USA > Virginia > Virginia and Virginians; eminent Virginians, executives of the colony of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 32
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In an instant Captain Paul and his men rushed forward to secure the wounded and prevent further escapes. To show the deadening effect that scenes of murder and bloodshed has on the, human intellect, we here introduce the reply of a prisoner, rescued at this time. She was a Mrs. Catharine Gunn, an English lady, who had known Captain Paul years before. Recognizing his voice, she called him by name, just as one of his men was in the aet of tomahawking her. She made no re- sistance, and when asked the reason, replied : "I had as soon be mur- dered as not. My husband is murdered, my children are slain, my parents are dead. I have not a relative living in America. Every thing dear here to me is gone. I have no wishes, no hopes, no fears. 1 would not have risen to my feet to save my life." (See De Hass. ) Such were some of the horrible realities experienced by the early settlers of South-western Virginia.
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CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES.
But now, 1764, the inhabitants of the western frontier were to enjoy a brief respite from savage barbarity, the first since the Anglo-Saxon had dared to venture west of the mountains. In that year the British government, anxious to secure an amicable adjustment of the difficulties growing out of the French and Indian war, resorted to various modes for effecting so desirable an object. Hoping to conciliate by fair words and fine promises, one of the first movements was to issue, through Colonel Boquet, a proclamation in which the desires for peace on the part of the government were made known. Thirty Indian tribes signi- fied a willingness to treat for peace. General Bradstreet, accompanied by Sir William Johnson, repaired to Niagara for the purpose of opening negotiations with the northern tribes, while Colonel Boquet was sent to the Muskingum to treat with the Ohio Indians, and there, on the 9th of November, 1764, he concluded a treaty of peace with the Delawares and Shawnees, and received from them two hundred and six prisoners, ninety of whom had been carried away from the frontier of Virginia.
THE WESTERN FRONTIER IN 1772.
Eight years had passed away since the close of the French and Indian war. During this time the savages had remained faithful to the terms of Boquet's treaty, and emigration was fast pouring over the mountains; the cabin of the pioneer dotted the wilderness along the western decliv- ities of the Alleghanies. The great object of the western emigrant has ever been to obtain land, and wherever that object could be accom- plished, there arose the log cabin, and there was the home of the pioneer.
The result of the last war had forever settled the title of Virginia to all that portion of country lying between the Blue Ridge and the Ohio river, and she now freely granted portions of it to any or all who would undertake to found a home in the then "far west." From her eastern part, from Pennsylvania, and from Maryland, came the conquerors of the wilderness, either a single family, or in companies of a dozen or more, and from Southern Pennsylvania to the Big Sandy river settlements were being made.
As carly as 1754, the first settlement in North-western Virginia was made. In that year David Tygart and a man named Files brought their families across the mountains and located themselves-Tygart in the beautiful valley which still bears his name, and Files near where Beverly, the county seat of Randolph, now stands. These were the first settlements in that part of Virginia, and the family of Files was to be the first in the long list of those who were to fall vietims to
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savage cruelty. The Tygart family escaped and returned east of the mountains.
In the above year, Christopher Gist, the agent and surveyor of the Ohio Land Company, and who was the first to make surveys west of the Ohio river, settled upon a tract of land in what is now Fayette county. Pennsylvania, but was then supposed to be in Virginia. His was the first actual settlement on the waters of the Upper Ohio, and his presence there soon induced several other families to come out and settle around him.
In 1758 Thomas Decker and several others located at the mouth of Decker's creek, but early the next spring they were all murdered by a party of Mingo and Delaware Indians, who were determined that their hunting-grounds should not become the home of the invaders with whom they had disputed possession for more than a hundred years.
The next attempt at settlement was made in 1768 by a number of persons on Buckhannon, a tributary of Tygart Valley river. Among them were Samuel Pringle, John Pringle, John and Benjamin Cutnight, Henry Rule, John Hacker, and John and William Rateliff.
In 1770 many emigrants reached the Monongahela and Ohio rivers. In that year Captain Cresap erected a cabin at the mouth of what is now Dunlap's creek. Captain Parsons settled on the Horse Shoe bot- tom, on Cheat river, and many other enterprising men, whose names were to be rendered prominent by their posterity, "took up" large tracts of these fertile lands. Among them were Cunningham, Butler, Minear, Goff, Fink, etc.
