USA > West Virginia > Randolph County > The history of Randolph County, West Virginia. From its earliest settlement to the present, embracing records of all the leading families, reminiscences and traditions > Part 5
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Perhaps the strongest argument against the claim that Dunmore was in league with Indians, backed by Great Britain, to push back the frontier of Virginia to the Alleghanies, is the fact that Dunmore at that time was reaching out for lands, for himself, in Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio; and his land-grabbing would have been cut off in that quarter had the plan of limit- ing Virginia to the Alleghanies been successful. He could not have carried out his schemes of acquiring possessions in the West had the Quebec Act been sustained. Dunmore did more to nullify the Quebec Act than any one else. He exerted every energy to extend and maintain the Virginia frontier
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as far west as possible. By this he opposed and circumvented the efforts of Great Britain to shut Virginia off from the West. He and the govern- ment at home did not work together, nor agree on the frontier policy; and in the absence of direct proof sustaining the charge that he was in con- spiracy with the British government and the Indians to assail the western frontier, the doubt as to his guilt on the charge must remain in his favor.
. From the time of the treaty made by General Bouquet with the Indians, 1764, to the year 1773, there was peace on the frontiers. War did not break out in 1773, but murders were committed by Indians which excited the fron- tier settlements, and were the first in a series which led to war. The In- dians did not comply with the terms of the treaty with General Bouquet. They had agreed to give up all prisoners. It was subsequently ascertained that they had not done so. Some captives were still held in bondage. But this in itself did not lead to the war of 1774. The frontiers, since Bouquet's . treaty, had been pushed to the Ohio River, in West Virginia, and into Ken- tucky. Although Indians had no right by occupation to either West Vir- ginia or Kentucky, and although they had given up by treaty any right which they claimed, they yet looked with anger upon the planting of settle- ments in those countries. The first act of hostility was committed in 1773, not in West Virginia, but further south. A party of emigrants, under the leadership of a son of Daniel Boone, were on their way to Kentucky when they were set upon and several were killed, including young Boone. There can be no doubt that this attack was made to prevent or hinder the coloni- zation of Kentucky. Soon after this, a white man killed an Indian at a horse race. This is said to have been the first Indian blood shed on the frontier of Virginia by a white man after Pontiac's War. In February 1774 the Indians killed six white men and two negroes; and in the same month, on the Ohio, they seized a trading canoe, killed the men in charge and carried the goods to the Shawnee towns. Then the white men began to kill also. In March, on the Ohio, a fight occurred between settlers and Indians, in which one was killed on each side, and five canoes were taken from the Indians. John Connolly wrote from Pittsburg on April 21, to the people of Wheeling to be on their guard, as the Indians were preparing for war. On April 26, two Indians were killed on the Ohio. On April 30, nine Indians were killed on the same river near Steubenville. On May 1, another Indian was killed. About the same time an old Indian named Bald Eagle was killed on the Monongahela River; and an Indian camp on the Little Kanawha, in the present county of Braxton, was broken up, and the natives were killed. This was believed to have been done by settlers on the West Fork, in the present County of Lewis. They were induced to take that course by intelligence from the Kanawha River that a family named Stroud, residing near the mouth of the Gauley River had been murdered, and the tracks of the Indians led toward the Indian camp on the Little Kanawha. When this camp was visited by the party of white men from the West Fork, they discovered clothing and other articles belonging to the Stroud family. Thereupon the Indians were destroyed. A party of white men with Governor Dunmore's permission destroyed an Indian village on the Muskingum River. The frontiers were alarmed. Forts were built in which the inhabitants could find shelter from attacks. Expresses were sent to Williamsburg entreating assistance. The Virginia Assembly in May discussed the dangers from Indians on the frontier, and intimated that the militia should be called out. Governor Dunmore ordered out the militia of
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the frontier counties. He then proceeded in person to Pittsburg, partly to look after his lands, and partly to take charge of the campaign against the Indians. The Delawares and Six Nations renewed their treaty of peace in September, but the Shawnees, the most powerful and warlike tribe in Ohio, did not. This tribe had been sullen and unfriendly at Bouquet's treaty, and had remained sour ever since. Nearly all the captives yet in the hands of the Indians were held by this fierce tribe, which defied the white man and despised treaties. These savages were ruled by Cornstalk, an able and no doubt a good man, opposed to war, but when carried into it by the head- strong rashness of his tribe, none fought more bravely than he. The Shawnees were the chief fighters on the Indian side in the Dunmore war, and they were the chief sufferers.
