USA > Mississippi > A history of the Mississippi valley, from its discovery to the end of foreign domination. The narrative of the founding of an empire, shorn of current myth, and enlivened by the thrilling adventures of discoverers, pioneers, frontiersmen, Indian fighters, and homemakers > Part 18
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In order to palliate these admitted facts, some writers note that even Hamilton was in the habit of telling the Indians, as he sent them forth, that they should spare the women and children. There is no doubt that Hamilton did do that, but when these same warriors returned with the blood of women and chil- dren on their tomahawks, Hamilton joined in their rejoicing and rewarded them.
In view of this rejoicing over the slaughter of the innocents, there can be but one interpreting of his habit of telling the Indians, as he sent them forth, not to kill
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women and children. He did it for the sole purpose of throwing dust in the eyes of critics who might come, eventually, to call him to account for his barbarity. He was animated by a regard for "appearances," as Dumas was, when in command at Ft. Duquesne. In- stead of his words palliating his conduct, they do but blacken it; for they show his hypocrisy.
The first outbreak of the savages during the Revo- lution was in June, 1776, when the Cherokees, on receiving fifty horse loads of ammunition from the British, were induced to go to war. It was an out- break due solely to the desire to ravage the frontier of the Patriots, for there was no British army in the South, at the time, and no success which the Indians could attain would serve in the remotest degree to return the colonists to their allegiance to the King.
The Cherokees numbered 2,400 warriors at the time, it is said-more than twice the force that Old Cornstalk had in his great fight at Point Pleasant. Dividing this force into large parties (the party that attacked the Watauga settlements numbered 700), they came upon the frontier like packs of wolves. The home-makers fled toward the forted villages, whenever warning came to them in time, but many an unfortun- ate knew nothing of the danger until the painted war- riors were upon him. Cameron, the British agent, and a number of tories were with some of the red bands, but it is likely that their presence added to the horrors of the raids; at any rate the women and children slaughtered outnumbered the men, and many of the men slain were unarmed. That men were burned at the stake scarcely need be said, but it is recorded that
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one boy was carried from a Watauga home, and at Tuskega was slowly tortured to death; and a woman would have been served in like manner, but for the humanity of one squaw, known as Nancy Ward, who, having great influence in her tribe, interfered with success. Of the cattle that were killed, homes burned and fields wasted, mere mention is necessary.
Naturally the first settlers to strike back were those of the Watauga region. While nearly all of the stock- ades in that region had no more than men enough for successful defence, that in Eaton's Station had some to spare, and these could not remain cooped up. Sally- ing out on the morning of July 20, 1776, in a band 170 strong, they found a party of Indians near their Island flats, but failed to get even one of them.
It seemed improbable that any damage could be inflicted on the Indians after they had learned the whites were out, and the whites turned back to the fort. Then the Indians, seeing the whites turn, sup- posed them panic stricken, and raising the war whoop, came in a mass of a hundred or so, led by the famous chief, Dragging Canoe; they were expecting to slaugh- ter the whole company of whites, but the whites formed in line and allowed the Indians to come until within easy range. Then they opened a shriveling fire which turned the wild war whoops into howls of dis- may. Yet the Indians carried off their wounded (among whom was Dragging Canoe), and presumably most of their dead, for the whites got but thirteen scalps. Four settlers were wounded badly, but none killed. It was one of the rare occasions where the Indian losses exceeded those of the whites.
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About this time a party from the Wolf Hills Fort took eleven red scalps which they hung above the fort gate, Indian fashion. The Watauga fort, where Rob- ertson and John Sevier were, had no more than fifty men, and remained on the defensive. Some would go forth, however, and three or four were killed, and the boy who was burned at Tuskega, was captured. One girl-Kate Sherrill-"brown haired, comely, tall, lithe and supple," would go down to the stream, one day, and the Indians who were in hiding nearby, dashed forth to capture her.
It was a most thrilling race, for they headed her away from the gate; but nothing daunted, she ran straight to the palisades, leaped up, caught two pointed tops, and drawing herself up, tumbled over, and dropped into the arms of John Sevier, who had shot her foremost pursuer, meantime, and who was stand- ing ready to catch her.
