USA > Kentucky > History of pioneer Kentucky > Part 11
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24 If, as Filson says, Boone had given so defiant an answer such a little while before, it is difficult to account for his attitude at this time. The McAfee account here is in all probability the true one.
25 Rancke, Boonesborough, p. 87.
26 Shane MSS., Vol. II, p. 75. There were eighteen Indians at the conference.
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borough to the dominions of his most Gracious Majesty and provided that the garrison should take the oath of allegiance to him and become British subjects.27 The next morning Boone, accompanied by five of the representatives, repaired to the meeting place to sign the treaty. As they drew near the place Boone noticed that the trusted chiefs of the day before had been replaced by strange warriors. He spoke of it to Blackfish, only to meet with a denial. Nothing happened amiss, however, and the treaty was signed by both parties. Then the Indians offered their hands in token of amity, and the white men gladly received them. However, as the Indians far outnumbered the whites, and they all insisted on shaking hands, it resulted in each of the white men being grasped by two or more Indians. So far there had been no signs of treachery. But Calloway, not liking the looks of things, jerked away from the detaining hands and ran for the fort.28 The others did likewise, and a "dreadful scuffle" ensued, the Indians making great efforts to hold Boone. When the garrison saw the disorder, they lost no time in firing on the Indians, and the fire was returned by a party of con- cealed warriors. Thus exposed to two fires, the treaty- makers hurried to the fort and succeeded in reaching it with no one wounded except Squire Boone.29 Whether this was due to the amazingly poor marksmanship of the In- dians or to their reluctance to harm their prospective prisoners does not appear.
27 Draper, MSS. Life of Boone, Vol. IV, p. 224.
28 Another tradition gives John South as the first man to break away.
29 One commissioner was unable to reach the fort and was com- pelled to remain hidden behind a stump until the darkness made it possible for the garrison to let him inside.
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It is by no means settled that the Indians were acting in bad faith in taking the hands of the white men. Rather is it to be believed that the lamentable outcome was a result of the panic on the part of Colonel Calloway. He was constantly expecting treachery from the Indians and would be quick to take alarm at a situation such as this. On the other hand, there were many reasons to believe that the Indians were sincere. If they had meditated treachery, they had had several, and better, opportunities before. Only the day before they had had nine men in their power and did not offer to molest them. They had not attempted violence at their first conference. They had allowed the settlers, on several occasions, to drive their cattle into the fort and, finally, they could but know that they were under the rifles of the garrison and that any violence on their part meant death to themselves. From these consid- erations, it remains at least an open question whether the trouble at the spring was due to treachery on the part of the Indians or a panic on the part of the white men.
Whatever had been the nature of the Indians' former actions, there could be no doubt about their hostility from this time forward. Having secreted a chosen band near the Kentucky River, the others broke up camp in wild confusion and ostentatiously pretended to retreat, evi- dently hoping that the garrison would come out and pursue. 30 This, however, was the one thing above all others that the men would not do. They suspected a trap and held themselves steadily in the fort. Then the Indians returned and began a fierce attack, which they kept up almost without cessation for nine days.31 The fire of the
30 McAfee, Life and Times.
31 Indian sharpshooters on several occasions fired into the fort from the hills behind and those across the river. Shane MSS., Vol. I, p. 44.
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Indians was, however, of little effect and that of the gar- rison seems to have been but little better. Not content with rifle fire, the garrison brought out a wooden cannon bound around with a wagon tire and prepared to use it. They loaded it with twenty or thirty-ounce balls and fired at a group of Indians.32 So great a terror was inspired in the Indians that it was fired again. But this time it burst and the loud report so alarmed the Indians that they "skampered perdidiously" and did not dare during the remainder of the siege to gather together in groups.33 Oftentimes the Indians would taunt the garrison and defy them to shoot their big gun again; to this the usual reply was that it was not worth while to shoot it at single Indians. Great efforts were made by the Indians to undermine the fort. They began digging under the river bank and mined to within fifteen or twenty steps of the fort. The mines approached so nearly that the white men and the Indians could hear each other digging. When the Indians had mined close to the fort they made constant efforts to throw torches and firebrands on the roofs of the cabins.34 Fortunately, however, there had been heavy rains 35 for several days and no damage was done, as the roofs were too damp to ignite. The constant raining made mining a very disagreeable business, and the Indians, tiring, aban- doned it. There was the additional reason that they feared lest the pioneers might place their cannon in the counter- mine and fire through the thin intervening walls. Finally,
