, Colonel Charles Lewis, fell at Point Pleasant.

[589:B] Lyman C. Draper, in Va. Hist. Register.

CHAPTER LXXVII.

Logan--Kenton--Girty--Dunmore's ambiguous Conduct--His grandson, Murray.

LOGAN, the Cayuga chief, a.s.sented to the treaty, but, still indignant at the murder of his family, refused to attend with the other chiefs at the camp, and sent his speech in a wampum-belt by an interpreter: "I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not? During the course of the last long and b.l.o.o.d.y war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they pa.s.sed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I have even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it: I have killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one."

Tah-gah-jute, or Logan, so named after James Logan, the secretary of Pennsylvania, was the son of s.h.i.+kellamy, a celebrated Cayuga chief, who dwelt at Shamokin, on the picturesque banks of the Susquehanna. When Logan grew to man's estate, living in the vicinity of the white settlers, he appears, about the year 1767, to have found the means of his livelihood in hunting deer, dressing their skins, and selling them.

When the daughter of a neighboring gentleman was just beginning to walk, her mother one day happening to say that she was sorry that she could not get a pair of shoes for her, Logan, who stood by, said nothing then, but soon after requested that the little girl might be allowed to go and spend the day at his cabin, which stood on a sequestered spot near a beautiful spring (yet known as "Logan's Spring.") The mother's heart was at the first a little disconcerted at the singular proposal; but such was her confidence in the Indian that she consented. The day wore away; the sun had gone down behind the mountains in parting splendor, and evening was folding her thoughtful wing,--and the little one had not yet returned. Just at this moment the Indian was seen descending the path with his charge, and quickly she was in her mother's arms, and pointing proudly to a beautiful pair of moccasins on her tiny feet, the product of Logan's skilful manufacture.

Not long afterwards he removed to the far West, and he was remembered by an old pioneer as "the best specimen of humanity, white or red, that he had ever seen."[591:A] In 1772 the Rev. Mr. Heckwelder, Moravian missionary, met with Logan on the Beaver River, and took him to be an Indian of extraordinary capacity. He exclaimed against the whites for the introduction of ardent spirits among his people, and regretted that they had so few gentlemen among their neighbors; and declared his intention to settle on the Ohio, where he might live forever in peace with the whites; but confessed that he himself was too fond of the firewater. In the following year Heckwelder visited Logan's settlement, below the Big Beaver, and was kindly entertained by such members of his family as were at home. About the same time another missionary, the Rev.

Dr. David McClure, met with Logan at Fort Pitt. "Tah-gah-jute, or 'Short-dress,' for such was his Indian name, stood several inches more than six feet in height; he was straight as an arrow; lithe, athletic, and symmetrical in figure; firm, resolute, and commanding in feature; but the brave, open, manly countenance he possessed in his earlier years was now changed for one of martial ferocity." He spoke the English language with fluency and correctness. The victim of intemperance, pointing to his breast, he exclaimed to the missionary, "I feel bad here. Wherever I go the evil Manethoes pursue me;" and he earnestly enquired, "What shall I do?" Logan's family were ma.s.sacred by a party of whites in the spring of 1774, perhaps under the pretext of retaliation for some Indian murders. But the charge against Cresap appears to have been unfounded. Logan's family being on a visit to a family of the name of Great-house, were murdered by them and their a.s.sociates, under circ.u.mstances of extraordinary cowardice and brutality. The mistake is one into which Logan might, in view of some recent transactions that had happened under the command of Captain Cresap, naturally fall, and which does not at all impair the force of his speech. Mr. Jefferson meeting with a copy of it at Governor Dunmore's, in Williamsburg, transcribed it in his pocket-book, and afterwards immortalized it in his "Notes on Virginia." He gave implicit confidence to its authenticity. Doddridge is of the same opinion. Jacob, in his Life of Cresap,[592:A] insinuates that the speech was a counterfeit, and declares that Cresap was as humane as brave, and had no partic.i.p.ation in the ma.s.sacre. General George Rogers Clarke, who was well acquainted with Logan and Cresap both, vouches for the substantial truth of Mr. Jefferson's story of Logan. Devoting himself to the work of revenge, he, with others, butchered men, women, and children; knives, tomahawks, and axes were left in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s which had been cleft asunder; females were stripped, and outraged, too horrible to mention; brains of infants beaten out and the dead bodies left a prey to the beasts of the forest. The family of a settler on the north fork of the Holston was ma.s.sacred, and a war-club was left in the house, and attached to it the following note, which had been previously, at Logan's dictation, written for him by one Robinson, a prisoner:--

"CAPTAIN CRESAP:

"What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga a great while ago, and I thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to war since; but the Indians are not angry--only myself.

"CAPTAIN JOHN LOGAN.

"July 21st, 1774."

Thirty scalps it was known that he took in these murderous raids, but he joined not in open battle.

Simon Kenton, a native of Fauquier County, a voyager of the woods, was employed by Dunmore as a spy (together with Simon Girty) during this campaign, in the course of which he traversed the country around Fort Pitt, and a large part of the present State of Ohio. His history is full of daring adventure, cruel sufferings, and extraordinary turns of fortune. He was eight times made to run the Indian gauntlet; three times bound to the stake. He was with Clarke in his expedition against Vincennes and Kaskaskia; and with Wayne in the campaign of 1794. He died in Ohio, in poverty and neglect, his once giant frame bowed down with age.[593:A] Girty, after playing for a time the spy on both sides in the revolutionary contest, became at length an adherent of the enemy, and proved, toward his countrymen, a cruel and barbarous miscreant, in whom every sentiment of humanity appears to have been extinct. Kenton and Girty are both good subjects for a novelist.