USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 23
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That this indescribable murder of Crawford was eted out as a special retaliation by the Delawares, r the Moravian massacre by Williamson and his en, was often asserted by writers, conspicuously by e Moravian missionaries whose accounts were con- nporaneous with the event. And later historians ve accepted this retributive motive as accounting : the fiendish deed of the infuriated tribesmen of
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Pipe and Wingenund; "it had been regarded as an inscrutable act of Providence that Crawford should fall into the hands of the savages, exasperated by the murder of the Moravians, and suffer tortures unheard of in the annals of men, as a consequence of William- son's wickedness and ferocity," wrote Charles Whittle- sey in his account in the American Pioneer. Many other rewriters of the event express similar reflections. To our mind, however, neither the facts nor the prob- abilities sustain this theory of "special punishment," by the Delawares. Neither Captain Pipe, an impla- cable enemy of the Americans, nor Chief Wingenund, scarcely less hostile, were friendly to the Moravians; indeed the indifference, if not downright hatred to the Christian Indians, was invariably exhibited by these chiefs when occasion offered. They could hardly have been so "wrought up" over the Gnadenhutten slaugh- ter, as the writers would have us infer. But it was, as Butterfield suggests, quite natural, that these two chiefs, the arch-fiends in the damnable drama, "should afterward assign it as a reason, when these cruelties made them odious at Detroit." Indeed Wingenund "was so bold as to deny complicity on his part, in any cruelties inflicted upon the prisoners."
Doddridge, in his Notes, evidently taking his cue from Zeisberger's Diary and Heckewelder's Narrative,f says Crawford's expedition "in one point of view at least, is to be considered as a second Moravian cam-' paign, as one of its objects was that of finishing the work of murder and plunder with the Christian Indians at their new establishments on the Sandusky." The second object was that of destroying the Wyandot
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towns on the same river; "it was the resolution of all those concerned in this expedition not to spare the life of any Indians that might fall into their hands, whether friends or foes." This is unquestionably the view of the Moravian missionaries who were, however, at this time, scarcely in a frame of mind to pass im- partial judgment upon the motives or actions of the western frontiersmen. There is no evidence that Crawford's expedition was other than a campaign against the Indians as the allies of Great Britain and the dangerous foes of the new American nation. The further persecution of the Moravian converts was not even a secondary motive with Crawford's men-that idea was the shadowy supposition of the Moravian mind.
On the other hand, as intimated, there is no need of seeking a justification or even explanation on the part of the Delawares for the unparalleled atrocities of Crawford's burning, through the motive of retribution for the previous massacre by Williamson's men. The savage allies of Great Britain fully realized that from that point on the contest between the bordermen and the tribal warriors would be one of extermination of the latter from their Ohio country.
When death had put an end to the frightful suffer- ings of the brave and immortal colonel, the fagots were heaped together, his burned body, now a mass of raw flesh, was placed upon the glowing embers and 'around his charred remains danced the delighted javages for many hours."
The shocking orgies having been completed, Simon Girty returned to Lower Sandusky, where he found
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the disabled Captain Caldwell, to whom he made report of Crawford's execution.
Doctor Knight, "a small and weak-looking man," was taken to Captain Pipe's house, and his face again blackened, evidence that there awaited him the doom that had been meted out to his commander. Under guard of Tutelu, who rode horseback, driving Knight on foot before him, the two set out for a Shawnee town, forty miles distant. During the encampment of the first night, the captive doctor slipped his bands from his wrists, sprang to his feet and seizing a large stick, smote the "burly savage" on the back of the head as he was stooping over the fire, into which the blow felled him. Howling with pain, the Indian sprang into the woods leaving Knight to make good his escape, which he did, reaching Fort McIntosh, after three weeks of adventures and sufferings, sub- sisting "altogether on wild gooseberries, young nettles, a raw terrapin and two young birds."
John Slover, the pilot, made even a more remarkable escape, as he subsequently related to a Mr. Brackin- ridge of Pittsburg, who wrote out and published the account, to which he added "some observations with regard to the animals, vulgarly called Indians."
Slover was paraded through many Shawnee towns, examined by several Indian councils, and finally sen- tenced to death at Wapatomica on the Muskingum, where a trial was held in the council-house, there being assembled fifty to one hundred warriors, but only the chiefs or head warriors having the privilege of speaking, the head warriors being so designated from the number of scalps or prisoners they had taken.
