The Winning of the West, Volume Two by Theodore Roosevelt

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In January, 1781, the Virginia Legislature passed an act ceding to
Congress, for the benefit of the United States, all of Virginia's claim
to the territory northwest of the Ohio; but the cession was not
consummated until after the close of the war with Great Britain, and the
only immediate effect of the act was to still further derange affairs in
Illinois. The whole subject of the land cessions of the various States,
by which the northwest territory became Federal property, and the heart
of the Union, can best be considered in treating of post-revolutionary
times.

The French Creoles had been plunged in chaos. In their deep distress
they sent to the powers that the chances of war had set above them
petition after petition, reciting their wrongs and praying that they
might be righted. There is one striking difference between these
petitions and the similar requests and complaints made from time to time
by the different groups of American settlers west of the Alleghanies.
Both alike set forth the evils from which the petitioners suffered, and
the necessity of governmental remedy. But whereas the Americans
invariably asked that they be allowed to govern themselves, being
delighted to undertake the betterment of their condition on their own
account, the French, on the contrary, habituated through generations to
paternal rule, were more inclined to request that somebody fitted for
the task should be sent to govern them. They humbly asked Congress
either to "immediately establish some form of government among them, and
appoint officers to execute the same," or else "to nominate
commissioners to repair to the Illinois and inquire into the situation."
[Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 30, p. 453. Memorial of Francois
Carbonneaux, agent for the inhabitants of Illinois.]

One of the petitions is pathetic in its showing of the bewilderment into
which the poor Creoles were thrown as to who their governors really
were. It requests "their Sovereign Lords," [Footnote: "Nos Souverains
Seigneurs." The letter is ill-written and worse spelt, in an
extraordinary French patois. State Department MSS., No. 30, page 459. It
is dated December 3, 1782. Many of the surnames attached are marked with
a cross; others are signed. Two are given respectively as "Bienvenus
fils" and "Blouin fils."] whether of the Congress of the United States
or of the Province of Virginia, whichever might be the owner of the
country, to nominate "a lieutenant or a governor, whomever it may please
our Lords to send us." [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 30, p. 459,
"de nomer un lieutenant ou un gouverneur tel qu'il plaira a nos
Seigneurs de nous l'envoyer."] The letter goes on to ask that this
governor may speak French, so that he may preside over the court; and it
earnestly beseeches that the laws may be enforced and crime and
wrong-doing put down with a strong hand.

The conquest of the Illinois Territory was fraught with the deepest and
most far-reaching benefits to all the American people; it likewise
benefited, in at least an equal degree, the boldest and most energetic
among the French inhabitants, those who could hold their own among
freemen, who could swim in troubled waters; but it may well be doubted
whether to the mass of the ignorant and simple Creoles it was not a
curse rather than a blessing.

CHAPTER VII.

KENTUCKY UNTIL THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 1782-1783.

Seventeen hundred and eighty-two proved to be Kentucky's year of blood.
The British at Detroit had strained every nerve to drag into the war the
entire Indian population of the northwest. They had finally succeeded in
arousing even the most distant tribes--not to speak of the twelve
thousand savages immediately tributary to Detroit. [Footnote: Haldimand
MSS. Census for 1782, 11,402.] So lavish had been the expenditure of
money and presents to secure the good-will of the savages and enlist
their active services against the Americans, that it had caused serious
complaint at headquarters. [Footnote: _Do._ Haldimand to De Peyster,
April 10, October 6, 1781.]

Renewal of the Indian Forays.

Early in the spring the Indians renewed their forays; horses were
stolen, cabins burned, and women and children carried off captive. The
people were confined closely to their stockaded forts, from which small
bands of riflemen sallied to patrol the country. From time to time these
encountered marauding parties, and in the fights that followed sometimes
the whites, sometimes the reds, were victorious.

One of these conflicts attracted wide attention on the border because of
the obstinacy with which it was waged and the bloodshed that accompanied
it. In March a party of twenty-five Wyandots came into the settlements,
passed Boonsborough, and killed and scalped a girl within sight of
Estill's Station. The men from the latter, also to the number of
twenty-five, hastily gathered under Captain Estill, and after two days'
hot pursuit overtook the Wyandots. A fair stand-up fight followed, the
better marksmanship of the whites being offset, as so often before, by
the superiority their foes showed in sheltering themselves. At last
victory declared for the Indians. Estill had despatched a lieutenant and
seven men to get round the Wyandots and assail them in the rear; but
either the lieutenant's heart or his judgment failed him, he took too
long, and meanwhile the Wyandots closed in on the others, killing nine,
including Estill, and wounding four, who, with their unhurt comrades,
escaped. It is said that the Wyandots themselves suffered heavily.
[Footnote: Of course not as much as their foes. The backwoodsmen (like
the regular officers of both the British and American armies in similar
cases, as at Grant's and St. Clair's defeats) were fond of consoling
themselves for their defeats by snatching at any wild tale of the losses
of the victors. In the present instance it is even possible that the
loss of the Wyandots was very light instead of very heavy.]

