The Winning of the West

Front matter

WORKS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT. The Winning of the West. From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi. Volume I. — 1769-1776 ; Volume II. — 1777-1783. 2 vols. , octavo, cloth, with maps ..... $5-°° Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. Sketches of Sport on the Northern Cattle Plains. With 27 full-page wood engravings and 8 smaller engravings, from designs hy A. B. Frost, R. Swain Gifford, J. C. Beard, Fannie E. Gifford, and Henry Sandham. Octavo, cloth, $3 50 Contents. — Ranching in the Bad Lands — Water-Fowl — Grouse of the North ern Cattle Plains — Deer of the River Bottoms — Black-Tail Deer — A Trip on the Prairie — A Trip after Mountain Sheep — The Lordly Buffalo — Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountains — Old Ephraim. il One of the rare books which sportsmen will be glad to add to their libraries. . . . Mr. Roosevelt may rank with Scrope, Lloyd, Harris, St. John, and half a dozen others, whose books will always be among the sporting classics." — London Saturday Review, The Naval War of 1812; or, The History of the United States Navy during the Last War with Great Britain; to which is appended an account of the battle of New Orleans.

Third edition. Octavo, cloth ....... $2 50 " The volume is an excellent one in every respect, and shows in so young an author the best promise for a good historian — fearless of statement, caution, en deavor to be impartial, and a brisk and interesting way of telling events," — N". Y. Times. Essays on Practical Politics. (Being No. 49 in the "Questions of the Day" series.) Octavo, cloth . . . . -75 cents. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, NEW YORK AND LONDON. THE WINNING OF THE WEST BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT AUTHOR OF 44 NAVAL WAR OF l8l2," 44 LIFE OF THOMAS HART BENTON," " LIFE OF GOUVERJ- NEUR MORRIS," *4 HUNTING TRIPS OF A RANCHMAN," 44 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING TRAIL," ** ESSAYS ON PRACTICAL POLITICS," ETC Volume II. FROM THE ALLEGHANIES TO THE MISSISSIPPI 1777-1783 WITH MAPS NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS %\t Jtnkkrboclur COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1889 Press of G. P. Putnam's Sons New York CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PACK I. — The War in the Northwest, 1777-1778 . 1 II. — Clark's Conquest of the Illinois, 1778 . 31 III. — Clark's Campaign against Vincennes, 1779, 58 IV. — Continuance of the Struggle in Kentucky and the Northwest, 1779-1781 . 91 V. — The Moravian Massacre, 1779-1782 . . 142 VI. — The Administration of the Conquered French Settlements, 1779-1783 . . 168 VII. — Kentucky until the End of the Revolution, 1782-1783 186 VIII. — The Holston Settlements, 1777-1779 . . 214 IX. — King's Mountain, 1780 241 X. — The Holston Settlements to the End of the Revolution, 1781-1783 . . . 295 XI. — Robertson Founds the Cumberland Settlement, 1779-1780 324 XII. — The Cumberland Settlements to the Close of the Revolution, 1781-1783 . 353 XIII. — What the Westerners had Done During the Revolution 370 Appendices : Appendix A — To Chapter 1 393 Appendix B — To Chapter II 395 Appendix C — To Chapter III. . . . 397 Appendix D — To Chapter IV. . . . 398 Appendix E — To Chapter VII. . . . 399 Appendix F — To Chapter VII. . . . 402 Appendix G — To Chapter X 404 Appendix H — To Chapter XII. . . . 406 Appendix I — To Chapter XIII. . . . 408 Appendix J — To Chapter XIII. . . . 409 Index 411 Vol. 11. THE WINNING OF THE WEST.

Chapter I. The War In The Northwest

1777-1778. In the fall of 1776 it became evident that a formidable Indian war was impending. At Detroit great councils were held by all the northwestern tribes, to whom the Six Nations sent the HoldCoua white belt of peace, that they might cease cils at De their feuds and join against the Americans. tr0lt* The later councils were summoned by Henry Hamil ton, the British lieutenant-governor of the north western region, whose head-quarters were at Detroit. He was an ambitious, energetic, unscrupulous man, of bold character, who wielded great influence over the Indians; and the conduct of the war in the west, as well as the entire management of fron tier affairs, was intrusted to him by the British Government.1 He had been ordered to enlist the Indians on the British side, and have them ready to act against the Americans in the spring2; and accordingly he gathered the tribes together.