Sevier at this time was a widower, and one of the most popular men of the country. Kate was one of the most charming girls of all the mountain region. So John and Kate were married, and the girl who could mount a twelve-foot palisade became the first lady of Tennessee, for Sevier was elected Governor as soon as the State was admitted to the Union.
One of the most interesting features of frontier life is found in the stories of loves and marriages that followed the gatherings of families into the forts dur- ing the Indian raids-raids that were made to depop- ulate the frontier.
The raids east of the mountains roused the inhab- itants. The militia were called out by the thousand,
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and then in due course the Cherokee towns were raided in turn. And a Cherokee town was not like a collec- tion of bark shelters found in the north, for the Chero- kees built good log houses and cultivated large fields. They were civilizing themselves steadily, if slowly, and the return raids made into their country, inflicted such serious damage that the majority of the Chero- kees had to flee for succor to the Creeks and live on charity, during the ensuing winter. They were chas- tised in a way that compelled the clans to keep the peace for several years.
And yet old Dragging Canoe refused to join in the peace. Going down to the Chickamauga, he gath- ered the outlaws of every clan and tribe of red men, with bloodthirsty desperadoes from among the Tories, and there established a pirate community. In the course of the fighting, however, the Cherokees lost 200 men killed, while the whites lost as many men, and more than 200 women and children.
Meantime the Kentuckians were organizing their country as a county of Virginia. At a gathering in Harrodsburg, in the middle of June, 1776, they elected George Rogers Clark (the youth who had been under Cresap in the murderous attack on Indians below Wheeling, in 1774), and one other man to carry a petition to the Virginia legislature. This petition was dated June 20, 1776, and the most interesting para- graph in it was that which pointed out "how impolitic it would be to suffer such a Respectable Body of Prime Riflemen to remain in a state of neutrality" while the United Colonies were in a desperate struggle for liberty.
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Clark succeded in his mission. Kentucky was ad- mitted as a county, with Harrodsburg as the county town. The militia were organized, and John Bowman was placed in command with the rank of colonel-the name of the first Kentucky colonel is, doubtless, a matter of National, if not of world-wide, interest.
In the meantime, Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo (the Iroquois of the Ohio) chiefs had assembled at the forks of the Ohio, and declared for neutrality in the conflict between the colonies and England, but that was a position they could not hold. Col. Henry Hamilton, with abundant supplies of goods for pres- ents, and money for the purchase of scalps, was at work to incite the Indians to raid the home makers. The colonies had little money for any purpose-they could not compete with this well-supplied official in bargaining for the favor of these red men. Besides the commissioners of Congress were trying to keep them neutral only. Hamilton offered them the still greater delight of shedding the blood of unarmed men, and helpless women and children. After the training which the Indians had received at the hands of the whites, during the preceding 150 years, there could be no question as to the course they would pursue.
During 1776 small parties of the Ohio Indians began making raids into Kentucky and other parts of the frontier. Numbers of Ottawas, Pottawattomies and Chippewas, the raptores of the Great Lakes, came to the feasts of blood and plunder.
One story of these raiders in 1776 may be told to show the pluck of the frontier girl. On July 14, five Indians carried off Boone's daughter, Jemima, with
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Betsy and Fanny Calloway. The Indians made the girls wade in brooks, and took pains to obliterate the trail in every way, but Betsy Calloway, in spite of the uplifted tomahawks, kept breaking twigs and rip- ping off bits of her dress to catch the eyes of those she knew would follow. And so a party, led by Boone, and including the lovers of the three girls, came upon the Indians, late the next day, as they were preparing to cook a buffalo calf they had killed, and shot two of them. The three who were untouched fled, almost naked and without any weapon, into the forest and escaped.
The fighting, when a band of 200 Indians came to Wheeling on the morning of September 2, 1777, showed the metal of the frontiersmen. They arrived at daylight, a thick fog aiding them materially. A little later a white man and a negro left the fort to bring in some horses from a pasture. A party of six Indians waylaid the two men and killed one of them. One, it appears, was allowed to escape in order that he might bring out a party to attack the six, with the idea that they were a small band of raiders. Anyway, fifteen men left the fort to hunt the Indians, and before them the six Indians fled until the white men were led into an ambush. Then the Indians in hiding rose up with the war whoop, and closed in. But, although outnumbered more than twelve to one, the trapped men refused to yield. Twelve died fighting, and three escaped by hiding in the brush. A party of twelve that came from the fort to aid the fifteen were also trapped, but of these four escaped to the brush.