These various ravages and skirmishes were but the prelude to a far more
serious attack. In July the British captains Caldwell and McKee came
down from Detroit with a party of rangers, and gathered together a great
army of over a thousand Indians [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter from
Capt. Caldwell, August 26, 1782; and letter of Captain McKee, August 28,
1782. These two letters are very important, as they give for the first
time the British and Indian accounts of the battle of the Blue Licks; I
print them in the Appendix.]--the largest body of either red men or
white that was ever mustered west of the Alleghanies during the
Revolution. They meant to strike at Wheeling; but while on their march
thither were suddenly alarmed by the rumor that Clark intended to attack
the Shawnee towns. [Footnote: This rumor was caused by Clark's gunboat,
which, as will be hereafter mentioned, had been sent up to the mouth of
the Licking; some Shawnees saw it, and thought Clark was preparing for
an inroad.] They at once countermarched, but on reaching the threatened
towns found that the alarm had been groundless. Most of the savages,
with characteristic fickleness of temper, then declined to go farther;
but a body of somewhat over three hundred Hurons and Lake Indians
remained. With these, and their Detroit rangers, Caldwell and McKee
crossed the Ohio and marched into Kentucky, to attack the small forts of
Fayette County.

Fayette lay between the Kentucky and the Ohio rivers, and was then the
least populous and most exposed of the three counties into which the
growing young commonwealth was divided. In 1782 it contained but five of
the small stockaded towns in which all the early settlers were obliged
to gather. The best defended and most central was Lexington, round which
were grouped the other four--Bryan's (which was the largest), McGee's,
McConnell's, and Boon's. Boon's Station, sometimes called Boon's new
station, where the tranquil, resolute old pioneer at that time dwelt,
must not be confounded with his former fort of Boonsborough, from which
it was several miles distant, north of the Kentucky. Since the
destruction of Martin's and Ruddle's stations on the Licking, Bryan's on
the south bank of the Elkhorn was left as the northernmost outpost of
the settlers. Its stout, loopholed palisades enclosed some forty cabins,
there were strong block-houses at the corners, and it was garrisoned by
fifty good riflemen.

These five stations were held by backwoodsmen of the usual Kentucky
stamp, from the up-country of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North
Carolina. Generations of frontier life had made them with their fellows
the most distinctive and typical Americans on the continent, utterly
different from their old-world kinsfolk. Yet they still showed strong
traces of the covenanting spirit, which they drew from the
Irish-Presbyterian, the master strain in their mixed blood. For years
they had not seen the inside of a church; nevertheless, mingled with men
who were loose of tongue and life, there still remained many
Sabbath-keepers and Bible-readers, who studied their catechisms on
Sundays, and disliked almost equally profane language and debauchery.
[Footnote: McAfee MSS.]

Patterson and Reynolds.

An incident that occurred at this time illustrates well their feelings.
In June a fourth of the active militia of the county was ordered on
duty, to scout and patrol the country. Accordingly forty men turned out
under Captain Robert Patterson. They were given ammunition, as well as
two pack-horses, by the Commissary Department. Every man was entitled to
pay for the time he was out. Whether he would ever get it was
problematical; at the best it was certain to be given him in worthless
paper-money. Their hunters kept them supplied with game, and each man
carried a small quantity of parched corn.

