USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 14
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 14
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
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that on the right, we saw the savages retreating in all direc- tions, making for the thickets, swamps and high prairie grass to secure them from their enemy. I was animated with the energy with which the commander conducted the head of his line. He waved his sword and in a voice of thunder exclaimed, "Charge from right to left."
The horses appeared as impatient for the onset as their rid- ers. As we came up with the flying savages I was disap- pointed, discovering that we should have little to do. I heard but one savage, with the exception of the chief, cry for quar- ter. They fought with desperation as long as they could raise knife, gun or tomahawk, after they found that they could not screen themselves. We despatched all the warriors that we overtook, and sent the women and children prisoners to the rear. We pushed ahead, still hoping to overtake a larger body, where we might have something like a general engagement. I was mounted on a very fleet gray horse. Fifty of my com- panions followed me. I had not advanced more than a mile before I discovered some of the enemy running along the edge of a thicket of hazel and plum bushes. I made signs to the men in my rear to come on. At the same time pointing to the flying enemy; I obliqued across the plain so as to get in ad- vance of them. When I arrived within fifty yards of them I dismounted and raised my gun. I discovered at this moment some men of the right wing coming up on the left. The war- rior I was about to shoot held up his hand in token of sur- render, and I heard him order the other Indians to stop. By this time the men behind had arrived and were in the act of firing upon the Indians. I called to them not to fire-that the enemy had surrendered. The warrior that had surrendered to me came walking toward me, calling his women and chil- dren to follow him. I advanced to meet him with my right hand extended. But before I could reach him the men of the right wing of our force had surrounded him. I rushed in among their horses. While he was giving me his hand several of our men wished to tomahawk him. I informed them they would have to tomahawk me first. We led him back to the place where his flag had been. We had taken thirteen prison- ers. Among them were the chief, his three wives, one of them a young and handsome woman, another the famous grenadier
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squaw, upwards of six feet high, and two or three fine young lads. The rest were children. One of these lads was a re- markably interesting youth of about my own age and size. He clung closely to me and appeared keenly to notice every- thing that was going on.
When we arrived at the town a crowd of our men pressed around us to see the chief. I stepped aside to fasten my horse, and my prisoner lad clung to my side. A young man of the name of Curner had been to one of the springs to drink. He discovered the young savage by my side and came running to- ward me. The young Indian supposed he was advancing to kill him. As I turned round, in the twinkling of an eye he let fly an arrow at Curner, for he was armed with a bow. I had just time to catch his arm as he discharged the arrow. It passed through Curner's dress and grazed his side. The jerk I gave his arm undoubtedly prevented the arrow from killing Curner on the spot. I took away the remainder of his ar- rows and sternly reprimanded him. I then led him back to the crowd which surrounded the prisoners. At the same mo- ment Colonel McGary, the same man who had caused the disaster at the Blue Licks some years before, came riding up. General Logan had just then given orders to dispose of the prisoners in one of the houses and place a guard over them, and had reined his horse around when his eye caught that of McGary. "Colonel McGary," said he, "you must not molest · these prisoners." "I will see to that," said McGary in reply. I forced my way through the crowd to the chief with my young charge by the hand. McGary ordered the crowd to open and let him in. He came up to the chief. and the first salutation was the question, "Were you at the defeat of the Blue Licks?" The Indian, not knowing the meaning of the words or not understanding the purport of the question, an- swered, "Yes." McGary instantly seized an axe from the hands of the grenadier squaw and raised it to make a blow at the chief. I threw up my arm to ward off the blow. The handle of the axe struck me across the left wrist and came near breaking it. The axe sunk into the head of the chief to the eyes, and he fell dead at my feet. Provoked beyond meas- ure at this wanton barbarity, I drew my knife with the pur- pose to avenge his cruelty by despatching him. My arm was