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Captain Alexander McKee was present, "dressed in gold lace clothes," and the day after the council, "about forty warriors, accompanied by George Girty, came early round the house where I was," said Slover. He continues, "the squaws put a rope round my neck, tied my arms behind me in the usual manner." George Girty told him he would get what he deserved. Slover was beaten, made to run the gauntlet, and tied to a tree, awaiting the preparation of the post and fire. The ususal stake was set up, and "three piles of wood built about three feet high and four feet from the post." He was tied to the post and the piles of wood set aflame.
Slover tells the almost incredible result: "The day vas clear, not a cloud to be seen; * * * I heard no hunder, or observed any sign of approaching rain; ust as the fire of one pile began to blaze, the wind ose; from the time they began to kindle the fire and o tie me to the post, until the wind began to blow was bout fifteen minutes; the wind blew a hurricane, and he rain followed in less than three minutes; the rain ell violent, and the fire, though it began to blaze con- iderably, was instantly extinguished; the rain lasted bout a quarter of an hour; when it was over the sav- ges stood amazed and were a long time silent; at last ne said, we will let him alone till morning, and take whole day's frolic in burning him."
Slover was loosened from his bonds, beaten and icked and wounded till the Indians were weary and eepy. He was taken to a blockhouse, tied with a pe of Buffalo hide about his neck to a beam, in such manner as to be allowed to lie down. His watching dians smoked and jibed their prisoner, with comments
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upon the tortures awaiting him the next day, asking him how he would like to eat fire, etc., till slumber overcame them all. It was daybreak and he "heard the cock crow," before he could unloose his bindings. He then "slipped over the warriors as they lay," and once out of the house, ran through the town into a corn field, where he caught a horse, "strong and swift," which brought him in a few hours to the Scioto, for he took the direction opposite to that which his captors would expect, hoping thereby to completely deceive them, which he did. In a few days he reached Wheel- ing and his miraculous escape became one of the tales foremost in interest among the innumerable ones incident to the expedition of Crawford.
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CHAPTER XVIII. CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION IN OHIO
T HE Crawford campaign, with its chief event the "Sandusky Battle," sometimes erro- neously spoken of as the "only battle of the American Revolution fought in Ohio"- erroneously so designated because, as we have seen, it was really only one of a score of lesser encounters that were inseparable events of the Revolution- marked the high tide of the bitterly contested war between the British-Indian allies and the Colonists in the year 1782. But the end was not yet. The defeat and retreat of Crawford's army, roused the courage and fury of the savages to the highest pitch of animosity and fierceness. All was renewed activity about the British headquarters at Detroit and the Indian centers of Sandusky and Wapatomica, located on what is now the site of Zanesfield, Logan county. War was to be carried across the Ohio, both south and east. The sanguinary encounter known as the Battle of Blue Licks was the immediate result.
In June (1782), immediately after the events upon the Sandusky Plains, there were assembled at Wapa- tomica, a host of the redmen, representing Ottawas, Chippewas, Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Munseys, Mingoes and even Cherokees. There were present, also, Simon Girty, Mathew Elliott and Alexander McKee, the advice of which three was profuse and inflammatory and in general acted upon. The settle- nents in Kentucky were designated as most likely to ufford fields for destructive raids.
The Haldimand Papers and the Washington-Irvine correspondence reveal the scheming activities of the ribesmen at this time. Captain Snake of the Shaw-
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nees, immediately after the Sandusky battle, requested of de Peyster that the latter permit his Rangers t remain at Lower Sandusky a few days until prepara tions could be made for a march to Wapatomica, with the idea of advancing thence, with added forces fror Detroit, to an attack on Fort Henry. De Peyste acceded to this plan and to augment the soldiery c Captain Caldwell at Wapatomica, the Detroit com mander dispatched Captain Andrew Bradt with company of forty Rangers. But alarming rumor from Pittsburg, to the effect that George Roger Clark was again in the field and with a formidab] force was moving from Kentucky towards Wapatomica led Caldwell and his army of Rangers and redme to change their plans. Instead of proceeding toward Fort Henry, they decided to march south and west an meet the expected enemy at or near Piqua, whend Clark had driven the Shawnees two years befor
It was a great army that set out under Caldwel "we had," wrote McKee, "on this occasion, the grea est body of Indians collected, on an advantageor piece of ground near the Picawee (Piqua) village th has been assembled in this quarter since the commenc ment of the war." Caldwell wrote de Peyster, ' had eleven hundred Indians on the ground and thr hundred more within a day's march."