He himself took part in the war-talks, plying the Indians 1 Haldimand MSS. Sir Guy Carleton to Hamilton, September 26, 1777. 2 D--. Carleton to Hamilton, October 6, 1776. Vol. II. [1777- 2 with presents and fire-water no less than with speeches and promises. The headmen of the dif ferent tribes, as they grew excited, passed one an other black, red or bloody, and tomahawk belts, as tokens of the vengeance to be taken on their white foes. One Delaware chief still held out for neu trality, announcing that if he had to side with either set of combatants it would be with the " buckskins," or backwoodsmen, and not with the red-coats; but the bulk of the warriors sympathized with the Half King of the Wyandots when he said that the Long Knives had for years interfered with the Indians' hunting, and that now at last it was the Indians' turn to threaten revenge.1 Hamilton was for the next two years the main spring of Indian hostility to the Americans in the Lt.-Gov. northwest.

From the beginning he had Henry been anxious to employ the savages against Hamilton. gg^gj.^ auc[ wnen the home govern ment bade him hire them he soon proved himself very expert, as well as very ruthless, in their use.2 He rapidly acquired the venomous hatred of the backwoodsmen, who held him in peculiar abhor rence, and nicknamed him the " hair-buyer " general, asserting that he put a price on the scalps of the Americans. This allegation may have been untrue 1 " Am. Archives," 1st Series, Vol. II., p. 517. There were several councils held at Detroit during this fall, and it is difficult — and not very impor tant — to separate the incidents that occurred at each. Some took place before Hamilton arrived, which, according to his " brief account," was No vember 9th. He asserts that he did not send out war parties until the following June ; but the testimony seems conclusive that he was active in instigating hostility from the time of his arrival. ' Haldimand MSS.

Germaine to Carlton, March 26, 1777. SCALP BUYING. 3 as affecting Hamilton personally; he always en deavored to get the war parties to bring in prisoners, and behaved well to the captives when they were in his power ; nor is there any direct evidence that he himself paid out money for scalps. But scalps were certainly bought and paid for at De troit ' ; and the commandant himself was accustomed to receive them with formal solemnity at the councils held to greet the war parties when they returned from successful raids.2 The only way to keep the friendship of the Indians was continually to give them presents ; these presents were naturally given to the most successful warriors ; and the scalps were the only safe proofs of a warrior's success. scalp Doubtless the commandant and the higher Buying.

British officers generally treated the Americans hu manely when they were brought into contact with them ; and it is not likely that they knew, or were willing to know, exactly what the savages did in all cases. But they at least connived at the measures of their subordinates. These were hardened, embittered, men who paid for the zeal of their Indian allies accordingly as they received tangible proof thereof; in other words, they hired them to murder non-combatants as well as soldiers, and paid for each life, of any sort, that was taken. The fault lay primarily with the British Government, and with those of its advisers who, like Hamilton, advocated the employment of the savages. They thereby became participants in 1 See the "American Pioneer," I., 292, for a very curious account of an Indian, who by dividing a large scalp into two got fifty dollars for each half at Detroit. 9 Haldimand MSS, passim ; also of Heckewelder, etc. [1777- 4 the crimes committed ; and it was idle folly for them to prate about having bidden the savages be merciful.

The sin consisted in having let them loose on the borders; once they were let loose it was absolutely impossible to control them. More over, the British sinned against knowledge ; for some of their highest and most trusted officers on the frontier had written those in supreme command, relating the cruelties practised by the Indians upon the defenceless, and urging that they should not be made allies, but rather that their neutrality only should be secured.1 The average American backwoodsman was quite as brutal and inconsiderate a victor as the average British officer ; in fact, he was in all likeli hood the less humane of the two ; but the English man deliberately made the deeds of the savage his own. Making all allowance for the strait in which the British found themselves, and admitting that much can be said against their accusers, the fact remains that they urged on hordes of savages to slaughter men, women, and children along the entire frontier; and for this there must ever rest a dark stain on their national history.

