Boone described the chaos: “The savages, observing us, gave way, and we, being ignorant of their numbers, passed the river. . . . An exceedingly fierce battle immediately began, for about 15 minutes, when we, being overpowered by numbers, were obliged to retreat . . . When we gave way, they pursued us with the utmost eagerness, and in every quarter spread destruction. The river was difficult to cross, and many were killed in the flight, some just entering the river, some in the water, others after crossing, in ascending the cliffs. . . . Many widows were now made.”18
Levi Todd concurred. “The enemy put us wholly to the rout.”19
Caldwell praised his defeated enemy, which bore up to Indian and ranger attack “very well for some time, ‘til we rushed in upon them, when they broke immediately.” As for the Indians, they behaved “extremely well.” The rebels killed only one white man, an interpreter, who “died like a warrior fighting arm to arm.” Only six Indians were killed.20
While Caldwell reported 146 militia killed or captured, Boone said seventy-seven men were killed, with twelve wounded. Among the victims: Todd, the commander; Trigg, a division commander; and Boone’s twenty-three-year-old son, Israel. Years later, a militiaman remembered Boone’s reaction: He “wept bitterly.”21
The battle lost, Boone, Levi Todd, and other officers and civilian leaders again pleaded with the governor: “We sensibly feel and deem our situation truly alarming. We can scarcely behold a spot of earth but what reminds us of the fall of some fellow adventurer massacred by savage hands. Our number of militia decreases. Our widows and orphans are numerous. . . . If something is not speedily done, we [don’t] doubt will wholly be depopulated.”22
After the war, McGary continued to be controversial. He was convicted of illegal gambling, which didn’t prevent him from serving as a county judge. Fighting against the Shawnees continued, and in 1786, now-Lieutenant Colonel McGary murdered an elderly chief he believed was present at Blue Licks. He split open the man’s head with a hatchet and chopped off three fingers of the chief’s wife before he was restrained. Found guilty of murder, his punishment was the loss of his militia commission for a year. Then, McGary became involved in a bigamy case involving future president Andrew Jackson, with whom he had traveled. Jackson’s wife was accused of bigamy, and McGary testified in support of the accusations. Jackson supporters accused him of perjury because of an argument they said McGary once had with Jackson. McGary and his family moved to southwest Indiana in 1804, where he died. His son helped found Evansville.23
Caldwell led an equally controversial postwar life. He settled on land grants in Amherstburg, Ontario, with other refugees, and married a white woman. His half-Indian son, Billy, and Billy’s mother lived with the Mohawks along the Grand River, about one hundred eighty miles to the east. Caldwell’s trading post business failed, but a government career was more successful: He was county deputy lieutenant. During the War of 1812, Caldwell commanded rangers and fought alongside Billy in skirmishes and battles. After the war, the British named him Indian superintendent. Billy, a captain, was his assistant. Caldwell’s tenure was difficult. Some accused him of incompetence; ultimately, the British disliked his belligerence and fired him after a year. Billy replaced him. Caldwell spent his aging years restoring his property damaged by the Americans during the war, and arguing with the government about his pension. He donated land to both Anglican and Catholic churches. Billy Caldwell surpassed his father in fame. He became a Chicago resident, U.S. citizen, fur trader, justice of the peace, and diplomat, and Congress rewarded him with a pension. Chicago named North Caldwell Avenue after him.24
20. Final Fights on the Ohio
THE NEXT MAJOR BRITISH-INDIAN RAID WAS NINETY MILES downstream from Fort Pitt along the Ohio River.
The first official white claim to the land that became the settlement of Wheeling (now in West Virginia) was in 1769 by Ebenezer Zane, 22, and his two brothers, Jonathan and Silas. They weren’t the first whites at the hilly, forested junction of Wheeling Creek and the Ohio River; the name first appeared on a map in 1755. It was a transliterated Delaware Indian phrase for “place of the skull,” where Delawares had earlier beheaded trespassing whites and placed their heads on poles as a warning to other whites who might think of settling there.1
For Ebenezer Zane, however, Wheeling was “like a vision of Paradise.” Of Danish descent, Zane was born on the northwestern Virginia frontier. Friends remembered him as a short but athletic man with dark skin, piercing black eyes, large brows, and a big nose. He was “quick, impetuous, and hard to restrain when excited.” He built a cabin at Wheeling in 1770 and brought his extended family and friends there a year or two later. About the time Zane built his cabin, Washington and Crawford passed through the country on a land-scouting trip. “On this creek is the appearance of good land a distance up on it,” Washington wrote. (Jonathan Zane would accompany Crawford on his doomed expedition.)2
Far from a paradise, Wheeling was, to whites, dangerous. During Dunmore’s War in 1774, the Virginia government, represented by then-Major Crawford, built a fort in Wheeling, and named it Fort Fincastle, after one of Governor Dunmore’s titles, Viscount Fincastle. About this time, Zane served as a dispersing officer for the state militia; he was a colonel, although the rank might have been honorary.