But at Piqua there was no enemy in sight, on tie contrary it was learned that the report of Clark advance was false. That intrepid hero was at Lou ville, engaged in other plans. With no fight in vier, the disappointed warriors, in large numbers, desert ! and struck for their villages, leaving only three hundred
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savages, with sixty Rangers, under Caldwell, to march on to the banks of the Ohio. On the eve of their departure Simon Girty harangued the warrior host and with all the power of his fiery tongue, urged them to seize the coming opportunity to exterminate the Long Knives-the rebel enemies of their father, the British King-from Kentucky, the favorite hunting ground of the Indians.
The point aimed at was Bryant's Station, in what is now Fayette county, Kentucky. The sequel has been told by many writers, notably by McClung, with profuse but often inaccurate detail, and more recently by Roose- velt in his "Winning of the West," and by Colonel Ben- nett H. Young in the publications of the Filson Club.
It was in the night, probably the 15th of August (1782), that Caldwell with his Rangers and Indians, the latter accompanied by McKee, Elliott and the Girtys, Simon and George, arrived at Bryant's Station, which then comprised about forty cabins, arranged n three parallel lines and connected by strong palisades n the usual form of a stockade fort. "They came," vrites Young, a most careful and reliable narrator, 'like the pestilence that walks in the darkness, un- xpected and unseen," having crossed the Ohio at he mouth of Licking River, "no spy or scout had brought tidings of the coming storm." "That night," ays Roosevelt, "the Indians tried to burn the fort, hooting flaming arrows onto the roofs of the cabins nd rushing up to the wooden wall with lighted torches; ut they were beaten off at each attempt."
Runners meantime had stealthily evaded the Indian nes and hastened to the neighboring settlements and
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within forty-eight hours, during which the little garri son in the stockade held the assailants at bay, ther came to the relief of the beleaguered station companie of backwoodsmen officered by Levi Todd, his brothe John Todd, Stephen Triff, Hugh McGarry, Sila Harlan, the intrepid Daniel Boone, accompanied by his youngest son, and others of lesser renown, th force in all numbering one hundred and eighty-two mostly mounted and "fully one-third of these wer officers, who, in many a combat and many an expedi tion, had shown their skill and their courage." Th plucky little band in the station stockade stubbornl refused to surrender, even in the face of the vastl superior numbers and the assailants had made n headway when the relief companies began to appear
The Indians of Caldwell's force, thinking discretion was the better part of valor, suddenly commenced t raise the siege and, after burning a few cabins and destroying the surrounding crops, under cover of night withdrew, leaving their fires brightly burning to deceiv the enemy as to their departure. When dayligh revealed the retirement of the besiegers, the Kentuck ians decided to pursue the enemy without delay an easily following the trail taken by the retreating army the mounted frontiersmen, on the afternoon of th 18th, precipitately rushed ahead. They encamper that night in the woods and on the following day "reached the fatal boundary of their pursuit, " comin within view of the retreating enemy at what wa known as the Blue Licks, on the Licking River. halt was made for consultation, in which Daniel Boon
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advised delay until the arrival of Colonel Benjamin Logan, who was known to be approaching with ad- ditional men. But the Kentuckians were impatient of delay and under the leadership of the impetuous McGarry, mounted their horses and spurred them on across the Licking River and up an ascent to a bare and open ridge, flanked by bushy and timber covered ravines, filled with the ambuscading Indians who then held the entrapped Kentuckians as in "the wings of a net." The forest warriors were under cover, while their helpless victims were fully exposed to the terrible fire that suddenly poured upon them from all sides. The mortality was tremendous; one-fourth of the Kentuckian force, among them officers John Todd, Trigg, Harlan, Bulger, McBride and Gordon, went down at the first volley of the enemy, like stricken italks of corn, never to rise again. The whole action had not lasted much over five minutes; "there had ›een no time to reload, nor did the enemy intend to jive them opportunity for any such purpose, but ushed out with tomahawk and scalping-knife and orced a hand-to-hand encounter."