The men now remaining in the fort numbered no
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more than fourteen, but the Zane brothers, who were too humane and just to take part in the murders pre- ceding Lord Dunmore's War, were among them. The Indians came to the dwellings that stood near the fort and called on the whites to surrender, but the whites replied by firing at every patch of red skin that came in view. The women aided the men by running bul- lets, by cooling the heated guns and even by taking places at the port-holes to fire at the red men.
Knowing that the force of settlers was small, the Indians came boldly to the fort gate, carrying a log for a battering ram; but their dash failed because of the deadly aim of the defenders. All that day and the following night the Indians raged vainly around the fort. The next morning a small relief party (thirteen or fifteen men), came to the fort by way of the river, and a little later a party of forty men, led by Major Samuel McCulloch, arrived on horseback. As this party approached the fort, McCulloch was cut off from his men. The Indians were so close to him that the only way of escape led toward the top or crest of a "slipbank," 300 feet high, and steep and rocky. But McCulloch galloped to the brink, and plunging head- long down, he reached the bottom safely and crossed the flats to the fort. The precipice is there yet, but the slope is moderate in these days.
Harrodsburg was under fire nearly all the summer of 1777, the besieging parties of Indians coming in such quick succession that the people of the neighbor- hood were unable to raise any crops, save a few tur- nips.
On one occasion the uneasiness of the cattle (cattle
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always showed fear when they smelled Indians), gave them warning, and they were able to attack a party of Indians who were trying to ambush some men at work in a field. Three of the Indians were killed, one by George Rogers Clark, who was in the fort almost all summer. The plunder these Indians left behind was sold at auction for £ 70.
The siege here was so close, at times, that the peo- ple were at the point of starvation. The most skillful woodsmen tried sneaking away from the fort at night to get game, but so many were caught and killed, that a time came when no more men could be spared. In this emergency, James Ray, a lad of seventeen years, begged permission to try, and because of a previous adventure, he was allowed to go. In the previous adventure, Ray, with two other boys, had been at work, in a field four miles from the fort, when a pack of forty-seven Indians, under a chief named Black- fish, attacked them. The two boys with Ray were killed, but Ray, in a four-mile race for life, fairly and easily outran the whole pack. The hungry settlers in the fort thought that one who could run as he could might escape; so they let him try for game.
In the dark hour just before day, this boy led an old horse from the fort into the river, and then by riding continually in the stream or its branches to conceal his trail, he reached safe hunting grounds and killed a load of meat. This he brought to the fort by the same trail, and so succored the famishing garrison. And these expeditions were made time and again with- out the Indians learning anything about them.
Nevertheless, Ray was at last to have about the
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narrowest escape of any of the people in Kentucky. A man named McConnel was out trying his rifle at a mark, with Ray beside him, at a time when the peo- ple supposed no Indians were near. But suddenly a shot from the brush killed McConnel, and then a great body of Indians leaped out to take the boy.
For 150 yards the boy ran, with the Indians so close to him that the people in the fort were obliged to close the gate lest the Indians enter with him. But as the gate closed, the garrison opened fire, and the Indians stopped, while Ray threw himself flat on the the ground behind a stump, near the bottom log of one of the cabins that formed the fort wall.
His peril, however, was now greater than before, because, on seeing they could not capture him, the Indians opened fire. To try to rise and run for the gate was but to give the Indians a better chance to kill him, and to lie still was to be reached by a bullet, sooner or later.
Nevertheless, his wit was sufficient for the occa- sion.
"For God's sake, dig a hole under the wall and take me in," he shouted, and in a few minutes the work was done, and he was safe. He lived to be governor of the state.
It was a perilous summer, but in the course of it, George Rogers Clark sent two spies among the French of Illinois, and in a diary that he kept is found this entry :
"July 9-Lieutenant Linn married, great merri- ment."
