The Winning of the West, Volume Two by Theodore Roosevelt

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It would be tiresome and profitless to so much as name the many
different stations that were attacked. In their main incidents all the
various assaults were alike, and that made this summer on McAfee's
station may be taken as an illustration.

The Attack on McAfee's Station.

The McAfees brought their wives and children to Kentucky in the fall of
'79, and built a little stockaded hamlet on the banks of Salt River, six
or seven miles from Harrodsburg. Some relatives and friends joined them,
but their station was small and weak. The stockade, on the south side,
was very feeble, and there were but thirteen men, besides the women and
children, in garrison; but they were strong and active, good woodsmen,
and excellent marksmen. The attack was made on May 4, 1781. [Footnote:
McAfee MSS. This is the date given in the MS. "Autobiography of Robert
McAfee"; the MS. "History of First Settlement on Salt River" says May
6th. I draw my account from these two sources; the discrepancies are
trivial.]

The Indians lay all night at a corn-crib three-quarters of a mile
distant from the stockade. The settlers, though one of their number had
been carried off two months before, still continued their usual
occupations. But they were very watchful and always kept a sharp
look-out, driving the stock inside the yard at night. On the day in
question, at dawn, it was noticed that the dogs and cattle betrayed
symptoms of uneasiness; for all tame animals dreaded the sight or smell
of an Indian as they did that of a wild beast, and by their alarm often
warned the settlers and thus saved their lives.

In this case the warning was unheeded. At daybreak the stock were turned
loose and four of the men went outside the fort. Two began to clear a
patch of turnip-land about a hundred and fifty yards off, leaving their
guns against a tree close at hand. The other two started towards the
corn-crib, with a horse and bag. After going a quarter of a mile, the
path dipped into a hollow, and here they suddenly came on the Indians,
advancing stealthily toward the fort. At the first fire one of the men
was killed, and the horse, breaking loose, galloped back to the fort.
The other man likewise turned and ran towards home, but was confronted
by an Indian who leaped into the path directly ahead of him. The two
were so close together that the muzzles of their guns crossed, and both
pulled trigger at once; the Indian's gun missed fire and he fell dead in
his tracks. Continuing his flight, the survivor reached the fort in
safety.

When the two men in the turnip-patch heard the firing they seized their
guns and ran towards the point of attack, but seeing the number of the
assailants they turned back to the fort, trying to drive the frightened
stock before them. The Indians coming up close, they had to abandon the
attempt, although most of the horses and some of the cattle got safely
home. One of the men reached the gate ahead of the Indians; the other
was cut off, and took a roundabout route through the woods. He speedily
distanced all of his pursuers but one; several times he turned to shoot
the latter, but the Indian always took prompt refuge behind a tree, and
the white man then renewed his flight. At last he reach a fenced
orchard, on the border of the cleared ground round the fort. Throwing
himself over the fence he lay still among the weeds on the other side.
In a minute or two the pursuer, running up, cautiously peered over the
fence, and was instantly killed; he proved to be a Shawnee chief,
painted, and decked with many silver armlets, rings, and brooches. The
fugitive then succeeded in making his way into the fort.

The settlers inside the stockade had sprung to arms the moment the first
guns were heard. The men fired on the advancing Indians, while the women
and children ran bullets and made ready the rifle-patches. Every one
displayed the coolest determination and courage except one man who hid
under a bed, until found by his wife; whereupon he was ignominiously
dragged out and made to run bullets with the women.

As the Indians advanced they shot down most of the cattle and hogs and
some of the horses that were running frantically round the stockade; and
they likewise shot several dogs that had sallied out to help their
masters. They then made a rush on the fort, but were driven off at once,
one of their number being killed and several badly hurt, while but one
of the defenders was wounded, and he but slightly. After this they
withdrew to cover and began a desultory firing, which lasted for some
time.

