USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 17
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On the eighth of August, the Indian army arrived. It consisted of four hundred and forty-four privates. Of these, all were sav- ages excepting eleven, who were Canadians that had enlisted in the service of the English. They were commanded by a Cap- tain Duquesne. With considerable military pomp they ap- proached the fort-the banners of France and England flying side by side, and the savages marching beneath their proud pennons, decorated with scalps. As soon as Captain Duquesne had posted his troops, so as to command all the important points, he sent a
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flag of truce, demanding, in the name of his Britannic Majesty, the immediate surrender of the fortress and all its inmates.
Colonel Boone requested two days to consider the question. As escape was impossible, and it was certain that no reinforcements could arrive, and since the rest of two days would prepare the savage warriors for a more furious onset, the request was granted. Colonel Boone, writing of this event, says :
" It was now a critical period with us. We were a small num- ber in the garrison. A powerful army was before our walls, whose appearance proclaimed inevitable death. Death was prefer- able to captivity. If taken by storm, we must inevitably be de- voted to destruction. The summons for the surrender was made on the morning of the eighth. The British commander, impatient of delay, demanded an answer on the evening of the ninth. It was not deemed expedient to admit him within the gates, as he might thus spy out the measures which were adopted for the de- fense. Knowing, however, that he was dealing with civilized men, he approached near enough to the fort to receive his answer from Colonel Boone himself."
The heroic commander said to him: "I shall not surrender this fortress, while there is a single man left alive to defend it. We laugh at your preparations for an attack, and still we thank you for giving us time to complete our preparations to repel you. You will not take this fort. Our gates will forever deny you ad- mittance."
These were very bold words. Captain Duquesne was appre- hensive that Colonel Boone might have some means of defense which he could not overcome. He knew, as did every man in the fort, that should the savages take the place by assault, no earthly power could restrain their fury. Every one within the palisades, men, women and children, would fall beneath their tomahawks, and, with fiend-like yells, their bloody scalps would be waved in triumph from their pennon poles. Perhaps this consideration moved the heart of a British officer, and induced him again to try the influence of diplomacy.
And still, in the account which we have of these events, he is represented as contemplating an act of treachery of which we can hardly conceive it possible that a British officer should be guilty. He represented that it would be utterly impossible for him to save the life of a single inmate of the fort, should his savage allies take
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it by violence; but that if he would come out, with nine of his leading men, they could undoubtedly enter into a treaty, binding the garrison not to take any part in the war between the colonies and the mother country, which would satisfy Governor Hamilton, of Detroit, under whose orders he was acting. It will be remem- bered that Governor Hamilton knew Colonel Boone, and regarded him with friendly feelings. Having formed this treaty, Captain Duquesne promised to withdraw his savage soldiers, and recross- ing the Ohio River, to return them peaceably to their homes in the Valley of the Miami. An account of the results of this propo- sition must be reserved for the next chapter.
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CHAPTER XI.
DISASTER AND REVENGE.
COUNCIL AT BOONESBOROUGH - PERFIDY OF BLACKFISH - THE TREACHERY THWARTED - PROPOSED TERMS OF CAPITULATION - RENEWAL OF THE BATTLE - HONEST LOYALTY OF BOONE - SITE OF THE FORT - RETREAT OF THE SAVAGES - THEIR CHAGRIN - THE DISASTER TO COLONEL ROGERS - EXPEDI- TION OF COLONEL BOWMAN - ENTIRE FAILURE - EARLY HIS- TORY OF SIMON KENTON -SURPRISED BY THE INDIANS - THE HUT IN THE WILDERNESS - ATTRACTIVE SCENE - SINGULAR CONFLICT WITH A WHITE MAN - VISIT TO BOONESBOROUGH - KENTON SAVES THE LIFE OF BOONE - AWFUL FATE OF WIL- LIAMS - CAPTIVITY OF KENTON - HIS TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS -THE SERENE EVENING OF HIS LIFE-HIS CHRISTIAN DEATH.
