USA > West Virginia > History and government of West Virginia > Part 6
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CHAPTER IX.
WEST VIRGINIA DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
From 1775 to 1783.
1. West Virginia at the Beginning of the Revo- lutionary War .- At the beginning of the Revolution but two of the counties of West Virginia had an existence. These were Hampshire and Berkeley. In the year 1775, the former extended from the Blue Ridge to the Ohio and the latter stretched away from the North Mountain to the same western limit. Au- gusta county, now in Virginia, embraced all of West Virginia lying south of the Little Kanawha river and extended to the Mississippi. The dwellers here were of that hardy race cradled in the hot-beds of savage war- fare, and when the Revolution came, nowhere could there be found more patriotic and determined spirits than the first settlers of West Virginia.
2. Action of the West Virginia Pioneers .- The first settlers of West Virginia were ready at the first . drum-tap of the struggle, and no sooner did they hear the news from Lexington and Concord, than hun- dreds of them hastened to Pittsburg-then believed to be within the limits of Virginia-and, after pledg- ing their lives to the cause of American liberty, they elected John Harvie and John Nevill to represent them in the Virginia Convention, in which these gentlemen were admitted to seats as the representatives of "the
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people of that part of Virginia which lies westward of the Alleghany Mountains." The other members of this Convention, from what is now West Virginia, were Robert Rutherford and Adam Steven from Berkeley county, and John Mercer from Hampshire.
3. A Second Convention .- On the 16th of May ensuing, these West Virginia frontiersmen a second time assembled at Pittsburg and appointed an Ex- ecutive Committee composed of twenty-eight of the most eminent men then on the frontier, whose duty it should be to represent the people residing west of the mountains. They at once raised fifteen pounds sterling and transmitted it to Robert Carter Nicholas to be used in defraying the expenses of Virginia representatives while attending the Continental Con- gress. Before adjournment they selected John Harvie and George Rodes to represent them in that body. These were the first members of an American Con- gress who sat for the inhabitants west of the Alle- ghanies.
4. First Revolutionary Soldiers from the South Side of the Potomac .- The first body of troops eu- listed south of the Potomac, for service in the Revo- lutionary War, was a company of West Virginia pioneers which organized at Morgan's Spring in what is now Jefferson County, West Virginia. It was commanded by Captain Hugh Stevenson. Their banner was emblazoned with the device of the "Cul- peper Minute Men "-a coiled rattlesnake ready to strike and the significant motto "Don't tread on me." Each man wore a buck-tail in his hat and had a
WEST VIRGINIA DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 97
scalping-knife in his belt. The 17th day of July, 1775, was the date fixed for their departure and not a man was missing. Having partaken of a frugal meal, they THE MINUTE MEN listened to a sermon LIBERTY OR DEATH and benediction and then took up the line DONI TREAD ON ME of march for Boston, six hundred miles FLAG OF THE MINUTE MEN.' away. On the 10th of August, twenty- four days after their departure, they were in sight of the American camp. Washington, when he saw them, galloped away to meet them. Captain Stevenson reported his troops "from the right bank of the Poto- mac," and the Commander, dismounting, shook hands with every man in the company. The second com- pany of Virginians to go to Boston was that com- manded by the famous Daniel Morgan, which in the autumn of 1775 marched from Winchester and, after spending a night at Shepherdstown, crossed the Poto- mac River at that place.
* The Border Riflemen of Virginia-founders of West Virginia -before the Revolution and at the beginning of that struggle were called MINUTE MEN, who, as John Randolph said in the United States Senate, "were raised in a minute, armed in a minute, fought in a minute, and vanquished the enemy in a minute." From a description of these men written many years ago, the following is taken: "They wore in their hats buck- tails, and in their belts tomahawks and scalping-knives. Their savage, warlike appearance excited the terror of the inhabitants as they marched through the country."
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5. Military Establishment of West Virginia .- The position of Virginia was a perilous one. Vir- ginians had beaten the savage allies of Great Britain at Point Pleasant in 1774, but now they were to war against the Briton from the sea and the barbarian from the wilderness. To meet the former, veteran regiments were placed on Continental establishment, and to protect the western border-West Virginia- two companies of one hundred men each, to be col- lected in the District of West Augusta, were to join another company commanded by Captain John Nevill and doing service at Pittsburg. Another company of twenty-five men was ordered to Fort Fincastle at Wheeling, while a force of one hundred men from Botetourt county was sent to Fort Randolph at Point Pleasant. Every fort in West Virginia was garrisoned and the Western Military Department was organized with headquarters at Pittsburg.