Suddenly a noise like distant thunder came to the ears of the men in the
fort. It was the beat of horsehoofs. In a minute or two forty-five
horsemen, headed by McGarry, appeared on the road leading from
Harrodsburg, shouting and brandishing their rifles as they galloped up.
The morning was so still that the firing had been heard a very long way;
and a band of mounted riflemen had gathered in hot haste to go to the
relief of the beleaguered stockade.

The Indians, whooping defiance, retired; while McGarry halted a moment
to allow the rescued settlers to bridle their horses--saddles were not
thought of. The pursuit was then begun at full speed. At the ford of a
small creek near by, the rearmost Indians turned and fired at the
horsemen, killing one and wounding another, while a third had his horse
mired down, and was left behind. The main body was overtaken at the
corn-crib, and a running fight followed; the whites leaving their horses
and both sides taking shelter behind the tree-trunks. Soon two Indians
were killed, and the others scattered in every direction, while the
victors returned in triumph to the station.

Slight Losses of the Indians.

It is worthy of notice that though the Indians were defeated, and though
they were pitted against first-class rifle shots, they yet had but five
men killed and a very few wounded. They rarely suffered a heavy loss in
battle with the whites, even when beaten in the open or repulsed from a
fort. They would not stand heavy punishment, and in attacking a fort
generally relied upon a single headlong rush, made under cover of
darkness or as a surprise; they tried to unnerve their antagonists by
the sudden fury of their onslaught and the deafening accompaniment of
whoops and yells. If they began to suffer much loss they gave up at
once, and if pursued scattered in every direction, each man for himself,
and owing to their endurance, woodcraft, and skill in hiding, usually
got off with marvellously little damage. At the outside a dozen of their
men might be killed in the pursuit by such of the vengeful backwoodsmen
as were exceptionally fleet of foot. The northwestern tribes at this
time appreciated thoroughly that their marvellous fighting qualities
were shown to best advantage in the woods, and neither in the defence
nor in the assault of fortified places. They never cooped themselves in
stockades to receive an attack from the whites, as was done by the
Massachusetts Algonquins in the seventeenth century, and by the Creeks
at the beginning of the nineteenth; and it was only when behind
defensive works from which they could not retreat that the forest
Indians ever suffered heavily when defeated by the whites. On the other
hand, the defeat of the average white force was usually followed by a
merciless slaughter. Skilled backwoodsmen scattered out, Indian fashion,
but their less skilful or more panic-struck brethren, and all regulars
or ordinary militia, kept together from a kind of blind feeling of
safety in companionship, and in consequence their nimble and ruthless
antagonists destroyed them at their ease.

Indian War Parties Repulsed.

Still, the Indian war parties were often checked, or scattered; and
occasionally one of them received some signal discomfiture. Such was the
case with a band that went up the Kanawha valley just as Clark was
descending the Ohio on his way to the Illinois. Finding the fort at the
mouth of the Kanawha too strong to be carried, they moved on up the
river towards the Greenbriar settlements, their chiefs shouting
threateningly to the people in the fort, and taunting them with the
impending destruction of their friends and kindred. But two young men in
the stockade forthwith dressed and painted themselves like Indians, that
they might escape notice even if seen, and speeding through the woods
reached the settlements first and gave warning. The settlers took refuge
on a farm where there was a block-house with a stockaded yard. The
Indians attacked in a body at daybreak when the door was opened,
thinking to rush into the house; but they were beaten off, and paid dear
for their boldness, for seventeen of them were left dead in the yard,
besides the killed and wounded whom they carried away. [Footnote: McKee
was the commander at the fort; the block-house was owned by Col. Andrew
Donelly; Hanlon and Prior were the names of the two young men. This
happened in May, 1778. For the anecdotes of personal prowess in this
chapter see De Haas, or else Kercheval, McClung, Doddridge, and the
fifty other annalists of those western wars, who repeat many of the same
stories. All relate facts of undoubted authenticity and wildly
improbable tales, resting solely on tradition, with exactly the same
faith. The chronological order of these anecdotes being unimportant, I
have grouped them here. It must always be remembered that both the men
and the incidents described are interesting chiefly as examples; the old
annalists give many hundreds of such anecdotes, and there must have been
thousands more that they did not relate.] In the same year a block-house
was attacked while the children were playing outside. The Indians in
their sudden rush killed one settler, wounded four, and actually got
inside the house; yet three were killed or disabled, and they were
driven out by the despairing fury of the remaining whites, the women
fighting together with the men. Then the savages instantly fled, but
they had killed and scalped, or carried off, ten of the children. Be it
remembered that these instances are taken at random from among hundreds
of others, extending over a series of years longer than the average life
of a generation.