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arrested by one of our men, which prevented my inflicting the thrust. McGary escaped from the crowd. The officer at that moment came up with his guards, ordering the men to open the crowd, and desiring the prisoners to follow him to the guardhouse. The lad that was my prisoner caught my hand and held fast to me. I walked with them to the guardhouse, into which they were ordered. A strong guard was placed around the house. Other prisoners were brought in until the house was nearly filled. A detachment was then ordered off to two other towns, distant six or eight miles. The men and prisoners were ordered to march down to the lower town and encamp. As we marched out of the upper town we fired it, collecting a large pile of corn for our horses, and beans, pump- kins, etc., for our own use. I told Captain Stucker, who messed with me, that I had seen several hogs running about the town which appeared to be in good order, and that I thought a piece of fresh pork would relish well with our stock of vegetables. He readily assenting to it, we went in pursuit of them ; but as orders had been given not to shoot unless at an enemy, after finding the hogs we had to run them down on foot until we got near enough to tomahawk them. Being engaged at this for some time before we killed one, while Captain S. was in the act of striking the hog I cast my eye along the edge of the woods that skirted the prairie and saw. an Indian coming along with a deer on his back. The fellow happened to raise his head at that moment, and, looking across the prairie to the upper town, saw it all in flames. At the same moment I spoke to Stucker in a low voice that there was an Indian com- ing. In the act of turning my head around to speak to Stuck- er, I discovered Hugh Ross, brother-in-law to Colonel Ken- nedy, at the distance of about sixty or seventy yards, ap- proaching us. I made a motion with my hand to Ross to squat down; then, taking a tree between myself and the In- dian, I slipped somewhat nearer him to get a fairer shot, when at the instant I raised my gun past the tree, the Indian being about one hundred yards distant, Ross's ball whistled by me so close that I felt the wind of it, and struck the Indian on the calf of one of his legs. The Indian that moment dropped his deer and sprang into the high grass of the prairie. All this occurred so quickly that I had not time to draw a sight on him
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before he was hid by the grass. I was provoked at Ross for shooting when I was near enough to have killed him. And now the consequence would be that some of our men would probably lose their lives, as a wounded Indian would give up only with his life. Accordingly, Captain Irwin at that moment rode up with his troop of horse and asked me where the In- dian was. I pointed as nearly as I could to the spot where I last saw him in the grass, cautioning the Captain, if he missed him the first charge, to pass on out of his reach before he wheeled to recharge, or the Indian would kill some of his men in the act of wheeling. Whether the Captain heard me I can- not say ; at any rate, the warning was not attended to, for after passing the Indian a few steps, Captain Irwin ordered his men to wheel and recharge across the woods, and in the act of exe- cuting the movement, the Indian raised up and shot the Cap- tain dead on the spot, still keeping below the level of the grass so as to deprive us of an opportunity to put a bullet through him. The troop charged again, but the Indian was so active that he had darted into the grass some rods from where he had fired at Irwin, and they again missed him. By this time several footmen had got up. Captain Stucker and myself had taken each of us a tree that stood out in the edge of the prairie among the grass, when a Mr. Stafford came up and put his head first past one side and then the other of the - tree I was behind. I told him not to expose himself that way or he would get shot in a moment. I had hardly expressed the last word when the Indian again raised up out of the grass. His gun, Stucker's and my own, with four or five behind us, all cracked at the same instant. Stafford fell at my side, while we rushed on the wounded Indian with our tomahawks. Be- fore we got him despatched he had made ready the powder in his gun, and a ball in his mouth, prepared for a third fire, with bullet holes in his breast that might all have been covered with a man's open hand. We found with him Captain Beasley's rifle, the Captain having been killed near the Lower Blue Licks a few days before the army passed through that place on their way to the towns.
