USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 13
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The Indians, not at all disconcerted, and apparently sure of victory, extended their line of battle from the Ohio River to the Kanawha, thus carrying out their original plan of hemming in their foes between the angle formed by the junction of these rivers, so that there should be no possibility of escape. Here the warriors took their stations, behind logs, and trees, and stumps. It was early in the morning, just as the sun was rising, when the battle commenced. The Indians fought desperately, and there was no cessation of the conflict until evening, when the Indians, abandoning their enterprise, retired.
It will be remembered that General Lewis had under his com- mand eleven hundred men. The force of Indian warriors must
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have been still larger, as they extended in an unbroken line from river to river. The ferocity and ability with which they fought may be inferred from the fact that of the English, two colonels, five captains, three lieutenants, and about a hundred private sol- diers were killed. The wounded, officers and men, amounted to one hundred and forty. Many of these were severely wounded, and subsequently died of their injuries.
The loss of the Indians was never known. They were in the habit of carrying off or concealing their dead. As the English soldiers were all sharpshooters, it is supposed that the savages suf- fered very severely. This opinion is confirmed by the fact that the Indians retreated in the night, and did not venture again to attack either body of the invading army. Thirty-three dead were found. Many others it is supposed were thrown into the two rivers. The savages were commanded by a distinguished Indian chieftain called Cornstalk. While the conflict raged, his voice was often heard rising above the din of battle, shouting to the men in their own language, " Be strong! Be strong!"
In the night the vanquished savages crossed the Ohio in their canoes, and retreated, greatly disheartened, as it afterwards ap- peared, to their villages on the Scioto. The warriors of four tribes were united in this great battle, the Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes and Wyandots. This bloody conflict was long remem- bered in the homes of the pioneers. Some rural bard celebrated it in a ballad, which for many years was sung in the hamlets of the great valley. We give three of the verses :
" Let us mind the tenth day of October Seventy-four, which caused woe, The Indian savages, they did cover The pleasant banks of the Ohio.
"Seven score lay dead and wounded. Of champions who did face their foe, By which the heathen were confounded Upon the banks of Ohio.
" O, bless the mighty King of Heaven, For all his wondrous works below, Who hath to us this victory given, Upon the banks of Ohio."
Military genius is rare. General Lewis, after the battle and the loss in killed and wounded of about two hundred and fifty
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men, fortified his camp by throwing up entrenchments of earth and logs. Had he done this before the battle, during the nine days when his soldiers were idle, he might have been spared this slaughter. Great is the responsibility of one who is entrusted with the lives of a thousand men. It is but a poor excuse, for the want of precaution manifested, that General Lewis, upon his arrival at Point Pleasant, expected every hour to see the batteaux of Lord Dunmore descending the river, and that he had no idea that the Indians would venture across the Ohio to attack him.
In a few days, after burying the dead and making the wounded as comfortable as possible, he left the latter under a strong guard, and, in obedience to orders from Governor Dunmore, marched up the Ohio River, along the southern banks, to effect a junction, at the mouth of the Hocking, with the Governor's troops. We must now leave this little band, struggling through the dense and path- less forest, and turn to the adventures of the other division of the army.
Lord Dunmore, with two thousand efficient, well armed men, crossed the mountains by the same route which Braddock took in his fatal expedition. Ascending the beautiful, and then somewhat settled Valley of the Potomac to Cumberland, he effected the arduous passage of the mountains in safety, and descended into the Valley of the Monongahela in good condition. He marched up this beautiful region, which was sprinkled with the cabins of the settlers, until he reached Fort Pitt.
Here he obtained several large flat bottomed boats, and a hun- dred canoes of various sizes. With these he floated his army down the gentle current of the Ohio to Wheeling, which had then become quite an important settlement. After the delay of a few days here, obtaining additional supplies, he continued his truly delightful voyage upon the placid stream to the mouth of the Hocking. It was the month of October, the most lovely season of the year in that clime. The majestic river rolled its broad, silver current through most charming scenery of hills and vales, crowned with luxuriant verdure, presenting Eden-like charms, which neither ax nor plow had disturbed. There was no toil in that voyage. The flotilla was borne along by the power of the stream alone. War seemed to have lost all its horrors, in this apparently holiday excursion.