The Indians warred with the odds immeasurably in their favor. The Ohio
was the boundary between their remaining hunting-grounds and the lands
where the whites had settled. In Kentucky alone this frontier was
already seventy miles in length. [Footnote: Virginia State Papers, I.,
437. Letter of Col. John Floyd. The Kentuckians, he notices, trust
militia more than they do regulars.] Beyond the river stretched the
frowning forest, to the Indians a sure shield in battle, a secure haven
in disaster, an impenetrable mask from behind which to plan attack.

Nature of the Indian Forays.

Clark, from his post at the Falls, sent out spies and scouts along the
banks of the river, and patrolled its waters with his gun-boat; but it
was absolutely impossible to stop all the forays or to tell the point
likely to be next struck. A war party starting from the wigwam-towns
would move silently down through the woods, cross the Ohio at any point,
and stealthily and rapidly traverse the settlements, its presence
undiscovered until the deeds of murder and rapine were done, and its
track marked by charred cabins and the ghastly, mutilated bodies of men,
women, and children.

If themselves assailed, the warriors fought desperately and effectively.
They sometimes attacked bodies of troops, but always by ambush or
surprise; and they much preferred to pounce on unprepared and
unsuspecting surveyors, farmers, or wayfarers, or to creep up to
solitary, outlying cabins. They valued the scalps of women and children
as highly as those of men. Striking a sudden blow, where there was
hardly any possibility of loss to themselves, they instantly moved on to
the next settlement, repeating the process again and again. Tireless,
watchful, cautious, and rapid, they covered great distances, and their
stealth and the mystery of their coming and going added to the terror
produced by the horrible nature of their ravages. When pursued they
dextrously covered their trail, and started homewards across a hundred
leagues of trackless wilderness. The pursuers almost of necessity went
slower, for they had to puzzle out the tracks; and after a certain
number of days either their food gave out or they found themselves too
far from home, and were obliged to return. In most instances the pursuit
was vain. Thus a party of twenty savages might make a war-trail some
hundreds of miles in length, taking forty or fifty scalps, carrying off
a dozen women and children, and throwing a number of settlements, with
perhaps a total population of a thousand souls, into a rage of terror
and fury, with a loss to themselves of but one or two men killed and
wounded.

A Great War Band Threatens Kentucky

Throughout the summer of 1781 the settlers were scourged by an unbroken
series of raids of this kind. In August McKee, Brant, and other tory and
Indian leaders assembled on the Miami an army of perhaps a thousand
warriors. They were collected to oppose Clark's intended march to
Detroit; for the British leaders were well aware of Clark's intention,
and trusted to the savages to frustrate it if he attempted to put it
into execution. Brant went off for a scout with a hundred warriors, and
destroyed Loughry's party of Westmoreland men, as already related,
returning to the main body after having done so. The fickle savages were
much elated by this stroke, but instead of being inspired to greater
efforts, took the view that the danger of invasion was now over. After
much persuasion Brant, McKee, and the captain of the Detroit rangers,
Thompson, persuaded them to march towards the Falls. On September 9th
they were within thirty miles of their destination, and halted to send
out scouts. Two prisoners were captured, from whom it was learned that
Clark had abandoned his proposed expedition. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS.
Captain A. Thompson to De Peyster, September 26, 1781.] Instantly the
Indians began to disband, some returning to their homes, and others
scattering out to steal horses and burn isolated cabins. Nor could the
utmost efforts of their leaders keep them together. They had no wish to
fight Clark unless it was absolutely necessary, in order to save their
villages and crops from destruction; and they much preferred plundering
on their own account. However, a couple of hundred Hurons and Miamis,
under Brant and McKee, were kept together, and moved southwards between
the Kentucky and Salt rivers, intending "to attack some of the small
forts and infest the roads." [Footnote: _Do._ Captain A. McKee to De
Peyster, September 26, 1781.] About the middle of the month they fell in
with a party of settlers led by Squire Boon.

