USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 15
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Perfectly acquainted with the state of affairs at Fort Henry, he organized, secretly, an army to strike it by surprise. Five hun- dred Indian warriors, armed with rifles and accustomed to their use, and led by his intelligence, would, it was thought, make short work with a garrison of forty old men and young boys. The British government furnished them with the best of rifles and a full supply of ammunition. With stealthy tread these mocas- sined warriors crossed nearly the whole breadth of Ohio, and effecting the passage of the river, in their canoes, took their posi- tions, undiscovered, in the dense surrounding forest. Their first object was, to prevent any possibility of escape, that no messenger might be sent to distant stations with tidings of the siege. The next was, to prevent any parties from reaching the fort with rein- forcements or supplies. 12
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Colonel David Shepherd, who was in command, was a brave and resolute officer. Though he had a sufficient supply of small arms within the fort, the magazine was not well supplied with ammunition. There was, however, another magazine only about sixty yards from the fort, where larger supplies were stored. Colonel Shepherd kept out his scouts in all directions to give warning of approaching danger. Though Girty succeeded in eluding their vigilance, still a vague rumor had reached the gar- rison that a large army had been concentrated on the Sandusky to enter upon some military expedition. But its destination was not known.
On the morning of the 26th of September, 1777, the alarming report spread through the little village that Indian warriors had been seen in the vicinity, prowling through the woods. Almost instantly there was a simultaneous rush into the fort. The vil- lagers caught up such articles as were nearest at hand, and abandoned their homes. The next morning, Colonel Shepherd thought it expedient to dispatch an express to the nearest settle- ment for reinforcements. A negro and a white man were sent out to a pasture, at a little distance from the fort, to bring in some horses. As they were passing through a corn-field, six Indians suddenly rose upon them. The white man, at whom they proba- bly all first aimed, instantly fell dead, riddled with bullets. The fleet-footed negro reached the fort unharmed.
Colonel Shepherd immediately sent fourteen of the most able of his men to pursue the Indians. They passed through the corn-field, and were cautiously proceeding, down the river, when they fell into an ambush, and were suddenly assailed in front, flank and rear by several hundred of Girty's party. Eleven of these men were almost instantly killed. Captain Mason, though severely wounded, succeeded in creeping, unseen by the Indians, into a heap of logs and brush, where, in the endurance of terrible suffering, he concealed himself till the Indians abandoned the siege. Two of his soldiers also escaped death in the same way.
Colonel Shepherd, in the fort, hearing the firing, immediately sent Captain Ogle, with twelve men, to rescue the imperiled party. He also fell into an ambush, and two-thirds of his party were immediately killed. Captain Ogle was severely wounded, but succeeded in concealing himself. Three of the soldiers, one of them mortally wounded, escaped into the woods. Thus out
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of the garrison of forty, thirty were either killed or dispersed. Ten only were left in the fort. Still it is probable that some of the villagers, who had fled from the surrounding cabins, were men accustomed to the rifle. Many of the women, also, in those stormy times, were taught to use that weapon with skill.
Girty now, with his whole force, advanced to the assault, rend- ing the air with hideous yells. He encountered, however, shots from the garrison, which, though, few in number, were so accu- rately aimed, striking down several of his warriors, that the Indians recoiled. He then changed his plan of attack. Parties of his sharpshooters were placed in every house in the village, and at every other point where they could find protection, and which commanded the fort. These men kept up an incessant fire whenever there was the slightest chance of striking one within the palisades. At length Girty approached the window of one of the cabins, and waving a white flag, with a loud shout demanded the surrender of the fort to the King of Great Britain. All the inmates were threatened with massacre should the garrison at- tempt any further defense. The response came back, through one of the port-holes, that Colonel Shepherd would never sur- render the fort to the renegade so long as a single man was left to defend it.