SETTLEMENT OF WHEELING.
In this year, too, the foundation of "Virginia's Metropolis of the West" was laid. The Zanes made the first settlement on the banks of "La Belle Riviere" (Ohio) below Fort Pitt, at the mouth of Wheeling creek, and Joseph Tomlinson made the second at the mouth of Grave creek shortly after. They were soon joined by Bonnett, Wetzel, Messer, George Leffler, Benjamin Biggs, Joshua Baker, Zachariah Sprigg. Andrew Swearengen, David Shepherd, the MeCollochs, Mitchells, Van Meters, Millers, Kellers, etc., etc. These were the men who founded Wheeling, and whose means and determined bravery went far towards breaking the power of the savage and thus opening the country to civili- zation.
In 1772, settlements were made on Elk river, and in the vicinity of Clarksburg, and at other points in South-western Virginia. Among these pioneers were the Hickmans, the Powers, Andersons, Webbs, Nutters, Collrials, Boards, Davisons, and a host of others prominent in pioneer history.
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These were the principal settlements made in Western Virginia prior to the year 1773; but tidings of this fertile land had already reached the far east, and hundreds prepared to find homes in the exhaustless domain that stretched out before them.
But through all these years a jealous eve was watching the march of the Anglo-Saxon in his conquest of the wilderness. It was the Indian who saw in it all the extinction of his own race; his immediate ancestors had been forced to leave the shores of the Chesapeake, and the banks of the James and Potomac, and to take refuge west of the mountains, in the very country which he now saw passing into the possession of his enemies. He resolved to defend it against the encroachments of his conquerors east of the mountains, and only awaited an opportunity to commence his favorite work of murder. That opportunity, through the indiscretion of the English, soon presented itself.
ENGLISH FOLLY-DUNMORE'S WAR.
The treaty which had continued inviolate since 1765, was now to be broken on the part of the English. In the early part of 1774 several Indians were murdered on the South Branch of the Potomac, by one Nicholas Harpold and his associates. About the same time Bald Eagle, an Indian chief of considerable notoriety, not only among his own tribe, but along the whole western frontier, was in the habit of hunting with the English, and on one of his visits was murdered by Jacob Scott, William Hacker and Elijah Runner, who, reckless of consequences, committed the act simply to gratify their thirst for Indian blood.
There was at this time an Indian town on the banks of the Little Kanawha river, not far from the present site of the town of Elizabeth, in Wirt county, West Virginia. It was called Bulltown, and was inhabited by five families of friendly Indians, who were in intercourse with the settlers on Buckhannon, frequently visiting and hunting with them. There was likewise a German family named Strowd residing on Gauley river, near its junction with the Great Kanawha. In the summer of this year. when Mr. Strowd was absent from home, his family were all murdered, his house plundered, and his cattle driven off. The trail left by the perpetrators of this outrage led in the direc- tion of Balltown ; this led to the supposition that its inhabitants were the authors of these murders, and several parties resolved to avenge the crime upon them. A party of five men expressed a determination to proceed forthwith in search of the supposed murderers. They were absent several days, and, upon their return, denied having seen an Indian in their absence. Future developments, however, proved that they had murdered every inhabitant-man, woman and child-at Bull- town, and had thrown their bodies in the river that their acts might
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never be known. Here, then, was a sufficient cause to justify retalia- tion, and forthwith there broke out a savage war along the entire western frontier.
To meet this general uprising of the confederated tribes of the North- west, who had now determined to annihilate the inhabitants of the whole- western frontier, Virginia, ever ready with her treasure and the service, of her people, responded to the call of his excellency, Governor Dun- more, and forthwith three thousand soldiers, chiefly from the counties of Augusta, Botetourt, Frederick and Shenandoah, enrolled their names and shouldered their rifles in defense of the defenseless frontier.
These troops were divided into two bodies, called the Northern and Southern divisions. The Northern division was led by Governor Dun- more in person, and the command of the Southern was given to General Andrew Lewis. His command rendezvoused at Camp Union (afterward Fort Savannah), now Lewisburg, in Greenbrier county, and by the first of September General Lewis only awaited the arrival of Colonel Chris- tian and others from Lord Dunmore to begin his march against the Indian towns north of the Ohio. In a few days a messenger arrived with orders from Dunmore, who was then at the head of the Northern division, at Williamsburg, to meet him on the 2d of October at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. On the 11th the tents were struck, and the army commenced its line of march through an unknown and track- less wilderness.