Squire Boon and Floyd Defeated.

Squire Boon had built a fort, some distance from any other, and when
rumors of a great Indian invasion reached him, he determined to leave it
and join the stations on Bear Grass Creek. When he reached Long Run,
with his men, women, and children, cattle, and household goods, he
stumbled against the two hundred warriors of McKee and Brant. His people
were scattered to the four winds, with the loss of many scalps and all
their goods and cattle. The victors camped on the ground with the
intention of ambushing any party that arrived to bury the dead; for they
were confident some of the settlers would come for this purpose. Nor
were they disappointed; for next morning Floyd, the county lieutenant,
with twenty-five men, made his appearance. Floyd marched so quickly that
he came on the Indians before they were prepared to receive him. A smart
skirmish ensued; but the whites were hopelessly outnumbered, and were
soon beaten and scattered, with a loss of twelve or thirteen men. Floyd
himself, exhausted and with his horse shot, would have been captured had
not another man, one Samuel Wells, who was excellently mounted, seen his
plight. Wells reined in, leaped off his horse, and making Floyd ride, he
ran beside him, and both escaped. The deed was doubly noble, because the
men had previously been enemies. [Footnote: Marshall, I., 116. Floyd had
previously written Jefferson (Virginia State Papers, I., 47) that in his
county there were but three hundred and fifty-four militia between
sixteen and fifty-four years old; that all people were living in forts,
and that forty-seven of the settlers of all ages had been killed, and
many wounded, since January; so his defeat was a serious blow.] The
frontiersmen had made a good defence in spite of the tremendous odds
against them, and had slain four of their opponents, three Hurons and a
Miami. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Thompson's letter; McKee only mentions
the three Hurons. As already explained, the partisan leaders were apt,
in enumerating the Indian losses, only to give such as had occurred in
their own particular bands. Marshall makes the fight take place in
April; the Haldimand MSS. show that it was in September. Marshall is as
valuable for early Kentucky history as Haywood for the corresponding
periods in Tennessee; but both one and the other write largely from
tradition, and can never be followed when they contradict contemporary
reports.] Among the former was the head chief, a famous warrior; his
death so discouraged the Indians that they straightway returned home
with their scalps and plunder, resisting McKee's entreaty that they
would first attack Boonsborough.

One war party carried off Logan's family; but Logan, following swiftly
after, came on the savages so suddenly that he killed several of their
number, and rescued all his own people unhurt. [Footnote: Bradford MSS.]

Complicity of the British.