Immediately the battle was renewed, and a spirited fire was kept up on both sides. The Indians were very much more exposed than the garrison. And generally even boys of sixteen were keen marksmen. Almost every report from behind the pickets was death to some Indian warrior. This was one of the most beautiful of autumnal days, calm, serene and brilliant. The surrounding scene of the placid river, the green hills and the fer- tile vales was very lovely. It seemed as though God intended this for a happy world, and that his children might live here in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity. But the infuriate pas- sions of men were converting the Eden-like loveliness into a pan- demonium. Yells of demoniac savages, blended with the uproar of the battle, and horrid war held high carnival. For six hours there was no cessation of the conflict which had commenced early in the morning. There was a blacksmith's shop in the village. Girty got a large oaken log, which he converted into a cannon, binding it firmly around with iron hoops. This he loaded almost to the muzzle with slugs of iron. With this he hoped to batter
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MICH. ENG. CO.
HEROISM OF ELIZABETH ZANE.
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down the gate. Though he took the precaution to stand at a safe distance himself, many of the Indians, thinking it impossible for such a gun to explode, gathered around to witness the effect of the discharge. The match was applied. The gun burst into a hundred fragments. Many of the warriors were killed and others severely wounded. A loud yell proclaimed to the inmates of the fort the disaster.
One act of heroism merits special notice. The ammunition in the fort was nearly exhausted. It will be remembered that there was another magazine within about sixty yards of the fort. The Indians had not seized it, for they could not do so without being shot. It was a necessity that some one should go to bring a keg of powder. The enterprise was hazardous in the extreme, for hundreds of Indian sharpshooters were on the watch. Colonel Shepherd, unwilling to order any man thus to expose himself to almost certain death, called for a volunteer. Several young men promptly stepped forward. Colonel Shepherd said that the weak- ness of the garrison was such, that one only would be permitted to go. As they were discussing the question, a young girl, Eliza- beth Zane, stepped forward and said :
" In the present weak state of the garrison no man ought to be allowed needlessly to peril his life I can perform the duty as well as any man can perform it. If I fall the loss is of but little consequence, if one of our soldiers fall, it may prove a fatal calamity, involving the captivity and death of all in the garrison."
After some hesitation the proposition of the heroic girl was accepted, and she sallied forth on her dangerous errand. On leaving the gate the savages observed her, but not molesting her, she secured the prize for which she went and commenced her return. The Indians, on seeing a keg of powder in her hand, dis- charged a volley at her; but with the swiftness of a deer she sped on and into the gate unharmed. By her daring she infused new courage into the trembling garrison, and by her cheery words, and constant labors, in running bullets, and in every other way ren- dering assistance, "she did what she could " to help those who were struggling for life.
As night came on the Indians dispersed, in small bands, through- out the forest, and gathered around their camp-fires to rehearse the events of the day. Their defiant yells, songs and revelry fell painfully upon the ears of the feeble and exhausted garrison.
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The Indians, five hundred in number, had no fear that the few men in the fort could think of venturing outside of the palisades to attack them. They, therefore, took no pains to establish sentinels.
In some unknown way, tidings of the attack reached one of the American stations not far distant. A little after midnight, Colonel Swearingen, from Cross Creek, at the head of fourteen men, suc- ceeded in cautiously creeping through the Indian lines, and in entering the fort unharmed.
Just before the day was breaking, General Samuel M'Culloch, who had already obtained much renown as a frontier warrior, reached the fort, with forty mounted grenadiers, from Short Creek. In this movement the post of danger was the rear. There the heroic general was found, anxious to see all his men safe in the fort before he entered himself. The men, though closely beset by the Indians, crowded in at the gate, which was thrown open to receive them. But the leader was cut off. With all ease the Indians could have shot him, but they were desirous of taking him a captive- perhaps, that they might Satisfy their vengeance by putting him to the torture, - perhaps, admiring his courage they hoped to adopt him, as a chief, like Girty, into their tribe.
It is said that he had participated in so many conflicts with the Indians that almost every warrior was familiar with his person. His name had been among them all a word of terror. There was not a Wyandotte chief, before Fort Henry, who would not have given twenty of his warriors to secure the living body of General M'Culloch. When, therefore, the man, whom they had long marked out as the first object of their vengeance, appeared in their midst, they made almost superhuman efforts to acquire pos- session of his person.