Boone says "Col. Harrod's fort was then defended 263
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by only sixty-five men, and Boonesborough by twenty- two, there being no more forts or white men in the country, except at the Falls, a considerable distance from these, * * * but a handful to the numerous war- riors that everywhere dispersed through the country."
And yet in spite of the "numerous warriors," a party of forty-five men-home seekers-came in from North Carolina, arriving on July 25, 1777, and a hundred more arrived on August 20.
Early in 1778, while making salt at the Blue Licks, Daniel Boone and a party were captured by a band of eighty Miamis, and were taken to Detroit. Because Boone was such a famous frontiersman, Hamilton tried to ransom him, but the Indians preferred to adopt him, and thus gave him a chance to escape.
This chance came just as the Indians were prepar- ing to start in large force on a raid into Kentucky. Boone traveled 160 miles in four days, eating but one meal during the time. Knowing that Boone would prepare the settlements for the attack, the raiders remained at home.
Boone was raised to the rank of Major in the militia on his return.
On August 8, 1778, the Indians came to Boones- borough with a force of more than 300 under a French partisan named Daigniau de Quindre. There were eleven other French soldiers of fortune in the band.
By asking for time in which to consider a demand for surrender, Boone was able to put the fort into good condition, and then he laughed at the simple French- men. In return the Frenchmen persuaded Boone and eight others to come out and meet nine Frenchmen
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and nine Indians to discuss a treaty of peace. All met unarmed according to agreement, but the Frenchmen and Indians tried to carry off the Kentuckians bare- handed.
Of course they failed, for no two men of any other race could, (or can), carry off, barehanded, an Ameri- can frontiersman. An effort to run a tunnel under the fort was blocked, and the invaders went away deeply humiliated. Many other stories of raids of similar character are found in the annals, but as they were much alike, and none had any lasting effect on the ultimate isues of the war, no more shall be given here.
In the meantime the spies sent by George Rogers Clark had returned to Harrodsburg with the news that Kaskaskia and other British posts in the Illinois coun- try were but feebly manned, and that the French popu- lation had very little love for their British rulers, though they had been taught to believe the American frontiersmen, (known, by the way, as the Long Knives), were devils incarnate for fighting, and mon- sters for cruelty and rapacity.
To Clark this news was most cheering, for he could now see his way to success in an expedition to the Illinois country. Whether or not Clark then saw the tremendous results involved in the capture of the British posts is a question which has been discussed, but this much is undoubted: Clark saw that the way to defend the Kentucky settlements from aggression was to capture the British posts from which the raids were made. One summer passed within the walls of Harrodsburg fort was all of the porcupine style of fighting that he wanted. He determined to fight the
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wolves in their dens, and what he accomplished shall be told in the next chapter.
But before passing to the achievements of this hero of the frontier it is worth while noting that there were a few wolves among the Americans. While the British were still bargaining with the red men, Old Cornstalk, the red warrior who led his host with con- summate skill at the battle of Point Pleasant, and with his words, "Be strong! Be strong!" gave courage to the weak through all that deadly strife, now favored the Americans by speeches in council; and in every way possible, he opposed the British agents. Finally, when he saw that he must fail, he went to Fort Ran- dolph, at Point Pleasant, to give the officers there due warning. A young chief named Red Hawk went with him. In spite of Cornstalk's friendly act he was im- prisoned, and when his son Ellinipsico came to learn why the old chief did not return home, he too was held a prisoner.
The next day after Ellinipsico arrived, two men from the garrison, while hunting on the farther side of the Kanawha, were ambushed by Indians, and one was killed. To avenge the death of this man, the militia ran to the quarters where the unarmed Corn- stalk and his son, and Red Hawk, were confined, work- ing up their passions the while, with shouts and yells.
The coming rabble frightened the son, but old Cornstalk, whose courage had never faltered, said :
"My son, the Great Spirit has seen fit that we should die together, and has sent you here to that end. It is His will, and let us submit-it is all for the best."
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GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
From an oil-painting in the possession of Vincennes University, Ind., said to be the only portrait from life now in existence.