The company was ordered to the mouth of the Kentucky to meet the armed
row-boat, sent by Clark from the Falls. On the way Patterson was much
annoyed by a "very profane, swearing man" from Bryan's Station, named
Aaron Reynolds. Reynolds was a good-hearted, active young fellow, with a
biting tongue, not only given to many oaths, but likewise skilled in the
rough, coarse banter so popular with the backwoodsmen. After having
borne with him four days Patterson made up his mind that he would have
to reprove him, and, if no amendment took place, send him home. He
waited until, at a halt, Reynolds got a crowd round him, and began to
entertain them "with oaths and wicked expressions," whereupon he
promptly stepped in "and observed to him that he was a very wicked and
profane man," and that both the company as well as he, the Captain,
would thank him to desist. On the next day, however, Reynolds began to
swear again; this time Patterson not only reproved him severely, but
also tried the effect of judicious gentleness, promising to give him a
quart of spirits on reaching the boat if he immediately "quit his
profanity and swearing." Four days afterwards they reached the boat, and
Aaron Reynolds demanded the quart of spirits. Patterson suggested a
doubt as to whether he had kept his promise, whereupon he appealed to
the company, then on parade, and they pronounced in his favor, saying
that they had not heard him swear since he was reproved. Patterson, who
himself records the incident, concludes with the remark: "The spirits
were drank." [Footnote: Patterson's paper, given by Col. John Mason
Brown, in his excellent pamphlet on the "Battle of the Blue Licks"
(Franklin, Ky., 1882). I cannot forbear again commenting on the really
admirable historic work now being done by Messrs. Brown, Durrett, Speed,
and the other members of the Louisville "Filson Club."] Evidently the
company, who had so impartially acted as judges between their
fellow-soldier and their superior officer, viewed with the same
equanimity the zeal of the latter and the mixed system of command,
entreaty, and reward by which he carried his point. As will be seen, the
event had a striking sequel at the battle of the Blue Licks.

Throughout June and July the gunboat patrolled the Ohio, going up to the
Licking. Parties of backwoods riflemen, embodied as militia, likewise
patrolled the woods, always keeping their scouts and spies well spread
out, and exercising the greatest care to avoid being surprised. They
greatly hampered the Indian war bands, but now and then the latter
slipped by and fell on the people they protected. Early in August such a
band committed some ravages south of the Kentucky, beating back with
loss a few militia who followed it. Some of the Fayette men were about
setting forth to try and cut off its retreat, when the sudden and
unlooked-for approach of Caldwell and McKee's great war party obliged
them to bend all their energies to their own defence.

The blow fell on Bryan's Station. The rangers and warriors moved down
through the forest with the utmost speed and stealth, hoping to take
this, the northernmost of the stockades, by surprise. If they had
succeeded, Lexington and the three smaller stations north of the
Kentucky would probably likewise have fallen.

The Attack on Bryan's Station.

The attack was made early on the morning of the 16th of August. Some of
the settlers were in the corn-fields, and the rest inside the palisade
of standing logs; they were preparing to follow the band of marauders
who had gone south of the Kentucky. A few outlying Indian spies were
discovered, owing to their eagerness; and the whites being put on their
guard, the attempt to carry the fort by the first rush was, of course,
foiled. Like so many other stations--but unlike Lexington,--Bryan's had
no spring within its walls; and as soon as there was reason to dread an
attack, it became a matter of vital importance to lay in a supply of
water. It was feared that to send the men to the spring would arouse
suspicion in the minds of the hiding savages; and, accordingly, the
women went down with their pails and buckets as usual. The younger girls
showed some nervousness, but the old housewives marshalled them as
coolly as possible, talking and laughing together, and by their
unconcern completely deceived the few Indians who were lurking near
by--for the main body had not yet come up. [Footnote: Caldwell's letter
says that a small party of Indians was sent ahead first; the watering
incident apparently took place immediately on this small party being
discovered.] This advance guard of the savages feared that, if they
attacked the women, all chance of surprising the fort would be lost; and
so the water-carriers were suffered to go back unharmed. [Footnote: This
account rests on tradition; it is recorded by McClung, a most
untrustworthy writer; his account of the battle of the Blue Licks is
wrong from beginning to end. But a number of gentlemen in Kentucky have
informed me that old pioneers whom they knew in their youth had told
them that they had themselves seen the incident, and that, as written
down, it was substantially true. So with Reynold's speech to Girty. Of
course, his exact words, as given by McClung, are incorrect; but Mr. L.
C. Draper informs me that, in his youth, he knew several old men who had
been in Bryan's Station, and had themselves heard the speech. If it were
not for this I should reject it, for the British accounts do not even
mention that Girty was along, and do not hint at the incident. It was
probably an unauthorized ruse of Girty's. The account of the decoy party
of Indians is partially confirmed by the British letters. Both Marshall
and McClung get this siege and battle very much twisted in their
narratives; they make so many mistakes that it is difficult to know what
portion of their accounts to accept. Nevertheless it would be a great
mistake to neglect all, even of McClung's statements. Thus Boon and Levi
Todd in their reports make no mention of McGarry's conduct; and it might
be supposed to be a traditional myth, but McClung's account is
unexpectedly corroborated by Arthur Campbell's letter, hereafter to be
quoted, which was written at the time.