The brave Kentuckians could do naught else than curry from the death trap; there was not even time succor the wounded, much less bear off the dead. The survivors took instant flight, each for himself, nd crossing the river, "plunged into the trackless rests on the opposite shore of the Licking, but the mbush had accomplished its deadly purpose"; of the being frontiersmen, forty-one per cent .- seventy- ere killed and many wounded and captured; some of le latter being spared to suffer death amid Indian
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tortures. The deserted horses of the Kentuckians were seized by the Indians and "on these they rode among the fleeing white men, cutting them down with their tomahawks or waited to slay them as they ran down the hillside."
Boone's son, Israel, among the mortally wounded, was borne from the field by the dauntless father, carried across the river and laid upon the banks to die. Many were the deeds of heroism and bravery of the Kentuckians witnessed on that fatal day; especially, the resolute actions of Robert Patterson and Benjamin Netherland, who finally rallied the fleeing frontiers- men and checked the slaughter being inflicted by the pursuing Indians, on that bloody day, for says Young, "in Kentucky's history, there is nothing more tragic or more dreadful than the Battle of Blue Licks."
The victorious Indians, "glutted with vengeance recrossed the Ohio and vanished into the Northern forests," Captain Caldwell and his Rangers returning to Wapatomica and thence going to Upper Sandusky In his report to de Peyster, written August 26th Captain Caldwell grandiosely wrote of the Blue Lick victory :
"We killed and took one hundred and forty-six Amongst the killed is Col. Todd the Commander, Col Boon, Lt. Col. Trigg, Major Harlin, who commanded their infantry, Major Magara and a number more o their Officers. Our loss is Monsr. La Bute killed he died like a warrior fighting arm to arm, six Indian killed and ten wounded. The Indians behaved ex tremely well and no people could behave better than both Officers and men in general. The Indians
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had with me were the Wyandots and Lake Indians. The Wyandots furnished me with what provision I wanted, and behaved extremely well."
Captain Caldwell, after reaching Upper Sandusky, was soon compelled to leave for Detroit, being very ill with intermitting fever. George Girty went with the Delawares to the Mad River and Simon Girty with the Wyandots to the Half-King's Town on the Sandusky. The close of the Revolution in the East gave harbinger of peace in the Ohio country and in the latter part of August, de Peyster received from Brigadier General Powell at Fort Niagara orders directing the Detroit commandant to thereafter act only on the defensive in his operations in the Ohio country. De Peyster therefore at once dispatched nstructions to Captain Andrew Bradt, then with a company of Rangers at Wapatomica and to Captain Alexander McKee in the same locality ordering them 'not to make any incursions into the enemy's country." But the courier with these orders did not reach Wapa- omica until after Captain Bradt had departed with he forty Rangers and all the Indians he could muster -two hundred and forty in number-destined for Wheeling and the reduction of Fort Henry, which ad been the original destination of Caldwell's ex- edition a few weeks before.
The surrender of Cornwallis had become known to ne Ohio Indians and they in large measure compre- ended its probable effect in bringing about a con- usion to the war and the consequent submission of le tribesmen to the American authorities. The vages were therefore easily persuaded to another
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effort against the white borderers. The Rangers under Bradt and the Indians allies accompanied by James Girty-and not Simon Girty as most accounts state, nor George Girty as others assert-hastened over the usual trail to the Ohio banks opposite Wheel- ing.
It was on the IIth of September (1782) that the assailing force was discovered approaching Fort Henry, which stood on a bluff, on the Virginia side of the Ohio, overlooking the river. In shape the fort was a parallelogram, being about three hundred and fifty-six feet in length and one hundred and fifty in width It was enclosed by a stockade fence twelve feet high, with a walk, three feet wide, running around the in- side and with bastions at each corner, large enough to contain six defenders. The blockhouse was two stories high, the second story projecting out severa. feet over the first and thus commanding the space beneath. The thick white oak walls of the palisade and bastions were pierced with portholes. Besides the blockhouse there were a number of cabins located within the stockade. Outside the fort, not more than one hundred yards distant, on a site slightly elevated above the level of the fort, was the dwelling of Colone. Ebenezer Zane; it was an unusually spacious log-hewr. cabin being two stories high in the form of a blockhouse with loopholes for the use of musketry in case of attack Colonel Zane was in charge of the station and at his cabin kept a portion of the military stores required for the fort. Occupying the house, besides Colonel Zane, was his wife, his brother Jonathan, Molly Scott and Miss McColloch, daughter of Colonel Samuel
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McColloch, one of the officers of the fort, and two ervants. Colonel Zane had placed his brother Silas 'ane in charge of the fort, the garrison of which properly onsisted of eighteen men and all told did not exceed orty-two, including "the boys and women who could andle rifles." Among the latter was Elizabeth Zane, he only sister of the Zane brothers, a dark eyed, oval- aced, fine-featured, high-spirited beauty, who was ne favorite of all, not merely for her charms of person ut for "the ability she displayed in the acquirements emanding a true eye, a fleet foot, a strong arm and aring courage," for she could ride like an Indian, 100t with unerring skill, and push a canoe over the ost difficult place.