THERE WERE but fifty men in the garrison at Boonesborough. They were assailed by a body of Indian warriors, outnumbering them more than eight to one. These savages were led by the re- nowned Shawanese Chieftain, Blackfish, who had adopted Boone as his son, and who was tremendously exasperated against him, for his ungrateful escape from so loving a father. The British commander had but very slight control over these wild men. He could supply them with the best of the weapons of war, and through their Chieftain, guide their general movements, but there his authority ended. Still the alliance of savage ferocity, with British intelligence, was dreadful.
Captain Duquesne, as before mentioned, was acting under in- structions from Governor Hamilton. This induced Boone to accede to his proposal of holding a council to confer respecting a treaty of peace. He, however, having spent his life among the Indians, was far better acquainted with their character, than was Duquesne. He knew full well that if his father-in-law, the Chieftain, Blackfish, meditated perfidy, Duquesne had no power whatever to arrest his
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uplifted hand. He therefore, to guard against treachery, ap- pointed the place of meeting at but one hundred and twenty feet distant from the fort, upon a spot which would be perfectly com- manded by its rifles. Every man in the garrison was secretly placed in position, with guns loaded and primed, to take fearful vengeance upon the enemy, if any perfidy were attempted. In addition to this, he selected to accompany him nine of the most muscular and athletic men under his command, each one of whom was more than a match for the most powerful of the Indians.
The terms proposed by Captain Duquesne were liberal, and it is by no means certain that he intended to be guilty of any dis- honor. They were such as ought to have been satisfactory to any fair-minded Englishman. Colonel Boone therefore thought it not improbable that he might be sincere in the suggestion. The only object of the British government was, to bring the colonists back to their allegiance to the crown. But the Indians, on the war- path, were like wolves who had lapped blood rushing towards the sheep-fold. They were not only eager to drive the colonists back from their hunting-grounds, but they wished to load themselves with the plunder of their dwellings-to obtain glory by the ex- hibition of their scalps, and to gratify their savage natures by the shrieks which torture could extort from their prisoners at the stake.
Boone, and his little band of hardy pioneers, had for years been buried in the depths of the wilderness, hundreds of miles west of the Alleghany Mountains. They could know very little of the controversy which had arisen between the colonists and the mo- ther country, and could take but little personal interest in the quarrel. They had always regarded the British King as their lawful sovereign. When, therefore, Captain Duquesne proposed that they should take the oath of allegiance to the king, they were not particularly averse to doing so. And even should it be in- sisted that they should abandon Boonesborough, and return, unmolested with their possessions, to their old homes and friends east of the mountains, this was far preferable to remaining in the wilderness to be attacked by thousands of merciless savages, abundantly provided with the munitions of war from British arsenals.
The commissioners on both sides appeared at the appointed
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time and place, as usual entirely unarmed. After brief discus- sion, a treaty was drawn up and signed, allowing the inmates of the fort to withdraw with all their transportable property, under the pledge of protection from harm. While the conference was going on, the watchful eye of Boone observed that a large number of In- dian warriors, the old chieftain Blackfish among them, who seemed to be listlessly loitering around, were gradually approaching the place of council. As the ceremony of signing the treaty was pro- ceeding, they drew near, as if lured by curiosity alone. He no- ticed that Blackfish regarded him with an exceedingly unamiable expression of countenance. As soon as the signatures were attached to the articles, the old chief stepped forward and said, in the most pompous style of Indian eloquence, that the bravery of the two armies was equal, and that he and his warriors desired only peace and friendship with all the white men. He closed his long harangue with the words:
"It is the invariable custom with the Indian braves to ratify every important treaty by shaking of hands. On such occasions, in token of our entire fraternity, two red men shake hands with each white man, one Indian taking the right hand, and the other the left at the same time."
This very shallow pretense was, of course, at once comprehended. It was scarcely up to the sagacity of ordinary children. Blackfish supposed that two savages grappling, at the same moment, the hand of one of the garrison, would be able at least to make him a pris- oner. Thus the whole nine would be captured. Then, by bind- ing them to stakes, piling the fagots around them, and threatening them with death by the most cruel tortures, in face of the whole garrison, they might compel the surrender of the fort.