32 Autobiography of Daniel Trabue.
33 Squire Boone before the siege had made two of these rude swivels, but one had already burst. Shane MSS., Vol. I, p. 40. 34 At one time the house formerly occupied by Henderson was set on fire, but the blaze was extinguished by knocking off the shingles. 35 The accounts of both McAfee and Trabue make it plain that if it had not been for the opportune rains the garrison would have been compelled to surrender.
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fully disheartened, the entire force, on the twentieth of August, after destroying all the property they could find exposed, raised the siege and began a retreat. Weakness and fear of treachery prevented the garrison from pur- suing. As an evidence of poor marksmanship and an over- abundant supply of ammunition, the settlers, after the siege, picked up some one hundred and twenty-five pounds of bullets near the fort. The garrison had lost but two killed and four wounded; the Indians had two killed and three wounded.36
Only a few days after the raising of the siege a com- pany of eighty men came into the fort from the Holstein settlements. 37 No attempt at resistance was made either from Harrodstown or Logan's during the siege. The former, in fact, was wholly ignorant that the fort was being besieged. They did not learn of it at all till after the siege had been raised when, surprised because they had received no communication from Boonesborough for so long a time, they sent messengers to see what was wrong, and only then learned of the peril through which the fort had lately passed. Logan's had been expecting a siege the same time as Boonesborough, but though the Indians appeared around the fort, killing and driving off the cattle, no actual attack occurred. Small as their own gar- rison 38 was, they had sent men to Boonesborough when
36 Butterfield, Clarke's Conquest of the Illinois, p. 199. It is impossible to reconcile the Indian account of their losses with that usually given by the Kentucky historians. Butterfield's statement is derived from the Haldimand Papers and is undoubtedly correct. As a rule the Indian officers were very accurate in reporting their losses-and gains-to the Canadian headquarters. Among the Indian dead was the negro slave Pompey.
37 Rancke, Boonesborough, p. 104.
38 McAfee, Sketches of the First Settlements in Kentucky. There were twenty-four men at Logan's. Logan himself went to the lick to drive in the cattle and was gravely wounded by the lurking Indians.
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they heard that it was threatened, and for this reason the. fort could possibly have been taken had the Indians at- tacked it in force. After the Indians had withdrawn from before their own walls, they feared attack from those before Boonesborough.39 On one occasion, when the feeble gar- rison was anxiously manning the walls, they saw a con- siderable force approaching from the direction of Boones- borough, and they hastened to prepare themselves for the expected attack. Logan was confined to his bed by wounds and the garrison was almost exhausted.40 But the. approaching force 41 proved to be their own men returned from the siege of Boonesborough, and as soon as they were recognized, both sides gave themselves up to the wildest rejoicing.
The aftermath of the siege of Boonesborough is worthy of record. The feeling against Boone for his promises to the British and Indians and for his conduct during the siege was bitter, and particularly so on the part of Cal- loway.42. A meeting of the militia officers was called at Logan's, where Logan was confined by his wounds, and Boone was court-martialed for treason. Calloway charged that at Lower Blue Licks Boone had been found hunting ten miles away from his companions and that he had sur- rendered them unnecessarily and against their will. He
39 Autobiography of Daniel Trabue.
40 During this trouble the garrison had built a tunnel of some length from the fort to the spring outside. A messenger, Martin, was despatched to the Holstein for help.
41 These men, as well as a few from Harrodstown, had been sent to Boonesborough when the siege was expected. They remained within the fort throughout the siege. A Boonesborough hunter, Pat- ton, caught outside the fort by the coming of the Indians, lingered near until at the final assault, thinking the fort captured, he bore the news to Logan's. Clarke MSS., Vol. XXVI.