After arranging his business at Pittsburg, Governor Dunmore descen- ded the Ohio River with twelve hundred men. Daniel Morgan, with a com- pany from the Valley of Virginia, was with him. A second army was being organized in the southwestern part of Virginia, and Dunmore's instructions were that this army, after marching down the Great Kanawha, should join him on the Ohio where he promised to wait. The Governor failed to keep his promise, but crossed into Ohio and marched against the Shawnee towns which he found deserted. He built a fort and sat down to wait.
In the meantime the army was collecting which was to descend the Kanawha. General Andrew Lewis was commander. The pioneers on the Greenbrier and New River formed a not inconsiderable part of the army which rendezvoused on the site of Lewisburg in Greenbrier County, In this army were fifty men from the Watauga, among whom were Evan Shelby, James Robertson and Valentine Sevier, names famous in history. Perhaps an army composed of better fighting material than that assembled for the march to Ohio, never took the field anywhere. The distance from Lewisburg to the mouth of the Great Kanawha was about one hundred and sixty miles. At that time there was not so much as a trail, if an old Indian path, hard to find, is excepted. At the mouth of Elk River the army made canoes and embarking in them, proceeded to Point Pleasant, the mouth of the Kanawha, which they reached October 6, 1774. Prior to that date Simon Girty arrived at Point Pleasant with dispatches from Dunmore, who was then at the mouth of the Little Kanawha with his army. The dis- patches ordered Lewis to proceed to the mouth of the Hockhocking. When Girty reached Point Pleasant, Lewis had not arrived, and the dispatches were deposited in a hollow tree in a conspicuous place where they would be seen. Girty returned to Dunmore's army, which marched to the Hock- hocking. Another messenger was sent to Point Pleasant. Scouts passed between the two armies, and on October 13 Dunmore ordered Lewis to pro- ceed to the Pickaway towns in Ohio. But, in the mean time the battle of Point Pleasant had been fought. On October 10 the Indian army under Cornstalk arrived, about one thousand in number. The Virginians were encamped on the narrow point of land formed by the meeting of the Kanawha and Ohio. The Indians crossed the Ohio the evening before, or during the night, and went into camp on the West Virginia side, and about two miles from the Virginians. They were discovered at daybreak, October 10, by two young men who were hunting. The Indians fired and killed one of them; the other escaped and carried the news to the army.
This was the first intelligence the Virginians had that the Indians had come down from their towns in Ohio to give battle. By what means the
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savages had received information of the advance of the army in time to collect their forces and meet it before the Ohio River was crossed, has never been ascertained; but it is probable that Indian scouts had watched the progress of General Lewis from the time he took up his march from Green- brier. Cornstalk laid well his plans for the destruction of the Virginian army at Point Pleasant. He formed his line across the neck of land, from the Ohio to the Kanawha, and enclosed the Virginians between his line and the two rivers. He posted detachments on the farther banks of the Ohio and the Kanawha to cut off General Lewis should he attempt to retreat across either river. Cornstalk meant not only to defeat the army but to destroy it. The Virginians numbered eleven hundred.