A large number of Indians rushed to secure him. Mounted on a very fleet and powerful steed, he wheeled his charger, and plunging through the line of his foes, reached the top of Wheel- ing Hill, at some little distance east of the fort. Hundreds of Indians were pursuing him, like hounds after a hare, and the sol- itudes of the forest resounded with their clamorous war cries.
His situation now seemed hopeless. On two sides he was sur- rounded by his pursuers. The third side presented impending cliffs and rocky steeps which were quite inaccessible. On the fourth side there was a long precipice, nearly perpendicular,
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GANSENG.CO
ESCAPE OF GENERAL McCULLOCH.
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descending about one hundred and fifty feet to Wheeling Creek. There was no time for deliberation. Capture was, in his view, certain death, and probably death by the most dreadful tortures. The howling savages were close upon him. Leaning far back in his saddle, and, firmly bracing his feet in the stirrups, he pressed his spurs into his horse's flanks. The noble steed seemed to share the consciousness of his master. Terrified by the fiend-like yells rising from several hundred throats, he glared with distended eye-balls for a moment upon the savages, rapidly approaching, in their flaunting war dress resembling demons rather than men, and gave the awful plunge. For a moment it seemed as though both horse and rider must roll over and over, down the almost perpen- dicular declivity, till they should reach the bottom in a mangled mass of death.
But over the rocks, and through the thickets, the well trained steed, sliding and stumbling, held his way, until, almost miracu- lously, the bottom was reached in safety. Horse and rider then instantly disappeared in the depths of the forest, and the heroic general returned to his friends with new laurels of victory upon his brow.
The Indians had sufficient intelligence to perceive that the fort thus reinforced could not be taken. They, however, before retir- ing, set fire to all the houses and fences in the village, destroyed everything which could be destroyed, and killed or carried off three hundred head of cattle. The loss of the colonists was a little over thirty in killed and wounded. Twenty-six were killed outright. It was estimated that the loss of the savages was from sixty to one hundred. This, however, was mostly a matter of conjecture, as the savages either concealed or carried off their dead.
Such were the horrid ravages of this storm of war, thus burst- ing upon the peaceful village, in one of the most lovely of autumnal days. The storm passed speedily away, but left behind it smouldering ruins, blood, death, tears, and, with many a mourner, life-long woe.
CHAPTER X.
THE INDIANS OF THE OHIO VALLEY.
LETTER OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - BRITISH EFFORTS WITH THE IROQUOIS - GRAND COUNCIL AT OSWEGO- DANIEL BOONE AND HIS COLONY - MAKING SALT - BOONE'S CAPTURE - HIS TREATMENT BY BRITISH OFFICERS- HIS ADOPTION - LIFE WITH THE SAVAGES-NEW CAUSE OF ALARM TO BOONE - HIS ESCAPE AND ARRIVAL AT BOONESBOROUGH - MEASURES FOR DEFENCE- AFFAIR NEAR PAINT CREEK -MARCH OF THE ARMY - DEMAND OF CAPTAIN DUQUESNE - HIS TREACHERY - THE SIEGE - WORDS OF DEFIANCE.
THE BRITISH government had sent its agents to all the Indian tribes, to enlist the savages against the Colonists. The Americans sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris, to secure, if possible, the aid of France in favor of his countrymen. Dr. Franklin wrote an article for the American Remembrancer, which, in that day, exerted a very powerful influence, in both Europe and America. It purported to be a letter from a British officer to the Governor of Canada, accompanying a present of eight packages of scalps of the Colonists, which he had received from the chief of the Seneca tribe. As a very important part of the history of the times, the letter should be recorded. It was as follows :
" May it Please Your Excellency :
"At the request of the Seneca Chief, I hereby send to your Excellency, under the care of James Hoyd, eight packages of scalps, cured, dried, hooped, and painted with all the triumphal marks, of which the following is the invoice and explanation :
"No. I. Containing forty-three scalps of Congress soldiers, killed in different skirmishes. These are stretched on black hoops, four inches in diameter. The inside of the skin is painted red, with a small black spot, to note their being killed with bullets;
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the hoops painted red, the skin painted brown, and marked with a hoe; a black circle all round, to denote their being surprised in the night; and a black hatchet in the middle, signifying their being killed with that weapon.
