USA > Virginia > A history of the valley of Virginia, 3rd ed > Part 24
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In this dilemma, what was to be done? The officers held a council, in which it was determined to march one day longer in the direction of the Upper Sandusky, and if they should not reach the town in the course of the day, to make a retreat with all speed.
The march was commenced on the next morning through the plains of Sandusky, and continued until about two o'clock, when the advance guard was attacked and driven in by the Indians, who were discovered in large numbers in the high grass with which the place was covered. The Indian army was at that moment about entering a piece of woods, almost entirely surrounded by plains ; but in this they were disappointed by a rapid movement of our men. The battle then commenced by a heavy fire on both sides. From a partial possession of the woods which they had gained at the onset of the battle, the Indians were soon dislodged. They then at- tempted to gain a small skirt of wood on our right flank, but were prevented from doing so by the vigilance and bravery of Maj. Leet, who commanded the right wing of the army at that time. The fir- ing was incessant and heavy until dark, when it ceased. Both arm- ies lay on their arms during the night. But adopted the policy of kindling large fires along the line of battle, and then retiring some distance in the rear of them, to prevent being surprised by a night
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attack. During the conflict of the afternoon three of our men were killed and several wounded.
In the morning our army occupied the battle ground of the preceding day. The Indians made no attack during the day, until late in the evening, but were seen in large bodies traversing the plains in various directions. Some of them appeared to be employed in carrying off their dead and wounded.
In the morning, of this day, a council of the officers were held, in which a retreat was resolved on, as the only means of saving their army, the Indians appeared to increase in numbers every hour. During the sitting of this council, Col. Williamson proposed taking one hundred and fifty volunteers, and marching directly to Upper Sandusky. This proposition the Commander-in-chief promptly re- jected, saying, " I have no doubt but that you would reach the town, but you would find nothing there but empty wigwams ; and having taken off so many of our best men, you would leave the rest to be destroyed by the hosts of Indians with which we are now surround- ed, and on your return they would attack and destroy you. They care nothing about defending their towns-they are worth nothing. Their squaws, children and property, have been removed from them long since. Our lives and baggage are what they want, and if they can get us divided they will soon have them. We must stay to- gether and do the best we can."
During this day preparations were made for a retreat by bury- ing the dead and burning fires over their graves to prevent discov- ery, and preparing means for carrying off the wounded. The re- treat was to commence in the course of the night. The Indians, however, became apprised of the intended retreat, and about sun- down attacked the army with great force and fury, in every direc- tion excepting that of Sandusky.
When the line of march was formed by the Commander-in- chief, and the retreat commenced, our guides prudently took the direction of Sandusky, which afforded the only opening in the In- dian lines and the only chance of concealment. After marching about a mile in this direction, the army wheeled about to the left, and by a circuituous route gained the trail bv which they came, be- fore day. They continued their march the whole of next day, with a trifling annoyance from the Indians, who fired a few distant shots at the rear guard, which slightly wounded two or three men. At night they built fires, took their suppers, secured the horses and re- signed themselves to repose, without placing a single sentinel or vidette for safety. In this careless situation, they might have been surprised and cut off by the Indians, who, however, gave them 110 disturbance during the night, nor afterwards during the whole of their retreat. The number of those composing the main body in the retreat was supposed to be about three hundred.
Most unfortunately, when a retreat was resolved on, a difference of opinion prevailed concerning the best mode of effecting it. The
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greater number thought it best to keep in a body and retreat as fast as possible, while a considerable number thought it safest to break off in small parties, and make their way home in different directions, avoiding the route by which they came. Accordingly many at- tempted to do so, calculating that the whole body of the Indians would follow the main army. In this they were entirely mistaken. The Indians paid but little attention to the main body of the army, but pursued the small parties with such activity, that but very few of those who composed them made their escape.
The only successful party who were detached from the main army, was that of about forty men under the command of a Capt. Williamson, who, pretty late in the night of the retreat, broke through the Indian lines under a severe fire and with some loss, and overtook the main army on the morning of the second day of the retreat.