When the news of the advance of the Indian army reached General Lewis, he prepared for battle, and sent three hundred men to the front to meet the enemy. The fight began at sunrise. Both armies were soon engaged over a line a mile long. Both fought from behind trees, logs and whatever would offer protection. The lines were always near each other; sometimes twenty yards, sometimes less; occasionally near enough to use the tomahawk. The battle was remarkable for its obstinacy. It raged six hours, almost hand to hand. Then the Indians fell back a short distance and took up a strong position, and all efforts to dislodge them by attacks in front failed. Cornstalk was along his whole line, and above the din of battle his powerful voice could be heard: "Be strong! Be strong!" The loss was heavy among the Virginians, and perhaps nearly as heavy among the Indians. Late in the afternoon General Lewis discovered a way to attack the Indians in flank. A small stream with high banks empties into the Kanawha at that point, and he sent a detachment up this stream, the movement being concealed from the Indians, and when an advantageous point was reached, the soldiers emerged and attacked the Indians. Taken by surprise, the savages retreated. This movement decided the day in favor of the Virginians. The Indians fled a short distance up the Ohio and crossed to the western side, the most of them on logs and rude rafts, proba- bly the same on which they had crossed the stream before the battle. The Virginians lost sixty men killed and ninety-six wounded. The loss of the Indians was not ascertained. They left thirty-three dead on the field, and were seen to throw others into the Ohio River. All their wounded were carried off.
The battle of Point Pleasant was the most stubbornly contested of all frontier battles with the Indians; but it was by no means the bloodiest. Several others could be named in which the loss of life was much greater; notably Braddock's defeat, and the defeat of General St. Clair. The battle of Point Pleasant was also remarkable from the number of men who took part in it who afterwards became noted, Among them may be men- tioned Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky; William Campbell, the hero of King's Mountain, and who died on the battlefield of Eutaw Springs; Colonel John Steel, afterward Governor of Mississippi; George Mathews, afterward Governor of Georgia; Colonel William Fleming, Gov- ernor of Virginia, and many others. Nearly all the men who were in that battle and afterward returned to their homes, were subsequently soldiers of the American army in the war for independence.
The Indians possessed soldierly qualities which have generally been underestimated. On the battlefield they were brave and confident. In their pitched battles with American soldiers on the frontiers they were
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nearly always out-numbered, and yet they were defeated with difficulty. With a smaller force they defeated Braddock; a smaller force fought Bou- quet and almost defeated him. St. Clair's disastrous rout was caused by an inferior force of Indians. After many defeats from Indians in the North- west, they were whipped only when General Wayne attacked them with three men to their one. The loss of the Indians was nearly always smaller than that of the force opposing them: sometimes, as in the case of Braddock's and of St. Clair's defeats, not more than one-tenth as great. The Indians selected their ground for a fight with cunning judgment, unsurpassed by any people. They never fought after they began to loose heavily, but immediately retreated. This was the only policy possible for them. They had few men, and if they lost heavily, the loss was irreparable.
The day following the battle, Colonel Christian arrived with three hundred soldiers from Fincastle. Fort Randolph was built at Point Pleas- ant; and after leaving a garrison there, General Lewis crossed the Ohio October 17, and marched nearly a hundred miles to the Scioto River to join Governor Dunmore. Before he arrived at Fort Charlotte, where Dunmore was, he received a message from the Governor, ordering him to stop, and giving as a reason that he was about to negotiate a treaty with the Indians. General Lewis and his men refused at first to obey this order. They had no love for Dunmore, and they did not regard him as a friend of Virginia. Not until a second express arrived did General Lewis obey.
After the fight at Point Pleasant, Cornstalk, Logan and Red Eagle, the three principal chiefs who had taken part in the battle, retreated to their towns with their tribesmen, Seeing that pursuit was swift and vigorous, Cornstalk called a council and asked what should be done. No one hadany advice to offer. He thien proposed to kill the old men, women and children; and the warriors then should go out to meet the invaders and fight till every Indian had met his death on the field of battle. No reply was made to this proposition. Thereupon Cornstalk said that since his men would not fight, he would go and make peace; and he did so. Thus ended the war. Gover- nor Dunmore had led an army of Virginians into Ohio, and assumed and exercised authority there, thus setting aside and nullifying the Act of Par- liament which extended the jurisdiction of Quebec to the Ohio River.
The treaty was made at Camp Charlotte. The Indian Logan, Chief of the Mingoes, as is generally stated, but there seems to be no evidence that he was a chief at all, refused to attend the conference with Dunmore, but sent a speech which has become famous because of the controversy which it has occasioned. The speech, which nearly every school boy knows by heart, is as follows:
"I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat, if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man, Colonel Cresap, who last spring in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called upon me for vengeance. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor the thought that mine
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is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one."