Marshall is the authority for Netherland's feat at the ford. Boon's
description in the Filson narrative differs on several points from his
earlier official letter, one or two grave errors being made; it is one
of the incidents which shows how cautiously the Filson sketch must be
used, though it is usually accepted as unquestionable authority.] Hardly
were they within the fort, however, when some of the Indians found that
they had been discovered, and the attack began so quickly that one or
two of the men who had lingered in the corn-fields were killed, or else
were cut off and fled to Lexington, while, at the same time,
swift-footed runners were sent out to carry the alarm to the different
stockades, and summon their riflemen to the rescue.

At first but a few Indians appeared, on the side of the Lexington road;
they whooped and danced defiance to the fort, evidently inviting an
attack. Their purpose was to lure the defenders into sallying out after
them, when their main body was to rush at the stockade from the other
side. But they did not succeed in deceiving the veteran Indian fighters
who manned the heavy gates of the fort, stood behind the loopholed
walls, or scanned the country round about from the high block-houses at
the corners. A dozen active young men were sent out on the Lexington
road to carry on a mock skirmish with the decoy party, while the rest of
the defenders gathered behind the wall on the opposite side. As soon as
a noisy but harmless skirmish had been begun by the sallying party, the
main body of warriors burst out of the woods and rushed towards the
western gate. A single volley from the loopholes drove them back, while
the sallying party returned at a run and entered the Lexington gate
unharmed, laughing at the success of their counter-stratagem.

The Indians surrounded the fort, each crawling up as close as he could
find shelter behind some stump, tree, or fence. An irregular fire began,
the whites, who were better covered, having slightly the advantage, but
neither side suffering much. This lasted for several hours, until early
in the afternoon a party from Lexington suddenly appeared and tried to
force its way into the fort.

The runners who slipped out of the fort at the first alarm went straight
to Lexington. There they found that the men had just started out to cut
off the retreat of the marauding savages who were ravaging south of the
Kentucky. Following their trail they speedily overtook the troops, and
told of the attack on Bryan's. Instantly forty men under Major Levi Todd
countermarched to the rescue. Being ignorant of the strength of the
Indians they did not wait for the others, but pushed boldly forward,
seventeen being mounted and the others on foot. [Footnote: Va. State
Papers, III., p. 300. McClung's and Collins' accounts of this incident
are pure romance.]

The road from Lexington to Bryan's for the last few hundred yards led
beside a field of growing corn taller than a man. Some of the Indians
were lying in this field when they were surprised by the sudden
appearance of the rescuers, and promptly fired on them. Levi Todd and
the horsemen, who were marching in advance, struck spurs into their
steeds, and galloping hard through the dust and smoke reached the fort
in safety. The footmen were quickly forced to retreat towards Lexington;
but the Indians were too surprised by the unlooked-for approach to
follow, and they escaped with the loss of one man killed and three
wounded. [Footnote: _Do._]

That night the Indians tried to burn the fort, shooting flaming arrows
onto the roofs of the cabins and rushing up to the wooden wall with
lighted torches. But they were beaten off at each attempt. When day
broke they realized that it was hopeless to make any further effort,
though they still kept up a desultory fire on the fort's defenders; they
had killed most of the cattle and pigs, and some of the horses, and had
driven away the rest.

Girty, who was among the assailants, as a last shift, tried to get the
garrison to surrender, assuring them that the Indians were hourly
expecting reinforcements, including the artillery brought against
Ruddle's and Martin's stations two years previously; and that if forced
to batter down the walls no quarter would be given to any one. Among the
fort's defenders was young Aaron Reynolds, the man whose profanity had
formerly roused Captain Patterson's ire; and he now undertook to be
spokesman for the rest. Springing up into sight he answered Girty in the
tone of rough banter so dear to the backwoodsmen, telling the renegade
that he knew him well, and despised him, that the men in the fort feared
neither cannon nor reinforcements, and if need be, could drive Girty's
tawny followers back from the walls with switches; and he ended by
assuring him that the whites, too, were expecting help, for the country
was roused, and if the renegade and his followers dared to linger where
they were for another twenty-four hours, their scalps would surely be
sun-dried on the roofs of the cabins.

The Indians knew well that the riflemen were mustering at all the
neighboring forts; and, as soon as their effort to treat failed, they
withdrew during the forenoon of the 17th. [Footnote: There are four
contemporary official reports of this battle: two American, those of
Boon and Levi Todd; and two British, those of McKee and Caldwell. All
four agree that the fort was attacked on one day, the siege abandoned on
the next, pursuit made on the third, and the battle fought on the
fourth. Boon and Todd make the siege begin on August 16th, and the
battle take place on the 19th; Caldwell makes the dates the 15th and
18th; McKee makes them the 18th and 21st. I therefore take Boon's and
Todd's dates.

