On the 11 September, the forces under General Lewis, amounting to 1100 men, commenced their march from Camp Union for Point Pleasant on the Great Kanhaway, distant 160 miles. The country between was a trackless wilderness. The army was piloted by Captain Matthew Arbuckle, by the nearest practicable route. The baggage was all transported on packhorses, and their march took up 19 days.*

Having arrived there upon the last day of the month, an encampment was commenced on the first of October. Here General Lewis waited with anxiety to get some tidings of Dunmore, for eight or nine days. At the end of this time, no prospect of a junction appearing, news was brought into camp in the morning of the 10 October, by one of two persons who had escaped the rifles of a great body of Indians about two miles up the Ohio, that an attack would be immediately made. These two men were upon a deer hunt, and came upon the Indians without observing them, when one was shot down, and the other escaped to the camp with difficulty. He reported "that he had seen a body of the enemy, covering four acres of ground, as closely as they could stand by the side of each other."†

Upon this intelligence, General Lewis, "after having deliberately lighted his pipe," gave orders to his brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, to march with his own regiment, and another under Colonel William Fleming, to reconnoitre the enemy, while he put the remainder in a posture to support them. These marched without loss of time, and about 400 yards from camp met the Indians intent upon the same object. Their meeting was somewhere between sun's rising and sun an hour high,§ and the fight in a moment began. The Virginians, like their opponents, covered themselves with trees or whatever else offered, but the latter were more than a match for them, and put them to flight with great slaughter. Colonel Lewis was in full uniform, and being, from the nature of his duties, exposed at every point, soon fell mortally wounded. There was no result for which the commander-inchief was not prepared; for at this critical moment he had ordered up Colonel Field with his regiment, which, coming with great resolution and firmness into action, saved the two retreating regiments, and effectually checked the impetuosity of the Indians, who, in their turn, were obliged to retreat behind a rough breastwork, which they had taken the precaution to construct from logs and brush for the occasion.

The point of land on which the battle was fought was narrow, and the Indians' breast work extended from river to river: their plan of attack was the best that could be conceived; for in the event of victory on their part, not a Virginian could have escaped. They had stationed men on both sides of the river to prevent any that might attempt flight by swimming from the apex of the triangle made by the confluence of the two rivers.

Never was ground maintained with more obstinacy; for it was slowly, and with no precipitancy, that the Indians retired to their breast work. The divis ion under Lewis was first broken, although that under Fleming was nearly at the same moment attacked. This heroic officer first received two balls through his left wrist, but continued to exercise his command with the greatest coolness and presence of mind. His voice was continually heard, “Don't lose an inch of ground. Advance, outflank the enemy, and get between them and the river." But his men were about to be outflanked by the body that had just defeated Lewis; meanwhile the arrival of Colonel Field turned the fortune of the day, but not without a severe loss; Colonel Fleming was again wounded, by a shot through the lungs ; yet he would not retire, and Colonel Field was killed as he was leading on his men.

*Doddridge, 280.

+ Withers, 126.

**

M'Clung, 321.

At sun-rise, Burk, iii 393.-Sun an hour high, Royal Amer. Magazine for November, 1774 A little after sunrise, Doddridge, 231.-The sun was just rising, M'Clung, 322.—Sunrise, Withers, 127.

He walked into camp, and expired in his own tent. Doddridge.

Mr. M'Clung says he was killed, but we cannot find any authority to agree with him. Mr. Withers says he was "an active governor of Virginia during the revolutionary war.” Chronicles, 130.

** Burk, iii. 394.

The whole line of the breastwork now became as a blaze of fire, which lasted nearly till the close of the day. Here the Indians under Logan, Cornstock, Elenipsico, Red-Eagle, and other mighty chiefs of the tribes of the Shawanese, Delawares, Mingoes, Wyandots and Cayugas, amounting, as was supposed, to 1500 warriors, fought, as men will ever do for their country's wrongs, with a bravery which could only be equalled. The voice of the mighty Cornstock was often heard during the day, above the din of strife, calling on his men in these words: "Be strong! Be strong!" And when by the repeated charges of the whites, some of his warriors began to waver, he is said to have sunk his tomahawk into the head of one who was cowardly endeavoring to desert.