The charge has been made that this speech was a forgery, written by Thomas Jefferson. Others have charged that it was changed and interpo- lated after it was delivered. The part referring to Cresap, in particular, has been pointed out as an interpolation, because it is now known, and was then known, that Cresap (Captain Michael Cresap was meant) did not mur- der Logan's relatives. The facts in regard to the speech are these: Logan did not make the speech in person, and he did not write it, and he did not dictate it to any person who wrote it; but the speech, substantially as we now have it, was read at the conference at Camp Charlotte. Logan would not attend the conference. Simon Girty, who was employed as interpreter, but who could neither read nor write, was sent by Lord Dunmore from Camp Charlotte to hunt for Logan, and found him in his camp, which seems to have been a few miles distant. Logan would not go to the conference, and Girty returned without him. As he approached the circle where the conference was in progress, Captain John Gibson walked out to meet him. He and Girty conversed a few minutes, and Gibson entered his tent alone, and in a few minutes came out with a piece of clean paper on which, in his own hand, was written the now famous Logan speech. It is probable that in the conversation between Logan and Girty, the former had made use of sentiments similar to those in the speech, and Girty repeated them, as nearly as he remembered them, to Gibson, and Gibson, who was a good scholar, put the speech in classic English. At the most, the sentiment only, not the words, were Logan's.
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CHAPTER V.
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WEST VIRGINIA IN THE REVOLUTION,
The territory of the present State of West Virginia was not invaded by a British army, except one company of forty, during the war for American independence. Its remote position made it safe from attack from the east; but this very remoteness rendered it doubly liable to invasion from the west where Great Britain had made allies of the Indians, and had armed and supplied them, and had sent them against the frontiers from Canada to Georgia, with full license to kill man, woman and child. No part of America suffered more from the savages than West Virginia. Great Britain's pur- pose in employing Indians on the frontiers was to harrass the remote country, and not only keep at home all the inhabitants for defense of their settlements, but also to make it necessary that soldiers be sent to the West who otherwise might be employed in opposing the British near the sea coast. Notwithstanding West Virginia's exposed frontier on the west, it sent many soldiers to the Continental Army. West Virginians were on almost every battlefield of the Revolution. The portion of the State east of the Alleghanies, now forming Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire, Hardy, Grant, Mineral and Pendleton counties, was not invaded by Indians during the Revolution, and from this region large numbers of soldiers joined the armies under Washington, Gates, Greene and other patriots.
As early as November 5, 1774, an important meeting was held by West Virginians in which they clearly indicated under which banner they would be found fighting, if Great Britain persisted in her course of oppression. This was the first meeting of the kind west of the Alleghanies, and few similar meetings had then been held anywhere. It occurred during the return of Dunmore's Army from Ohio, twenty-five days after the battle of Point Pleasant. The soldiers had heard of the danger of war with England; and, although they were under the command of Dunmore, a royal Governor, they were not afraid to let the country know that neither a royal Governor nor any one else could swerve them from their duty as patriots and lovers of liberty. The meeting was held at Fort Gower, north of the Ohio River. The soldiers passed resolutions which had the right ring. They recited that they were willing and able to bear all hardships of the woods; to get along for weeks without bread or salt, if necessary; to sleep in the open air; to dress in skins if nothing else could be had; to march further in a day than any other men in the world; to use the rifle with skill and with bravery. They affirmed their zeal in the cause of right, and promised continued . allegiance to the King of England, provided he would reign over them as a brave and free people. "But," they continued, "as attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defence of American
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liberty, when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our country- men." It was such spirit as this, manifested on every occasion during the Revolution, which prompted Washington in the darkest year of the war to exclaim that if driven from every point east of the Blue Ridge, he would retire west of the mountains and there raise the standard of liberty and bid defiance to the armies of Great Britain.
At two meetings held May 16, 1775, one at Fort Pitt, the other at Hannastown, several West Virginians were present and took part in the proceedings. Resolutions were passed by which the people west of the mountains pledged their support to the Continental Congress, and expressed their purpose of resisting the tyranny of the mother country. In 1775 a number of men from the Valley of the Monongahela joined Washington's army before Boston. The number of soldiers who went forward from the eastern part of the State was large.