The next year, the fort named after a royal governor was renamed after Whig governor Patrick Henry. Fort Henry was by the river, at the foot of a sharply rising hill, near two dozen log homes. Its palisade, shaped like a parallelogram with towers in each corner, had eight to seventeen-foot-high white oak pickets. They enclosed about three-quarters of an acre. Just outside the fort: a spring. Inside the fort: a well. The fort’s only cannon dated to the Seven Years’ War; it had been recovered from the Monongahela River near Fort Pitt.3
Several attacks against area settlers during 1777 culminated in the late summer with an attack on Fort Henry itself. About four hundred Indians and Loyalists besieged the fort for a day, killing twenty-three of the forty-two defenders. The Indians, who lost forty or fifty men, called off the siege after militia reinforcements arrived.
Five years later, in July 1782, settlers began seeing increasing numbers of Indians in the area. Zane concluded, “We may shortly expect an attack.” He asked Irvine at Fort Pitt for extra gunpowder and reinforcements. The only defenders other than settlers were five militiamen. “We mean to support the place or perish in the attempt,” Zane said.4
The next month, an expedition of forty Loyalist rangers and about two hundred forty Indians left Detroit headed for Fort Henry. After they left, Detroit commander DePeyster learned that Parliament, anticipating peace, ordered an end to offensive operations, but it was too late to stop the expedition.5
The expedition was led by a Schenectady-born Loyalist whose roots in New York went back to at least the mid-seventeenth century. Andries Bradt, 27—he went by Andrew—was a farmer’s son and a nephew of John Butler, the rangers’ top commander. Like many families, the extended Bradt family split their loyalties; some fought against British general John Burgoyne in 1777. Bradt began fighting with the British in 1778, first as a lieutenant in the Indian Department, then in the rangers. John Butler promoted Bradt to captain in 1780, and Bradt led various raids against the Ohio Valley settlers.6
His raid on Fort Henry would be the final expedition the British would make against Whig settlers on the northwest frontier.
As with Caldwell’s expedition against Bryan’s Station in midsummer, the settlers learned ahead of time that Bradt was approaching. When Bradt arrived at Fort Henry around sundown on September 11, about eighteen men and forty women and children were behind the fort’s palisade; another nine people were in Zane’s fortified home, a two-story blockhouse that’s been described as anywhere from sixty feet to sixty yards from the fort.
Bradt acted immediately. According to Zane, the enemy “immediately formed into lines around the garrison, paraded British colors, and demanded the fort to be surrendered, which was refused
.” Three times that night, Bradt’s men tried to storm the palisades, but the settlers and militia repulsed them. Throughout the next day, the rangers and Indians “kept a continual fire.” Around 10 P.M., they stormed the fort again, and again were turned back. By the morning of September 13, Bradt, anticipating Whig reinforcements, retreated, killing livestock and burning homes.7
Zane, one of his slaves, three or four other men, and a few family members had remained in his blockhouse—possibly to provide a crossfire, possibly because he wanted to protect the home from being torched. Regardless, it led to a legend.