" No. 2. Containing ninety-eight of farmers killed in their houses ; hoops red, figure of a hoe, to mark their profession ; great white circle and sun, to show they were surprised in the day time ;. a little red foot to show they stood upon their defense, and died fighting for their lives and families.
" No. 3. Containing ninety-seven of farmers; hoops green to show they were killed in the fields; a large white circle, with a. little round mark on it, for a sun, to show it was in the day time ; black bullet mark on some, a hatchet mark on others.
" No. 4. Containing one hundred and two of farmers, mixture of several of the marks above ; only eighteen marked with a little yellow flame, to denote their being of prisoners burnt alive, after being scalped ; their nails pulled out by the roots, and other tor- ments. One of these latter being supposed to be an American clergyman, his band being fixed to the hook of his scalp. Most of the farmers appear, by the hair, to have been young or middle aged men, there being but sixty-seven very gray heads among; them all, which makes the service more essential.
" No. 5. Containing eighty-eight scalps of women ; hair long, braided in the Indian fashion, to show they were mothers ; hoops blue, skin yellow ground, with little red tadpoles, to represent, by way of triumph, the tears of grief occasioned to their relatives; a. black scalping knife or hatchet at the bottom to mark their being killed by those instruments. Seventeen others, hair very gray, black hoops, plain brown color, no marks but the short club or cassetete, to show they were knocked down dead, or had their brains beat out.
" No. 6. Containing one hundred and ninety-three boys' scalps of various ages. Small green hoops, whitish ground on the skin, with red tears in the middle, and black marks, knife, hatchet, or club, as their death happened.
"No. 7. Containing two hundred and eleven girls' scalps, big and little; small yellow hoops, white ground tears, hatchet, scalp ing knife.
"No. 8. This package is a mixture of all the varieties above mentioned, to the number of one hundred and twenty-two, wi.n
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a box of birch bark, containing twenty-nine little infants' scalps, of various sizes; small white hoops, white ground, to show that they were nipped out of their mothers' wombs. With these packs, the chiefs send to your Excellency the following speech delivered by Conicogatchie, in council, interpreted by the elder Moore, the trader, and taken down by me in writing:
" Father,- We send you here with many scalps, that you may see we are not idle friends. We wish you to send these scalps to. the great king, that he may regard them and be refreshed; and that he may see our faithfulness in destroying his enemies, and be convinced that his presents have not been made to an ungrate- ful people," etc.
This document was a true representation of the nature of the conflict which the government of Great Britain was waging against its revolted colonies. There was not the slightest exag- geration in this. All alike were compelled to admit its truthful- ness. The impression which it consequently produced throughout the courts of Europe was very profound.
It should be remembered that at the time of which we are now writing, about one hundred years ago, the names Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, were quite unknown as designations of states. The whole vast Valley of the Ohio west of the Alleghanies, to the head waters of the streams flowing both from the north and the south, was a wilderness, almost entirely uninhabited by white men. It was a sublime wilderness, of apparently boundless extent, upon most of whose wonders of forests, prairies and rivers,. no white man's eye had ever gazed. South of the Ohio, in what. is now Kentucky, a few white settlers, following the adventurous footsteps of Daniel Boone, had reared their block-houses at three points only - Boonesborough, Harrod's Station and Logan's Fort. North of the Ohio, in the region now embraced in that magnificent state, there was probably not a single settlement. The few trading posts which had been established at the mouths of sev- eral of the rivers had been abandoned. But the numerous and. powerful tribes clustered in the valleys of the Great and Little Miami, the Scioto, to the Muskingum and the Sandusky, were em- ployed by the British Government, to march hundreds of miles to assail the colonial settlements, wherever they could be found, , along the western frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and especially those in the region of Kentucky.
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Consequently, as a measure of defense, colonial troops were frequently sent into the heart of Ohio, to check the incursions, and weaken the power of the savages, by attacking them in their own homes. The narrative of these bloody conflicts constitutes an essential part of the history of the state.