42 Flanders Calloway had married the daughter of Boone, and there were probably family reasons for the bad feeling between the .- Boones and Calloways. Shane MSS., Vol. I, p. 27.
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further charged that Boone had entered into treasonable agreements with Hamilton for the surrender of the Ken- tucky settlements. Boone, in answer, justified his conduct at the Lower Blue Licks and affirmed that, in making such promises to the British at Detroit, he had only meant to deceive them. The court adopted Boone's side of the question and gave him an honorable acquittal. He shortly became a major in the militia. Calloway and Logan were. greatly displeased with the verdict, but it was a popular one with the people. Boone soon returned to North Caro- lina, whither his family had gone after his capture by the Indians. He did not return until the fall of 1779.43
The latter half of the year 1778 was much quieter than the first. Although straggling bodies of Indians made desultory attacks around the forts, there was no longer any great peril. In September a party of white men going from Harrodstown to Logan's was fired upon, but no damage was done. A corn-shelling party sent out from Harrodstown under Colonel Bowman fared somewhat worse ; fired upon from a canebrake, they lost seven men before driving off their assailants. Calloway went to Vir- ginia the last of the year and brought back a great supply of ammunition, conveying it over the long road on some forty pack horses.
There came in November a melancholy suggestion of Transylvania in an act of the Virginia Legislature relating to Richard Henderson and his associates. An act was passed formally annulling their purchase from the Chero- kees, but giving them two hundred thousand acres of land at the mouth of Green River. In the troubled times of the last two years Transylvania had almost passed out of memory in Kentucky.
43 Thwaites, Life of Boone, p. 167.
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GROWTH AND EXPANSION.
W HILE Boonesborough and the other Kentucky set- tlements were fighting the Indians hand to hand, Colonel George Rogers Clarke, several hundred miles away from the danger zone, was waging a bloodless warfare against a somnolent enemy.1 Kaskaskia capitulated with a readiness highly suggestive that its submission at that time was caused only by a lack of earlier opportunity. Sixty miles up the Mississippi the inhabitants of Cahokia, influenced by the entreaties of their friends at Kaskaskia, surrendered without a struggle to a small force under Captain Bowman, sent from the latter fort. Here, as at Kaskaskia, no casualties resulted unless, perhaps, to the vocabulary of the excitable French. Kaskaskia submitted to a regiment; Cahokia, to a company ; Vincennes, to a priest. The absence of a commander, the influence of Father Gibault and the indifference of the inhabitants brought about the surrender of Vincennes entirely un- menaced by arms. This succession of triumphs was rudely and ingloriously broken when Governor Hamilton moved down from Detroit and retook Vincennes. There being no alternative but to capture or be captured, Clarke promptly moved to the lately lost fort and, after terrible privations, reached, surprised and captured it. The "great hair buyer" himself was sent a captive to Virginia as a concrete testimonial to the activity of Clarke's army. Clarke, after a campaign of less than one year, held the Illinois coun -. try and looked with covetous eyes toward Detroit.
1 Butterfield, Clarke's Conquest of the Illinois. Passim.
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Before setting out for Vincennes, Clarke had reorgan- ized his little army and sent, under Captain Linn, back to Kentucky such of his militia as did not care to re-en- list. Linn was instructed to return to the Falls and erect there a fort with whatever men he could induce to stay. A stockade had been built there on Corn Island by Clarke himself the preceding spring; this stockade, to which a few families were still clinging, was removed to the main- land, enlarged and called Fort Nelson at first, but later grew into the city of Louisville. Fort Nelson quickly be- came a position of importance.2 There were now four posts in the Kentucky country sufficiently strong to resist Indian attack : Harrodstown, Logan's, Boonesborough and Fort Nelson became centers of population and cities of refuge. To these four places the settlers fled in times of danger and from them in peaceful times they went forth to establish new forts or reoccupy the old. From Fort Nelson, in the spring of 1779, there went out colonies to establish forts and stations in the vicinity. On Beargrass Creek, ten miles from the Falls, they located Lynn's Sta- tion; Brashear's Station was placed at Floyd's Fork and Sullivan's, only five miles from the Falls.