There were a few persons in West Virginia who adhered to the cause of England; and who from time to time gave trouble to the patriots; but the promptness with which their attempted risings were crushed is proof that traitors were in a hopeless minority. The patriots considered them as enemies and dealt harshly with them. There were two attempted uprisings in West Virginia, one in the Monongahela Valley, which the inhabitants of that region were able to suppress; the other uprising was on the South Branch of the Potomac, in what is now Hardy and Grant Counties, and troops were sent from the Shenandoah Valley to put it down. In the Monongahela Valley several of the tories were arrested and sent to Rich- mond. It is recorded that the leader was drowned in Cheat River while crossing under guard on his way to Richmond. Two men of the Morgan family were his guard. The boat upset while crossing the river. It was the general impression of the citizens of the community that the upsetting was not accidental. The guards did not like to take the long journey to Richmond while their homes and the homes of their neighbors were exposed to attacks from Indians. The tory uprising on the South Branch was much more serious. The first indication of trouble was given by their refusal to pay their taxes, or to furnish their quota of men for the militia. Complaint was made by the Sheriff of Hampshire county, and Colonel Vanmeter with thirty men was sent to enforce the collection of taxes. The tories armed themselves, to the number of fifty, for resistance, and placed themselves under the leadership of John Brake, a German, whose house was above Petersburg, in what is now Grant County. These enemies of their country had made his place their rendezvous. They met the militia from Hamp- shire, but no fight took place. Apparently each side was afraid to begin. There was a parley in which Colonel Vanmeter pointed out to the tories the consequence which must follow, if they persisted in their present course. He advised them to disperse, go to their homes and conduct themselves as law-abiding citizens. He left them and marched home.
The disloyal elements grew in strength and insolence. They imagined that the authorities were afraid and would not again interfere with them. They organized a company, elected John Claypole their captain, and pre- pared to march off and join the British forces. General Morgan was at that time at his home in Frederick County, and he collected militia to the number of four hundred, crossed the mountain and fell on the tories in such dead earnest that they lost all their enthusiasm for the cause of Great Britain. Claypole was taken prisoner, and William Baker, who refused to
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surrender, was shot, but not killed. Later a man named Mace was killed. Brake was overawed; and after two days spent in the neighborhood, the militia, under General Morgan, returned home. The tories were crushed. A number of them were so ashamed of what they had done that they joined the American army and fought as patriots till the close of the war, thus endeavoring to redeem their lost reputations.
The contrast between the conduct of the tories on the South Branch and the patriotic devotion of the people on the Greenbrier is marked. Money was so scarce that the Greenbrier settlers could not pay their taxes, although willing to do so. They fell delinquent four years in succession and to the amount of thirty thousand dollars. They were willing to per- form labor if arrangements could be made to do it. Virginia agreed to the proposition, and the people of Greenbrier built a road from Lewisburg to the Kanawha River in payment of their taxes.
The chief incidents in West Virginia's history during the Revolutionary War were connected with the Indian troubles. The State was invaded four times by forces large enough to be called armies; and the incursions by smaller parties were so numerous that the mere mention of them would form a list of murders, ambuscades and personal encounters of tedious and monotonous length. The first invasion occurred in 1777 when Fort Henry, now Wheeling, was attacked; the second, 1778, when Fort Randolph, now Point Pleasant, was besieged for one week, the Indians moving as far east as Greenbrier County, where Donnolly's fort was attacked; the third inva- sion was in August, 1781, when Fort Henry was again attacked by 250 In- dians under the leadership of Matthew Elliott. The fourth invasion occurred in September, 1782, when Wheeling was again attacked. The multitude of incursions by Indians must be passed over briefly. The cus- tom of the savages was to make their way into a settlement and either lie in wait along paths and shoot those who attempted to pass or break into houses and murder the inmates or take them prisoner, and then make off hastily for the Ohio River. Once across that stream, pursuit was not prob-
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