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standing this pledge of military co-operation, which ought for the most obvious reasons of safety and honor to have been held sacred, Lord Dunmore had determined to march across the Indian country to the Shawnee towns on the Scioto; of this he informed Lewis, and ordered him to join there.

It is difficult to determine, whether folly or perfidy prevailed most in so unprecedented a departure from his own plan of co-operation, as exhibited by this new and dangerous scheme of the royal governor. The danger to which he exposed each wing of the army, of being successively cut off by the enemy, in its separate march, into the Indian country, would point to the former solution of this extraordinary military disappointment; while the madness of proposing a concentration of his forces-not before they entered the enemy's country, but in the very heart of it, where the army must have conquered all antagonists before it would have been allowed to make such an advance as this-would seem more probably to implicate the fidelity of the governor to the colonists. It may, however, be too wanton suspicion, to accuse the royal governor of an intention to sacrifice his left wing; yet his conduct was as dangerous to that body of his forces, as if it had proceeded from the most deliberate treachery. Circumstances in

the subsequent course of this nobleman's official conduct, almost justify these suspicions of his motives; they were, indeed, entertained by the legislature of Virginia.*

On the 9th of October, 1774, the discouraging intelligence of altered plans was received by Gen. Lewis from Lord Dunmore, through some Indian traders. The next day, the devoted band, thus treacherously abandoned by their commander-in-chief, still taking counsel from their own brave hearts, determined to penetrate deeper into the Indian wilderness. It was not so easily done, as it was readily adopted.

Early in the morning of the 10th of October, 1774, two soldiers proceeded up the Ohio bank, for the purpose of killing game; they had got about two miles from camp, when they suddenly discov ered a large body of Indians rising from their encampment. The enemy, on seeing the two white hunters, fired and killed one of them; the other escaped to warn his fellow soldiers of the impending danger. To his commander, he communicated the fact that "he had seen a body of the enemy covering five acres of ground, as closely as they could stand."I Gen. Lewis immediately ord

* Wirts Henry, 148, 256.

Simon Kenton says: he had been so employed; but reached Point Pleasant before Lewis, and concealed his despatch in a hollow tree. While loitering about, he was fired upon by some Indians, who dispersed his party, and he made his way back to Louder's Fort, on the west fork of the Monongahela. McDonald's Sketches, p. 208.

Proceedings of the Historical Society of Virginia; they contain an interesting account of this important action, by an actor in this perilous scene. Vol. I. 45.

ered out a detachment of the Bottetourt troops, under Col. Fleming, and another from those of Augusta, led by Col. Charles Lewis; while the general remained in camp with the reserve. Our troops marched up the Ohio bank in two lines and met the Indians in the same order, about four hundred yards from the Virginia camp. The battle began about sunrise with a heavy fire from the enemy, which drove the Virginians back; but being reinforced by Col. Field, the Indians now retreated, forming a line behind logs and trees from river to river. Thus our countrymen were completely hemmed in, between the Ohio and the Kenhawa. In this desperate position, with no chance of retreat, and but little of outflanking the foe, the battle raged with a ferocity and destruction unparalleled by any other encounter, between our countrymen and the aborigines.

At the outset of the engagement Col. Charles Lewis was killed, and Col. Fleming was wounded; Col. Field fell, the next victim of high rank. To these must be added five captains, three lieutenants and several other subalterns, amounting with the privates to seventy-five killed and 140 wounded; almost every fifth man in the detachment was either killed or wounded. With this prodigious execution by the Indians, fully retaliated by our own riflemen, scarcely at all inferior to the enemy, in any of their wily arts, the hostile lines alternately advanced and receded, covering both sides of the intervening trees with bullets and blood.

In this fearful and obstinate contest, Gen. Lewis apprehensive of protracting the battle till night, ordered Capts. Evan Shelby, George Matthews and John Stuart to proceed with their companies, into the rear of the enemy, and then turn upon them.* This most fortunate monoeuver was effected by marching up the Kenhawa, as high as Crooked Creek, one of its branches, under the concealment of the high banks and the growth with which they were covered. So soon as the detachment reached its destined position, and began to fire on the enemy, they, fearing, as is supposed, that the reinforcement under Col. Christian, which was known to be on its march, had arrived, began to retreat, about sun down, precipitately over the Ohio, to their towns.

This memorable battle, which has for its importance in western history, been too little known, was fought with the flower of the north-western tribes, in the meridian of their strength, and commanded by some of their most distinguished chiefs.

Among these was Cornstalk, a chief of the Shawnees; he had the principal command assisted by other gallant spirits of the Red men, but whom our ignorance and the early contempt of our people mixed with no little hatred, for their barbarian enemies, preclude from any notice beyond their names. They were Red Hawk, a

*Geo. Shelby's information to Col. Chas. T. Todd confirms the account in Border Warfare, 127.

Delaware chief; Scoppathus, a Mingo; Ellinipisco, a Shawnee,
and son of Cornstalk; Chiyawee, a Wyandot; and Logan, a Cay-
uga.*
The distinguished leader of these forest forces is said to
have opposed the war; and wanted to go with a flag of truce, on
the eve of the battle; but he was overruled by the resentments or
the heroism of his people. When the battle had been determined on,
the energies of this chief, like a true patriot, were all exerted for
the honor, if not the benefit of his countrymen. He was frequently
recognized encouraging his men, whenever they slackened in their
efforts, by calling out to them in his native tongue: "Be strong,
be strong. When an Indian faltered in the performance of his
duty, Cornstalk instantly cleaved his head with his tomahawk, as
a warning to his followers of his discipline and fierce determina-
tion.

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A few hours after the battle, Col. Christian arrived with a reinforcement of three hundred men; much to the relief of this gallant and hard tried body.

