VICTORIES AND DEFEATS

Situation of the Fort. ­Indian Treachery. ­Bombardment. ­Boone goes to North Carolina. ­New Trials. ­Boone Robbed. ­He Returns to Kentucky. ­Massacre of Col.  Rogers. ­Adventure of Col.  Bowman. ­New Attack by the British and Indians. ­Retaliatory Measures. ­Wonderful Exploit.

There were but fifty men in the garrison at Boonesborough.  They were assailed by a body of more than ten to one of the bravest Indian warriors, under the command of an officer in the British army.  The boldest in the fort felt that their situation was almost desperate.  The ferocity of the Indian, and the intelligence of the white man, were combined against them.  They knew that the British commander, however humane he might be, would have no power, should the fort be taken by storm, to save them from death by the most horrible tortures.

General Duquesne was acting under instructions from Governor Hamilton, the British officer in supreme command at Detroit.  Boone knew that the Governor felt very kindly towards him.  When he had been carried to that place a captive, the Governor had made very earnest endeavors to obtain his liberation.  Influenced by these considerations, he consented to hold the conference.

But, better acquainted with the Indian character than perhaps Duquesne could have been, he selected nine of the most athletic and strong of the garrison, and appointed the place of meeting in front of the fort, at a distance of only one hundred and twenty feet from the walls.  The riflemen of the garrison were placed in a position to cover the spot with their guns, so that in case of treachery the Indians would meet with instant punishment, and the retreat of the party from the fort would probably be secured.  The language of Boone is: 

“We held a treaty within sixty yards of the garrison on purpose to divert them from a breach of honor, as we could not avoid suspicion of the savages.”

The terms proposed by General Duquesne were extremely liberal.  And while they might satisfy the British party, whose object in the war was simply to conquer the colonists and bring them back to loyalty, they could by no means have satisfied the Indians, who desired not merely to drive the white men back from their hunting grounds, but to plunder them of their possessions and to gratify their savage natures by hearing the shrieks of their victims at the stake and by carrying home the trophies of numerous scalps.

Boone and his men, buried in the depths of the wilderness, had probably taken little interest in the controversy which was just then rising between the colonies and the mother country.  They had regarded the King of England as their lawful sovereign, and their minds had never been agitated by the question of revolution or of independence.  When, therefore, General Duquesne proposed that they should take the oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain, and that then they should be permitted to return unmolested to their homes and their friends beyond the mountains, taking all their possessions with them, Colonel Boone and his associates were very ready to accept such terms.  It justly appeared to them in their isolated condition, five hundred miles away from the Atlantic coast, that this was vastly preferable to remaining in the wilderness assailed by thousands of Indians guided by English energy and abundantly provided with all the munitions of war from British arsenals.

But Boone knew very well that the Indians would never willingly assent to this treaty.  Still he and his fellow commissioners signed it while very curious to learn how it would be regarded by their savage foes.  The commissioners on both sides had appeared at the appointed place of conference, as is usual on such occasions, entirely unarmed.  There were, however, a large number of Indians lingering around and drawing nearer as the conference proceeded.  After the treaty was signed, the old Indian chief Blackfish, Boone’s adopted father, and who, exasperated by the escape of his ungrateful son, had been watching him with a very unamiable expression of countenance, arose and made a formal speech in the most approved style of Indian eloquence.  He commented upon the bravery of the two armies, and of the desirableness that there should be entire friendship between them, and closed by saying that it was a custom with them on all such important occasions to ratify the treaty by two Indians shaking hands with each white man.

This shallow pretense, scarcely up to the sagacity of children, by which Blackfish hoped that two savages grappling each one of the commissioners would easily be able to make prisoners of them, and then by threats of torture compel the surrender of the fort, did not in the slightest degree deceive Colonel Boone.  He was well aware of his own strength and of that of the men who accompanied him.  He also knew that his riflemen occupied concealed positions, from which, with unerring aim, they could instantly punish the savages for any act of treachery.  He therefore consented to the arrangement.  The grasp was given.  Instantly a terrible scene of confusion ensued.