6. The District of West Augusta. - For years before the Revolution, a part of West Virginia lying west of the Alleghanies was known as the "District of West Augusta." It was without any definite boundary until the same was defined by Act of the Assembly in 1776. Within the bounds as then fixed was included two-thirds of the present county of Randolph, half of Barbour, a third of Tucker, half of Taylor, a third of Preston, nearly the whole of Marion and Monongalia, a fourth of Harrison, half of Dodd- ridge, two-thirds of Tyler and the whole of Wetzel, Marshall, Ohio, Brooke and Hancock. Within the District of West Augusta lived a heroic and patriotic
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WEST VIRGINIA DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
people. When the British under Tarleton drove the Legislature from Charlottesville and threatened to invade the Shenandoah Valley, a pioneer mother said to her three boys: "Go, my sons, and keep back the foot of the invader, or see my face no more." In the year 1777, the darkest of the Revolution, this incident was related to Washington and he was heard to exclaim: " Leave me but a banner to plant upon the mountains of West Augusta and I will gather around me the men who will lift our bleeding country from the dust and set her free." A suc- ceeding section of the Act defining the boundary, provided for the division of the District into the three counties of Ohio, Youghiogheny and Monongalia.
7. Important Events in West Virginia .-- Not- withstanding the large number of volunteers, a draft became necessary in 1776, the numbers thus collected in West Virginia counties being as follows: From Ber- keley county, 52 men; Hampshire county, 33; Monon- galia county, 40; Youghiogheny, 40, and in the county of Ohio a number equal to one-twenty-fifth of its militia. The Governor was authorized by the Gen- eral Assembly to send any force not exceeding six hundred men to aid in suppressing any outbreak in the Ohio Valley. The Girtys and others deserted from the army at Pittsburg, and British influence was being exercised on the Upper Ohio. Later in the same year the Assembly provided for the enlist- ment of four hundred men, two hundred of whom were to be stationed at Point Pleasant; fifty at the mouth of the Little Kanawha-now Parkersburg;
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IOO HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
fifty at the mouth of Wheeling Creek-now Wheeling, and one hundred at Fort Pitt, for so long a time as the Committee of Safety might deem necessary. Thus were guarded the outposts of West Virginia against the attacks of the allies of Great Britain from the West. The same year Virginia was first laid off in Senatorial Districts, two of which were in West Vir- ginia. These were the twenty-third and twenty- fourth, the former embracing Berkeley and Hamp- shire counties and the latter the District of West Augusta. The town of Warm Springs in Berkeley county, now Berkeley Springs in Morgan county, was established by Act of the Assembly in 1776, on lands of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, the same having been surveyed by George Washington thirty years before. In this last named year, Moorefield, then in Hamp- shire, but now the seat of justice of Hardy county, was established a town on lands of Conrad Moore, from whom it was named.
8. Indian Siege of Fort Henry .- Patrick Henry, in 1776, became the first Commonwealth Governor of Virginia, and in his honor the name of the fort at Wheeling was changed from Fincastle to that of Henry. In September, 1777, a savage army, supplied with arms and provisions by the British Governor, Hamilton, at Detroit, and led on by the white rene- gade, Simon Girty, appeared before the walls of the fort in which there was a garrison of forty-two fight- ing men, under the command of Colonel Shepherd. The siege was continued for days, contrary to all the customs of Indian warfare. It ended in failure for
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WEST VIRGINIA DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. IOI
the British cause, for it was unquestionably one of the battles of the Revolution. The Tory whites and savages, who thus laid siege to the fort, were as much
FORT HENRY .- 1777.
the mercenary troops of Great Britain as were the Hessians and Waldeckers, who fought at Bennington, Saratoga and in New Jersey. The defense of Fort Henry was one of the most heroic achievements re- corded in border warfare.
* Fort Henry at Wheeling was first called "Fort Fincastle," deriving its name from "Fincastle," the country home of Lord Botetourt in England. The fort was planned by Colonel George Rogers Clark, and its erection commenced by Ebenezer Zane and John Caldwell in the spring of 1774. The work was prosecuted by Major Angus McDonald, who in midsummer of the above named year, was joined by Colonel William Crawford, with a force of two hundred men, who soon thereafter completed the stockade fort. Here Lord Dunmore arrived September 30th of the same year, with twelve hundred men, seven hundred of whom came by water down the Monongahela and Ohio, and five hundred marched over- land with the army supplies. The red uniforms of the British army were numerous in and around the fort that day.