On examining the battle field, 21 Indians were found lying dead, 12 others discovered behind logs and other concealments, besides many that were observed to be thrown into the river, during the battle. It was one, indeed, which deserves a high place in the history of the ruthless contest between the white and the red races, for the lovely and luxuriant land of the west-the interior world of North America-this new paradise of plenty and liberty for the children of the axe and the plough. No instance is known in our annals of so fair and pitched a battle between the two races; unassisted, on the one hand, by the peculiar military arts of Europe, and on the other, by the ambuscades which constitute the fortresses of the forest. Neither party was unequally armed, no artillery; it was an unmixed trial of native arts and familiar arms, in which a brave and skillful use of the rifle mainly decided the battle, with the exception of the happy diversion up the Kenhawa. This battle may well be pronounced a pure contest of hard fighting which covered the riflemen of the west with honors as durable as the mighty section of the republic, which it so essentially contributed to conquer from the savages. In this encounter were completed, if not formed, some of the most efficient commanders in the west; it proved a most invaluable military school for our population. The roll of officers in the battle of Kenhawa, or Point Pleasant, embraces the names of most of those who, in after times, signalized themselves in the great contest for the valley of the Ohio and its waters. The Campbells, both William and John, Isaac Shelby, George Mathews, afterwards a governor of Virginia, John Steele, William McKee, Charles Cameron, Bazalel Wells, Daniel Boone, and James Harrod, were actually engaged. Cols.

Border Warfare, 129.

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Christian and Floyd, of future fame, tried their utmost to get up in time for the battle.*

After throwing up an entrenchment, at the junction of the two streams, which had been the seat of the late battle, for the protection of the wounded, Gen. Lewis, more true to his duty than his commander in chief, proceeded still deeper into the fastnesses of the enemy, and marched his troops on the route to join Lord Dunmore, at the head of the right wing of what should have been the combined army of Virginia. This advance into the stronghold of the enemy, affords the most decisive proof of the victory of the Virginians.

Dunmore appointed, to meet the Indians at Camp Charlotte, upon Sippo creek, about eight miles from the cioto. The negociation is said to have been conducted, on the part of the Indians, by Cornstalk, the hero of Kenhawa.

This chief, at the first council of his tribe, after the bloody battle of Point Pleasant, is said to have called upon his brother chiefs, to declare what was to be done, when the whites were pressing upon them in two bodies? No one was prepared to give an answer to the soul-stirring interrogatory. Cornstalk then proposed that the squaws and papoosest should all be put to death, and then that †The Indian name for women and children.

the warriors should march against the enemy and be killed too. Still no one would join in the appalling debate; then said the energetic chief, striking his tomahawk in the council post: "I will go and make peace.

In the council, which was attended by the governor and the Indian chiefs, the former reproached them with their various infractions of peace and good neighborhood. Cornstalk recriminated with singular spirit and dignity. On this occasion, the eloquent chief is said, by a witness who had listened to the favorite orator of Virginia, and her first governor, the great Henry, to have drawn a lively and afflicting picture of the ancient prosperity and power of his race, contrasted with their present diminished strength and unhappy condition. He expatiated on the cheating of the Indian traders and to avoid these evils, he proposed that no white man should be allowed to trade with the Indians for his private profit; that his white brethren should send their goods by the hands of honest men, who should sell them at fair prices. Above all, this patriotic and enlightened chief, half a century before our modern temperance reform, implored the governor, that no fire-water should be brought among them.

The governor finally arranged the preliminaries of a treaty with the Indians; the purpose of which has been represented by two

* The official account of this battle was written by Isaac Shelby, at the order of his commander, on a drum head; he had entered the battle as a subaltern, and came out a captain. This despatch may be found in Niles' Register, about 1816, communicated by Col. Chas. S. Todd.

writers in the western country of most ample opportunities of original information,* as a truce, and surrender of prisoners with hostages, as a preparatory to a definitive treaty, to be held the next summer, at Fort Pitt. Another writert says, that peace was made with the Shawnees, on condition, "that the lands on this side of the Ohio should be delivered up, and that four hostages should be immediately given for the faithful performance of these conditions." The term, this side of the Ohio, could hardly be the language of a treaty made on the northern bank of that river, to describe lands on its southern shore. Nor do any evidences exist that are known to the writer, which determine the exact conditions of such a treaty, beyond a proclamation by Lord Dunmore, of peace with the Indians. In this instrument, dated January, 1775, it is proclaimed, "that the Shawnees, from whose incursions the most dreadful effects were felt, to remove all ground of future quarrel, have agreed not to hunt on this side of the Ohio, and have solemnly promised not to molest any passengers on that river." This is far short of a cession of the southern side as asserted by Burke; though in yielding the right of hunting to the whites, the treaty yielded everything valuable to the Indians. [To be continued.]

* Doctor Daddridge and Mr. Whithers, both of Virginia.

Burke's History of Virginia, III, continued by Mr. Giradin to the close of the siege of York. Virginia Gazette of 1775, in Congressional Library.

The Dead Man's Race.

BY WM. GARDNER BLACKWOOD.

A moral this my tale combines-
A truth from bad example ta'en,
Which, to youth told at ev'ning time,
For like pursuits the eager wish
May antedate, and serve to warn.

THE PILGRIM: A TALE.

Over a wild and trackless moor,
Homeward-bound, an honest boor
Prick'd on his jaded steed;
The Sun was sinking down to rest
On th' bosom of the blushing West,
And o'er the earth dark shadows prest

Along with ghost-like speed.

NOTE. This Poem appeared originally in the Southern Literary Messenger, some years ago, and copied from that journal has had various newspaper publications-in which it has undergone the usual emendations and typographical improvements. [] In a corrected form the author has permitted its reprint in the JOURNAL & CIVILIAN.-Ed.

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