Harrodstown was also expanding. A company, headed by Robert Patterson, founded and named Lexington, and Isaac Ruddle led a party to Hinkston's old settlement on the Licking and built the ill-fated station that bore his name. Martin's was erected in the same neighborhood. Grant's and Todd's were weak stockades abandoned before a year. From Saint Asaph were established Whitley's, Worthington's, Field's and Pittman's. From Boones- borough, Floyd settled on the Beargrass and Squire Boone
2 For a description of the fort, see R. T. Durrett in the Courier- Journal of August 2, 1883. It contained fifty-two cabins.
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near by on Clear Creek; Strode settled across the river from Boonesborough in what was later Clarke County. One or two important stations were built by parties from across the mountains. The most noted of these was Bry- ant's, a little northeast of Lexington. It was settled mainly by North Carolinians, and there were two brothers- in-law of Boone among its founders. The McAfees re- turned from Virginia and reoccupied their old cabins on Salt River.
The establishment of so many new stations indicated a rapidly increasing population. The number of inhabi- tants was, in fact, growing daily. The report of Clarke's success in the Illinois country was being spread abroad in the backwoods of Virginia and North Carolina, and the frontiersmen, having long desired to move into Kentucky, easily satisfied themselves that henceforth life there would not be imperiled by Indian war. How vain was this re- flection the events of a few years made greatly evident. But for a time the people rushed into Kentucky. The country that only a few months before had excelled a wilderness only by three forts, began to take on the aspect of a settled country. Stockades sprang into existence in the midst of the forests and the land was fast being cleared for the crops of corn. All central Kentucky, both north and south of the river, was dotted with stations. Ruddle's on the north, Fort Nelson and McAfee's on the west, and the mountains on the south marked the limits of the new domain. So many stations were built, so great was the immigration and so safe seemed the country from all foes that before the year was out Virginia dismissed her militia, locked up the commissaries and left Kentucky to shift for herself.3
3 Autobiography of Daniel Trabue in Draper MSS.
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The year 1779 is a notable one in Kentucky history in one respect: it was the first time the white men at- tempted to take the offensive against the Indians. The marauding bands that beset the Wilderness Road and the banks of the Ohio did a profitable business at the expense of the immigrants to Kentucky. They were persistent enough to annoy, while not strong enough to imperil, the settlements. A more patient people than the Kentuckians would have grown restive under continual worry. When they decided to take revenge they were at no loss where to look for the foe; no other than a Shawnee would wage such a war. The invasion of the preceding year was also a bitter memory. The military authorities decided to carry the war to the enemy.
The objective point was Old Chillicothe on the Little Miami, some sixty miles from the Ohio. Colonel John Bowman, the county-lieutenant, took the initiative by notifying the settlers that immediately after they had fin- ished planting their corn they should rendezvous at the mouth of the Licking for an expedition northward. This particular time was selected for the expedition because there were present in Kentucky then some seventy men from the Monongahela country, and it had been ascer- tained that their aid could be secured for the attempt. These men had been in Kentucky prospecting for land and were now on the point of returning home. Captain Harrod undertook the task of recruiting them at Fort Nelson and leading them to the appointed rendezvous. The Boonesborough contingent, consisting of twenty or twenty-five men, was led by Captain John Holder. Those of Saint Asaph and vicinity were under the command of Logan, who was Bowman's chief lieutenant. Levi Todd headed a company recruited from Bryant's and Lexing-
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ton ; Lieutenant Haggin commanded the little band from Martin's and Ruddle's, while the McAfee and Harrodstown men were led by Captain Harlan. Bowman, by virtue of his commission as county-lieutenant, was the commander- in-chief of the little army, with Logan second in com- mand, and Major Bedinger, adjutant and quartermaster. After crossing the Ohio the army marched in three divi- sions under Logan, Holder and Harrod. The Indians' trail was found opposite the mouth of the Licking, and, advancing cautiously, the expedition arrived at Chilli- cothe undetected.