Captain Matthew Arbuckle, who had traversed the Kanawha Valley in 1764, acted as guide and conducted the expedition to the Ohio river, which was reached after a dreary march of nineteen days. Some days after the march began several of the command were attacked with small- pox, and were left where the city of Charleston now stands. Among the number was Alexander Clendenin, brother of Captain William Clen- denin, and father of Andrew Clendenin, Esq., now of Mason county. When General Lewis reached the mouth of the Kanawha, he was greatly disappointed in not meeting Governor Dunmore, and still more so at not hearing from him. In the absence of orders it was determined to go into camp, and accordingly the tents were pitched upon the triangular point of land between the right bank of the Kanawha and the left bank of the Ohio, accessible only from the rear. This place was called by the Indians, "Tu, enda, wie," signifying in the Wyandotte language, "The junction of two rivers." The ground thus occupied by the Virginia army is the same upon which the town of Point Pleasant has since been built. Little did that band of sturdy Virginians think that ere they left that place they were to fight the most fiercely-contested battle ever fought with the Indians in Virginia, if not on the continent. It was not until Sunday, October 9th, that a messenger reached General Lewis, informing
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him that the plan of the campaign had been changed, and ordering him to march direct to the Indian towns on the Scioto, at which place the North- ern division would join him.
THE BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.
Accordingly arrangements were made preparatory to leaving on the following morning (Monday, 10th); but early on that morning two sol- diers, named Robertson and Hickman, went up the Ohio in quest of deer, and after having gone a short distance they discovered a large body of Indians, just arising from their encampment. The soldiers were fired upon and Hickman was killed, but Robertson escaped and ran into camp. hallooing, as he ran, that he had seen a "body of Indians covering four acres of ground." This force consisted of the flower of the confederated tribes, who had abandoned their towns on the Pickaway plains to meet the Virginia troops and give them battle before the two corps could be united. Within an hour after the presence of the Indians had been dis- covered, a general engagement took place, extending from the bank of the Ohio to that of the Kanawha, and distant a half a mile from the point.
General Lewis, who had witnessed a similar scene at Braddock's defeat, acted with steadiness and decision in this great emergency. He ar- ranged his forces promptly and advanced to meet the enemy. Colonel Charles Lewis (brother of the General), with three hundred men, formed the right line, met the Indians at sunrise, and sustained the first attack. He fell, mortally wounded, in the first fire, and was carried to the rear. where he shortly after expired. His troops, receiving almost the entire weight of the charge, were broken and gave way. Colonel Flemming, commanding the left wing, advanced along the bank of the Ohio, and in a few moments fell in with the right wing of the Indian line, which rested upon the river. The effect of the first shock was to stagger the left wing as it had done the right, and its commander was severely wounded at an early stage of the conflict. But his men succeeded in reaching a piece of timber land and maintained their position until the reserve under Colonel Field reached the ground. It will be seen by ex- amining Lewis' plan of the engagement, and also the ground on which the battle was fought, that an advance on his part and a retreat on the part of his opponents necessarily weakened their lines by constantly in- creasing their length, and if it extended from river to river, he would be forced, eventually, to break his line or leave his flanks unprotected. Writers upon the subject of Indian tactics inform us that it was the great object of his generalship to preserve his flanks and overthrow those of his enemy. They continued, therefore, contrary to their usual prac- tice, to dispute the ground with the pertinacity of veterans along the whole line, retreating slowly from tree to tree until 1 o'clock p. M., when they reached a strong position. Here both armies rested within rifle
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range of each other until late in the evening, when General Lewis, see- ing the impracticability of dislodging the Indians by the most vigorous attack, and sensible of the great danger which must arise to his army if the contest were not decided before night, detached the three companies commanded by Captains Isaac Shelby, George Mathews and John Stew- art, with orders to proceed up the Kanawha river, and under cover of the banks of Crooked ereck (a stream emptying into the Kanawha about half a mile from the point) to attack the Indians in the rear. The maneuver thus planned and executed had the desired effect, and gave to the colonial army a complete victory. The Indians, finding themselves suddenly encompassed between two armies, attacked in front and rear, and doubtless believing that in the rear was the long expected reinforce- ment under Colonel Christian, soon gave way, and about sundown com- menced a precipitate retreat across the Ohio, toward their towns on the Scioto.