Often French Canadians, and more rarely tories, accompanied these little
bands of murderous plunderers [Footnote: At this very time a small band
that had captured a family in the Kanawha valley were pursued fifty
miles, overtaken, several killed and wounded, and the prisoners
recaptured, by Col. Andrew Donelly, mentioned in a previous note; it
consisted of two French and eight Indians. Virginia State Papers, I.,
601.]--besides the companies of Detroit rangers who went with the large
war parties--and they were all armed and urged on by the British at
Detroit. One of the official British reports to Lord George Germaine,
made on October 23d of this year, deals with the Indian war parties
employed against the northwestern frontier. "Many smaller Indian parties
have been very successful.... It would be endless and difficult to
enumerate to your Lordship the parties that are continually employed
upon the back settlements. From the Illinois country to the frontiers of
New York there is a continual succession... the perpetual terror and
losses of the inhabitants will I hope operate powerfully in our
favor" [Footnote: See full copy of the letter in Mr. Martindale's
excellent pamphlet, above quoted.];--so runs the letter. At the same
time the British commander in Canada was pointing out to his subordinate
at Detroit that the real danger to British rule arose from the extension
of the settlements westwards, and that this the Indians could prevent
[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to De Peyster, June 24, 1781.
Throughout the letters of the British officers at and near Detroit there
are constant allusions to scalps being brought in; but not one word, as
far as I have seen, to show that the Indians were ever reproved because
many of the scalps were those of women and children. It is only fair to
say, however, that there are several instances of the commanders
exhorting the Indians to be merciful--which was a waste of breath,--and
several other instances where successful efforts were made to stop the
use of torture. The British officers were generally personally humane to
their prisoners.]; in other words, the savages were expressly directed
to make war on non-combatants, for it was impossible to attack a
settlement without attacking the women and children therein. In return
the frontiersmen speedily grew to regard both British and Indians with
the same venomous and indiscriminate anger.

Nature of the Ceaseless Strife

In the writings of the early annalists of these Indian wars are to be
found the records of countless deeds of individual valor and cowardice,
prowess and suffering, of terrible woe in time of disaster and defeat,
and of the glutting of ferocious vengeance in the days of triumphant
reprisal. They contain tales of the most heroic courage and of the
vilest poltroonery; for the iron times brought out all that was best and
all that was basest in the human breast. We read of husbands leaving
their wives, and women their children, to the most dreadful of fates, on
the chance that they themselves might thereby escape; and on the other
hand, we read again and again of the noblest acts of self-sacrifice,
where the man freely gave his life for that of his wife or child, his
brother or his friend. Many deeds of unflinching loyalty are recorded,
but very, very few where magnanimity was shown to a fallen foe. The
women shared the stern qualities of the men; often it happened that,
when the house-owner had been shot down, his wife made good the defence
of the cabin with rifle or with axe, hewing valiantly at the savages who
tried to break through the door, or dig under the puncheon floor, or,
perhaps, burst down through the roof or wide chimney. Many hundreds of
these tales could be gathered together; one or two are worth giving, not
as being unique, but rather as samples of innumerable others of the same
kind.

Feat of the Two Poes.

In those days [Footnote: 1781, De Haas; Doddridge, whom the other
compilers follow, gives a wrong date (1782), and reverses the parts the
two brothers played.] there lived beside the Ohio, in extreme
northwestern Virginia, two tall brothers, famed for their strength,
agility, and courage. They were named Adam and Andrew Poe. In the summer
of '81 a party of seven Wyandots or Hurons came into their settlement,
burned some cabins, and killed one of the settlers. Immediately eight
backwoodsmen started in chase of the marauders; among them were the two
Poes.

The Wyandots were the bravest of all the Indian tribes, the most
dangerous in battle, and the most merciful in victory, rarely torturing
their prisoners; the backwoodsmen respected them for their prowess more
than they did any other tribe, and, if captured, esteemed themselves
fortunate to fall into Wyandot hands. These seven warriors were the most
famous and dreaded of the whole tribe. They included four brothers, one
being the chief Bigfoot, who was of gigantic strength and stature, the
champion of all, their most fearless and redoubtable fighter. Yet their
very confidence ruined them, for they retreated in a leisurely manner,
caring little whether they were overtaken or not, as they had many times
worsted the whites, and did not deem them their equals in battle.