IO2 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
9. Major Samuel McColloch's Leap .- While the investiture of Fort Henry was most closely maintained, Major Samuel Mc Colloch, with a force of forty mounted men, camefrom Short Creek- now in Brooke county-to the relief of the garrison. The gate wasthrown open, but Mc- Colloch was not permitted to en- ter. The sav- ages attempted to close around him, and he dashed away to Wheeling Hill. Having reached the point on the summit where the toll-gate on the Fulton road M'COLLOCH'S LEAP. is now situated, he found the In-
dians in the front and rear with an almost per- pendicular precipice of one hundred and fifty feet
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descent on his right, with Wheeling Creek at its base. Supporting his rifle in his right hand and carefully adjusting the reins in the other, he urged the horse to the brink and made a leap for life. The next moment . the noble steed, still bearing his intrepid rider, was at the foot of the steep descent. A dash down the valley of the creek, around the hill, and the soldier was safe within the walls of the beleaguered fort.
10. Slaughter of Captain Foreman and his Men. -Captain William Foreman, a brave and meritorious officer, organized a com- pany of volunteers in Hampshire county, and in the autumn of 1777, marched from Romney to Wheeling and went into winter-quarters. Several families were then resid- ing on the site of Mounds- RICHT MY CR. COPY - ? #: ville and the neighboring hills and the savages were threatening an attack. The people at Wheeling were doing all that was possible to stay the storm, THE FOREMAN STONE .* and to do this they hast- ened away at every alarm. Sunday morning, September 27th, 1777, dense col-
*This stone continued to stand where first erected until the river's tide carried the soil away. Soon the stone would have toppled and fallen but the people were too patriotic to permit this, and it now stands in the cemetery at Moundsville. The
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umns of smoke were seen in the direction of Grave Creek, and Colonel Shepherd, commandant at Wheel- ing, sent Captain Foreman with his company to render assistance, should it be necessary. When they arrived all was quiet; they halted for the night and the next morning started to return to Wheeling. When in the narrows, about four miles above where Mounds- ville now stands, a deadly fire was poured in on them by an unseen enemy. Captain Foreman, his two sons and eighteen others fell dead upon the field. The few that escaped reached Wheeling. When the war was over, a stone bearing the following inscription was reared upon the fatal spot:
THIS HUMBLE STONE IS ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN FOREMAN AND TWENTY OF HIS BRAVE MEN, WHO WERE SLAIN BY A BAND OF RUTHLESS SAVAGES -THE ALLIES OF A CIVILIZED NATION OF EUROPE- ON THE 28TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1777. "So sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest."
County Court was the proper body to act and the following inscription recently chiseled upon the stone, tells of its action: THIS MONUMENT WAS ORIGINALLY ERECTED ABOVE THE NARROWS ON THE OHIO RIVER, FOUR MILES ABOVE MOUNDSVILLE, ON THE GROUNDS WHERE THE FATAL ACTION OCCURRED, AND WITH THE REMAINS OF CAPT. FOREMAN, AND HIS FALLEN, PLACED HERE JUNE 1ST, 1875, BY CAPTAIN P. B. CATLETT, UNDER ORDER OF THE COUNTY COURT OF MARSHALL COUNTY.
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11. Murder of Cornstalk at Point Pleasant .- The brave and noble Shawnee chief, Cornstalk, was atrociously murdered at Point Pleasant, November Ioth, 1777. He and another chief, Red Hawk, came on a mission of peace and while remaining within the garrison, he was joined by his son, Elinipsico. The day after the son's arrival, two soldiers, Hamil- ton and Gilmore, went across the Kanawha river to hunt and were fired upon by the Indians, and Gilmore was killed. Hamilton ran down the river bank, call- ing for aid. Captain Hall, to whose company the men belonged, with others crossed the river, rescued Hamilton and brought over the dead body of Gilmore. When they returned, they raised the cry, "Kill the Indians in the fort." The command was executed and the three chieftains were speedily put to death. Virginia made an effort to punish the perpetrators of the foul deed, but failed to find the guilty parties.
