USA > Virginia > Augusta County > Augusta County > Annals of Augusta county, Virginia, with reminiscences illustrative of the vicissitudes of its pioneer settlers > Part 10
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Early in January, 1757, Governor Dinwiddie was full of another scheme. This one was instigated apparently by Captain Voss, Vass, or Vance-the Governor writes the name all sorts of ways, but Vaux was probably the correct mode-and encouraged by Colonel Read and others. It seems that a number of persons calling themselves " Associators," proposed to raise two hun- dred and fifty to three hundred men for an expedition against the Shawnees. They were to choose their own officers, to be provided by the government with provisions, arms and ammu- nition, to have all the plunder, and to be paid {10 for every scalp or prisoner brought in. The provisions were to be car- ried to Vass's fort, and from thence on horses to the pass in the mountains, where the horses should be kept under a guard. The whole affair was to be kept as secret as possible, to pre- vent intelligence of it getting to the enemy. The Governor had the affair "much at heart," and on the Ist of February he wrote: " The expedition is very pleasable." It is observable that he wrote to nobody in Augusta on the subject. On the 5th
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of April he wrote to Colonel Read : " Last Thursday I arrived from Philadelphia, where I was much surprised after the san- guine expressions and assurances of three hundred men from Augusta, &c., entering an association to march against the Shawness towns is defeated by a presumption, they would not proceed with fewer than six hundred. This, I conceived, was intended to load the country with extraordinary expense, and to furnish arms, &c., for that number, which can't be done. * * I believe it's only a few persons that wanted command occasioned this hindrance, and I find it has been usual with the people of Augusta to form schemes of lucrative views, which, for the future, I will endeavor to prevent."
Thus another well-laid plan came to naught. Of course, the people of Augusta were responsible for the failure! By this time the Governor was clamoring to be relieved of his labors-he was weary and sick, and doubtless nearly all the people in the colony desired his departure, the people of Augusta most of all.
We find from the correspondence, that two parties of Indian tramps, professing friendship, were roaming about in Lunenburg and Halifax counties, and committing depredations. They scalped one of their number in Colonel Read's yard, and other- wise behaved in a "rude and villainous" manner. The Gov- ernor feared that Paris was " the ring-leader of all these enormi- ties"; but advised caution in bringing the Indians to reason, as he greatly dreaded a war with the Cherokees.
The Governor's instructions to Washington, of May 16, 1757, state how sundry forts were to be garrisoned, &c. Fort Loudoun [Winchester], 100 men under Washington himself; Edward's, 25 men under a subaltern; Dickinson's, 70 men under Major Lewis ; Vass's, 70 men under Captain Woodward. At the same time, as he wrote to the Lords of Trade, he had in service 400 Indians from the Catawbas, Cherokees and Tuscaroras. "I or- dered them out with some of our forces," he says, "to observe the motions of the enemy, protect our frontiers, and go a scalp. ing agreeable to the French custom." In another letter of the same date, he says : "I've ordered them out in parties with some of our men to discover the motions of the enemy and to scalp those they can overcome-a barbarous method of conducting war, introduced by the French, which we are obliged to follow in our own defence."
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On the 18th of May, one hundred and ten of the Catawba allies were in Williamsburg, on their way home, "pretending they discovered the tracks of Shawnesse and Delawares march- ing towards their towns; that they must go to protect their women and children." They, however, brought the Governor two Shawnee scalps. On the 26th of May, only some Cherokees and eleven other friendly Indians remained on our frontiers. At that date the Governor complained of many disorders by the Cherokees, while marching through the country. They had killed a Chickasaw warrior, whose squaw, however, made her escape.
A party of thirty Cherokees was at Williamsburg on June 16th, on their way to Winchester, and the Governor was obliged to give them shirts, leggins, paint, &c. Old Hop promised to send out three other parties by way of Augusta.
From a letter written by Governor Dinwiddie to Washington, June 20th, we learn that there was a new alarm at Winchester. French and Indians were said to be marching from Fort Duquesne, probably to attack Fort Cumberland, and one-third of the militia of Frederick, Fairfax, and other counties, were called out. This apprehension subsided; but the Governor wrote to the Earl of Halifax : " I think we are in a very melan- choly situation." On the 24th he wrote to Washington : "Major Lewis has been very unlucky in all his expeditions."