For several days after the retreat of our army, the Indians were spread over the whole country, from Sandusky to the Muskingum, in pursuit of the straggling parties, most of whom were killed on the spot. They even pursued them almost to the banks of the Ohio. A man of the name of Mills was killed, two miles to the eastward of the site of St. Clairsville, in the direction of Wheeling from that place. The number killed in this way must be very great ; the pre- cise amount, however was never fairly ascertained.
At the commencement of the retreat, Col. Crawford placed him- self at the head of the army, and continued there until they had gone about a quarter of mile, when missing his son, John Crawford, his son-in-law, Maj. Harrison, and his nephews, Maj. Rose and William Crawford, he halted and called for them as the line passed, but without finding them. After the army had passed him, he was unable to overtake it, owing to the weariness of his horse. Fall- ing in company with Dr. Knight and two others, they traveled all the night, first north, and then to the east, to avoid the pursuit of the Indians. They directed their course during the night by the north star.
On the next day they fell in with Capt. John Biggs and Lieut. Ashley, the latter of whom was severely wounded. There were two others in the company with Biggs and Ashley. They encamped together the succeeding night. On the next day, while on their march, they were attacked by a party of Indians, who made Col. Crawford and Dr. Knight prisoners. The other four made their escape; but Captain Biggs and Lieutenant Ashley were killed the next day.
Col. Crawford and Dr. Knight were immediately taken to an Indian encampment, at a short distance from the place where they were captured. Here they found nine fellow prisoners and seven- teen Indians. On the next day they were marched to the old Wyandotte town, and on the next morning were paraded, to set
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off, as they were told, to go to the new town. But alas ! a very different destination awaited these captives ! Nine of these prison- ers were marched off some distance before the Colonel and the Doc- tor, who were conducted by Pipe and Wingemond, Delaware chiefs. Four of the prisoners were tomahawked and scalped on the way, at different places.
Preparations had been made for the execution of Col. Craw- ford, by setting a post about fifteen feet high in the ground, and making a large fire of hickory poles about six yards from it. About half a mile from the place of execution, the remaining five of the nine prisoners were tomahawked and scalped by a number of squaws and boys.
When arrived at the fire, the Colonel was stripped and ordered to sit down. He was then severely beaten with sticks, and after- wards tied to the post, by a rope of such length as to allow him to walk two or three times around it, and then back again. This done, they began the torture by discharging a great number of loads of powder upon him, from head to foot; after which they began to apply the burning ends of the hickory poles, the squaws in the mean time throwing coals and hot ashes on his body, so that in a little time he had nothing but coals to walk on. In the midst of his suf- ferings, he begged of the noted Simon Girty to take pity on hin and shoot him. Girty tauntingly answered, "You see I have no gun, I cannot shoot ;" and laughed heartily at the scene. After suffering about three hours he became faint and fell down on his face. An Indian then scalped him, and an old squaw threw a quan- tity of burning coals on the place from which the scalp was taken. After this he rose and walked around the post a little, but did not live much longer. After he expired, his body was thrown into the fire and consumed to ashes. Col. Crawford's son and son-in-law were executed at the Shawnee towns.
Dr. Knight was doomed to be burned at a town about forty miles distant from Sandusky, and committed to the care of a young Indian to be taken there. The first day they traveled about twenty- five miles, and encamped for the night. In the morning, the gnats being very troublesome, the Doctor requested the Indian to untie him, that he might help him to make a fire to keep them off. With this request the Indian complied. While the Indian was on his knees and elbows, blowing the fire, the Doctor cauglit up a piece of a tent pole which had been burned in two, about eighteen inches long, with which he struck the Indian on the head with all his might, so as to knock him forward into the fire. The stick how- ever broke, so that the Indian, although severely hurt, was not killed, but immediately sprang up. On this the Doctor caught up the Indians gun to shoot him, but drew back the cock with so much violence that he broke the main spring. The Indian ran off with hideous yelling. Dr. Knight then made the best of his way home, which he reached in twenty-one days, almost famished to death.