The burly savages tried to drag off their victims.  The surrounding Indians rushed in to their aid, and a deadly fire was opened upon them from the fort, which was energetically responded to by all the armed savages from behind stumps and trees.  One of the fiercest of battles had instantly blazed forth.  Still these stalwart pioneers were not taken by surprise.  Aided by the bullets of the fort, they shook off their assailants, and all succeeded in escaping within the heavy gates, which were immediately closed behind them.  One only of their number, Boone’s brother, was wounded.  This escape seems almost miraculous.  But the majority of the Indians in intelligence were mere children:  sometimes very cunning, but often with the grossest stupidity mingled with their strategy.

Duquesne and Blackfish, the associated leaders, now commenced the siege of the fort with all their energies.  Dividing their forces into two parties, they kept up an incessant fire upon the garrison for nine days and nine nights.  It was one of the most heroic of those bloody struggles between civilization and barbarism, which have rendered the plains of Kentucky memorable.

The savages were very careful not to expose themselves to the rifles of the besieged.  They were stationed behind rocks, and trees, and stumps, so that it was seldom that the garrison could catch even a glimpse of the foes who were assailing them.  It was necessary for those within the fort to be sparing of their ammunition.  They seldom fired unless they could take deliberate aim, and then the bullet was almost always sure to reach its mark.  Colonel Boone, in describing this attempt of the Indians to capture the commissioners by stratagem, and of the storm of war which followed, writes: 

“They immediately grappled us, but, although surrounded by hundreds of savages, we extricated ourselves from them and escaped all safe into the garrison except one, who was wounded through a heavy fire from their army.  They immediately attacked us on every side, and a constant heavy fire ensued between us, day and night, for the space of nine days.  In this time the enemy began to undermine our fort, which was situated about sixty yards from the Kentucky river.  They began at the water mark and proceeded in the bank some distance, which we understood by their making the water muddy with the clay.  We immediately proceeded to disappoint their design by cutting a trench across their subterranean passage.  The enemy discovering our counter mine by the clay we threw out of the fort, desisted from that stratagem.  Experience now fully convincing them that neither their power nor their policy could effect their purpose, on the twentieth of August they raised the siege and departed.

“During this siege, which threatened death in every form, we had two men killed and four wounded, besides a number of cattle.  We killed of the enemy thirty-seven and wounded a great number.  After they were gone we picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight of bullets, besides what stuck in the logs of our fort, which certainly is a great proof of their industry.”

It is said that during this siege, one of the negroes, probably a slave, deserted from the fort with one of their best rifles, and joined the Indians.  Concealing himself in a tree, where unseen he could take deliberate aim, he became one of the most successful of the assailants.  But the eagle eye of Boone detected him, and though, as was afterwards ascertained by actual measurement, the tree was five hundred and twenty-five feet distant from the fort, Boone took deliberate aim, fired, and the man was seen to drop heavily from his covert to the ground.  The bullet from Boone’s rifle had pierced his brain.

At one time the Indians had succeeded in setting fire to the fort, by throwing flaming combustibles upon it, attached to their arrows.  One of the young men extinguished the flames, exposing himself to the concentrated and deadly fire of the assailants in doing so.  Though the bullets fell like hailstones around him, the brave fellow escaped unscathed.

This repulse quite disheartened the Indians.  Henceforth they regarded Boonesborough as a Gibraltar; impregnable to any force which they could bring against it.  They never assailed it again.  Though Boonesborough is now but a small village in Kentucky, it has a history which will render it forever memorable in the annals of heroism.

It will be remembered that Boone’s family, supposing him to have perished by the hands of the Indians, had returned to the home of Mrs. Boone’s father in North Carolina.  Colonel Boone, anxious to rejoin his wife and children, and feeling that Boonesborough was safe from any immediate attack by the Indians, soon after the dispersion of the savages entered again upon the long journey through the wilderness, to find his friends east of the mountains.  In the autumn of 1778, Colonel Boone again found himself, after all his wonderful adventures, in a peaceful home on the banks of the Yadkin.

The settlements in Kentucky continued rapidly to increase.  The savages had apparently relinquished all hope of holding exclusive possession of the country.  Though there were occasional acts of violence and cruelty, there was quite a truce in the Indian warfare.  But the white settlers, and those who wished to emigrate, were greatly embarrassed by conflicting land claims.  Many of the pioneers found their titles pronounced to be of no validity.  Others who wished to emigrate, experienced great difficulty in obtaining secure possession of their lands.  The reputation of Kentucky as in all respects one of the most desirable of earthly regions for comfortable homes, added to the desire of many families to escape from the horrors of revolutionary war, which was sweeping the sea-board, led to a constant tide of emigration beyond the mountains.