During the month of July there were "weekly alarms from our frontiers of the enemy's intention to invade us," and cor- responding vigilance and activity on the part of the Governor. On August 3d he wrote to Colonel Read : "It surprises me that I have no account from Augusta of the terrible murders com-
mitted on the frontiers. * * I hope I shall have the news you write contradicted, or at least not so dismal as represented, though I am in great uneasiness till I hear from some of the commanding officers in Augusta."
We do not know the scene, and have no account of the cir- cumstances of the disaster referred to in the letter just quoted. Perhaps, however, a letter of August 8th to Colonel Buchanan, colonel of Augusta militia, indicates the place. "Your letter of the 23d of last month," writes the Governor, " I did not re- ceive till the 6th of this, so it was fifteen days coming to my hands. I am sincerely sorry for the many murders and cap- 7
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tives the enemy have made, and I fear the people in pay do not execute their duty. Where was Captain Preston and the people at Hogg's?"-[the fort built by Captain Hogg, and known as Vass's, or Vaux's fort. ] " Surely they ought to have been sent for, and repelled the force of the enemy, as the bearer assures me there were not above six attacked their house, and you must be misinformed of the number of two hundred at Dickinson's fort-that number, I conceive, would have carried their point, and I am informed Dickinson was not at his fort. This I leave you to inquire into, for I fear the country is greatly imposed on by neglect of the officers," &c. It seems that some people were captured and carried off by the Indians. "One thousand men," continues the letter, "could not cover the whole frontiers, and I am surprised the reinforcement from the regiment are not arrived in Augusta, as Colonel Washington had my orders the 18th of last month to send them directly, and I hope they are with you before this time. * * I am
pretty well convinced the enemy must have returned to their towns before this. Let me know where Captain Preston is, and whether the men at Hogg's fort were apprised of the enemy's cruelties, and the reason they did not march against them. * * I am sensibly concerned for the poor people, and hear- tily wish it was in my power to give them a thorough protec- tion." In a letter to Washington, on the 9th of August, the Governor refers to letters from Augusta, Halifax and Bedford, informing him that the enemy had murdered seven people and captured eleven.
At Dickinson's fort, in 1757, was a boy who in after years be- came quite famous. He was born in Augusta county, in 1742, and his name was Arthur Campbell. He had volunteered as a militiaman to aid in protecting the frontier. Going one day with others to a thicket in search of plums, the party was fired upon by Indians lying in ambush, and young Campbell was slightly wounded and captured. He was taken to the vicinity of the great lakes, and detained a prisoner for three years, when he made his escape and returned home. About six years before the Revolution, he removed to the Holston river, now Washing- ton county, his father and family soon following. He was after- wards prominent in the assembly and the state convention of 1788, as well as during the Revolutionary war. One of his sons,
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Colonel John B. Campbell, fell at Chippewa, where he commanded the right wing of the army under General Scott. General Wil- liam Campbell," the hero of King's mountain, also a native of Augusta county, was Arthur Campbell's cousin and brother-in- law.
By this time, Governor Dinwiddie was in an ill-humor with Washington, and wrote him a scolding letter on the 13th of August. Washington had sent in certain accounts, and the Governor complains that he could not tell whether the amount was £100 or £1000. "You have sent a detachment from the regiment to Augusta," says the letter, "but you do not mention the number, or do you mention the receipt of the small arms sent from this, or any account of the misunderstanding with the Indians at Winchester. You must allow this is a loose way of writing, and it is your duty to be more particular to me. * * I approve of your hanging the two deserters." Washington was directed, by the same letter, to give Paymaster Boyd, of the Virginia regiment, a small escort to Augusta Courthouse, where he was to deliver money to Major Lewis, for the men on duty in this county. Lewis appears to have been sent by Washington, with several companies of the Virginia regiment, from Winchester to Augusta, in pursuance of the Governor's order.
On the 15th of August, the Governor being much indisposed, Secretary Withers wrote to Major Lewis, leaving it discretionary with him as to abandoning Vass's fort. About one thing, how- ever, the Major was left no discretion : he must forthwith suspend Colonel Stewart from command, "for raising false alarms, terri- fying the people," &c. Stewart, or Stuart as now written, was a colonel of militia. He no doubt communicated to the Gover- nor the recommendation of the Council of War in regard to the chain of forts, which, as we have seen, was contemptuously rejected.