The desperate nature of this conflict may be inferred by the deep-seated animosity of the parties toward each other, the high courage which both possessed, and the consequences which hung upon the issue. The victory was indeed most decisive, and many were the advantages obtained by it ; but they were dearly bought. One-half of the commissioned officers had fallen, seventy-five men lay dead upon the field, and one hundred and forty wounded. Among the slain were Colonels Lewis and Field; Captains Buford, Morrow, Wood, Cundiff, Wilson and McClanahan, and Lieuten- ants Allen, Goldsby and Dillon. The loss of the Indians could never be ascertained, nor could the number engaged be known. Their army was composed of warriors from the different nations north of the Ohio, and com- prised the flower of the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo, Wyandotte and Cayuga tribes, led on by their respective chiefs, at the head of whom was Cornstalk, Sachem of the Shawnees, and King of the Northern Confed- eracy. Never, perhaps, did men exhibit a more conclusive evidence of bravery in making a charge and fortitude in withstanding a charge than did these undisciplined soldiers of the forest on the field at Point Pleasant. Such, too, was the heroic bravery displayed by those composing the Vir- ginia army on that occasion that high hopes were entertained of their future distinction. Nor were these hopes disappointed, for in the various scenes through which they subsequently passed, the pledge of after eminence then given was fully redeemed, and the names of Shelby, Campbell, Lewis, Mathews, Moore and others, their compatriots in arms on the bloody fickl at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, have been inseribed in brilliant characters upon the roll of fame. The following gentlemen, with others of high reputation in private life, were officers in the battle of Point Pleasant: General Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky, and Secretary of War during Monroe's administration; General William Campbell and Colonel John Campbell, heroes of King's Mountain and
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Long Island; General William Shelby, one of the most favored citizens of Tennessee, often honored with confidence of that State; General Andrew Moore, of Rockbridge county, the only man ever elected by Virginia to a seat in the United States Senate from the country west of the Blue Ridge; Colonel John Stewart, of Greenbrier ; General Tate, of Washing- ton county, Virginia; Colonel William MeKee, of Lincoln county, Kentucky; Colonel John Steele, afterward a Governor of Mississippi Territory ; Colonel Charles Cameron, of Bath county, Virginia; General Bazaleel Wells, of Ohio; General George Mathews, a distinguished officer in the war of the Revolution, the hero of Brandywine, Germantown and Guilford, a Governor of Georgia, and a Representative from that State in the Congress of the United States; Captain William Clendenin, the first Representative from Mason county in the Legislature of Virginia; General Andrew Lewis, a Brigadier-General during the Revolution, twice wounded at the siege of Fort Necessity, the commandant of the troops that drove Lord Dunmore from Gwynn's Island in 1776, andannounced his orders of attack by putting the match to the first gun, an eighteen-pounder, himself. Robertson, who gave the first alarm at Point Pleasant, afterward rose to the rank of Brigadier-General in Tennessee.
The day after the battle Colonel Christian, at the head of three hundred Fineastle troops, arrived at Point Pleasant and at once proceeded to bury the dead. A fort was hastily erected and named Fort Randolph, in which a garrison of one hundred men were left. The Virginia army, made eager by success and maddened by the loss of so many brave officers, crossed the Ohio and dashed away in pursuit of the beaten and disheart- ened savages. Our next information of the Virginians is that a march of eighty miles through an untrodden wilderness has been performed, and on the 24th of October we find them encamped on Congo creek, in what is now Pickaway township, Pickaway county, within striking distance of the Indian towns, but there again compelled to await the movements of the Tory governor, at the head of the left wing, who was then encamped fur- ther north, at a point called Camp Charlotte, and from which place he sent a messenger to General Lewis, forbidding his further advance into the hostile country, as he (Dunmore) was now negotiating for peace with the Indians. The peace was concluded, a junction of the two divisions was formed, and the whole army returned by way of Fort Gower (at the mouth of the Muskingum) to Virginia. Thus ended Dunmore's war.