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At this spot he left his flotilla, having first thrown up efficient entrenchments, which he strongly garrisoned. This military post he called Fort Gower. He then ascended the Hocking River, in a march of two or three days, until he reached a point near where the Town of Logan now stands. In the meantime he had sent orders to General Lewis to cross the Ohio, and direct his steps, as rap- idly as possibly, towards the Indian villages on the Scioto, near the present site of Circleville. The two armies were to form a junction on this march.
Governor Dunmore left the Valley of the Hocking, and, in a march of about two days, passed over the gentle eminences be- tween the two rivers. When he had arrived within three or four miles of the Indian towns, he constructed an entrenched camp, awaiting the arrival of General Lewis. Lord Dunmore was cautious as well as brave. He had no idea of being the victim of Indian cunning, as so many of the English leaders had been before him. His encampment consisted of an enclosure of about twelve acres, surrounded by a strong breastwork of trees and logs. Behind these ramparts his two thousand sharpshooters could de- fend themselves against any force which the Indians could bring forward. But to render assurance doubly sure, he erected in the center of this enclosure another fortress, or citadel, of still stronger construction. It consisted of an area of about an acre of land, encircled by a ditch and earthworks, and these were so surmounted with logs as to render the citadel quite impregnable to a foe who could assail him only with arrows and bullets. His whole force could promptly be concentrated within this inner inclosure, in case of necessity. In the center of this citadel Lord Dunmore pitched the elegant and commodious marquee provided for him- self and his superior officers. Over the marquee proudly floated the flag of England. This fort he named Charlotte, in honor of the then reigning queen.
The intelligent Indian chieftains, disheartened by the repulse at Point Pleasant, appreciating the military ability of Lord Dun- more, and conscious that the two armies would in a few days be united in an attack upon their villages, which attack they knew they were entirely unable to repel, were in consternation. They sent delegation after delegation, more and more importunately, soliciting peace. Lord Dunmore was a humane man. He knew full well that unendurable outrages, inflicted by vagabond white
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men, had driven the Indians into the war. He had no disposition to burn their villages and to consign the inhabitants to indiscrim- inate slaughter. Still, he wished the Indians to be taught that the power which they had set at defiance was one which had no fear of the conflict.
With characteristic caution, he would allow but eighteen war- riors to enter even his outer gate. There they were compelled to leave their arms. They were then conducted into the citadel and presented to the governor, who, surrounded by his officers in thei: most imposing attire, received them in state. A distinguished chief, whose English name was Corn Planter, opened the council by a truly powerful and impressive speech, in a tone of voice so loud and impassioned that it could be heard by every man in the garrison. He described the former power of the Indians, the number and population of their tribes, in their undisturbed hunt- ing grounds. He then, with a very full comprehension of his subject, described the several treaties which the Indians had made with the white men, ceding to them certain portions of their terri- tory. He then affirmed, with a proud spirit of conscious right, and with truthfulness that none could deny, that the Indians had been perfectly faithful in their observance of these treaties. Then, growing warm in his just indignation, he exclaimed :
" What, on the contrary, has been the conduct of the white 9 men? They have paid no regard to these treaties. They have encroached upon our lands, they have cut down our forests, they have reared their houses on our soil,-soil which we had sacredly reserved ; they have robbed again and again, and murdered Indi- ans peacefully engaged in hunting. For years we have patiently endured these wrongs, till at length we have been driven into this bloody war. We do not wish for war; we wish for peace. We know the power of the white man; we know that he can over- power the Indian. But the white man is the sole cause of this war. Had we not resented the wrongs we have endured, even the white man would have despised us for cowardice."