The Governor had not forgotten Captain Dickinson. On September 19th, he wrote to Major Lewis: "Pray ask Captain Dickinson where he was when his fort was last invested. I hear
20 William Campbell was born in 1745, and at an early age settled on the Holston. He died during the siege of Yorktown, at the age of thirty-six. He was the maternal grandfather of William Campbell Preston, of South Carolina.
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he wasn't in it." The House of Burgesses had voted to raise three hundred rangers, and two hundred of them were intended for the Augusta frontier. The Governor desired Captain Hogg to command them, as he said in writing to Washington on the 24th. In this letter he accuses Washington of ingratitude.
The following extract from a letter of Dinwiddie to Washing- ton, dated October 19th, though not a part of the Annals of Au- gusta, is too interesting to be omitted : " I cannot agree to allow you leave to come down here at this time ; you have been fre- quently indulged with leave of absence. You know the fort is to be finished, and I fear in your absence little will be done, and surely the commanding officer should not be absent when daily alarmed with the enemy's intentions to invade our frontiers. I think you are wrong to ask it. You have no accounts, as I know of, to settle with me, and what accounts you have to settle with the committee may be done in a more proper time. I wish you well."
Captain Hogg was duly commissioned to command one of the new companies of rangers in Augusta, under direction of Major Lewis. The private men were to be paid twelve pence, about fifteen cents, a day, and find their own clothing. To Major Lewis, the Governor wrote, in October: " Recommend morality and sobriety to all the people, with a due submission and regard to Providence. Let swearing, private quarrels, drunkenness and gaming be strictly forbid."
The next victim of Governor Dinwiddie's displeasure was Col- onel John Spotswood, County Lieutenant of Spotsylvania county. Some blank commissions had been sent to Colonel Spotswood to be delivered to company officers when appointed. Colonel Spotswood, however, had committed the offence of giving a colonel's commission to Benjamin Pendleton, and a major's to Charles Lewis. This was not, we presume, the Augusta hero of the same name.21 The offence was enhanced by the fact that
21 An act of the General Assembly, passed in 1769, in regard to certain entailed lands, shows that a John Lewis, who lived in Gloucester county, had a son named Charles. This Charles was probably the person re- ferred to by the Governor. It is not likely that the County Lieutenant of Spotsylvania would have delivered a commission to Charles Lewis, of Augusta.
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Pendleton had no estate in the county, and kept an ordinary. As to Lewis, whatever his fault may have been, he "deserves no commission from me," says the angry Governor. Moreover, Thomas Estis and Aaron Bledstone had been appointed captains, although they were insolvent and not able to pay their levies. "This conduct," says the Governor, "is prostituting my com- missions entrusted with you, and pray what gentleman of charac- ter will role with such persons that have neither land nor ne- groes" !
The Governor's last letter to Major Lewis is dated December, 1757. In this parting shot, he denounced again the "many vil- lainous and unjust accounts " sent in from Augusta. He said : "Preston and Dickinson are rangers, and so must Captain Hogg's ; but I don't agree to have any militia in pay, for they have hitherto been pick pockets to the country."
Here we take leave of rare Governor Dinwiddie. He took his departure from the country, in January, 1758. On account of the historical value of his letters we could have better spared a better man.
The vestry of Augusta parish had established a "chapel of care " at the forks of James river, and paid Sampson Mathews a small salary for his services as reader at that point ; but in the fall of 1757, the greater part of the inhabitants thereabouts "having deserted their plantations by reason of the enemy Indians," it was resolved that the chapel referred to was unne- cessary, and the services of the reader were discontinued.
At the same meeting, it appearing that the glebe buildings had not been completed, it was ordered that suit be brought against the contractor, Colonel John Lewis. Our ancestors be- lieved in law-suits, and were no respecters of persons. For a year or more the vestry were engaged in litigation with another prominent citizen, Robert McClanahan, who had been High Sheriff and collector of the parish levy, without accounting therefor, it was charged.
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CHAPTER V.
INDIAN WARS, ETC., FROM 1758 TO 1764.