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The gun being of no use, after carrying it a day or two he sett it behind. On his journey he subsisted on roots, a few young birds and berries.
A Mr. Slover, who had been a prisoner among the Indians, and was one of the pilots of the army, was also taken prisoner to one of the Shawnee towns on the Scioto River. After being there a few days, and as he thought, in favor with the Indians, a council of the chiefs was held, in which it was resolved that he should be burned. The fires were kindled, and he was blackened and tied to a stake, in an uncovered end of the council-house. Just as they were about cominencing the torture, there came up suddenly a heavy thunder gust, with a great fall of rain which put out the fires. After the rain was over the Indians concluded that it was then too late to commence and finish the torture that day, and therefore postponed it until the next day. Slover was then loosed from the stake, con- ducted to an empty house, to a log of which he was fastened with a buffalo tug around his neck, while his arms were pinioned behind him with a cord. Until late in the night the Indians sat up smoking and talking. They frequently asked Slover how he would like to eat fire the next day. At length one of them laid down and went to sleep; the other continued smoking and talking with Slover. Sometime after midnight, he also laid down and went to sleep. Slover then resolved to make an effort to get loose if possi- ble, and soon extricated one of his hands from the cord, and then fell to work with the tug round his neck, but without effect. He had not been long engaged in these efforts, before one of the In- dians got up and smoked his pipe awhile. During this time Slover kept very still for fear of an examination. The Indian laying down, the prisoner renewed his efforts, but for some time without effect, and he resigned himself to his fate. After resting for awhile, he resolved to make another and last effort, and as he related, put his hand to the tug, and without difficulty, slipped it over his head. The day was just then breaking. He sprang over a fence into a corn field, but had proceeded but a little distance in the field, before lie came across a squaw and several children, lying asleep under a Mul- berry tree. He then changed his course for part of the commons of the town, on which he saw some horses feeding. Passing over the fence from the corn field, he found a piece of an old quilt. This he took with him, and was the only covering he had. He then untied the cord from the other arm, which by this time was very much swollen. Having selected, as he thought, the best horse on the common, he tied the cord to his lower jaw, mounted him and rode off at full speed. The horse gave out about ten o'clock, so that he had to leave him. He then traveled on foot with a stick in one hand, with which he put the weeds behind liim, for fear of being tracked by the Indians. In the other he carried a bunch of bushes to brush the gnats and mosquitoes from his naked body. Being perfectly acquainted with the route, he reached the
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Ohio River in a short time, almost famished with hunger and ex- haused with fatigue.
Thus ended this disastrous campaign. It was the last one which took place in this section of the country during the revolu- tionary contest of the Americans with the mother country. It was undertaken with the very worst of views, those of murder and plun- der. It was conducted without sufficient means to encounter, with any prospect of success, the large force of Indians opposed to ours in the plains of Sandusky. It was conducted without that subordi- nation and discipline, so requisite to insure success in any hazardous enterprise, and it ended in a total discomforture. Never did an en- terprise more completely fail of attaining its object. Never, on any occasion, had the ferocious savages more ample revenge for the murder of their pacific friends, than that which they obtained on this occasion.
Should I be asked what considerations led so great a number of people into this desperate enterprise ?- why with so small a force and such slender means they pushed on so far as the plains of San- dusky? I reply, that many believed that the Moravian Indians, taking no part in the war, and having given offense to the warriors on several occasions, their belligerent friends would not take up arms in their behalf. In this conjecture they were sadly mistaken. They did defend them with all the force at their command, and no wonder, for notwithstanding the christian and pacific principles, the warriors regarded the Moravians as their relations, whom it was their duty to defend.