Hamilton organized a troop of white rangers from among the French, British, and tories at Detroit. They acted as allies of the Indians, and furnished leaders to them. Three of these leaders were the tories McKee, Elliot, and Girty, who had fled together from Pittsburg2; they all three warred 1 E. g. in Haldimand MSS. Lieut.-Gov. Abbott to General Carleton, June 8, 1778. * Haldimand MSS. Hamilton's letter, April 25, 1778. "April the 20th— Edward Hayle (who had undertaken to carry a letter 177S] WAR OF EXTERMINATION. 5 against their countrymen with determined ferocity. Girty won the widest fame on the border by his cunning and cruelty ; but he was really a less able foe than the two others. McKee in particular showed himself a fairly good commander of Indians and irregular troops ; as did likewise an Englishman named Caldwell, and two French partisans, De Quindre and Lamothe, who were hearty supporters of the British.

Hamilton and his subordinates, both red and white, were engaged in what was essentially an ef fort to exterminate the borderers. They „ .,. j, J The British were not endeavoring merely to defeat the Begin a armed bodies of the enemy. They were War of ex~ ,..,. t.-it n .1 • termination. explicitly bidden by those in supreme command to push back the frontier, to expel the settlers from the country. Hamilton himself had been ordered by his immediate official superior to assail the borders of Pennsylvania and Virginia with his savages, to destroy the crops and buildings of the settlers who had advanced beyond the niounfrom me to the Moravian Minister at Kushayhking) returned, having exe cuted his commission — he brought me a letter & newspapers from Mr. McKee who was Indian Agent for the Crown and has been a long time in the hands of the Rebels at Fort Pitt, at length has found means to make his escape with three other men, two of the name of Girty (men tioned in Lord Dunmore's list) interpreters & Matthew Elliott the young man who was last summer sent down from this place a prisoner. — This last person I am informed has been at New York since he left Quebec, and probably finding the change in affairs unfavourable to the Rebels, has slipp'd away to make his peace here.

" 23d — Hayle went off again to conduct them all safe through the Villages having a letter & Wampum for that purpose. Alexander McKee is a man of good character, and has great influence with the Shawanese is well ac quainted with the country & can probably give some useful intelligence, he will probably reach this place in a few days." [1777- 6 tains, and to give to his Indian allies, — the Hurons, Shawnees, and other tribes, — all the land of which they thus took possession.1 With such allies as Hamilton had this order was tantamount to pro claiming a war of extermination, waged with appalling and horrible cruelty against the settlers, of all ages and sexes. It brings out in bold relief the fact that in the west the war of the Kevolution was an effort on the part of Great Britain to stop the west ward growth of the English race in America, and to keep the region beyond the Alleghanies as a region where only savages should dwell.

All through the winter of '76-77 the northwest ern Indians were preparing to take up the toma .„ , hawk. Runners were sent through the All the ° Northwestleafless, frozen woods from one to another em Tribes 0f their winter camps. In each bleak, frail village, each snow-hidden cluster of bark wigwams, the painted, half-naked warriors danced the war dance, and sang the war song, beating the ground with their war clubs and keeping time with their feet to the rhythmic chant as they moved in rings round the peeled post, into which they struck their hatchets. The hereditary sachems, the peace chiefs, could no longer control the young men. The braves made ready their weapons and battle gear ; their bodies were painted red and black, the plumes of the war eagle were braided into their long scalp locks, and some put on necklaces of bears' claws, and head-dresses made of panther skin, or of the shaggy and horned frontlet of the bus- 1 Haldimand MSS.

Haldimand to Hamilton, August 6, 1778. THE FRONTIER RA VAGED. 7 falo.1 Before the snow was off the ground the war parties crossed the Ohio and fell on the frontiers from the Monongahela and Kanawha to the Ken tucky.2 On the Pennsylvanian and Virginian frontiers the panic was tremendous. The people fled into the al ready existing forts, or hastily built others ; where there were but two or three families in a place, they merely gathered into block-houses — stout log-cabins two stories high, with loop-holed walls, and the up per story projecting a little over the lower. The savages, well armed with weapons supplied them from the British arsenals on the Great Lakes, spread over the country ; and there ensued all the horrors incident to a war waged as relentlessly against the most helpless non-combatants as against the armed soldiers in the field.