Before the departure of Dinwiddie, the Earl of Loudoun, commander-in-chief of British forces in America, was commis- sioned Governor of Virginia, but it is believed he never visited the colony. Francis Fauquier was afterwards appointed, and arrived in June, 1758, the duties of the office being discharged in the meanwhile by John Blair, President of the Council.
It is stated that in the early part of 1758 sixty persons were murdered by Indians in Augusta county, but exactly where and when we are not told .- [ Campbell's History of Virginia, page 500.] Possibly the allusion is to the massacre at Seybert's fort.
This fort was in the northern part of the present county of Highland, then Augusta. There the inhabitants of the sur- rounding country had taken shelter from the Indians. Between thirty and forty persons of both sexes and all ages were in the enclosure. No Indians having yet appeared, a youth named James Dyer and his sister went outside one day for some pur- pose, and had not proceeded far before they came in view of forty or fifty Shawnees going towards the fort. , Hurrying back to provide for their own safety and give the alarm, they were overtaken and captured. The place was incapable of withstand- ing a vigorous assault, and the garrison was poorly supplied with ammunition. Captain Seybert, therefore, determined to surren- der, and did so in spite of the opposition of some of the peo- ple. The gate was thrown open, and the money and other stipulated articles were handed over to the Indians. Thereupon, one of the most ruthless tragedies of Indian warfare was perpe- trated. The inmates of the fort were arranged in two rows and
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nearly all of them were tomahawked .. A few, spared from caprice or some other cause, were carried off into captivity. Young Dyer was the only captive who ever returned.
He was taken to Logstown, thence to the Muskingum, and thence to Chilicothe, where he remained a prisoner nearly two years. Accompanying the Indians to Fort Pitt, he there con- cealed himself in a hovel, and after two years more returned home.
At a court-martial held at the courthouse May 19, 1758, upon the complaint of Edward McGary, the conduct of Captain Abraham Smith on a recent occasion was inquired into. Cap- tain Smith was "out with a part of his company on the South Branch after Seybert's fort was burned by the enemy," and was accused by McGary, a member of the company, of cowardice. The court declared the charge without foundation and malicious. They then took McGary in hand, found him guilty of insubor- dination, and fined him forty shillings for that offence and five shillings " for one oath."
Another expedition for the capture of Fort Duquesne was set on foot early in 1758. It was under command of General Forbes, a meritorious British officer, but in a feeble state of health. Washington was still commander-in-chief of the Virginia troops, now consisting of two regiments, one led by himself and the other by Colonel Byrd. Forbes's command consisted of about 1,600 British regulars, 2,700 men contributed by Pennsylvania, and the Virginia regiments of 1,800 or 1,900, making altogether an army of more than 6.000 men, besides some Indian allies.
Washington gathered his regiment at Winchester, several of the companies being recalled from Augusta, and from that place was ordered to Fort Cumberland, where he arrived on the 2d of July, and was detained there till the middle of September. The troops being scantily supplied with clothing, Washington equipped two companies, under the immediate command of Major Lewis, in hunting shirts, and that style soon became all the fashion.
Colonel Bouquet, who commanded the advanced division of the army, took his station at Raystown, in the centre of Penn- sylvania. General Forbes arrived at that place in September, and ordered Washington to join him there. Bouquet then made a further advance, and, while upwards of fifty miles from Du-
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quesne, sent on a detachment under Major Grant to reconnoitre. This body consisted of eight hundred picked men, some of them British regulars, others in Indian garb, a part of the Vir- ginia regiment, and commanded by Major Lewis.
Arrived in the vicinity of the fort, Grant posted Lewis in the rear to guard the baggage, and, forming his regulars in battle array, sent an engineer to take a plan of the works, in full view of the garrison. When he was completely thrown off his guard, "there was a sudden sally of the garrison, and an at- tack on the flanks by Indians hid in ambush. A scene now occurred similar to that at the defeat of Braddock. The British officers marshaled their men according to European tactics, and the Highlanders for some time stood their ground bravely, but the destructive fire and horrid yells of the Indians soon produced panic and confusion. Major Lewis, at the first noise of the attack, left Captain Bullitt with fifty Virginians to guard the baggage, and hastened with the main part of his men to the scene of action. The contest was kept up for some time, but the confusion was irretrievable. The Indians sallied from their concealment, and attacked with the tomahawk and scalping-knife. Lewis fought hand to hand with an Indian brave, whom he laid dead at his feet, but was sur- rounded by others, and only saved his life by surrendering himself to a French officer. Major Grant surrendered himself in like manner. The whole detachment was put to the rout with dreadful carnage."-[ Irving's Life of Washington, Volume I, page 285.]