The progress so far was clear and decisive; from this time forward it was confusion worse confounded. It is, in fact, a great tribute to the capacity for confusion shown by the historians of Kentucky to be able to admit that their accounts of the battle are more obscure than the battle itself. It is comparatively certain that the army reached the Indian town about dark, and, finding the Indians unsuspecting, determined to attack at day- break.4 Logan, with one-third the force, moved to the left to encircle the town, and Harrod with his division passed to the right; Holder remained in front. A pre- mature shot from one of Holder's men disclosed the pres- ence of the white men and the battle began in confusion. The Indians collected in a big cabin near the center of the town, and the white men, taking possession of the other cabins, pushed forward till they were within seventy yards of the Indians' position. Here they were held de- terminedly at bay. The fighting continued until ten o'clock, by which time the white men had lost nine men, had burned from twenty to forty cabins and had stolen,
4 Bradford, Notes on Kentucky, p. 46.
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or regained, one hundred and forty-three horses. But the Indians, far outnumbering them, began to employ flank movements that promised to result in the speedy destruc- tion of the Kentuckians. All this time, Logan and Holder had been fighting hard and waiting for the expected aid from Harrod's Monongahelians. But the Monongahelians refused all obedience and gave themselves up to plunder- ing the camp; they could not be induced to go to the aid of the hard-pressed Kentuckians. Bowman, seeing that the Kentuckians were in danger of being surrounded, and not being able to compel or persuade the Monongahelians to advance, ordered a retreat. The order came as a com- plete surprise to Holder and Logan, who knew nothing of the conduct of the Monongahelians and were under the impression that everything was going favorably to the white men ; nevertheless, they obeyed. The retreat began in good order, with the men falling back slowly and de- liberately. The Indians at first were too much relieved to press the pursuit, but recovering their spirits after the Kentuckians had gone some ten miles, they rushed furi- ously against the retreating column and poured in a rapid and misdirected fire. The officers, in the face of a grow- ing panic formed their men in a hollow square and stood at bay. But the Indians wisely refused to come to close quarters, and the white men were compelled again to retreat. The renowned Blackfish had fallen and Red Hawk led the warriors.5 He persisted in the policy of hanging on the rear of the Kentuckians and continually hampering the retreat. These galling tactics would have ultimately resulted in the destruction of the invading force but for a bold expedient of the officers; Logan, Harrod
5 Red Hawk was also killed in the course of the day.
.
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and Bedinger headed a cavalry charge that scattered the Indians and rendered safe the remainder of the retreat.6 The force crossed the Ohio and dispersed to their homes.
No loss of any moment was received on this expedition, and the Indians suffered far more than the white men. But the moral effect of the retreat was incalculable. It was the first attempt Kentucky had made to invade the enemy's country, and, notwithstanding the damage done to the enemy, the enforced retreat gave it all the appear- ance of a defeat. And as a defeat it was considered by the settlers themselves; they could only see, as a recent historian has put it, that Blackfish had "smitten them hip and thigh." In their resentment they looked around for a scapegoat among their officers, and finally fixed on Bow- man to fill the position. The story was put in circulation that Bowman failed to support Logan in the battle, had remained inactive while it was fought and had ordered a retreat at the moment of victory.7 This delectable bit of mythology does as little credit to the intelligence of its fabricators as to that of the historians who accepted and recorded it. Bowmen was an old and tried Indian fighter; he had come to Kentucky as a leader of the Virginia militia and had proved himself in many an engagement since. No one was less likely to remain inactive during the battle than he. In regard to the retreat, an analysis of the battle will plainly show that it was a choice between retreat or annihilation, and Bowman wisely decided upon retreating. The credit of the defeat may be given to the
6 Bedinger MSS., pp. 19-30.
7 Historians have as a rule followed McClung's "Sketches" in recording the battle. The character of these sketches is such as to justify no one in following them unless confirmed by other authori- ties. Such an agreement, however, would rather tend to discredit the authorities than to confirm McClung.
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seventy Monongahelians who refused to obey Bowman's order to advance. Logan's impetuosity in the early part of the battle had carried him into a perilous situation, but his lack of judgment then was lost sight of in the remem- brance of his heroic conduct during the retreat. Unjustly, but very effectively, public opinion enforced the retire- ment of Bowman, who was, after all, but an "outlander." Logan's reputation was not injured by the failure.
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