The precautions of Colonel Boone had prepared him for the emergency. No two savages could drag away any one of the burly pioneers whom he had brought with him from the fort. And there were forty unerring riflemen ready to strike down, in an in- stant, forty warriors, should the crime be attempted. They had also other guns ready at their sides to repeat, with scarcely an instant's cessation, the volley of death.
Boone, assuming to be satisfied of their honesty, assented to the arrangement. The grasp was given. Instantly the fiend-like savages raised the war-whoop, as they endeavored to drag off their victims. Terrible was the scene that ensued. Eighteen
EDWARD TIFFIN Governor 1803 1807
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savages had seized nine white men. Without one moment's delay the report of forty rifles was heard, and nearly every one of those eighteen warriors dropped in his blood. The intended victims were thus released from their clutches. At the same moment more than four hundred savage warriors made the welkin resound with their yells, as they rushed forward to seize those whom they supposed to have been captured. But the soldiers, protected by the incessant fire of their comrades, on swift feet reached the fort in safety; only one, the brother of Colonel Boone, being slightly wounded.
We have no means of knowing whether the British officer was ashamed of the perfidy of his savage allies. We simply know that Captain Duquesne and Chieftain Blackfish immediately com- bined all their energies in the prosecution of the siege. They di- vided the savage army into two forces of about two hundred and twenty men each. They had an abundant supply of ammunition, and, for nine days and nights, they kept up almost an incessant fire upon the fort.
This fort, so important in the early history of the great valley, was built upon the left bank of the Kentucky River, not far from the center of the state. It consisted of several log huts, so arranged as to enclose a square of about one acre of ground. The spaces between the log houses were filled with palisades of stout tim- bers planted closely together, and about twelve feet high. These palisades and walls were bullet-proof. The fort was built so near the river that one of the angles reached into the river, fur- nishing them thus an unfailing supply of water. Each of the corner houses projected a little, so that from the port-holes any assailant could be shot who should approach with ladder or hatchet. It was really an artistic structure, and presented a very formidable obstacle to any foe who should attack it without artil- lery. Colonel Boone, describing the scene from the moment when they presented their hands to the savages, writes :
"They immediately grappled us. But although surrounded by hundreds of savages, we extricated ourselves from them, and all escaped safe into the garrison except one, who was wounded by a heavy fire from their army. They immediately attacked us from every side, and a constant heavy fire ensued between us, day and night, for the space of nine days. In this time the enemy began to undermine our fort. They began at the watermark and pro-
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ceeded in the bank some distance, which we understood by their making the water muddy with the clay. We immediately pro- ceeded to disappoint their design, by cutting a trench across their subterranean passage. The enemy discovering our countermine, by the clay that we threw out of the fort, desisted from that strat- agem. Experience now fully convincing them that neither their power nor their policy could effect their purpose, on the twentieth of August they raised the siege and departed.
" During this siege, which threatened death in every form, we had two men killed and four wounded, besides a number of cattle. We killed thirty-seven, and wounded a great number. After they were gone, we picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight of bullets, besides what stuck in the logs of our fort, which is certainly a great proof of their industry."
At one time the Indians succeeded in throwing upon the roof of one of the buildings some flaming combustibles attached to an arrow. The roof was almost as dry as powder. The fort was threatened with immediate and fatal conflagration. One of the young men, at the imminent peril of his life, exposing himself to the fire of the savage sharpshooters, succeeded in extinguishing the flames. All the region directly around the fort was cleared of stumps and trees, so that the rifles of the garrison compelled the assailants to keep at a very considerable distance.
The repulse of the savages at Boonesborough greatly disheart- ened them. They returned, much chagrined, across the Ohio to their homes on the Little Miami, without a single scalp to exhibit as the trophy of their expedition. Soon, however, they had an opportunity for petty revenge. Colonel Rogers, an officer of the colonial army, was ascending the river from New Orleans to Pitts- burgh, with supplies for that station. He had several boats, pro- tected by a force of between sixty and seventy soldiers. When he arrived near the mouth of the Little Miami, he saw a large number of Indian warriors, decorated with their war paint and well armed, crossing the Ohio River to the Kentucky shore. They were on the march to carry fire and blood to some lonely settle- ment on the frontier.