Block-houses were surprised and burnt ; bodies of militia were ambushed and destroyed. The settlers were shot down as they sat by their hearth-stones in the evening, or ploughed the ground during the day ; the lurking Indians crept up and killed them while they still-hunted the deer, or while they lay in wait for the elk beside the well-beaten game trails. The captured women and little ones were driven off to the far interior. The weak among them, the young children, and the women heavy with child, were tomahawked and scalped as soon as their steps 1 For instances of an Indian wearing this buffalo cap, with the homs on, see Kercheval and De Haas. 9 State Department MSS. for 1777, passim. So successful were the In dian chiefs in hoodwinking the officers at Fort Pitt that some of the latter continued to believe that only three or four hundred Indians had gone on the war path. [1777- 8 faltered.

The able-bodied, who could stand the ter rible fatigue, and reached their journey's end, suffered various fates. Some were burned at the stake, others were sold to the French or British traders, and long afterwards made their escape, or were ransomed by their relatives. Still others were kept in the Indian camps, the women becoming the slaves or wives of the warriors,1 while the children were adopted into the tribe, and grew up precisely like their little red-skinned playmates. Sometimes, when they had come to full growth, they rejoined the whites ; but generally they were enthralled by the wild freedom and fascination of their forest life, and never forsook their adopted tribesmen, remaining inveterate foes of their own color. Among the ever-recurring tragedies of the frontier, not the least sorrowful was the recovery of these long-missing children by their parents, only to find that they had lost all remembrance of and love for their father and mother, and had become irre claimable savages, who eagerly grasped the first chance to flee from the intolerable irksomeness and restraint of civilized life.2 Among others, the stockade at Wheeling 3 was at- 1 Occasionally we come across records of the women afterwards making their escape ; very rarely they took their half-breed babies with them.

De Haas mentions one such case where the husband, though he received his wife well, always hated the copper-colored addition to his family ; the lat ter, by the way, grew up a thorough Indian, could not be educated, and finally ran away, joined the Revolutionary army, and was never heard of afterwards. 9 For an instance where a boy finally returned, see " Trans- Alleghany Pioneers," p. 119 ; see also pp. 126, 132, 133, for instances of the capture and treatment of whites by Indians. 3 Fort Henry. For an account of the siege, see De Haas, pp. 223-340. It took place in the early days of September. THE ATTACK ON WHEELING. 9 tacked by two or three hundred Indians ; with them came a party of Detroit Rangers, marshalled by drum and fife, and carrying the British colors.1 The Attack Most of the men inside the fort were drawn on on out by a stratagem, fell into an ambuscade, Wheelins and were slain ; but the remainder made good the de fence, helped by the women, who ran the lead into bul lets, cooled and loaded the guns, and even, when the rush was made, assisted to repel it by firing through the loopholes.

After making a determined effort to storm the stockade, in which some of the boldest warriors were slain while trying in vain to batter down the gates with heavy timbers, the baffled Indians were obliged to retire discomfited. The siege was chiefly memora ble because of an incident which is to this day a staple theme for story-telling in the cabins of the mountaineers. One of the leading men of the neighborhood was Major Samuel McColloch, re nowned along the border as the chief in a family famous for its Indian fighters, the dread and terror of the savages, many of whose most noted warriors he slew, and at whose hands he himself, in the end, met his death. When Wheeling was invested, he tried to break into it, riding a favorite old white 1 The accounts of the different sieges of Wheeling were first written down from the statements of the pioneers when they had grown very aged.

In consequence, there is much uncertainty as to the various incidents. Thus there seems to be a doubt whether Girty did or did not command the Indians in this first siege. The frontiersmen hated Girty as they did no other man, and he was credited with numerous actions done by other white leaders of the Indians ; the British accounts say comparatively little about him. He seems to have often fought with the Indians as one of their own number, while his associates led organized bands of rangers ; he was thus more often brought into contact with the frontiersmen, but was really hardly as dangerous a foe to them as were one or two of his tory companions. [1777- 10 horse. But the Indians intercepted him, and hemmed him in on the brink of an almost perpendicular slope,1 some three hundred feet high.