Under these circumstances the Government of Virginia established a court, consisting of four prominent citizens, to go from place to place, examine such titles as should be presented to them, and to confirm those which were good.  This commission commenced its duties at St. Asaph.  All the old terms of settlement proposed by Henderson and the Transylvania Company were abrogated.  Thus Colonel Boone had no title to a single acre of land in Kentucky.  A new law however was enacted as follows: 

“Any person may acquire title to so much unappropriated land, as he or she may desire to purchase, on paying the consideration of forty pounds for every one hundred acres, and so in proportion.”

This money was to be paid to the State Treasurer, who would give for it a receipt.  This receipt was to be deposited with the State Auditor, who would in exchange for it give a certificate.  This certificate was to be lodged at the Land Office.  There it was to be registered, and a warrant was to be given, authorizing the survey of the land selected.  Surveyors who had passed the ordeal of William and Mary College, having defined the boundaries of the land, were to make a return to the Land Office.  A due record was there to be made of the survey, a deed was to be given in the name of the State, which deed was to be signed by the Governor, with the seal of the Commonwealth attached.

This was a perplexing labyrinth for the pioneer to pass through, before he could get a title to his land.  Not only Colonel Boone, but it seems that his family were anxious to return to the beautiful fields of Kentucky.  During the few months he remained on the Yadkin, he was busy in converting every particle of property he possessed into money, and in raising every dollar he could for the purchase of lands he so greatly desired.  The sum he obtained amounted to about twenty thousand dollars, in the depreciated paper currency of that day.  To Daniel Boone this was a large sum.  With this the simple-hearted man started for Richmond to pay it to the State Treasurer, and to obtain for it the promised certificate.  He was also entrusted with quite large sums of money from his neighbors, for a similar purpose.

On his way he was robbed of every dollar.  It was a terrible blow to him, for it not only left him penniless, but exposed him to the insinuation of having feigned the robbery, that he might retain the money entrusted to him by his friends.  Those who knew Daniel Boone well would have no more suspected him of fraud than an angel of light.  With others however, his character suffered.  Rumor was busy in denouncing him.

Colonel Nathaniel Hart had entrusted Boone with two thousand nine hundred pounds.  This of course was all gone.  A letter, however, is preserved from Colonel Hart, which bears noble testimony to the character of the man from whom he had suffered: 

“I observe what you say respecting our losses by Daniel Boone.  I had heard of the misfortune soon after it happened, but not of my being a partaker before now.  I feel for the poor people who perhaps are to lose their pre-emptions.  But I must say I feel more for Boone, whose character I am told suffers by it.  Much degenerated must the people of this age be, when amongst them are to be found men to censure and blast the reputation of a person so just and upright, and in whose breast is a seat of virtue too pure to admit of a thought so base and dishonorable.  I have known Boone in times of old, when poverty and distress had him fast by the hand, and in these wretched circumstances, I have ever found him of a noble and generous soul, despising everything mean, and therefore I will freely grant him a discharge for whatever sums of mine he might have been possessed at the time.”

Boone was now forty-five years of age, but the hardships to which he had been exposed had borne heavily upon him, and he appeared ten years older.  Though he bore without a murmur the loss of his earthly all, and the imputations which were cast upon his character, he was more anxious than ever to find refuge from the embarrassments which oppressed him in the solitudes of his beautiful Kentucky.  Notwithstanding his comparative poverty, his family on the banks of the Yadkin need not experience any want.  Land was fertile, abundant and cheap.  He and his boys in a few days, with their axes, could erect as good a house as they desired to occupy.  The cultivation of a few acres of the soil, and the results of the chase, would provide them an ample support.  Here also they could retire to rest at night, with unbolted door and with no fear that their slumbers would be disturbed by the yell of the blood-thirsty savage.

The wife and mother must doubtless have wished to remain in her pleasant home, but cheerfully and nobly she acceded to his wishes, and was ready to accompany him to all the abounding perils of the distant West.  Again the family set out on its journey across the mountains.  Of the incidents which they encountered, we are not informed.  The narrative we have from Boone is simply as follows:  our readers will excuse the slight repetition it involves: 

“About this time I returned to Kentucky with my family.  And here, to avoid an enquiry into my conduct, the reader being before informed of my bringing my family to Kentucky, I am under the necessity of informing him that during my captivity with the Indians, my wife, who despaired of ever seeing me again, had transported my family and goods back through the wilderness, amid a multitude of dangers, to her father’s house in North Carolina.  Shortly after the troubles at Boonesborough, I went to them and lived peaceably there until this time.  The history of my going home and returning with my family forms a series of difficulties, an account of which would swell a volume.  And being foreign to my purpose I shall omit them.”