Another celebrated Indian chief, whose name has obtained re- nown in two hemispheres, sent in his speech carefully written, probably by some interpreter. Logan would not condescend to accompany commissioners who were suing for peace. He was then at Shawnee Town, a large Indian village on the Scioto, about four miles from Fort Charlotte. Speaking of this remarkable man, and
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his still more remarkable speech, Mr. Atwater writes, in his His- tory of Ohio :
" Though he would not attend on Dunmore's council in person, yet, being urged by the Indians, who were anxious to be relieved from Dunmore's army, he sent his speech in a belt of wampum, to be delivered to Lord Dunmore, by a faithful interpreter. Un- der an oak on the farm of Mr. Wolf this splendid effort of heart- stirring eloquence was faithfully delivered by the person who carried the wampum. The oak tree, under which it was delivered to Lord Dunmore, still stands in a field seven miles from Circle- ville, in a southern direction. An interpreter delivered it, sentence by sentence, and it was written as it was delivered. Its authen- ticity is placed beyond the shadow of a doubt, and it of right belongs, and forever will belong, to the history of Ohio."
LOGAN'S SPEECH.
I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if he came naked and cold, and I clothed him not. During the last long and bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen, as they passed me, said, Logan is the friend of the whites. I had thoughts of living among you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, last Spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not one drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice in the beams of peace. But do not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan ?
President Jefferson has written, of this powerful address of Logan, "I may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to the speech of Logan."
The poet Campbell, in his Gertrude of Wyoming, has thus beautifully verified its sentiments :
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" He left, of all my tribe,
Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth ;
No! not the dog that watched my household hearth
Escaped that night of blood upon our plains. All perished. I alone am left on earth! To whom not relative nor blood remains,
No! not a kindred drop that runs in human veins."
While these scenes were transpiring, General Lewis had marched up the southern bank of the Ohio, to a point nearly opposite the mouth of the Hocking. Here his troops were ferried across the river, by Lord Dunmore's flotilla. They were on a rapid march to effect a junction with the Governor's army, when a messenger met them from the Governor, with the information that peace was about to be concluded, and that, therefore, they were ordered to return to Virginia. But neither General Lewis nor his men were disposed to pay any attention to this message. Many of them had lost friends, who had been murdered by the savages, and all were burning with a desire for vengeance. In defiance, therefore, of the order of the Governor, they pressed forward, resolved to inflict the most terrible punishment upon the Indians, now in their power, by sweeping the Valley of the Scioto with war's utmost devastation of fire and blood.
General Lewis had arrived within a few miles of Fort Charlotte, when Lord Dunmore, accompanied by his staff, rode out to meet him. He then peremptorily ordered the angry general and his equally irritated army, to return immediately to Virginia. Gen- eral Lewis and his men very reluctantly obeyed. But when they reflected that the Governor had double the force of their own, and that he could instantly call to his aid all the Indian warriors, whose friendship he seemed to be courting, they judged it best to conceal their chagrin, and retire. Lord Dunmore tarried some- time at the fort, until he had entered into very amicable relations with the Indians, when he also returned to Virginia.
The fate of Logan was a very sad one. His few past years were melancholy in the extreme. Homeless, childless, friendless, he wandered about, from tribe to tribe, with never a smile, and appa- rently without a joy. His friends were all dead, his tribe dwind- ling away, and, in his great dejection, he resorted to the fatal stimulus of strong drink. He was at last murdered by an Indian. Logan was sitting by the camp-fire, silently musing with his blanket over his head, his elbows upon his knees and head upon
MICH, ENG. @
DEATH OF LOGAN.
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his hands. An Indian, influenced by some unknown motive of revenge, stealthily approached him from behind, and buried his tomahawk in his brain. Thus fell this unfortunate chieftain, the last of his race.
It is very evident that many of these Indian sachems were men of sound judgment, and very considerable intelligence. But, as in more civilized communities, they were often forced, by popular clamor, to act in opposition to their own views. The chieftain, Cornstalk, who led the Indians at the assault at Point Pleasant, was a man of true greatness of soul. By his scouts he had kept himself informed of the numbers of the English troops, and of their movements. He was confident that the Indians could not cope with so formidable a force, and urged that before risking a battle, they should make proposals of peace. But the young warriors would not listen to these counsels. Being compelled to yield; with commensurate ability and bravery, he led his troops to the onset. They fought with determination, never before surpassed on any Indian battle-field. Though they inflicted terrible loss upon their foe, they retired hopelessly discomfited. Cornstalk, with his re- maining band, repaired to the Scioto, where he convened a gen- eral council. 'A large number of warriors were gathered around him dejected and despairing.