General Lewis, finding at length that every charge upon the lines of the Indians lessened the number of his forces to an alarming degree, and rightly judging that if the Indians were not routed before it was dark, a day of more doubt might follow, he resolved to throw a body, if possible, into their rear. As the good fortune of the Virginians turned, the bank of the river favored this project, and forthwith three companies were detached upon the enterprise, under the three captains, Isaac Shelby, (afterwards renowned in the revolution, and since in the war with Canada,) George Matthews,* and John Steuart. These companies got unobserved to their place of destination upon Crooked Creek, which runs into the Kanhawa. From the high weeds upon the banks of this little stream, they rushed upon the backs of the Indians with such fury, as to drive them from their works with precipitation. The day was now decided. The Indians, thus beset from a quarter they did not expect, were ready to conclude that a reinforcement had arrived. It was about sunset when they fled across the Ohio, and immediately took up their march for their towns on the Scioto.

As is common, in reviewing past events, we find much difference of opinion in regard to many of the facts; the loss of the whites in this battle is very variously stated, but that of the Indians no.one has presumed to set down but by inference. The morning after the battle, Colonel Christiant marched to the battle-ground; where his men found and scalped § 21 of their dead, and 12 others were found in places where they were placed for concealment; that many were also thrown into the river is said to have been at the time known. In an account published at the time, it is set down that the killed of the Virginians were "Col. Charles Lewis, Major John Field, Capt. John Murray, Robert Mc Clenechan, Samuel Wilson, James Ward, Lieut. Hugh Allen, Ensigns, Candiff, Baker, and 44 privates;" making the whole number of the killed 55. "Wounded, Captain W. Fleming, since dead, Y. Dickinson, Thomas Blueford, John Stidman, Lieuts. Goodman, Robeson, Laud, Vannes, and 79 Privates ;" making in all 87 wounded. We are aware that either the names or numbers agree with accounts since published, but we have taken the above from the Royal American Magazine, which was published the following month at Boston, into which it seems to have been copied from a Philadelphia print.||

There was a kind of stratagem used by the whites in this battle which reminds us of that practised at the Pawtucket fight, related in Book III. of our history. The soldiers in Colonel Fleming's regiment would conceal themselves behind a tree or some other shelter, and then hold out their hats from behind, which the Indians seeing, would mistake as covering the heads

* Probably the same who was a colonel in the Virginia line during the revolution, and once a prisoner. See Contin. Burk, 107, 358, also Withers, 130.

t Withers, 127.

He was not present at the fight, but arrived with a reinforcement, which he had raised from Holston, immediately after it was over. It was this force, it is supposed, that the Indians expected were surrounding them in the rear. They were said to have been acquainted with all circumstances connected with the operations of the Virginians.

Royal Amer. Magazine for November, 1774.

Dr. Doddridge, 231, sets down the killed at 75, and the wounded at 140, and he is, doubtless, Mr. Withers's authority, who says the same. His list of killed and wounded are also verbatim from Doddridge. Burk, who wrote twenty years before either, agrees with the Royal American Magazine very nearly.

of their enemies, and shoot at them. The hat being at once dropped, the Indian would run out from his covert to scalp his victim, and thus met a sure death from the tomahawk of his adversary.