12. Siege of Fort Randolph .- When the Indians heard of the murder of Cornstalk they resolved to avenge his death. A band of them appeared before Fort Randolph at Point Pleasant, and Lieutenant Moore with a small detachment was sent to drive them off. The Indians retreated and drew the Vir- ginians into an ambuscade. Lieutenant Moore and three of his men were killed at the first fire and the remainder of the party saved themselves by flight. Soon after-May 1778 --- a force of two hundred In- dians again appeared before the fort and demanded its surrender. Captain McKee, the commandant, refused to comply, and a furious attack was com-
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106 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
menced and continued for a week, when the besiegers, finding they made no impression on the fort, collected all the cattle in the vicinity and proceeded up the Great Kanawha river.
13. Attack on Donnally's Fort .- When the In- dians withdrew from Fort Randolph, Captain McKee believed their object to be to attack the settlements in Greenbrier, and he asked his men if there were any among them who would volunteer to save the people. John Prior and Philip Hammond said, "We will." They started on their hazardous mission and passed the Indians on Big Clear Creek, within twenty miles of Donnally's Fort, which stood ten miles north of the present site of Lewisburg. They reached the fort at night and the Indians began the attack next morning and continued it throughout the day. Assistance arrived from Fort Savannah in the evening and the Indians were put to flight. The whites had four killed and two wounded. The defense of Fort Donnally was characterized by ex- amples of bravery and heroism unsurpassed in forest warfare.
14. Organization of Illinois County .- In 1778, George Rogers Clarke conquered the Illinois country, and completely destroyed British supremacy therein, and Virginia hastened to make the first effort to establish civil government far to the westward of West Virginia and far beyond the Ohio. In October of the above-named year, the Assembly passed an act creating the county of Illinois from Botetourt. It included all of Virginia's possessions north of the
WEST VIRGINIA DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 107
Ohio river, by which it was bounded on the south and southeast: Pennsylvania and what is West Virginia lay on the east; the Great Lakes bounded it on the north, and the Mississippi washed it on the west. John Todd was appointed County-Lieutenant and Civil Commandant of Illinois county. He was killed in the battle of Blue Licks, in Kentucky, August 18th, 1782, and his successor in office was Timothy de Montbrunn.
15. General McIntosh in the Ohio Wilderness .- This officer was made commandant of the Western Mil- itary Department, in which West Virginia was in- cluded. In 1778, with an army of one thousand men, collected at Pittsburg and Wheeling from the territory embraced in what is now West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, and, descending the Ohio river, marched into the wilderness. In what is now Tuscarawas county, Ohio, he erected a fort, which he named Fort Laurens, in honor of Henry Laurens of South Carolina, the President of the First Continental Congress. Here he left a garrison of one hundred and fifty men, and with the army returned to Pitts-
burg. The fort was besieged and fourteen of the garrison were killed. Colonel Gibson, the comman- der, deeming himself unable to hold this distant fortress in the heart of the wilderness, abandoned it in August, 1779, and marched the garrison to Wheel- ing.
16. Miscellaneous Events in 1778 .- A ferry was established over the Potomac from the lands of Abra- ham Shepherd in Berkeley county to the lands of
108 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
Thomas Swearengen, in Maryland, but it was discon- tinued the next year. The first ferry established over western waters was that over the Monongahela, in 1778, from lands of James Devore to lands opposite. To meet the urgent needs of the Commonwealth in 1780, a tax of one shilling was laid upon every glass window in the State of Virginia and assessors were required to count the same. In the same year a requisition was made upon Virginia for two thousand men for the Continental Army and those apportioned to West Virginia counties were as follows: Berkeley, sixty-eight men; Greenbrier, thirty-four mnen; Hamp- shire, sixty-three men; Monongalia, thirty men. No requisition was made on Ohio county, for it was then believed that Pennsylvania would extend to the Ohio river. The Virginia troops were suffering for cloth- ing, and an act of the Assembly required Berkeley county to furnish seventy-one suits; Greenbrier, eight suits; Hampshire, twenty suits. A suit consisted of two shirts of linen or cotton, one pair of overalls, two pairs of stockings, one pair of shoes, and one wool, fur or felt hat or leather cap. Such was the outfit of West Virginia soldiers in the Revolutionary army.