Next morning General Logan ordered another detachment to attack a town that lay seven or eight miles to the north or northwest of where we then were. On our way up we dis-
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covered an Indian on horseback at some distance ahead of us, who at that moment wheeled his horse and rode off under the whip. A small party pursued him and run him past five horses he had tied to a tree in a thicket of woods. They re- turned with the horses just as we were approaching the town, when we saw two Indians coming out of one of the houses, jump on their horses that had been standing hitched to a post. Three of us, took after them. Our Captain hallooed after us not to pursue further than the woods across the prairie ; but, finding the woods open and clear of underbrush, we kept up the pursuit, aware that we could see Indians in open woods as soon as they could see us. We had been gaining on them all the time, and as I was on a fleet horse, and a lighter rider than the other two, I had kept from fifty to sixty yards ahead of my companions, when jumping a log, my saddle girth broke, and my saddle, of course, gave way. I, however, alighted on my feet, and immediately fired at one of the In- dians, then at about fifty yards distance. I saw in a moment that he had been struck. The other men coming up sprang off their horses, and both fired at the other Indian, the one I had shot at having left his horse and taken to a swamp just on his right, into which he was followed by the other Indian, who, I was satisfied, was also wounded.
In 1807, I was in that part of the country, and Isaac Zane showed me the very place where his cabin stood at the time, it being now rotted down, adding, that in about five minutes after the report of the first rifle the Indian it had been fired at came running to his cabin with a shot in his shoulder which made him a cripple in his right arm for life. Zane was then married to a squaw, and had at the place his wife and several children at the time. We then returned with the Indians' horses and one or both of their guns, setting fire to the town and a large block house that the English had built there of a huge size and thickness, and so returned that evening to the main body. But from the hard riding, and my horse drinking too freely when overheated, together with eating too much Indian corn, he became so badly foundered that I despaired of getting him home.
On our return to camp, it being late in the evening, we had only time to swallow a mouthful of food before orders issued
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from headquarters to strike our tents and march in fifteen minutes. It was then dark, but the moon, which was near the full, gave light occasionally as she burst from behind some dark cloud. Our course led us across the prairies, and as we had to retrace the ground on which our columns had marched, we found a well-beaten road, which was a great advantage at night. The Captain I had selected on joining the army was James McDowell, a fine, manly, noble-hearted fellow. He came to me just as the army was moving off their encamp- ment and suggested to me that I had better get my horse as near the front as possible; that he would travel better in the center line, as that was an old worn path and better beaten than either of the side lines, and fall in directly in rear of the front guard, before the prisoners, and he would send Ensign Smith to assist me. I profited by his friendly advice, and Mr. Smith and myself moved up to where the front guard had halted, where we remained for a moment, when we heard the well-known, tremendous voice of Logan almost half a mile in the rear, "Move on in front." We instantly obeyed the order. I directed Smith to whip up my foundered horse, while I led or rather dragged him after me. Our course led down the prairies, and was seldom interrupted by any of the dark for- ests on either side. I discovered before we had marched far that our lines were too far extended, and heard the same hoarse, deep voice about a mile in the rear, muttering like a heavy roll of distant thunder, "Read guard, move up; why these vacancies in your lines?" As we found the voice ap- proaching we quickened our steps, and in a short time got to the guard having charge of the prisoners immediately in my rear. "Why, sir, do you suffer this vacant space between the prisoners and the front guard?" "Some of the squaws have children to carry, and are not able to march faster," replied the officer of the guard. "Change them, then, with those on horseback, sir, and do not let me have to repeat to you to force them to the front." I had suffered my foundered brute to oc- cupy no more space than the length of the rifle that laid on his left shoulder, when turning round my head a little rearwards, I discovered that Goliath approaching, growling all the time, on an animal resembling an elephant for size more than a horse. He was just then in the act of bringing down the flat
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of his tremendous sword on the back of my poor foundered animal, and repeating it three or four times. "Damn you, what brought you here in front of the prisoners with your horse?" approaching me as he waved his sword; "you merit this more than your horse." I could stand this no longer, but brought my gun to my shoulder, sprung my double trigger and leveled at him. Smith sprang forward like lightning, and threw up the muzzle, exclaiming, "For God's sake, don't kill the General !" General Logan wheeled to the right about, and appeared, after moving a few paces, to come to a halt. Smith advanced to him and explained the cause, adding, "This is a young. man in your army-is a volunteer, and has gone through more fatigue service this day than any other man in the line. His horse has been foundered from two long and severe chases after Indians today, and Captain McDowell, to whose command he belongs, directed him to take the position he did, as his horse would not be able to travel in the rear."