During Boone’s absence from Kentucky, one of the most bloody battles was fought, which ever occurred between the whites and the Indians.  Colonel Rogers, returning with supplies (by boat) from New Orleans to the Upper Ohio, when he arrived at the mouth of the Little Miami, detected the Indians in large numbers, painted, armed, and evidently on the war path, emerging from the mouth of the river in their canoes, and crossing the Ohio to the Kentucky shore.  He cautiously landed his men, intending to attack the Indians by surprise.  Instead of this, they turned upon him with overwhelming numbers, and assailed him with the greatest fury.  Colonel Rogers and sixty of his men were almost instantly killed.  This constituted nearly the whole of his party.  Two or three effected their escape, and conveyed the sad tidings of the massacre to the settlements.

The Kentuckians were exceedingly exasperated, and resolved that the Indians should feel the weight of their vengeance.  Colonel Bowman, in accordance with a custom of the times, issued a call, inviting all the Kentuckians who were willing to volunteer under his leadership for the chastisement of the Indians, to rendezvous at Harrodsburg.  Three hundred determined men soon assembled.  The expedition moved in the month of July, and commenced the ascent of the Little Miami undiscovered.  They arrived in the vicinity of Old Chilicothe just before nightfall.  Here it was determined so to arrange their forces in the darkness, as to attack the place just before the dawn of the ensuing day.  One half of the army, under the command of Colonel Logan, were to grope their way through the woods, and march around the town so as to attack it in the rear, at a given signal from Colonel Bowman, who was to place his men in position for efficient cooperation.  Logan accomplished his movement, and concealing his men behind stumps, trees, and rocks, anxiously awaited the signal for attack.

But the sharp ear of a watch-dog detected some unusual movement, and commenced barking furiously.  An Indian warrior came from his cabin, and cautiously advanced the way the dog seemed to designate.  As the Indian drew near, one of the party, by accident or great imprudence, discharged his gun.  The Indian gave a war-whoop, which immediately startled all the inmates of the cabins to their feet.  Logan and his party were sufficiently near to see the women and the children in a continuous line rushing over the ridge, to the protection of the forest.

The Indian warriors, with a military discipline hardly to be expected of them, instantly collected in several strong cabins, which were their citadels, and from whose loop-holes, unexposed, they could open a deadly fire upon their assailants, In an instant, the whole aspect of affairs was changed.  The assailants advancing through the clearing, must expose their unprotected breasts to the bullets of an unseen foe.  After a brief conflict, Colonel Logan, to his bitter disappointment and that of his men, felt constrained to order a retreat.

The two parties were soon reunited, having lost several valuable lives, and depressed by the conviction that the enterprise had proved an utter failure.  The savages pursued, keeping up a harassing fire upon the rear of the fugitives.  Fortunately for the white men, the renowned Indian chieftain Blackfish, struck by a bullet, was instantly killed.  This so disheartened his followers, that they abandoned the pursuit.  The fugitives continued their flight all the night, and then at their leisure returned to their homes much dejected.  In this disastrous expedition, nine men were killed and one was severely wounded.

The Indians, aided by their English allies, resolved by the invasion of Kentucky to retaliate for the invasion of the Little Miami.  Governor Hamilton raised a very formidable army, and supplied them with two pieces of artillery.  By such weapons the strongest log fort could speedily be demolished; while the artillerists would be entirely beyond the reach of the guns of the garrison.  A British officer, Colonel Boyd, commanded the combined force.  The valley of the Licking River, along whose banks many thriving settlements had commenced, was their point of destination.

A twelve days’ march from the Ohio brought this army, which was considered a large one in those times, to a post called Kuddle’s Station.  The garrison was immediately summoned to surrender, with the promise of protection for their lives only.  Resistance against artillery was hopeless.  The place was surrendered.  Indians and white men rushed in, alike eager for plunder.  The Indians, breaking loose from all restraint, caught men, women and children, and claimed them as their prisoners.  Three persons who made some slight resistance were immediately tomahawked.