An 1802 account of Fort Henry’s defense told the story of Zane’s teenaged sister, Betty. The story said that on September 12, during the “continual fire,” the fort’s defenders were running out of gunpowder. Betty volunteered to run to her brother’s cabin and return with more. Bradt’s men were so surprised to see a young woman running out of the fort that they didn’t fire at her. Depending on the account, on her return run, Betty carried a gunpowder keg held in an apron or a tablecloth, tied around her waist or slung over her shoulder; the enemy fired at her and either missed or shot off a lock of her hair.8
Zane Grey, Ebenezer Zane’s great-grandson who was a prolific and best-selling early twentieth-century author, contributed to the legend with his first novel, a fictional account of Betty. “Her eyes shone with a fateful resolve; her white and eager face was surpassingly beautiful with its light of hope, of prayer, of heroism. ‘Let me go, brother. You know I can run, and oh! I will fly today. Every moment is precious. . . . You cannot spare a man. Let me go.’ . . . ‘God, what a woman!’ he said between his teeth, as he thrust the rifle forward.”9
Whether this happened is unknown. In 1849, an aging eyewitness swore that it was another woman who made the gunpowder run, and said Betty wasn’t even at the fort. The woman’s account was contradicted by her grandson, who said that when she was younger, she had credited Betty.10
Few documented facts exist about Betty’s later life other than she married twice and is buried in the same plot as her brother, in Martins Ferry, Ohio. The Navy named a World War II liberty ship, used for transport, in her honor. As for Ebenezer Zane, his investment in Wheeling paid off, and he made money selling lots. A son-in-law named Zanesville, Ohio, after him.11
Another disputed legend is Girty’s role in the attack. Some accounts say that he, not Bradt, commanded; others say he was there, but in a lesser role; another says it was Simon’s brother, George, who participated.12
Legends aside, after the failed assault, Bradt’s force split up. He, his rangers, and most of the Indians recrossed the Ohio and went to the Sandusky Indian towns two hundred miles to the northwest. About sixty to seventy Indians headed to the northeast, where, sixteen miles away, they intended to attack a smaller fort, Rice’s, near what is now Bethany, West Virginia. As with Fort Henry, the families in the area learned about the coming attack and retreated behind their palisade, which was defended by six men. The Indians besieged the fort for about twelve hours (some accounts say four hours), killing one defender while he was looking through a loophole, and another two who were riding to help in the fort’s defense. The Indians lost two or four men, but before they left, they killed livestock, and burned a barn with its stores of grain and hay.13
Around mid-month, Bradt and his men joined forces with Caldwell. By the time they returned to Detroit, they were starving and sick. DePeyster described them as “walking spectres.” Bradt eventually settled in the Niagara area, where the British rewarded him with a land grant.14
Successfully defended or not, the British and Indian attacks were constant, and so was the pressure on Irvine in Fort Pitt and Governor Harrison in Virginia to do something.
Irvine was skeptical that any offensive would work given the lack of men and supplies. He told Washington, “I never could see any great advantages gained by excursions of this kind; at least, they have not been lasting.” The only way to stop the raids was to capture and destroy the British strongholds at Detroit and Niagara, and that was unlikely to happen. Irvine said his priority in summer 1782 was to repair Fort Pitt.15
Governor Harrison told his military men that the government could do little because Virginia was broke: “Money matters” were “wretched,” he said. Nonetheless, Harrison and other Virginia officials began urging, then ordering, action from a former frontier military hero, a general of the state militia, George Rogers Clark, 27, who seemed to be immobilized at his base at the Falls of the Ohio—Louisville.16
Clark believed the only way to defeat Indians was “to excel them in barbarity.” Once, trying to encourage the surrender of an enemy post, he ordered bound Indian prisoners to be tomahawked in plain view.17
The tall, reddish-haired, Virginia-born Clark had little formal education. He learned surveying, which was helpful in his land-speculating activities. Like Boone, he and his family settled in Kentucky in the early 1770s, and he served as a state militia officer in Dunmore’s War. Then-Governor Patrick Henry promoted him in 1775 to major, with responsibility for Kentucky’s defense. Clark called for and co-led a delegation that demanded more military support from the government. Virginia responded by formally annexing Kentucky as a county, and giving Clark five hundred pounds of gunpowder. In 1777, Virginia promoted him to lieutenant colonel.
Clark made his reputation in 1778 and 1779 by recruiting an army of 180 men in Pittsburgh; establishing a base five hundred miles down the Ohio River at the Falls of the Ohio; taking the British post at Vincennes (now in Indiana) 115 miles farther west; then traveling another two hundred miles to capture Kaskaskia (now in Illinois) on the Mississippi River. While Clark marched, the British, led by the Detroit commander Colonel Henry Hamilton, had retaken Vincennes. With the help of residents of French ancestry who had remained in the region after the Seven Years’ War, Rogers led a difficult, winter expedition, surprised the British, retook Vincennes, and captured Hamilton. (DePeyster succeeded him.)