To the student of history no truth is more patent than this -- that the battle at Point Pleasant was the first in the series of the Revolution, the flames of which were then being kindled by the oppression of the mother country, and the resistance of the same by the feeble but determined colonies. It is a well-known fact that emissaries of Great Britain were then inciting the Indians to hostilities against the frontier for the purpose of distracting attention, and thus preventing the consummation of the union which was then being formed to resist the tyranny of their armed
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oppressors. It is also well known that Lord Dunmore was an enemy of the colonists, by his rigid adherence to the royal cause and his efforts to induce the Indians to co-operate with the English, and thus assist in reduc- ing Virginia to subjection. It has been asserted that he intentionally delayed the progress of the left wing of the army that the right might be destroyed at Point Pleasant. Then. at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river, on the 19th day of October, 1774, there went whizzing through the forest the first volley of a struggle for liberty which, in the grandeur and importance of its results, stands without a parallel in the history of the world. On that day the soil upon which Point Pleasant now stands, drank the first blood shed in defense of American liberty, and it was there decided that the decaying institutions of the Middle Ages should not prevail in America, but that just laws and priceless liberty should be planted forever in the domains of the New World.
Historians, becoming engrossed with the more stirring scenes of the Revolution, have failed to consider this sanguinary battle in its true import and bearing upon the destiny of our country, forgetting that the colonial army returned home only to enlist in the patriot army, and on almost every battle-field of the Revolution represented that little band who stood face to face with the savage allies of Great Britain at Point Pleasant. But all did not return. Many thus early paid the forfeit of their lives, but they were not forgotten. Though no marble marks their place of rest, and no historian has inscribed their names on the roll of the honored dead, vet their memory lives in the rehearsal around the cabin fires of the mountains of West Augusta, and in the rustic mountain ballads which were chanted many years after the storm of the Revolution had spent its force and died away.
LAST SURVIVOR OF THE BATTLE.
Belonging to General Lewis' army was a young man named Ellis Hughes. He was a native of Virginia, and had been bred in the hot-bed of Indian warfare. The Indians having murdered a young lady to whom he was very much attached, and subsequently his father, he vowed revenge, and the return of peace did not mitigate his hatred of the race. Shortly after Wayne's treaty with the Indians in 1795, he forsook his native mount- ains, and, in company with one John Ratliff, removed north of the Ohio, where they became the first settlers in what is now Licking county in that State.
Hughes died near Utica, that county, in March, 1845, at an advanced age, in the hope of a happy future; claiming, and accredited by all who knew him, to be the last survivor of the battle of Point Pleasant. He was buried with military honors and other demonstrations of respect.
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VIRGINIA IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.
It was the year 1775, and the soldiers engaged in Dunmore's war re- turned to Virginia only to find the affairs between Great Britain and her American colonies rapidly verging to a crisis. Patrick Henry was holding public meetings spellbound by his matchless oratory in denouncing the tyrannical policy of the mother country toward her subjects on this side of the Atlantic.
On the 19th of April there had been discharged a volley which was being echoed and re-echoed along the coast from the St. Lawrence to Florida-a volley, the first of a struggle which was to give the American continent to liberty and make it ever after the home of the oppressed of all foreign lands. Virginia at once prepared to play her part on the theater of the Revolution, and her first task was to rid herself of Dun- more, her Tory governor.
Early in the year the British government, uneasy because of the hostile attitude of the colonies, issued orders to the various governors to remove all military stores to a place of safety, and thus prevent them from falling into the hands of the colonists. In compliance with these orders, Dun- more, on the 20th of April, secretly removed the gunpowder from Will- iamsburg to the Magdalen, a British man-of-war lying at anchor off Yorktown. No sooner had the act become known than the people of' Williamsburg flew to arms, and it was with difficulty that they could be restrained from seizing the person of the governor. A deputation was sent to him, who remonstrated with him for the act. His reply " was everywhere considered as a mean and scandalous evasion." He became alarmed and placed a guard of negroes around his residence, and then swore " by the living God" that if any violence was offered him he would proclaim freedom to every slave in Virginia and lay Williamsburg in ashes. These threats wrought the indignation of the people up to the highest pitch. Six hundred men armed themselves and repaired to Fred- ericksburg, ready to march to Williamsburg and defend it from the threat- ened attack of Dunmore, while thousands of others in all parts of Virginia stood ready to render aid.
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