The backwoodsmen followed the trail swiftly all day long, and, by the
help of the moon, late into the night. Early next morning they again
started and found themselves so near the Wyandots that Andrew Poe turned
aside and went down to the bed of a neighboring stream, thinking to come
up behind the Indians while they were menaced by his comrades in front.
Hearing a low murmur, he crept up through the bushes to a jutting rock
on the brink of the watercourse, and peering cautiously over, he saw two
Indians beneath him. They were sitting under a willow, talking in deep
whispers; one was an ordinary warrior, the other, by his gigantic size,
was evidently the famous chief himself. Andrew took steady aim at the
big chiefs breast and pulled trigger. The rifle flashed in the pan; and
the two Indians sprang to their feet with a deep grunt of surprise. For
a second all three stared at one another. Then Andrew sprang over the
rock, striking the big Indian's breast with a shock that bore him to the
earth; while at the moment of alighting, he threw his arm round the
small Indian's neck, and all three rolled on the ground together.

At this instant they heard sharp firing in the woods above them. The
rest of the whites and Indians had discovered one another at the same
time. A furious but momentary fight ensued; three backwoodsmen and four
Indians were killed outright, no other white being hurt, while the
single remaining red warrior made his escape, though badly wounded. But
the three men who were struggling for life and death in the ravine had
no time to pay heed to outside matters. For a moment Andrew kept down
both his antagonists, who were stunned by the shock; but before he could
use his knife the big Indian wrapped him in his arms and held him as if
in a vise. This enabled the small Indian to wrest himself loose, when
the big chief ordered him to run for his tomahawk, which lay on the sand
ten feet away, and to kill the white man as he lay powerless in the
chiefs arms. Andrew could not break loose, but watching his chance, as
the small Indian came up, he kicked him so violently in the chest that
he knocked the tomahawk out of his hand and sent him staggering into the
water. Thereat the big chief grunted out his contempt, and thundered at
the small Indian a few words that Andrew could not understand. The small
Indian again approached and after making several feints, struck with the
tomahawk, but Andrew dodged and received the blow on his wrist instead
of his head; and the wound though deep was not disabling. By a sudden
and mighty effort he now shook himself free from the giant, and
snatching up a loaded rifle from the sand, shot the small Indian as he
rushed on him. But at that moment the larger Indian, rising up, seized
him and hurled him to the ground. He was on his feet in a second, and
the two grappled furiously, their knives being lost; Andrew's activity
and skill as a wrestler and boxer making amends for his lack of
strength. Locked in each other's arms they rolled into the water. Here
each tried to drown the other, and Andrew catching the chief by the
scalp lock held his head under the water until his faint struggles
ceased. Thinking his foe dead, he loosed his grip to try to get at his
knife, but, as Andrew afterwards said, the Indian had only been "playing
possum," and in a second the struggle was renewed. Both combatants
rolled into deep water, when they separated and struck out for the
shore. The Indian proved the best swimmer, and ran up to the rifle that
lay on the sand, whereupon Andrew turned to swim out into the stream,
hoping to save his life by diving. At this moment his brother Adam
appeared on the bank, and seeing Andrew covered with blood and swimming
rapidly away, mistook him for an Indian, and shot him in the shoulder.
Immediately afterwards he saw his real antagonist. Both had empty guns,
and the contest became one as to who could beat the other in loading,
the Indian exclaiming: "Who load first, shoot first!" The chief got his
powder down first, but, in hurriedly drawing out his ramrod, it slipped
through his fingers and fell in the river. Seeing that it was all over,
he instantly faced his foe, pulled open the bosom of his shirt, and the
next moment received the ball fair in his breast. Adam, alarmed for his
brother, who by this time could barely keep himself afloat, rushed into
the river to save him, not heeding Andrew's repeated cries to take the
big Indian's scalp. Meanwhile the dying chief, resolute to save the long
locks his enemies coveted--always a point of honor among the red
men,--painfully rolled himself into the stream. Before he died he
reached the deep water, and the swift current bore his body away.

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