" What," said Cornstalk, "is now to be done. We ought to have made peace before we had exasperated our enemy by a battle. The Longknives are coming upon us in resistless strength. We shall all be killed. There is no escape. Let us put our women and children to death, and then go and fight until we all are slain."
To this speech there was no response. All were silent. After a moment's pause, Cornstalk struck his tomahawk into a log, in sign that it was no longer to be used in battle, and said :
" I will try to make peace."
To this there was a general ejaculation of assent. Peace com- missioners were immediately dispatched to Fort Charlotte, and thus the Lord Dunmore war came to an end.
Many persons have expressed doubts whether the speech of Logan was genuine. They have thought it impossible that an unlettered savage could have spoken with such beauty of rhet- oric and force of logic. The following extract of a letter upon this subject, from President Jefferson, to Governor Henry, of Mary- land, must put this question at rest in all candid minds :
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"President Jefferson speaks of Mr. Gibson as translating the speech. He probably should have said he wrote it down. Wil- liam Robinson, who took the speech from Logan's lips, says that ' Logan spoke English well.' Simon Kenton, who was intimately acquainted with Logan, says of him, 'His form was striking and manly, his countenance calm and noble, and he spoke the English language with fluency and correctness.'
"When Lord Dunmore returned from the expedition against the Indians, in 1774, he and his officers brought the speech of Logan, and related the circumstances connected with it. These were so affecting, and the speech itself so fine a morsel of eloquence, that it became the theme of every conversation, in Williamsburgh par- ticularly, and generally indeed wherever any of the officers resided or resorted. I learned it in Williamsburgh-I believe at Lord Dunmore's ; and I find in my pocket-book of that year (1774) an entry of the narrative, as taken from the mouth of some person, whose name however is not noted, nor recollected, precisely in the words stated in the notes on Virginia. The speech was published in the Virginia Gazette of that time (I have it myself in the volume of Gazettes of that year), and though in a style by no means elegant, yet it was so admired that it flew through all public papers of the continent, and through the magazines and other periodical publications of Great Britain; and those who were boys at that day, will now attest that the speech of Logan used to be given them as a school exercise for repetition. It was not till about thirteen or fourteen years after the newspaper publications, that the notes on Virginia were published in America. Combat- ing in these the contumelious theory of certain European writers, whose celebrity gave currency and weight to their opinions, that our country, from the combined effects of soil and climate, degen- erated animal nature, in the general, and particularly the moral faculties of man, I consider the speech of Logan as an apt proof of the contrary, and used it as such; and I copied, verbatim, the narrative I had taken down in 1774, and the speech as it had been given us in a better translation by Lord Dunmore I knew noth- ing of the Cresaps, and could not possibly have a motive to do them an injury with design. I repeated what thousands had done before, on as good authority as we have for most of the facts we learn through life, and such as, to this moment, I have seen no reason to doubt. That any body questioned it, was never sus-
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pected by me, till I saw the letter of Mr. Martin, in the Baltimore paper. I endeavored then to recollect who, among my contempo- raries of the same circle of society, and consequently of the same recollections, might still be alive. Three-and-twenty years of death and dispersion had left very few. I remembered, however, that General Gibson was still living, and knew that he had been the translator of the speech. I wrote to him immediately. He, in answer, declares to me that he was the very person sent by Lord Dunmore to the Indian town; that, after he had delivered his message there, Logan took him out to a neighboring wood, sat down with him, and rehearsing with tears, the catastrophe of his family, gave him that speech for Lord Dunmore; that he carried it to Lord Dunmore; translated it for him; has turned to it in the Encylopedia, as taken from the notes on Virginia, and finds that it was his translation I had used, with only two or three verbal variations of no importance. These, I suppose, had arisen in the course of successive copies. I cite General Gibson's letter by memory, not having it with me; but I am sure I cite it substan- tially right. It establishes, unquestionably, that the speech of Logan is genuine; and, that being established, it is Logan him- self who is author of all the important facts."