So sheer was the descent that they did not dream any horse could go down it, and instead of shooting they advanced to capture the man whom they hated. McColloch had no thought of surrendering, to die by fire at the stake, and he had as little hope of resistance against so many foes. Wheeling short round, he sat back in the saddle, shifted his rifle into his right hand, reined in his steed, and spurred him over the brink. The old horse never faltered, but plunged headlong down the steep, boulder-covered, cliff broken slope. Good luck, aided by the wonderful skill of the rider and the marvellous strength and sure footedness of his steed, rewarded, as it deserved, one of the most daring feats of horsemanship of which we have any authentic record. There was a crash, the shock of a heavy body, half springing, half fall ing, a scramble among loose rocks, and the snapping of saplings and bushes ; and in another moment the awe-struck Indians above saw their unharmed foe, galloping his gallant white horse in safety across the plain.

To this day the place is known by the name of McColloch's leap.2 In Virginia and Pennsylvania the Indian outrages meant only the harassing of the borderers ; in Ken tucky they threatened the complete destruction of the vanguard of the white advance and, there- 1 The hill overlooks Wheeling ; the slope has now much crumbled away, and in consequence has lost its steepness. 9 In the west this feat is as well known as is Putnam's similar deed in the north. THE STRUGGLE IN KENTUCKY. 11 fore, the stoppage of all settlement west of the Alleghanies until after the Revolutionary war, when very possibly the soil might not have been ours to settle. Fortunately Hamilton did struggle not yet realize the importance of the in Kentucky settlements, nor the necessity en uc y' of crushing them, and during 1777 the war bands organized at Detroit were sent against the country round Pittsburg ; while the feeble forts in the far western wilderness were only troubled by smaller war parties raised among the tribes on their own account.

A strong expedition, led by Hamilton in person, would doubtless at this time have crushed them. As it was, there were still so few whites in Kentucky that they were greatly outnumbered by the invading Indians. They were, in consequence, unable to meet the enemy in the open field, and gathered in their stations or sorted villages. Therefore the early conflicts, for the most part, took the form of sieges of these wooden forts. Such sieges, had little in common with the corresponding operations of civilized armies. The Indians usually tried to surprise a fort ; if they failed, they occasionally tried to carry it by open assault, or by setting fire to it, but very rarely, indeed, beleaguered it in fonn. For this they lacked both the discipline and the commissariat. Accordingly, if their first rush mis carried, they usually dispersed in the woods to hunt, or look for small parties of whites ; always, however, leaving some of their number to hover round the fort and watch any thing that took place.

Masters [1777- 12 in the art of hiding, and able to conceal themselves behind a bush, a stone, or a tuft of weeds, they skulked round the gate before dawn, to shoot the white sentinels ; or they ambushed the springs, and killed those who came for water ; they slaughtered all of the cattle that had not been driven in, and any one venturing incautiously beyond the walls was cer tain to be waylaid and murdered. Those who were thus hemmed in the fort were obliged to get game on which to live ; the hunters accordingly were accustomed to leave before daybreak, travel eight or ten miles, hunt all day at the risk of their lives, and return after dark. Being of course the picked men of the gar rison, they often eluded the Indians, or slew them if an encounter took place, but very frequently indeed they were themselves slain.

The Indians always trusted greatly to wiles and feints to draw their foes into their power. As always in this woodland fighting, their superiority in hiding, or taking advantage of cover, counterbalanced the superiority of the whites as marksmen ; and their war parties were thus at least a match, man against man, for the Kentuckians, though the latter, together with the Watauga men, were the best woodsmen and fighters of the frontier. Only a very few of the whites became, like Boon and Kenton, able to beat the best of the savages at their own game. The innumerable sieges that took place during the long years of Indian warfare differed in detail, but generally closely resembled one another as regards the main points. Those that occurred in 1777 maybe con sidered as samples of the rest ; and accounts of these BOONSBOROUGH ATTACKED. 13 have been preserved by the two chief actors, Boon and Clark.1 Boonsborough, which was held by twenty-two riflemen, was attacked twice, once in April Boons and again in July, on each occasion by a party borough of fifty or a hundred warriors.2 The first Attacked time the garrison was taken by surprise ; one man lost his scalp, and four were wounded, including Boon himself, who had been commissioned as captain in the county militia.3 The Indians promptly with drew when they found they could not carry the fort by a sudden assault.