Colonel Rogers, supposing himself to be unseen by the savages, and greatly under-estimating their numbers, resolved to attack them, hoping to take them by surprise. He accordingly landed his men, and was cautiously advancing through the forest, when
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he suddenly found himself almost surrounded by an overwhelming number of savages, thoroughly armed with rifles. They fell upon him with great fury. In a few moments, Colonel Rogers himself and sixty of his men were shot down. Two or three only escaped to carry up the river, to the settlements, the sad tidings of the massacre.
It was immediately resolved by the colonial authorities to avenge this disaster. Colonel Bowman issued a call for all the frontiersmen, in the various posts and settlements, who were will- ing to volunteer to punish these Ohio Indians, to rendezvous at Harrodsburgh, a small station about fifty miles west of Boones- borough. A well-armed body of hardy pioneers, three hundred in number, were soon assembled at that point. With rapid march, they directed their steps northward, a distance of more than a hundred miles, before they reached the Ohio River, nearly oppo- site the present site of Cincinnati. In frail boats, hastily con- structed, they crossed the river, and soon entered the Valley of the Little Miami. With cautious but rapid tread, they pressed along in the ascent of the valley, till just before nightfall, about the middle of July, they reached the vicinity of Old Chillicothe, the most important Indian town in the valley. It was determined to divide their forces and attack the town by surprise, just before the dawn of the morning. Colonel Bowman was to attack in front. Colonel Logan, leading a hundred and fifty men, groped his way through the forest to be ready, at a given signal, to attack the foe in the rear.
Successfully and undiscovered he accomplished his movement, and was concealing his men behind trees, stumps and logs, to await the signal of attack, when the sharp ear of a watch dog caught some unusual sound, and he commenced barking very furiously. The troops were then at the distance of but a few rods from the Indian lodges. A savage came out from his hut, and looking anxiously around, came near the concealed troops. One of the party, either by accident or through great imprudence, dis- charged his gun. The savage immediately gave an exceedingly shrill war whoop. The Indians lose no time in dressing. In an instant every man, woman and child was out of the lodges. The bewildered warriors were rushing about, preparing to battle an unseen foe. In the dim light Colonel Logan could see the women and children, in a continuous line, fleeing over a ridge to the pro-
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tection of the distant forest. The Indian warriors, in the display of unexpected military skill-which skill was probably taught them by British instructors in the art of war-immediately gathered in several strong block-houses. These were admirably arranged for defense, being impervious to bullets, supplied with loop-holes, and the ground around so cleared as to afford no protection what- ever to an assailing foe.
In an instant the whole aspect of affairs was changed. The Indians were in an impregnable position. To advance upon them was certain defeat and certain death. Colonel Logan, greatly chagrined, was compelled to order the immediate retreat of his men, that all the troops could be reunited to meet any assault which might be made upon them. The Indian warriors manifested great bravery. As soon as they caught sight of their foes, and saw them on the retreat, they emerged from their pro- tecting walls, and, cautiously pursuing, kept up a constant fire upon the rear of the fugitives. The valiant Blackfish led this band of warriors.
The result of the conflict might have been still more fatal than it was, had not a chance bullet struck down the chief in instant death. The warriors were so disheartened by this calamity that they abandoned the pursuit, and returned to their fortress with the dead body of their chief. The colonists, having lost nine men in killed and one severely wounded, continued their flight all that day and the ensuing night, until they had placed the broad Ohio River between them and their foes. They then, chagrined and greatly dejected, continuing their retreat, returned to their homes. They had accomplished nothing, and the savages of the Little Miami were greatly elated by the repulse which they had effected.