The reflections which naturally arise out of the history of the Indian war in the western country, during our revolutionary con- test with Great Britain, are not calculated to do honor to human nature, even its civilized state. On our side, indeed, as to our infant government, the case is not so bad. Our Congress faithfully en- deavored to prevent the Indians from taking part in the war on either side. The English government, on the other hand, made allies of as many of the Indian nations as they could, and they im- posed no restraint on their savage mode of warfare. On the con- trary, the commandants at their posts along our western frontier re- ceived and paid the Indians for scalps and prisoners. Thus the skin of a white man's or even a woman's head served in the hands of the Indian as current coin, which he exchanged for arms and ammuni- tion, for the farther prosecution of his barbarous warfare, and cloth- ing to cover his half naked body. Were not these rewards the price of blood ? of blood shed in a cruel manner, on an exhaustive scale ; but without advantage to that government which employed the say- ages in their warfare against their relatives and fellow-christians, and paid for their murders by the peace !
The enlightened historian must view the whole of the Indian war from the commencement of the revolutionary contest, in no other light than a succession of the most wanton murders of all ages, from
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helpless infancy to decript old age, and of both sexes, without ob- ject and without effect.
On our side, it is true, the pressure of the war along our Atlan- tic border was such that our government could not furnish the means for making a conquest of the Indian nations at war against us. The people of the western country, poor as they were at that time, and unaided by government, could not subdue them. Our cam- paign, hastily undertaken, without sufficient force and means, and illy executed, resulted in nothing beneficial. On the other hand, the Indians, with the aids their allies could give them in the western country, were not able to make a conquest of the settlement on this side of the mountains. On the contrary, our settlements and the Forts belonging to them became stronger and stronger from year to year during the whole continuance of the wars. It was therefore a war of mutual, but unavailing slaughter, devastation and revenge, over whose record humanity still dops a tear of regret, but that tear cannot efface its disgraceful history.
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ATTACK ON RICE'S FORT.
CHAPTER IX.
ATTACK ON RICE'S FORT.
This Fort consisted of some cabins and a small block-house, and was, in dangerous times, the residence and place of refuge for twelve families of its immediate neighborhood. It was situated on Buffalo Creek, about twelve or fifteen miles from its junction with the Ohio River.
Previous to the attack on this Fort, which took place in the month of September, 1782, several of the men belonging to the Fort had gone to Hagerstown, to exchange their peltry and furs for salt, iron and ammunition, as was the usual custom of those times. They had gone on this journey somewhat earlier that season than usual, because there had been "a still time," that is, no recent alarms of the Indians.
A few days before the attack on this Fort, about three hundred Indians had made their last attack on Wheeling Fort. On the third night of the investment of Wheeling, the Indian chiefs held a coun- cil, in which it was determined that the siege of Wheeling should be raised, two hundred of the warriors return home, and the remaining hundred of picked men make a dash into the country and strike a heavy blow somewhere before their return. It was their determina- tion to take a Fort somewhere and inassacre all its people, in re- venge for their defeat at Wheeling.
News of the plan adopted by the Indians, was given by two white men, who had been made prisoners when lads, raised among the Indians and taken to war with them. These men deserted from them soon after their council at the close of the seige of Wheeling. The notice was indeed but short, but it reached Rice's Fort about half an hour before the commencement of the attack. The intel- ligence was brought by Mr. Jacob Miller, who received it at Dr. Moore's in the neighborhood of Washington. Making all speed home he fortunately arrived in time to assist in the defense of the place. On receiving this news, the people of the Fort felt as- sured that the blow was intended for them, and in this conjecture they were not mistaken. But little time was allowed them for preparation.
The Indians had surrounded the place before they were discov- ed ; but they were still at some distance. When discovered, the alarm was given, on which every man run to his cabin for his gun,
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and took refuge in the block-house. The Indians, answering the alarm with a war-whoop from their whole line, commenced firing and running towards the Fort from every direction. It was evi- dently their intention to take the place by assault ; but the fire of the Indians was answered by that of six brave and skillful sharpshoot- ers. This unexpected reception prevented the intended assault, and made the Indians take refuge behind logs, stumps and trees. The firing continued with little intermission for about four hours.
In the intervals of the firing, the Indians frequently called out to the people of the Fort, "Give up, give up, too many Indian ; In- dian too big ; no kill." They were answered with defiance, "Come on, you cowards ; we are ready for you ; show us your yellow hides, we will make holes in them for you."