"I knew nothing of this before, sir, and am sorry that I was so severe. I will go and speak to him, for he appears to be a choice spirit." The General, accompanied by Ensign Smith, overtook me. "My young soldier," said the General, "I am sorry I treated you so harshly. I had ordered the prisoners and wounded men, with their guards, to take their position near the advance guard in the center column, and was aston- ished when I came up to find a crippled horse between them, but, on explanation, I am convinced you were only obeying your Captain's orders." I replied, "Young as I may be in the service and discipline, I feel proud in saying that I never dis- obeyed the order of a superior officer, and when I have, as I believe, done my duty, I will not permit even the Commander- in-Chief to run over me with impunity," "I like your spirit, my young volunteer ; that is manly and noble. Incline to the left and resume your position. The center line is the best road for your lame horse, and, as soon as we halt for the night, call on me at headquarters." I did as directed, and after about two hours' march we came to a point of woods which pro- jected some distance into the prairie, out of which issued one of those pure and living branches of Mad River, where we en- camped for the night. I led my horse directly to the creek, when I got him into the water about knee deep, and tied his
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bridle to a swinging limb, so that he could not let his head down. I laid down my knapsack, and struck fire while the men collected wood, and had just got the fire to burn when · Captain McDowell came up and asked me how I got on with my lame horse. I told him pretty well, though he was re- markably stiff and lame. "Yes, Smith tells me, also, that the General wanted to turn you out of the road." "I am sorry 'Mr. Smith said anything on the subject, as I wished it to re- main between ourselves." "Well," said Captain McD., "if Smith had not turned the muzzle of your piece aside it would have leaked out ten miles back, I expect. But come," said he, "and we will see the General. He knows more of you now, and probably likes you better than at the moment."
We found the General giving some orders respecting the wounded and prisoners, which done, Captain McDowell ob- served, "General Logan, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Lytle, a young volunteer soldier of yours." The fire burned bright, and he had a full view of my face. As he extended his hand, he said, "I believe my young volunteer and I had a slight interview not more than ten miles back," smiling as he spoke and grasping my hand cordially; "we were then in the dark; I am now glad to see him and his Captain at my fire." The General from that time till his death treated me as kindly as a father would his son.
When I got home I found Mr. Robert Todd had arrived a few moments before me, from Clark's expedition up the Wa- bash. He informed me of the men's mutinying and returning home at the very moment the troops expected an engagement with the enemy, which reduced Clark's forces so much that it would have been impolitic to have risked an action with the handful of men who remained, so the remnant returned home.
I went frequently to see my young Indian acquaintance and share with him whatever I might have to eat ; but we parted at Limestone, when we crossed the Ohio River, and I did not see him for almost a year after, when I met him at Danville, on his being sent home to his nation from that place. The General gave him his own name of Logan, by which he ever afterwards went.
In the course of the next spring the Indians became trouble- some, and we were much exposed in going out to the fields or
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the woods. To add to the difficulty, they set fire to one of the houses in the dead of night. This was the storehouse where our saddles, bridles, horse gears, tools and provisions were secured. By this stratagem they no doubt expected we should open the front gate to get water to put out the fire, when they would rush in, and, guided by the light, readily shoot down and tomahawk the inmates, whom they supposed would be thrown into confusion, between the enemy and the devouring element. But the kind care of an overruling Provi- dence directed otherwise. By the signs we had discovered in the woods for several days my father had apprehended an at- tack, and had already sent off an express for a reinforcement. That very night the reinforcement, consisting of a party of about sixty men, arrived some three hours before the house was discovered to be on fire. Having made a forced march of several hours, they were considerably fatigued, and slept very soundly. My father, brother and myself had committed the watching to hired laborers, being ourselves exhausted with standing sentries all night for a week previously, and were also asleep. But, as I always awake at the slightest noise, the first crackling of the fire disturbed me, and with my rifle in hand, which always lay by my side in apprehended danger, I sprang to the nearest porthole. On looking out as far as I was enable to see, I discovered a great light, and judged instantly that some of the houses must be on fire. The men were immediately posted around the pickets inside the fort, with a strong guard at the gate, and six men were de- tached to the lofts of each cabin to keep in check such enemies as might attack the rear of the fort, and ten or twelve prepared to put out the fire. While these arrangements were making, my father awoke, hearing the alarm, and, springing from his bed, rushed with all his force against the door of the building that was on fire, burst the lock, and pitched directly into the flames. At this time I was on the pickets to gain the roof of the burning building, but seeing his imminent danger, I sprang to his rescue and dragged him out of the flames, the clothes of both taking fire, which was, however, put out by some of the company dashing buckets of water over us. Three or four of us then succeeded in getting the roof off and tearing the building down to the second floor. In the meantime the Cap ..