The British commander endeavored to exonerate himself from these atrocities by saying that it was utterly beyond his power to control the savages.  These wolfish allies, elated by their conquest, their plunder and their captives, now demanded to be led along the valley five miles to the next station, called Martin’s Fort.  It is said that Colonel Byrd was so affected by the uncontrollable atrocities he had witnessed, that he refused to continue the expedition, unless the Indians would consent, that while they should receive all the plunder, he should have all the prisoners.  It is also said that notwithstanding this agreement, the same scenes were enacted at Martin’s Fort which had been witnessed at Ruddle’s Station.  In confirmation of this statement, it is certain that Colonel Byrd refused to go any farther.  All the stations on the river were apparently at his disposal, and it speaks well for his humanity that he refused to lead any farther savages armed with the tomahawk and the scalping knife, against his white brethren.  He could order a retreat, as he did, but he could not rescue the captives from those who had seized them.  The Indians loaded down their victims with the plunder of their own dwellings, and as they fell by the way, sinking beneath their burdens, they buried the tomahawk in their brains.

The exasperation on both sides was very great, and General Clark, who was stationed at Fort Jefferson with a thousand picked men, entered the Indian territory, burned the villages, destroyed the crops, and utterly devastated the country.  In reference to this expedition, Mr. Cecil B. Hartley writes: 

“Some persons who have not the slightest objection to war, very gravely express doubts as to whether the expedient of destroying the crops of the Indians was justifiable.  It is generally treated by these men as if it were a wanton display of a vindictive spirit, where in reality it was dictated by the soundest policy; for when the Indians’ harvests were destroyed, they were compelled to subsist their families altogether by hunting, and had no leisure for their murderous inroads into the settlements.  This result was plainly seen on this occasion, for it does not appear that the Indians attacked any of the settlements during the remainder of this year.”

The following incident, well authenticated, which occurred early in the spring of 1780, gives one a vivid idea of the nature of this warfare: 

“Mr. Alexander McConnel of Lexington, while out hunting, killed a large buck.  He went home for his horse to bring it in.  While he was absent, five Indians accidentally discovered the body of the deer.  Supposing the hunter would return, three of them hid themselves within rifle shot of the carcass while two followed his trail.  McConnel, anticipating no danger, was riding slowly along the path, when he was fired upon from ambush, his horse shot beneath him, and he seized as a prisoner.  His captors were in high glee, and treated him with unusual kindness.  His skill with the rifle excited their admiration, and as he provided them with abundance of game, they soon became quite fond of him.  Day after day the savages continued their tramp to the Ohio river, to cross over to their own country.  Every night they bound him very strongly.  As they became better acquainted, and advanced farther from the settlements of the pioneers, they in some degree remitted their vigilance.  One evening when they had arrived near the Ohio, McConnel complained so earnestly of the pain which the tightly bound cords gave him, that they more loosely fastened the cord of buffalo hide around his wrists.  Still they tied it, as they supposed securely, and attached the end of the cord to the body of one of the Indians.

“At midnight, McConnel discovered a sharp knife lying near him, which had accidentally fallen from its sheath.  He drew it to him with his feet, and succeeded noiselessly in cutting the cords.  Still he hardly dared to stir, for there was danger that the slightest movement might rouse his vigilant foes.  The savages had stacked their five guns near the fire.  Cautiously he crept towards them, and secreted three at but a short distance where they would not easily find them.  He then crept noiselessly back, took a rifle in each hand, rested the muzzles upon a log, and aiming one at the heart, and one at the head of two Indians at the distance of a few feet, discharged both guns simultaneously.

“Both shots were fatal.  The three remaining savages in bewilderment sprang to their feet.  McConnel instantly seizing the two other guns, shot one through the heart, and inflicted a terrible wound upon the other.  He fell to the ground bellowing loudly.  Soon however he regained his feet and hobbled off into the woods as fast as possible.  The only remaining one of the party who was unhurt uttered a loud yell of terror and dismay, and bounded like a deer into the forest.  McConnel was not disposed to remain even for one moment to contemplate the result of his achievement.  He selected his own trusty rifle, plunged into the forest, and with the unerring instinct of the veteran hunter, in two days reached the garrison at Lexington to relate to them his wonderful escape.”