128 Conduct of White-Eyes. 1774. In relation to the murders by Greathouse, there is also a variance in the testimony. Henry Jolly, who was near by, and whose statement is published in an article by Dr. Hildreth, in Silliman's Journal for January, 1837, makes no mention of the visit of Greathouse to the Indian camp, but says that five men and one woman with a child came from the camp across to Baker's, that three of the five were made drunk, and that the whites finding the other two would not drink, persuaded them to fire at a mark, and when their guns were empty shot them down; this done, they next murdered the woman, and tomahawked the three who were intoxicated. The Indians who had not crossed the Ohio, ascertaining what had taken place, attempted to escape by descending the river, and having passed Wheeling unobserved, landed at Pipe Creek, and it was then, according to Jolly, that Cresap's attack took place; he killed only one Indian.* But whatever may have been the precise facts in relation to the murder of Logan's family, they were at any rate of such a nature as to make all concerned feel sure of an Indian war; and while those upon the frontier gathered hastily into the fortresses,† an express was sent to Williamsburgh to inform the Governor of the necessity of instant preparation. The Earl of Dunmore at once took the needful steps to organize forces; and meanwhile in June sent Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner to conduct into the settlements the surveyors and others who were lingering upon the banks of the Kentucky and Elkhorn, a duty which was ably and quickly performed. The unfortunate traders among the Indians, however, could not thus be rescued from the dangers which beset them. Some of them fell the first victims to the vengeance of the natives. One, near the town of White-Eyes, the Peace Chief of the Delawares, was murdered, cut to pieces, and the fragments of his body hung upon the bushes; the kindly chief gathered them together and buried them; the hatred of the murderers, however, led them to disinter and disperse the remains of their victim anew, but the kindness of the Delaware was as persevering as the hatred of his brethren, and again he collected the scattered limbs and in a secret place hid them.‡ It being, under the circumstances, deemed advisable, by the * See Am. Pioneer, i. 12 to 24. Am. Archives, 4th Series, i. 467. See also Border Warfare, 112, note, where the discrepancies of evidence are stated, also Jacob's Life of Cresap. + Border Warfare, 114. Heckewelder's Narrative, 132. 1774. Connolly attacks friendly Indians. 129 Virginians to assume the offensive, as soon as it could be done, an army was gathered at Wheeling, which some time in July, under Colonel McDonald, descended the Ohio to the mouth of Captina Creek, or as some say Fish Creek, whence it was proposed to march against the Indian town of Wappatomica on the Muskingum. The march was successfully accomplished, and the Indians having been frustrated in an expected surprise of the invaders, sued for peace, and gave five of their chiefs as hostages. Two of them were set free, however, by Colonel McDonald, for the proposed purpose of calling the heads of the tribes together to ratify the treaty which was to put an end to warfare; but it being found that the natives were merely attempting to gain time and gather forces, the Virginians proceeded to destroy their towns and crops, and then retreated, carrying three of the chiefs with them as prisoners to Williamsburg. But this invasion did nothing toward intimidating the red men. The Delawares were anxious for peace; Sir William Johnson sent out to all his copper colored flock orders to keep still :† and even the Shawanese were prevailed on by their wise leader, Cornstalk, to do all they could to preserve friendly relations:‡ indeed they went so far as to secure some wandering traders from the vengeance of the Mingoes, whose relatives had been slain at Yellow Creek and Captina, and sent them with their property safe to Pittsburgh. But Logan, who had been turned by the murders on the Ohio from a friend to a deadly foe of the whites, came suddenly upon the Monongahela settlements. and while the other Indians were hesitating as to their course, took his thirteen scalps in repayment for the heads laid low by Cresap and Greathouse, and returning home, expressed himself satisfied, and ready to listen to the Long-Knives.§ But it was not, apparently, the wish of Dunmore or Connolly to meet the friendly spirit of the natives, and when, about the 10th of June, three of the Shawanese conducted the traders who had been among them, safely to Pittsburgh, Connolly had even the meanness to attempt first to seize them, and when foiled in this by Colonel Croghan, his uncle, who had been alienated by his tyranny, he sent men to watch, waylay and kill them; and one account says that one of the three was slain. Indeed, the character developed by this man, while Border Warfare, 115. Doddridge, 241. Am. Archives, 4th Series, i. 722. + Am. Archives, 4th Series, i. 252 to 288. + Do. do. I Do. do. § Do. 428. I Do. 449. 130 General Lewis marches down Kenhawa. 1774. commandant of Fort Dunmore, was such as to excite universal detestation, and at last to draw down upon his patron the reproof of Lord Dartmouth.* He seized property, and imprisoned white men without warrant or propriety; and we may be assured, in many cases beside that just mentioned, treated the natives with an utter disregard of justice. It is not then surprising that Indian attacks occurred along the frontiers from June to September; nor, on the other hand, need we wonder that the Virginians (against whom, in distinction from the people of Pennsylvania, the war was carried on,) became more and more excited, and eager to repay the injuries received. To put a stop to these devastations, two large bodies of troops were gathering in Virginia; the one from the southern and western part of the State, under General Andrew Lewis, met at Camp Union, now Lewisburg, Greenbriar county, near the far-famed White Sulphur Springs;-the other from the northern and eastern counties was to be under the command of Dunmore himself, and descending the Ohio from Fort Pitt, was to meet Lewis' army at the mouth of the Great Kenhawa. The force under Lewis, amounting to eleven hundred men, commenced its march upon the 6th and 12th of September, and