McClung and Marshall make the siege last three or four days instead of
less than two.

All the accounts of the battle of the Blue Licks, so far, have been very
inaccurate, because the British reports have never been even known to
exist, and the reports of the American commanders, printed in the
Virginia State papers, have but recently seen the light. Mr. Whitsitt,
in his recent excellent "Life of Judge Wallace," uses the latter, but
makes the great mistake of incorporating into his narrative some of the
most glaring errors of McClung and Marshall.] They were angry and sullen
at their discomfiture. Five of their number had been killed and several
wounded. Of the fort's defenders four had been killed and three wounded.
Among the children within its walls during the siege there was one, the
youngest, a Kentucky-born baby, named Richard Johnson; over thirty years
later he led the Kentucky mounted riflemen at the victory of the Thames,
when they killed not only the great Indian chief Tecumseh, but also, it
is said, the implacable renegade Simon Girty himself, then in extreme
old age.

Battle Of the Blue Licks.

All this time the runners sent out from Bryan's had been speeding
through the woods, summoning help from each of the little walled towns.
The Fayette troops quickly gathered. As soon as Boon heard the news he
marched at the head of the men of his station, among them his youngest
son Israel, destined shortly to be slain before his eyes. The men from
Lexington, McConnell's, and McGee's, rallied under John Todd, who was
County Lieutenant, and, by virtue of his commission in the Virginia
line, the ranking officer of Kentucky, second only to Clark. Troops also
came from south of the Kentucky River; Lieutenant-Colonel Trigg and
Majors McGarry and Harlan led the men from Harrodsburg, who were soonest
ready to march, and likewise brought the news that Logan, their County
Lieutenant, was raising the whole force of Lincoln in hot haste, and
would follow in a couple of days.

These bands of rescuers reached Bryan's Station on the afternoon of the
day the Indians had left. The men thus gathered were the very pick of
the Kentucky pioneers; sinewy veterans of border strife, skilled hunters
and woodsmen, long wonted to every kind of hardship and danger. They
were men of the most dauntless courage, but unruly and impatient of all
control. Only a few of the cooler heads were willing to look before they
leaped; and even their chosen and trusted leaders were forced to advise
and exhort rather than to command them. All were eager for battle and
vengeance, and were excited and elated by the repulse that had just been
inflicted on the savages; and they feared to wait for Logan lest the foe
should escape. Next morning they rode out in pursuit, one hundred and
eighty-two strong, all on horseback, and all carrying long rifles. There
was but one sword among them, which Todd had borrowed from Boon--a rough
weapon, with short steel blade and buckhorn hilt. As with most frontier
levies, the officers were in large proportion; for, owing to the system
of armed settlement and half-military organization, each wooden fort,
each little group of hunters or hard-fighting backwoods farmers, was
forced to have its own captain, lieutenant, ensign, and sergeant.
[Footnote: For the American side of the battle of Blue Licks I take the
contemporary reports of Boon, Levi Todd, and Logan, Va. State Papers,
Vol. III., pp. 276, 280, 300, 333. Boon and Todd both are explicit that
there were one hundred and eighty-two riflemen, all on horseback, and
substantially agree as to the loss of the frontiersmen. Later reports
underestimate both the numbers and loss of the whites. Boon's Narrative,
written two years after the event, from memory, conflicts in one or two
particulars with his earlier report. Patterson, writing long afterwards,
and from memory, falls into gross errors, both as to the number of
troops and as to some of them being on foot; his account must be relied
on chiefly for his own adventures. Most of the historians of Kentucky
give the affair very incorrectly. Butler follows Marshall; but from the
Clark papers he got the right number of men engaged. Marshall gives a
few valuable facts; but he is all wrong on certain important points. For
instance, he says Todd hurried into action for fear Logan would
supersede him in the command; but in reality Todd ranked Logan.
McClung's ornate narrative, that usually followed, hangs on the very
slenderest thread of truth; it is mainly sheer fiction. Prolix, tedious
Collins follows the plan he usually does when his rancorous prejudices
do not influence him, and presents half a dozen utterly inconsistent
accounts, with no effort whatever to reconcile them. He was an
industrious collector of information, and gathered an enormous quantity,
some of it very useful; he recorded with the like complacency authentic
incidents of the highest importance and palpable fabrications or
irrelevant trivialities; and it never entered his head to sift evidence
or to exercise a little critical power and judgment.]

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