Upon the approach of the attacking enemy, Colonel ane dispatched Captain Boggs, to warn and rouse the ighboring settlements. Captain Bradt, flying the ritish flag, with pipe and drum playing, marched up
the fort and demanded its surrender in the name of ing George. It was emphatically refused, when the siegers, numbering about three hundred, immedi- ely opened fire upon the fort and rushed forward the assault with great impetuosity. They were et by a brisk and well-directed fire from the portholes Colonel Zane's house, as well as from the stockade ft, the women moulding bullets, loading guns and Inding them to the men, thus enabling the latter to fe so often and effectively as to give the enemy the ia that the garrison force was greatly in excess of t: true numbers.
When the night came the Indians made desperate un endeavors, but in vain, to fire and destroy Zane's
a
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house, which so formidably commanded the approad to the fort. Attempts were likewise made to set fi: to the palisades of the stockade and to shoot flamin; arrows onto the roofs of the enclosed structure. Bu the little garrison was equal to every emergency. Tl: night wore away, the yells and war-whoops of tl: savages subsided and daylight revealed that tl: assailants were held at bay, though still surging abo the fort and renewing their showers of arrows arl volleys of musketry. Many are the romantic arl heroic incidents that mark the siege-the firing the French swivel from the portholes of the bastio; the arrival of a pirogue, loaded with cannon balls frot Fort Pitt, under Captain Sullivan and a crew of thr men, and their plucky and hazardous entrance in) the fort; the improvising of a cannon, by the Indian, with a hollow log, which at the firing exploded ail created amusing havoc among the savages; the bra; attempt to reënforce the garrison, by Francis Duk, with a party from the stockade of his father-in-la Colonel David Shepherd, and the tragic death of Dul at the gate of the fort he gallantly sought to rescue but for those interesting exploits the reader must ser the detailed accounts of which there are many. B one must not go unrecorded here, for it scarcely h its parallel in history.
During the second day's siege, the supply of powd: in the fort, by reason of the long continuance of t. savage fire and the necessity for reciprocal respons, became almost exhausted, a few loads only remainin). There was no alternative but to replenish the sto of the fort from the supply in the cabin of Colorl
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Zane, but that was a hundred yards away and the open intervening space was swept by the bullets and arrows of the surrounding Indians. It was evident however that the garrison, now almost empty handed, could not resist another assaulting charge of the foe. A volunteer was called for, one who dared in the face of death, to make the run from the fort to Colonel Zane's house and, if successful in reaching it, attempt he return with a supply of powder. The proposed ndeavor was such as might cause the stoutest heart o hesitate. But it was the life of one for the many, nd those backwoodswomen no less than the men rere schooled to peril and sacrifice. There were olunteers and among them Elizabeth Zane, or Betty, s she was called. There were many protests against 'etty's bold proposal and when told a man would ncounter less danger by reason of his greater fleetness, he is said to have replied: "And should he fall, his oss will be more severely felt; you have not one man ) spare; a woman will not be missed in the defense of le fort." Her daring but determined offer was luctantly accepted. Divesting herself of some of er outer skirts, that her progress might be less im- eded, she stood prepared for the perilous venture; id "when the gate was opened she bounded forth ith the buoyancy of hope and in the confidence of ccess." "Wrapt in amazement," says one writer, the Indians beheld her spring forward, and only claiming, 'a squaw, a squaw,' no attempt was made interrupt her progress." Not a shot did they fire. ne yells of the astonished warriors rang all along e river front, showing that the entire Indian force
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