FORT WAYNE 1794
XV
THE WORK OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
The Expedition that Acquired for the United States All the Territory Between the Ohio River, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Was Started on a Cash Capital of £ 1,200-The Lone Stranger that Stood in the Doorway of the Ball Room at Kaskaskia, and the Effect of His Appearances on the Dancers-A Bit of Acting that Was Far More Effective than Gunshots-A Striking Comparison of the "Hair- Buyer" Hamilton with George Rogers Clark.
During all the time that George Rogers Clark was planning, in Harrodsburg, his attack on the British posts of the Northwest, he did not give any one so much as a hint of what was on his mind. Even the spies who went to Kaskaskia thought they were making this adventuresome trip in the interests of trade. With
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equal reticence he left Harrodsburg on October I, 1777, and started alone over the Wilderness Road, to Old Virginia, to obtain men and supplies for the meditated expedition.
Clark arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia's capital, at an auspicious time. Burgoyne, through the well- laid plans of Schuyler and the hard fighting of Stark, Morgan and Arnold, had been compelled to surrender his entire army, and "things seemed to wear a pleasant aspect," in consequence.
On December 10, Clark laid his plans before Gover- nor Patrick Henry. The man who had said "Give me liberty or give me death!" was able to appreciate the splendid project, and when Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and George Wythe were called on they also gave it hearty approval.
Only these men learned that such an expedition was contemplated. Clark was made a Colonel in the Vir- ginia militia, and he received £ 1,200 in depreciated currency for expenses. An expedition to take posses- sion of all the region between the Ohio, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi was started with a cash cap- ital of £1,200 in depreciated currency !
If there is anything in history that can convert the fool who says in his heart there is no God, it is the story of the American Revolution. That pitiful sum was sufficient for George Rogers Clark. What he lacked in cash he made up with his youthful energy and hopefulness, for he was only twenty-five years old. Taking his money he went to Pittsburg, authorized to enlist 700 men, ostensibly to defend Kentucky from in- vasion, and with his utmost efforts was able to fill three
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companies of fifty men each. With these, and the rumor that four companies had been raised in Ken- tucky, he took boats and went down the Ohio River to the Falls, (Louisville), where he landed on Corn Island, May 27, 1778. Instead of four companies, he found less than 100 men, and when, at last, public an- nouncement of the object of the expedition was made, a considerable number of these deserted.
And yet, after building a fort, Clark divided his force in order to garrison the island and protect some settlers who had come down the river with him to make homes there. He was then able to organize only four companies, each having less than fifty men, for the expedition, (he had 175 men all told) ; but with unsurpassed pluck he launched forth his boats on June 24, 1778, just as an eclipse of the sun was coming on, and in the growing darkness they shot the falls and proceeded on their way. The captains of the four companies were John Montgomery, Joseph Bowman, Leonard Helm and William Harrod.
The river was followed until nine miles below the mouth of the Tennessee, when Clark turned into the mouth of the Massac Creek, that enters the Ohio about 200 yards above the "steep, low hill of iron-stained gravel and clay" on which old Fort Massac was built by the French after they were driven from Fort Du- quesne, (Pittsburg) by the Quaker emissary, Fred- erick Post. Fort Massac was in ruins and without garrison when Clark arrived, and he rested for one night beside the creek. Here he was joined by a party of American hunters who, in ranging over the plains of Illinois, had been to Kaskaskia. They told Clark
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that Rocheblave, a Frenchman in the British service, had kept the fort at Kaskaskia in good repair, and the militia well drilled and ready for a fight. The Missis- sippi was carefully watched, and that the French in- habitants hated and feared the Americans, as the Span- ish-Americans hated the buccaneers-a story that pleased Clark right well.
Sending out scouts to capture any stragglers from the enemy's camp, and to kill game for the subsistence of his men, ( for no pack train encumbered his move- ments), Clark started overland for Kaskaskia, guided by one of the hunters. After winding his way through fifty miles of forest and crossing the grove-marked plains beyond, he reached the bank of Kaskaskia River, three miles from the fort, on the evening of July 4, 1778. Here the command hid in the forest on the low grounds until night came, when boats enough were procured at a river-side farm to ferry them across the stream.
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