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tain of our reinforcing party had guarded every point of de- fense in so masterly a manner that the Indians, seeing we were so well prepared for them, did not dare to fire upon us, and drew off their party as quietly and secretly as it had advanced. We soon subdued the fire, but the shock so alarmed my mother and sisters that my father discovered that he must render their lives unhappy if he remained longer a resident on the frontiers. He therefore purchased a tract of land below Lexington, in a tolerably thick-settled part of the country, to which he removed his family. Even here we were not secure, for the Indians came several times and stole horses, and at one time took six of his, when we pursued and overtook them at their encampment on the Big Island on Eagle Creek. We killed several of them and recovered our horses. A consid- erable snow storm had fallen, and the Indians, judging we could not discover their track, felt perfectly safe. Several other attempts of the kind, about this time, shared the same fate.
But in August, 1788, a party of them came over and toma- hawked and scalped some of Colonel Johnson's negroes, at or near the Great Crossings of the Elkhorn, and stole some of Capt. Lyman Buford's horses. I did not get notice of this be- fore 10 o'clock next day, and as our horses were always run- ning at large in the woods when not actually in use, by the time I had hunted them up and returned, it was fully the mid- dle of the day. My brother and I lost no time in saddling two of them and setting out. We heard that a large party of our men had taken the Indian trail early that morning and was in close pursuit of them. We, knowing the direction the Indians generally took when they had committed depredations on the white settlements in that part of Kentucky, and being well acquainted with the woods between us and the Ohio River, having pursued them often before and being well mounted on fleet horses, took a course which we did not doubt would intersect their trail before they would reach the Ohio. In- deed, we had strong hopes of striking the trail before any of the pursuing party would be able to overtake them, fearing nothing for ourselves if the party did not amount to more than five or six persons. However, about sundown or perhaps nearer dark, we struck the trail in sight of some of
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the men in pursuit. As we came up we asked how far the front of the party was ahead to which the reply was four or five miles. We passed them, and kept on passing men every few hundred yards, until we caught up with the foremost, several hours after night, when I found Captain Stucker grop- ing out the trail. Dismounting, he and I gave up our horses to some of the men behind us to lead, and we kept the trail on foot. About 3 o'clock in the morning we found that the ground over which the Indians had passed was very hard and gave no traces of the horses' feet. 'We had hoped that the horses of their own accord would follow the track if left to their own guidance, as they sometimes do; but they, being jaded with a hard ride of more than sixty miles, appeared rather disposed to bite the bushes and browse about, so we concluded to give them some corn we had carried with us for that purpose, and get some rest for ourselves until daylight, when we got up to the trail and started onward. The In- dians led us a very circuitous route, so that it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon when we reached the river. At the moment we struck it, on looking up stream we perceived a small barge appearing in sight ; and waiting until she reached us, the men on board were at first alarmed and bore off for the Indian shore, but directly seeing we were white men and spoke Eng- lish, rounded to. The party proved to be Captain Ward and three other men, from Pittsburgh, and, on finding out our business, Ward and one of his men agreed to unite with our party. While the men were getting ready, Captain Stucker and myself were sent across in the boats to take the trail and follow it out from the river for a mile or two and see if the Indians had not camped back of the bottom to rest themselves. We did so, and by the time we got back to the river the volun- teers that had turned out for the chase had all got over, to the number of twenty-seven, leaving their horses with the re- mainder of the men-about sixty-on the Kentucky shore, to wait for our return.
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