17. Enlistment of West Virginians for the Con- tinental Army .- Early in the war, Virginia placed six regiments on Continental Establishment, and in addition thereto raised another to be known as the German Regiment. This last was .recruited largely in the district of West Augusta, the counties of Berkeley and Hampshire, and the adjacent territory. Many of the first settlers of West Virginia served in
WEST VIRGINIA DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 109
its ranks. June 7th, 1781, General Daniel Morgan wrote General William Darke from Winchester and authorized him to raise a regiment in the counties of Berkeley and Hampshire. General Darke hastened to execute the order, and the organization of the troops was speedily completed and they were put in the field. This was the famous Hampshire Regiment, which witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis to the united armies of America and France at Yorktown, October 19th, 1781.
18. Land Titles in West Virginia .- The passage of the Stamp Act by the British Parliament resulted in serious trouble to the founders of West Virginia, especially those on the upper waters of the Potomac. The law required all deeds to be recorded within eight days after execution. But because the hated stamps were required to be placed upon them, several courts, among them that of Hampshire, were either closed or refused to admit to record deeds bearing the royal stamp. To legalize these deeds upon which the frontiersmen refused to place stamps, an act of the Virginia Assembly became necessary and it was enacted, in 1779, that lands to the amount of four hun- dred acres be confirmed to all settlers along West Virginia rivers, who located prior to 1778. A Board of Commissioners was appointed for the purpose of examining land titles, and its meetings were held at Morgantown.
19. Expedition of Colonel David Brodhead .- The activity of British agents among the Indians kept Virginia's Western Military Department constantly
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IIO HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
employed in defending her frontier from the inroads of savage hoards. General Lachlin McIntosh, who was placed at the head of this Department in 1778, was succeeded in 1781 by Colonel David Brodhead. That official resolved at once to strike an effective blow against the Indian towns on the Muskingum. A force of eight hundred of the most daring frontiersmen of Virginia was collected at Wheeling, and at once crossed the Ohio and entered the wilderness. The army crossed the Muskingum river where the town of Zanesville now stands. A number of Indians were captured, all of whom were killed except a few women and children who were carried to Fort Pitt. Then the army disbanded.
20. Massacre of the Moravian Indians .- The massacre of the Moravian Indians is one of the dark- est crimes recorded in border annals. Reverend Charles Frederick Post, a missionary from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with his co-laborers, John Heckewelder and others of the Moravian faith, had gone into the Ohio wilderness and there established missions at which were gathered the Indians who had become Christians through the teachings of these devoted Among these stations were Gnaden-hutten, jmen.
Schonbrunn and Lichtenau. The savages continued their warfare along the border, and in May, 1782, Colonel David Williamson collected a body of men. near where Steubenville, Ohio, now stands, and from there marched toward the Indian country. They reached the towns of these Christian Indians, where ninety-four of the innocent and unsuspecting victims
WEST VIRGINIA DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. III
were put to death. Loskiel, the Moravian historian, characterizes this act as "the most infamous in the border wars of the West."
21. Colonel William Crawford's Sandusky Cam- paign .- In 1782 an army of four hundred and eighty men gathered on the Ohio side of the river above Wheeling, and under the command of Colonel William Crawford, a native of Berkeley county, now West Vir- ginia, marched against the Wyandotte towns on the Sandusky plains. A weary march was completed and an encampment was made within the present bounds of Wyandotte county, Ohio. Here on the 4th of June, 1782, was fought the battle of Sandusky, in which the whites were defeated, with a loss of more than a hun- dred killed and wounded. The next day the routed army began its retreat toward the Ohio. The Indians made rapid pursuit, and many of the fugitives were captured and met with a worse fate than that of their comrades killed in battle. One of these thus taken prisoner was Colonel Crawford, who was afterward burned at the stake. Thus was terribly avenged the slaughter of the Moravian Indians-but not upon the perpetrators of that barbarous act.
22. British Troops Attack a West Virginia Fort. -- On the 11th day of September, 1782, Fort Henry at Wheeling was a second time besieged. The attack- ing party consisted of a company of British soldiers, known as the "Queen's Rangers," under the com- mand of Captain Pratt, and a body of Indians, savage allies of Great Britain, at the head of which was the notorious renegade, Simon Girty, who had deserted
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the American army at Pittsburg in 1778, and had gone over to the British interest. The Indians were armed and equipped by Governor Hamilton of Can- ada. 'The British flag was carried at the head of the attacking column, from the leader of which came the demand to surrender. This was refused, and the fort was stormed, and there was a blaze of fire around its walls; never was a sight rendered more hideous than was that which followed the attack. For thirty hours that beleaguered fort sustained the shock of the combined force of British and Indians, but at the end of this titue, the siege was raised and Fort Henry was never more attacked.
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