upon the 6th of October reached the spot agreed upon. As Lord Dunmore was not there, and as other troops were to follow down the Kenhawa under Colonel Christian, General Lewis despatched runners toward Pittsburgh to inform the Commander-in-chief of his arrival, and proceeded to encamp at the point where the two rivers meet. Here he remained until the 9th of October, when despatches from the Governor reached him informing him that the plan of the campaign was altered, that he (Dunmore) meant to proceed directly against the Shawanese towns of the Scioto, and Lewis was ordered at once to cross the Ohio and meet the other army before those towns. But on the very day when this movement should have been executed, (October 10th,) the Indians in force, headed by the able and brave Chief of the Shawanese, Cornstalk, appeared before the army of Virginians, determined then and there to avenge past wrongs and cripple vitally the power of the invaders. Delawares, Iroquois, Wyandots, and Shawanese, under their most noted Chiefs, among whom was Logan, formed the army opposed to that of Lewis, and with both the struggle of that day was one of life or death. Soon after sunrise the presence of the savages was discovered; General * Am. Archives, 4th Series, i. 774. 1774. Battle of Point Pleasant. 131 Lewis ordered out his brother Colonel Charles Lewis and Colonel Fleming to reconnoitre the ground where they had been seen; this at once brought on the engagement. In a short time Colonel Lewis was killed, and Colonel Fleming disabled; the troops, thus left without Commanders, wavered, but Colonel Field with his regiment coming to the rescue, they again stood firm; — about noon Colonel Field was killed, and Captain Evan Shelby, (father of Isaac Shelby Governor of Kentucky in after time and who was then Lieutenant in his father's company,) took the command;and the battle still continued. It was now drawing toward evening and yet the contest raged without decided success for either party, when General Lewis ordered a body of men to gain the flank of the enemy by means of Crooked Creek, a small stream which runs into the Kenhawa about four hundred yards above its mouth. This was successfully done, and the result was the retreat of the Indians across the Ohio.* Lord Dunmore meanwhile, had descended the river from Fort Pitt, and was, at the time he sent word to Lewis of his change of plans, at the mouth of the Hocking, where he built a block-house, called Fort Gower, and remained until after the battle at the Point. Thence he marched on towards the Scioto, while Lewis and the remains of the army under his command strengthened by the troops under Colonel Christian, pressed forward in the same direction, elated by the hope of annihilating the Indian towns, and punishing the inhabitants for all they had done. But before reaching the enemy's country Dunmore was visited by Chiefs asking for peace; he listened to their request, and appointing a place where a treaty should be held, sent orders to Lewis to stop his march against the Shawanese towns; which orders, however, that officer did not obey, nor was it till the Governor visited his camp on Congo Creek near Westfall, that he would agree to give up an attempt upon the village of Old Chillicothe, which stood where Westfall now is. After this visit by Dunmore General Lewis felt himself bound, though unwillingly, to prepare for a bloodless retreat. The Commander-in-chief, however, remained for a time at Fort Border Warfare, 125. Doddridge, 230.-American Pioneer, i. 381. Letters in American Archives, fourth series, i. 808, 18, &c. &c. Thatcher's lives of Indians, ii. 168. Border Warfare, 133. With them was one Elliott, probably Matthew Elliott, so noted in 1790 to 1795.American Pioneer, i. 18. Whittlesey's Discourse, 1840-p. 24. 132 Affidavit of John Gibson, Esquire. 1775. Charlotte, upon Sippo Creek, about eight miles from the town of Westfall on the Scioto. There he met Cornstalk who, being satisfied of the futility of any further struggle, was determined to make peace, and arranged with the Governor the preliminaries of a treaty; and from this point Crawford was sent against a town of the Mingoes, who still continued hostile, and took several prisoners who were carried to Virginia, and were still in confinement in February, 1775. It was at this time though not at Camp Charlotte, for he would not go there, that Logan delivered his celebrated speech. In relation to this speech or message, the genuineness of which has been questioned,‡ it may be worth while to record here the evidence of John Gibson, to whom it was given by Logan, and whose statement being undisputed seems to place the matter beyond cavil. Alleghany county, SS. Before me, the subscriber, a justice of the peace in and for said county, personally appeared John Gibson, Esquire, an Associate Judge of the same county, who being duly sworn, deposeth and saith, that in the year 1774, he accompanied Lord Dunmore on the expedition against the Shawanese and other Indians on the Sciota; that on their arrival within fifteen miles of the towns, they were met by a flag, and a white man by the name of Elliott, who informed Lord Dunmore that the Chiefs of the Shawanese had sent to request his Lordship to halt his army and send in some person, who understood their language; that this deponent, at the request of Lord Dunmore and the whole of the officers with him, went in; that on his arrival at the towns, Logan, the Indian, came to where this deponent was sitting with the Cornstalk, and the other Chiefs of the Shawanese, and asked him to walk out with him; that they went into a copse of wood, where they sat down, when Logan, after shedding abundance of tears, delivered to him the speech, nearly as related by Mr. Jefferson in his Notes on the State of Virginia; that he the deponent told him then that it was not Colonel Cresap who had murdered his relations, and that although his son Captain Michael Cresap was with the party who killed a Shawanese Chief and other * American Pioneer, i. 331. + American Archives, fourth series, i. 1222. Border Warfare, 137.-American Archives, fourth series, ii. 1189. See, very lately, Brown's History of Illinois, p. 25; also, American Pioneer, i. vol. Index. This gentleman was (nominal) Secretary of Indiana Territory under General Harri son. See account by John Johnson, in Cist's Cincinnati Miscellany, ii, 305, |