Promoted to general, Clark led a 1780 expedition against the Shawnees at their stronghold at Chillicothe, nearly halfway between Louisville and Fort Pitt. (The town was near present-day Xenia, Ohio, and is known as Oldtown and Old Chillicothe. Modern Chillicothe is sixty-three miles to the southwest.) The Shawnees avoided a major engagement with the better-armed Clark, but he burned eight hundred acres of crops. The next year, Clark led an expedition to capture Detroit; he turned back after learning that reinforcements from Fort Pitt were defeated by rangers and Indians led by Mohawk captain Joseph Brant.18
By the end of 1781, Clark and Virginia officials were frustrated with each other.
Clark had tried to raise men and money for supplies to mount another expedition against Detroit, but instead, “I find myself enclosed with few troops, in a trifling fort, and shortly expect to bear the insults of those who have for several years been in continued dread of me.” He despaired. “My chain appears to have run out.” After Virginia officials questioned his integrity regarding procurements, he resigned in early 1782 as Kentucky commander to devote his time to his land holdings—an “unprecedented quantity of the finest lands in the western world.” Virginia refused his resignation. In the spring, using some of his own money, he tried to build four armed galleys to patrol the Ohio; desertion thwarted his efforts.19
Other militia leaders sent a stream of complaints to Virginia about Clark’s inability to protect Kentucky. Boone and others said that by staying close to his base in Louisville—“a town without inhabitants”—Clark left the frontier “open and unguarded.” Another colonel said Clark “has lost the confidence of the people, and it is said become a sot, perhaps something worse.” Harrison heard a different report about Clark’s drinking, that there was a common belief “of his being so addicted to liquor as to be incapable of attending to his duty.” To other Kentucky militia commanders, Harrison complained that Clark failed to obey orders to set up forts at key locations. “I am apt to think if he had obeyed his orders, this disaster [Blue Licks] wou
ld not have happened.”20
Clark replied that he was “at a loss” to understand the criticism. His critics were “enemies to the state” who didn’t understand the military necessity of reinforcing Louisville.21
Creditors also pressured Clark, who had promised repayments for supplies. “I have already taken every step in my power to get the creditors of the state paid [but] to no effect,” he said. “If I was worth the money, I would most cheerfully pay it myself and trust the state, but can assure you with truth: I am entirely reduced myself.”22
He had defenders. One of his colonels wrote to Harrison that Clark didn’t deserve censure. “His greatest misfortune and loss of useful operations of the campaign was the want of men, although the general strained every nerve in this power to raise a sufficient number to penetrate into the heart of the enemy’s country.”23
In September and October 1782, Clark and Irvine planned a two-pronged expedition into Indian country; it would be the expedition the frontier wanted, designed to cripple the ability of Indians to raid. Irvine would lead 1,200 Continentals and militia from Fort Pitt against Delawares and other Indians in Upper Sandusky, while Clark would collect one thousand men in Louisville against Shawnees in Chillicothe. In preparation, Clark traded 3,200 acres of his own land for provisions, and left Louisville on November 4. Meanwhile, Irvine learned of the provisional peace treaty, and received orders to stop his participation. However, he condoned Clark’s intention to proceed against the Shawnees. To help Clark, Irvine would try to draw off some of the Indians by starting a rumor that the Sandusky attack was still on. Creating the rumor was “the only strategem left me to make use of in your favor.”24
Clark’s army included militia led by Kentucky veterans, including Boone and McGary. It took six days to reach Chillicothe and other Shawnee villages. There, he found most Shawnees had retreated before him. His efforts to bring about a general action were “fruitless,” he reported. “We might probably have got many more scalps and prisoners could we have known in time whether or not we were discovered.” Still, his men killed and scalped ten Shawnees, and took seven prisoners. They freed two imprisoned whites. More important, he left the Shawnees without food or shelter as winter approached. “In a few hours, two-thirds of their towns were laid in ashes, and everything they were possessed of destroyed. . . . The quantity of provisions burned far surpassed any idea we had of their stores of that kind.”25
After Yorktown Page 20