An instance of individual heroism and suffering which occurred about this time, and which is peculiarly illustrative of the nature of this warfare, may be recorded here. Colonel Boone had organ- ized what might be called a corps of explorers, whose business it was to go out, two and two, in various directions through the wilderness, in search of indications of the approach of Indians. One of these explorers, Simon Kenton, was a very remarkable man, whose achievements as a pioneer and an Indian fighter, ever manifesting the most reckless and desperate bravery, had already acquired for him much renown. He had fled from seri-
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ous difficulties, on the other side of the mountains, to the haunts of the savages, and seemed to set but very little value upon his own life. He erroneously thought that, in a quarrel, he had killed a rival lover. In grief and despair he fled from civilization. But the wounded man recovered, though he knew it not. He subse- quently became, we trust, a true disciple of Jesus Christ, and was one of the prominent actors in laying the foundations of the noble State of Kentucky.
It would be difficult for the imagination of any romancer to 'create a tale more full of wild and wondrous adventure than is to be found in the career of this man. Simon was a boy of but six- teen years of age when he had a quarrel with another young man, by the name of Veach, who was his rival in love. They met, and, after a few words of altercation, had a pitched battle. Simon threw his antagonist to the ground and kicked him in the breast. Veach vomited blood and fainted away. Simon, terrified, raised him in his arms and spoke kindly to him. But receiving no answer, and seeing Veach apparently lifeless, he thought that he was dead. Overwhelmed with grief and remorse, the poor boy fled into the forest, directing his steps to the wildest fastnesses of the Alleghanies. Ever apprehensive that the officers of justice were after him, he concealed himself by day and traveled by 'night. Veach, however, soon recovered, having received no seri- ous harm. At length, after innumerable and wonderful adven- tures, young Kenton reached Fort Pitt in rags and almost starved. Here he took the name of Simon Butler, and was employed as hunter for the fort.
'He soon recovered equanimity of mind, and, in the congenial employment in which he was then engaged, passed, as he ever afterwards said, the happiest period of his life. He was in per- fect health, was blest with a very robust constitution, which gave him great strength and agility, and he found the streams abound- ing with fish, and the forests and meadows alive with game. Here he spent his time in that happy state of busy idleness which is the great glory of the hunter's life.
One cold evening in the month of March, Kenton and two com- panions had encamped for the night on the bank of the Kanawha River. They had built a rousing fire, had cooked their supper of the most delicious bits of game, and wrapped in bear-skin robes, which were impervious to the cold, they were in the enjoy-
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ment, for them, of about as much luxurious indulgence as can be found in this world. The crackling of the fire was music to their ears. Its flame illumined the flowing river and the sublime for- est far and wide. Suddenly the sharp crack of a rifle was heard, which laid one of their number still in death, while the yell of a small band of savages, rushing upon them, echoed through the forest.
Kenton and his surviving companion fled like deer, abandoning. everything, without even time to catch their rifles. It was, as we. have said, the cold and cheerless month of March. They had no means of building a fire; they could take no game; there were no berries. For six days and nights they wandered through the for- est, barely sustaining life on a few roots. At length they reached the Ohio River so enfeebled, so near death, that for the last two days they had been able to travel but one mile each day. Here, fortunately, they met a party of hunters descending the Ohio River, by whom they were rescued.
During Lord Dunmore's war, Simon Kenton accompanied the expedition, discharging the difficult and very perilous office of a spy and scout. Upon his return from the war, he set out on a sol- itary hunting expedition, in the valley of the Elkhorn, one of the tributaries of the Kentucky River. This was, as he supposed, in the very heart of an unpeopled wilderness. One companion only, whose name was Williams, accompanied him. They descended the Ohio River to the present site of Maysville, and there struck directly across the country, a hundred and fifty miles, in a south- west direction, till they reached the valley of this lonely stream, which valley a white man's foot had never trodden, and which the Indian, even, had rarely visited. Here, in this utter silence and loneliness, these strange adventurers, enamored with the solitude of the forest, reared a log hut. They found a green and treeless lawn of a few acres, with a sunny exposure, surrounded by the forest. The crystal stream flowed gently in front of their door. It was the elysium for a hermit. There was fish in the stream, and all kinds of game in their magnificent park. The softly tanned skin of the deer supplied them with every article of cloth- ing, which their own hands easily manufactured. A full supply of fur robes, furnished them with a couch for the night. They prob- ably had one or two horses with them, to convey the necessary
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