The chief of the men raised for this service, were, as Burk expresses himself, "prime riflemen," and the "most expert woodsmen in Virginia." They were principally from the counties of Augusta, Botetourt, Bedford and Fincastle, and from the enraged settlers who had fled from their frontier settlements to escape the vengeance of the injured Indians. For reasons whic were not perfectly understood at that time, Lord Dunmore divided the army into two parts, as already stated. The part which Dunmore soon after took in the revolutionary events, discovered the real cause of his preposterous proceedings. His pretence of falling upon the backs of the Indians, and cooperating with General Lewis, was soon detected as such; for it needed only to be known that he was moving no less than 75 miles from him, and that, therefore, no coöperation could be had. The imputation, however, of the historian Burk,* "that the division under Lewis was devoted to destruction, for the purpose of breaking the spirits of the Virginians," to render his own influence and reputation brighter and more efficient, is unnatural, and without facts to warrant it. To our mind a worse policy to raise himself could not have been devised. There are two other, far more reasonable conclusions, which might have been offered: The governor, seeing the justness of the Indians' cause, might have adopted the plan which was followed, to bring them to a peace with the least possible destruction of them. This would have been the course of a humane philosophy; or he might have exercised his abilities to gain them to the British interest, in case of a rupture between them and the colonies, which the heads of government must clearly have by this time foreseen would pretty soon follow. Another extraordinary manoeuvre of Governor Dunmore betrayed either a great want of experience, generalship, or a far more reprehensible charge; for he had, before the battle of Point Pleasant, sent an express† to Colonel Lewis, with orders that he should join him near the Shawanee towns, with all possible despatch. These instructions were looked upon as singularly unaccountable, inasmuch as it was considered a thing almost impossible to be accomplished, had there not been an enemy to fear; for the distance was near 80 miles, and the route was through a country extremely difficult to be traversed, and, to use the words of Mr. Burk, "swarming with Indians." The express did not arrive at Point Pleasant until the evening after the battle; § but that it had been fought was unknown to the governor, and could in no wise excuse his sending such orders, although the power of the Indians was now broken. The day after the battle, General Lewis caused his dead to be buried, and entrenchments to be thrown up about his camp for the protection of his sick and wounded; and the day following, he took up his line of march, in compliance with the orders of Governor Dunmore. This march was attended with great privations and almost insurmountable difficulties. Meanwhile Governor Dunmore descended with his forces down the river, from Fort Pitt to Wheeling, where he halted for a few days. He then proceeded down to the mouth of Hockhocking, thence over land to within 8 miles of the Shawanee town Chilicothe, on the Scioto. Here he made preparations for treating with the Indians. Before reaching this place he had received several messages from the Indians with offers of peace, and having now determined to comply, he sent an express to General Lewis with an order that he should immediately retreat. This was entirely disregarded by the general, and he continued his march until his lordship in person visited the general in his camp, and gave the order to the troops himself. LEWIS's troops complied

Hist. Virginia, iii. 396.

The famous pioneer, Simon Kenton, alias Butler, was the person sent by Dunmore at this time.

Hist. Virginia, iii. 395.

This is not agreeable to the statement of Dr. Doddridge, who says their arrival was before the battle, and Mr. Withers follows him; but I follow Mr. Burk, who doubtless had the Marshall [Ky. i. 40] agrees with the former.

best means of giving the truth.

with great reluctance, for they had determined on a general destruction of the Indians.

A treaty was now commenced, and conducted on the part of the whites with great distrust, never admitting but a small number of Indians within their encampment at a time. The business was commenced by Cornstock in a speech of great length, in the course of which he did not fail to charge upon the whites the whole cause of the war; and mainly in consequence of the murder of Logan's family. A treaty, however, was the result of this conference; and this conference was the result of the far-famed speech of LOGAN, the Mingo chief; since known in every hemisphere. It was not delivered in the camp of Lord Dunmore, for, although desiring peace, Logan would not meet the whites in council, but remained in his cabin in sullen silence, until a messenger was sent to him to know whether he would accede to the proposals it contained. What the distance was from the treaty-ground to Logan's cabin, we are not told; but of such importance was his name considered, that he was waited on by a messenger* from Lord Dunmore, who requested his assent to the articles of the treaty. Logan had too much at heart the wrongs lately done him to accede without giving the messenger to understand fully the grounds upon which he acceded; he therefore invited him into an adjacent wood, where they sat down together. Here he related the events of butchery which had deprived him of all his connections; and here he pronounced that memorable speech, which follows:

66

I appeal to any white 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.

66

During the course of the last long bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of while men.'

"I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations 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 on me for revenge. 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 a thought that mine 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!"

When Mr. Jefferson published his "Notes on Virginia," the facts therein stated implicating Cresap as the murderer of Logan's family, were by Cresap's friends called in question. Mr. Jefferson at first merely stated the facts as preliminary to, and the cause of, the "Speech of Logan,” which he considered as generally known in Virginia; but the acrimony discovered by his enemies in their endeavors to gainsay his statement, led to an investigation of the whole transaction, and a publication of the result was the immediate consequence, in a new edition of the "Notes on Virginia."