During the evening, many of the Indians at some distance from the Fort, amused themselves by shooting the horses, cattle, hogs and sheep until the bottom was strewed with the dead bodies.
About ten o'clock at night the Indians set fire to a barn about thirty yards from the Fort. It was large and full of grain and hay. . The flame was frightful, and at first it seemed to endanger the burning of the Fort, but the barn stood on lower ground than the Fort. The night was calm, with the exception of a slight breeze up the Creek. This carried the flame and burning splinters in a differ- ent direction, so that the burning of the barn, which at first was re- garded as dangerous, if not fatal occurrence, proved in the issue the means of throwing a strong liglit to a great distance in every dir- ection, so that the Indians durst not approach the Fort to set fire to the cabins, which they might have done at little risk, under the cover of darkness.
After the barn was set on fire, the Indians collected on the side of the Fort opposite the barn, so as to have the advantage of the light, and kept up a pretty constant fire, which was as steadily ans- wered by that of the Fort, until about two o'clock, when the In- dians left the place and made a hasty retreat.
Thus was this little place defended by a Spartan band of six men, against one hundred chosen warriors, exasperated to madness by their failure at Wheeling Fort. Their names shall be inscribed in the list of heroes of our early times. They were Jacob Miller, George Lefler, Peter Fullenweider, Daniel Rice, George Felebaum and Jacob Lefler, Jr. George Felebaum was shot in the forehead, through a port-hole, at the second fire of the Indians, and instantly expired, so that in realily the defense of the place was made by only five inen.
The loss of the Indians was four, three of whom were killed at the first fire from the Fort, the other was killed about sundown. There can be 110 doubt but that a number more were killed and wounded in the engagement, but were concealed or carried off.
A large division of these Indians, on their retreat, passed with- in a little distance of my father's Fort. In following their trail, a
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few days afterwards, I found a large poultice of chewed sassafras leaves. This is the dressing which the Indians usually apply to re- cent gunshot wounds. The poultice which I found having become too old and dry, was removed and replaced with a new one.
Examples of personal bravery and hair breath escapes are always acceptable to readers of history. An instance of both of these happened during the attack on this Fort, which may be worth recording.
Abraham Rice, one of the principal men belong to the Fort of that name, on hearing the report of the deserters from the Indians, mounted a very strong active mare and rode in all haste to another Fort, about three and-a-half miles distant from his own, for further news, if any could be had, concerning the presence of a body of In- dians in the neighborhood. Just as he reached the place, he heard the report of the guns at his own Fort. He instantly returned as fast as possible, until he arrived within sight of the Fort. Finding that it still held out, he determined to reach it and assist in it defense, or perish in the attempt. In doing this, he had to cross the Creek, the Fort being some distance from it, on the opposite bank. He saw no Indians until his mare sprang down the bank of the Creek, at which instant about fifteen of them jumped up from among the weeds and bushes and discharged their guns at him. One bullet wounded him in the fleshy part of the right arm above the elbow. By this time several more of the Indians came up and shot at him. A second ball wounded him in the thigh a little above the knee, but without breaking the bone, and the ball passed transversely through the neck of the mare. She, however, sprang up the bank of the Creek, fell to her knees, and stumbled along about a rod before she recovered. During this time several Indians came running up to tomahawk him. Yet he made his escape, after having about thirty shots fired at him from a very short distance. After riding about four miles, he reached Lamb's Fort, much exhausted from the loss of blood. After getting his wounds dressed and resting awhile, he set off late in the evening with twelve men, determined if possible to reach the Fort under cover of the night. When they got within about two hundred yards of it, they halted ; the firing still continued. Ten of the men, thinking the enterprise too hazardous, refused to go any further, and retreated. Rice and two other men crept silent- ly along toward the Fort ; but had not proceeded very far before they came close upon an Indian in his concealment. He gave the alarm yell, which was instantly passed round the line with the ut- most regularity. This occasioned the Indians to make their last effort to take the place and make their retreat under cover of the night. Rice and his two companions returned in safety to Lamb's Fort.
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