On the second occasion the whites were on their guard, and though they had one man killed and two wounded (leaving but thirteen unhurt men in the fort), they easily beat off the assailants, and slew half a dozen of them. This time the Indians stayed round two days, keeping up a heavy fire, under cover of which they several times tried to burn the fort.4 Logan's s station at St. Asaphs was likewise at- 1 In Boon's narrative, written down by Filson, and in Clark's diary, as given by Morehead. The McAfee MSS. and Butler's history give some valuable information. Boon asserts that at this time the " Long Knives" proved themselves superior to their foe in almost every battle ; but the facts do not seem to sustain him, though the statement was doubtless true as regards a few picked men. His estimates of the Indian numbers and losses must be received with great caution. 9 Boon says April 15th and July 4th.

Clark's diary makes the first date April 24th. Boon says one hundred Indians, Clark " 40 or 50. " Clark's account of the loss on both sides agrees tolerably well with Boon's. Clark's diary makes the second attack take place on May 23d. His dates are probably correct, as Boon must have written only from memory. ' Two of the other wounded men were Captain John Todd and Boon's old hunting companion, Stoner. 4 Clark's diary. 6 Boon says July 19th, Clark's diary makes it May 30th : Clark is undoubt edly right ; he gives the names of the man who was killed and of the two who were wounded. [1777- 14 tacked ; it was held by only fifteen gunmen. When the attack was made the women, guarded by part of Logan's the men, were milking the cows outside the Adventures. fort. The Indians fired at them from the thick cane that still stood near-by, killing one man and wounding two others, one mortally.1 The party, of course, fled to the fort, and on looking back they saw their mortally wounded friend weltering on the ground.

His wife and family were within the walls ; through the loopholes they could see him yet alive, and exposed every moment to death. So great was the danger that the men refused to go out to his rescue, where upon Logan alone opened the gate, bounded out, and seizing the wounded man in his arms, carried him back unharmed through a shower of bullets. The Indians continued to lurk around the neighborhood, and the ammunition grew very scarce. Thereupon Logan took two companions and left the fort at night to go to the distant settlements on the Holston, where he might get powder and lead. He knew that the In dians were watching the wilderness road, and trust ing to his own hardiness and consummate woodcraft, he struck straight out across the cliff -broken, wood covered mountains, sleeping wherever night overtook him, and travelling all day long with the tireless speed of a wolf.2 He returned with the needed stores in ten days from the time he set out.

These tided the people over the warm months. 1 The name of the latter was Burr Harrison ; he died a fortnight afterward. —Clark. ' Not a fanciful comparison ; the wolf is the only animal that an Indian or a trained frontiersman cannot tire out in several days' travel. Following a deer two days in light snow, I have myself gotten near enough to shoot it without difficulty. LOGAN'S ADVENTURES. 15 In the fall, when the hickories had turned yellow and the oaks deep red, during the weeks of still, hazy weather that mark the Indian summer, their favorite hunting season,1 the savages again filled the land, and Logan was obliged to repeat his perilous journey.2 He also continually led small bands of his followers against the Indian warand hunting-parties, sometimes surprising and dispersing them, and harassing them greatly.

Moreover he hunted steadily throughout the year to keep the station in meat, for the most skilful hunters were, in those days of scarcity, obliged to spend much of their time in the chase. Once, while at a noted game lick,3 waiting for deer, he was surprised by the Indians, and by their fire was wounded in the breast and had his right arm broken. Nevertheless he sprang on his horse and escaped, though the savages were so close that one, leaping at him, for a moment grasped the tail of the horse. Every one of these pioneer leaders, from Clark and Boon to Sevier and Rob ertson, was required constantly to expose his lif e ; each lost sons or brothers at the hands of the 1 Usually early in November. — McAfee MSS. 5 Marshall, 50. ' These game licks were common, and were of enormous extent. Multi tudes of game, through countless generations, had tramped the ground bare of vegetation, and had made deep pits and channels with their hoofs and tongues.