There are perhaps still some who doubt of the genuineness of Logan's speech and indeed we must allow, that there are some circumstances laid before us in Dr. Barton's Medical and Physical Journal, for the year 1808; which look irreconcilable. Without impeaching in the slightest degree the character of Mr. Jefferson, such facts are there compared, and disagreements pointed out, as chanced to come in the way of the writer. It appears from the French traveller Robin, that, in the time of our revolution, a gentleman of Williamsburg gave him an Indian speech, which bears great resemblance to the one said to be by Logan; but differing very essentially in date, and the person implicated in murdering the family of Logan. The work of Robin is entitled "New Travels in America," and we have only an English translation

Mr. John Gibson, then an officer in Dunmore's army, and afterwards a man of considerable distinction.

of it. It is therefore possible that some mistakes may have crept into it, or that Robin himself might have misunderstood the date, and even other parts of the affair; however, the probability is rather strong that either the speech of Logan had been perverted for the purpose of clearing Cresap's character of the foul blot which entirely covered it, by wilfully charging it upon another, or that some old speech of his upon another occasion, had been remodeled to suit the purpose for which it was used. Upon these questions we must leave the reader to decide. Robin has the name of the chief, Lonan. Some Frenchmen may write it thus, but I have before me those that do not, and more probably some English pronounced it so, and so Robin heard it. The way he introduces the speech, if the introduction be fact, forever destroys the genuineness of the speech of Logan of 1774. It is thus:

"Speech of the savage LONAN, in a General Assembly, as it was sent to the Gov. of Virginia,‡ anno 1754."

Now it is certain, if the speech which we will give below was delivered in the Assembly of Virginia, in the year 1754, it could not have been truly delivered, as we have given it, to Lord Dunmore in 1774. That the reader may judge for himself, that of 1754 follows.

"LONAN will no longer oppose making the proposed peace with the white men. You are sensible he never knew what fear is-that he never turned his back in the day of battle-No one has more love for the white men than I have. The war we have had with them has been long and bloody on both sides. Rivers of blood have ran on all parts, and yet no good has resulted therefrom to any. I once more repeat it—let us be at peace with these men. I will forget our injuries, the interest of my country demands it. I will forget —but difficult indeed is the task! Yes, I will forget-that Major Rogers § cruelly and inhumanly murdered, in their canoes, my wife, my children, my father, my mother, and all my kindred. This roused me to deeds of vengeance! I was cruel in despite of myself. I will die content if my country is once more at peace; but when Lonan shall be no more, who, alas, will drop a tear to the memory of Lonan!"

With a few incidents, and reflections, we will close our account of events connected with the history of CRESAP'S WAR.

On the evening before the battle of Point Pleasant, Cornstock proposed to his warriors to make peace with General Lewis, and avoid a battle, but his advice was not accepted by the council. "Well," said he, "since you have resolved to fight, you shall fight, although it is likely we shall have hard work to-morrow; but if any man shall flinch or run from the battle, I will kill him with my own hand." And it is said he made his word good by putting one to death who discovered cowardice during the fight, as has been mentioned.

After the Indians had retreated, Cornstock called a council at the Chilicothe town, to consult on what was to be done. Here he reflected upon the rashness that had been exercised in fighting the whites at Point Pleasant; and asked, "What shall we do now! the Long-Knives are coming upon us by two routes. Shall we turn out and fight them?"-No answer was made. He then inquired, “Shall we kill all our squaws and children, and then fight until we shall all be killed ourselves?"-As before, all were silent. In the midst of the councilhouse a war-post had been erected; with his tomahawk in his hand, Cornstork turned towards it, and sticking it into the post, he said, "Since you are not inclined to fight, I will go and make peace;" and he forthwith repaired to Dunmore's camp.

* Since the above was written, I have met with the French edition; and, from its imprint, I presume both editions were published under the supervision of the author. "A Philadel phie et se trouve à Paris, 1782."

+ See Recherches sur les Etats-Unis, iv. 153-5. The authors of this well-written work should not have withheld their names. It was printed at Paris, in 8vo., 1788.

"11 Net" is found in the French copy, and this marginal note to it; "ce mot signifie apparemment le mois Lunaire ou Solaire."

In the French copy no person is mentioned. After Major, a blank is left. In other respects the speech is tolerably correctly translated.

Doddridge's Notes, 239–40.