Captain Bullitt rallied some of the fugitives, and made a gal- lant stand. He finally drove off the pursuing Indians, and then collecting as many of the wounded as he could, hastily retreated. The routed detachment returned in fragments to Bouquet's camp, with the loss of twenty-one officers, and two hundred and seventy-three privates, killed and taken. Wash- ington's regiment lost six officers and sixty-two privates.
The Highlanders of Grant's command were not acquainted with the Indian custom of scalping, and it is said that when Lewis was advancing with his provincials he met a Highlander flying from the field, and inquiring about the battle, was answered that they were "a' beaten, and Donald McDonald was up to his hunkers in mud, with a' the skeen af his heed."
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No doubt many Augusta men were in the affair just men- tioned; but Andrew Lewis is the only one of them whose name we know. Nor do we know how long Major Lewis remained a prisoner. He will not appear again in these Annals till 1763, when he was at home, but preparing to go to war.
The army of General Forbes resumed its march in November, Washington commanding a division and leading the way. Nearing Fort Duquesne, the ground was strewed with human bones, the relics of Braddock's and Grant's defeats. Arriving in sight of the fort, the place was found to be abandoned. The French, not exceeding five hundred in number, deserted by the Indians, and without a sufficient supply of provisions, had set fire to the fort and retreated down the Ohio in boats. On the 25th of November, Washington marched in, and planted the British flag on the smoking ruins. The fortress was repaired, and the name changed to that of Fort Pitt.
The officers and men of Forbes's army united in collecting the bones of their fellow-soldiers who had fallen in the recent battles and routs, and burying them in a common grave.
Washington soon retired from the army, and was not again engaged in war till called out at the Revolution. In 1758, he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses from Frede- rick county.
The County Court of Augusta and the vestry of the parish held regular meetings in 1758, but we find little that is interest- ing in their proceedings. The vestry appear to have been faith- ful in taking care of the poor, at least in burying them ; and at every pauper burial there was a liberal allowance of liquor at public expense. At one time the parish collector was credited by six shillings expended by him, "for a poor child's burial, two gallons of liquor." At the same time credit was given for 5s. 8d. "for nine quarts of liquor at burial of William Johnson." James Wiley cost the parish, one year, {13, IS. He seems to have been "a beggar on horseback," as John Young was al- lowed Ios. for keeping his horse, and 2s. for shoeing the same. He was also allowed 2s. 6d. for leather breeches, and 2s. 3d. for making a shirt. Possibly Wiley was an old ranger who had been disabled in the public service.
At the meeting of the vestry in November, 1758, James Lock- hart moved to "lay a levy for building a church in the parish,"
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but the proposition was defeated, the vote standing : for a church, James Lockhart, John Archer, Sampson Archer and John Matthews ; against, Colonel Buchanan, John Buchanan, John Christian, Robert Breckenridge and John Smith.
From the close of 1758 till 1761, the people of Augusta ap- pear to have been relieved from the alarms of savage warfare. We have no account of any massacre or raid during that time. The year 1759 is a blank in our Annals, affording not one item.
In 1760, however, a tragedy occurred in the present county of Rockingham, then part of Augusta, which must be briefly related. Two Indians came to Mill Creek, now Page county, and were pursued by three white men. One of the Indians was killed, but the other escaped with the loss of his gun. The fugitive encountered a young woman named Sechon, on horse- back, near the site of New Market. Dragging her from the horse, he compelled her to accompany him. After traveling about twenty miles, chiefly in the night, and getting nearly opposite Keezeltown, in Rockingham, the poor girl broke down, it was supposed, and was beaten to death with a pine knot. Her cries were heard by persons in the neighborhood, and the next day they found her body stripped naked.
We are indebted to Kercheval (page 138) for this narrative. He has preserved accounts of many Indian massacres, but all of them, except the above, occurred outside of Augusta county, even as it was originally, and therefore do not come within the scope of these Annals.
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