Immediately after Lord Dunmore's War, the colonial authori- ties made strenuous endeavors to induce all the Indian tribes in the West to remain neutral during the conflict of the Revolution. This war was already assuming very terrible proportions. We have already alluded to the successful efforts of the British Gov- ernment to enlist the warriors of the six nations on their side. This case illustrates all the rest. The circumstances were as follows :
Early in June, 1776, General Schuyler, duly authorized by the colonial government, met the chiefs and warriors of the Six Na- tions in a grand council at German Flats. After many very imposing ceremonies and eloquent speeches, the pipe of peace was smoked, a treaty was formed, and the Indians stipulated to observe a strict neutrality in the impending conflict. About a year after this, in 1777, the British Government sent commisioners to each of these tribes requesting their chiefs and warriors to meet in a grand council at Oswego, on the southern shores of Lake Ontario. We give an account of the proceedings of this council as described by the distinguished British traveler, Mr. Bucking- ham, in his "Travels in America." He quotes from a narrative, which he pronounces to be of unquestionable historical truthful- ness :
" The council convened, and the British commissioners informed the chiefs, that the object in calling a council of the Six Nations, was to engage their assistance in subduing the rebels who had risen up against the good king, their master, and were about to rob him of a great part of his possessions. The commissioners added, that they would reward the Indians for all their services. The chiefs then informed the commissioners of the nature and extent of the treaty, into which they had entered with the people of the States the year before ; informing them also that they should not violate it now by taking up the hatchet against them.
" The commissioners continued their entreaties without success, until they addressed their avarice and their appetites. They told the Indians that the people of the States were few in number,
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and easily subdued ; and that, on account of their disobedience to the king, they justly merited all the punishment which white men and Indians could inflict upon them. They added that the king was rich and powerful, both in subjects and money; that his . rum was as plenty as the water in Lake Ontario; that his men were as numerous as the sands on the lake shore; that if the Indians would assist in the war until the close, as the friends of the king, they should never want for money or goods."
These savage chieftains and warriors disregarded their stipu- lated neutrality, and entered into a treaty with the British com- missioners, for abundant rewards, many of which were already before their eyes, and others still more alluring were promised for the future. They agreed to assail the colonists with toma- hawk and scalping knife till the war should end.
The commissioners were delighted with their success. They immediately presented to each Indian warrior a suit of clothes, a brass kettle, a gun, a tomahawk, a scalping knife, and one piece of gold. They also promised a bounty for every scalp which should be brought in.
These demoniac warriors immediately entered upon a career of devastation and blood, against men, women, boys, girls, and even unborn babes, whose horrors no imagination can conceive. In- spired by British gold and British rum, they swept with flame and blood the lovely valleys of the Wyoming, the Cherry, the Mohawk and the Susquehanna.
While his majesty's government was perpetrating such crimes in the north, Sir John Stewart was sent to rouse the Cherokees to a similar war against the frontiers of Virginia and the two Caro- linas. We hesitate in recording these fiend-like atrocities of the British government. But history would be false to herself in spreading any veil over such crimes.
It was thus that the flame of Indian war was simultaneously lighted up, over all the region west of the Alleghany mountains. Wherever a settler had reared his lonely hut in the wilderness, he was sure soon to be surrounded by a gang of yelling savages. Fortunate was he if he and his family could perish in the flames of his own dwelling. If any of them were taken alive, they were probably reserved for the most awful of conceivable deaths, tor- ture by the Indians.
Daniel Boone, one of the most heroic of the pioneers of the
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wilderness, had formed a small colony at Boonesborough in Ken- tucky. The little settlement consisted of twenty six men, four women, and four or five boys and girls of various ages. It was surrounded with palisades, with strong block-houses at the cor- ners, arranged with loop holes for defense. Daniel Boone was a very remarkable man, combining almost feminine delicacy of sensibilities, with heroism, fortitude and courage, never surpassed.
A powerful war party of the savages on the Little Miami River and Scioto, amounting to several hundred in number, was organ- ized to march down to the Ohio River, cross in their canoes, steal silently through the forest upon Boonesborough, and utterly destroy it. Colonel Boone, himself, was absent from the fort a few miles, with a few men well armed, making salt, of which the gar- rison stood in pressing need. He was at a place called Salt Licks, on the Licking River. The salt was obtained by evaporat- ing the water, boiling it in large kettles.
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