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CHAPTER IX.
BATTLES ON THE FRONTIER.
DISSATISFACTION WITH LORD DUNMORE - CONDUCT OF GREAT BRITAIN - INDIAN ELOQUENCE - EFFORTS OF COLONEL MOR- GAN - INFAMOUS CONDUCT OF CAPTAIN ARBUCKLE - INDIAN MURDER, AND CRUEL REVENGE - TORY VILLANY - DEATH OF CORNSTALK - REV. MR. HECKEWELDER - SPIRITED ADDRESS OF THE DELAWARE CHIEF - DEATH OF WHITE EYES - HIS CHARACTER - REMARKABLE SPEECH OF CHIEFTAIN PIPE --- SIMON GIRTY, THE TORY - THE SIEGE OF FORT HENRY - HEROISM OF ELIZABETH ZANE - WONDERFUL ESCAPE OF GEN- ERAL MCCULLOCK - THE SIEGE RAISED.
LORD DUNMORE was the last royal governor of Virginia. Very serious difficulties were now rising between the colonists and the mother country. These difficulties in a few months led to the Declaration of Independence. Lord Dunmore was very unpopu- lar in Virginia, and was soon compelled to seek protection on board a British fleet. The Virginians were greatly exasperated with the peace which the governor had made with the Indians. They firmly believed that the governor, in anticipation of the strife, which soon after arose between the colonists and the mother country, had framed this peace, so as to make the Indians friendly to the British Crown, and hostile to the colonists. Even then it was believed that he was contemplating the alliance of the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage, with the powerful enginery of war, which Great Britian could send to crush her rebellious sub- jects. George Washington, and Chief Justice Marshall, two of the most candid and illustrious of Virginia's sons, were ever of this opinion.
We must not omit to mention, that while Lord Dunmore was on the march, the inhabitants of Wheeling sent a volunteer force of four hundred men, across the Ohio river, to move directly west,
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a distance of fifty or sixty miles, to destroy the Indian villages on the Muskingum. This river takes its rise within thirty miles of Lake Erie, and draining by its tributaries a very rich valley, nearly two hundred miles in breadth, empties into the Ohio at Marietta, after a serpentine flow of between two and three hundred miles.
The Indians in this region, unprepared for war, fled in all directions. The expedition, unopposed, burned their towns, destroyed their crops, and took a few prisoners, who were subse- quently exchanged at the Dunmore treaty.
Six months before the peace made with the Indians at Fort Charlotte, the first skirmish between the colonists and the British troops took place at Lexington, Massachusetts. The British government, hoping to alarm the colonists with the menace of a. frontier war with the Indians, aided by the strength of the British armies, sent agents to all the prominent tribes, to rally their war- riors under the flag of the English monarchy.
Colonel Guy Johnson was sent by the British government to enlist the aid of the Iroquois Indians in its war against the infant , colonies. The Iroquois then occupied a large territory, whose central power seems to have been in the heart of the present State of New York. It was the most powerful Indian nation on the continent, and was composed of a confederacy of five very warlike tribes,-the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onandagas and Senecas. Smith, in his History of New York, writes :
" The Five Nations laid claim to all the territory from the mouth of Sorel River, south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and on both sides of the Ohio River, until it falls into the Mississippi; and on the north side of these lakes, the whole tract between. the Outawas River and Lake Huron."
This would give them a territory twelve hundred miles in length by eight hundred in breadth. They could bring nearly twenty- five hundred warriors into the field. Indeed, the English actually" enlisted under their banners fifteen hundred of these savage war- riors. When we consider what savage warfare is, with its con- flagrations of peaceful homes, and its indiscriminate butchery of men, women and children, this must be pronounced a very inhu- man deed. But the rich British government could offer very powerful bribes to the poor Indians ; and, on the other hand, the English colonists had treated the Indians so haughtily, with so
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