That Dark and Bloody River

by Allan Eckert

  At the point of the cornfield closest to the Wheeling Settlement cabins, Martin Wetzel burst into view at a dead run. He wove past the cabins and outbuildings and was shouting “Open the gate!” long before he reached the fort. The main gate in the east wall came ajar as he reached it, and he dashed inside and heard it closed and barred as he fell to the earth, gasping for breath.

  [September 1, 1777—Monday, 8 A.M.]

  There was a gasp from the onlookers peering out of the fort at the distant Indians when their lines parted and an individual in scarlet coat, gold epaulets, white trousers and black boots strode into view from the cornfield, accompanied by a man in frontier garb who was holding upright a flintlock, to the muzzle of which a white cloth had been attached.

  With military bearing and no trace of fear, the British officer strode to within 30 yards of the fort and called out for the commander of Fort Henry to come to one of the ports and speak to him. The man in leathers with him said nothing but merely stopped behind him and slightly to one side.

  Inside the fort, Ebenezer Zane sought out Col. Shepherd, whom he found, along with Hugh McConnell, consoling his daughter-in-law, Rebecca. McConnell, Rebecca’s brother, had reported the news of the ambush and her husband’s death. Now he was awkwardly patting her shoulder as she wept, and Shepherd was holding her hand, though the pain in his own heart at losing his son was all but unbearable. Zane apologized for interrupting and asked that he be allowed to make the response to the British officer.

  “I don’t trust that feller with the flag on his gun,” he said. “You go to the window, Colonel, he could pick you off ’fore you knew it. Reckon I’m a mite more expendable than you. Let me answer.” Shepherd was reluctant to do so but finally agreed, and Zane went to the porthole.

  “All right,” he called out, “I’m Colonel Zane. Who are you, and what do you want?”

  “I,” said the officer, apparently a captain, “am the representative of His Britannic Majesty, George III.293 In his name I call upon you to surrender this fort and garrison. You see before you a small part of a large army that has come to escort to Detroit in assured safety all who will accept the terms of Governor Hamilton and renounce the cause of those rebelling against His Majesty. I call upon you to remember your fealty to your sovereign. His Majesty wishes to avoid the effusion of blood, which will certainly be the result if you refuse or if one gun is fired to the annoyance of my army, as then there will be no curbing the savage vengeance of the Indians here gathered.”

  He paused and withdrew from his tunic a paper that he then read aloud to them: a copy of the proclamation issued by Henry Hamilton the previous June. Finishing, he folded and replaced the paper, then returned his attention to Zane. “You have but fifteen minutes to consider this proposition,” he said. “I will wait.”

  Zane disappeared from view, and a quick meeting was held. Everyone in the fort was painfully aware of just how limited were their supplies of food and, more important, ammunition. Lead balls could be dug out of the wood where they had struck and lodged, and these could be melted and poured into the bullet molds to make new balls, but gunpowder was very scarce, and it was obvious that even with the most conservative use of it, the supply would soon be gone. Once that fact was ascertained by the Indians, they would swarm over the walls, and that would be the beginning of a great massacre. Yet despite this awful knowledge, their response to the surrender demand was a foregone conclusion. Within five minutes Ebenezer Zane had returned to the porthole below which the British officer and frontiersman were waiting.

  “We have consulted with our wives and children,” he said coldly, “and we are of the opinion that this is a choice between slavery and death. We are unanimously resolved to perish before we will voluntarily place ourselves under the supposed protection of an army of savages like this with you at its head. Nor would we, for that matter,” he concluded, “even consider turning our backs on the cause of liberty and the welfare of the states.”

  “I beg that you reconsider,” the British captain responded. “There is before you a great force of Indians and not the least possibility that your fort can withstand their concerted assault. I again assure you: The offer of protection, if you accede to His Majesty’s wishes, is not an idle one; and I assure you likewise that if you continue to refuse or resist in any way, I will be entirely unable to restrain this army of savages, as you call them, and all inside the fort will be destroyed without mercy.”

  The only response to this was a shot that rang out from another part of the fort, and a ball plowed into the earth near the officer’s feet. He and his companion immediately turned and withdrew, and as soon as they disappeared back into the cornfield, a loud cry was raised, and the Indians poured a furious fire at every aperture of the fort. With frightening swiftness they quickly occupied most of the houses and half-face cabins in Wheeling that in any way commanded a view of the fort and were within 50 yards. At the same time they endeavored not to expose themselves to the crossfire that came from Ebenezer Zane’s residence blockhouse, where Jonathan and Silas Zane and a few other men were ensconced. A number even took cover behind the paling fence between Zane’s blockhouse and the fort.

  And now the firing began in earnest.

  [September 1, 1777—Monday, 8:30 A.M.]

  Pvt. John Caldwell, who had escaped across Wheeling Creek from the ambush of the company of soldiers under Capt. Meason, had finally reached Shepherd’s Fort at the Forks of Wheeling Creek a few minutes ago. He’d had no easy time of it. His clothing was shredded from the briars through which he had plunged, and his flesh was scored and bleeding in a multitude of places from the cruel thorns. He was exhausted, still teetering on the edge of panic and nearly incoherent, but gradually those in the fort pieced together from his inchoate phrases what had occurred. They needed to know; there was not a person here at Shepherd’s who did not have family or friends in Wheeling.

  Caldwell related that the Wyandot warrior who had followed him across Wheeling Creek had been tenacious in his pursuit and gradually closed the gap until they were only about 30 yards apart. In leaping over a fallen tree, Caldwell didn’t fully clear it and sprawled headlong, becoming momentarily wedged between the far side of the tree trunk and a sapling growing beside it. He struggled frantically to get loose, and by the time he did so and began running again, the warrior was within a few yards, tomahawk upraised and shrieking in anticipated triumph. That was when the Wyandot made a mistake: Instead of rushing up and tomahawking Caldwell, as he certainly could have done, he threw his weapon at him … and missed. Caldwell continued running, and when he glanced back, the Indian had picked up his tomahawk and was turning back.

  Apart from Caldwell’s statement that “the damned Injens were everywhere,” the men at Shepherd’s Fort had no clear idea how many warriors were involved in the ambush of Capt. Meason’s company or how many others might at this moment be investing Wheeling; nor had Caldwell been able to tell them how many men had been killed in the ambush, but the number was evidently large. What it all came down to was that the strength of Wheeling itself had been greatly diminished, and unless relief could be sent there at once, the whole settlement might fall. Yet here at Shepherd’s Fort there were only a few men, none of whom could be spared without jeopardizing the women and children on hand.

  With the absence of Col. Shepherd at Wheeling, Lewis Bonnett was in temporary command here, and at once he dispatched a rider to follow a circuitous route well away from Wheeling and go to Fort Vanmetre and Holliday’s Cove. Apart from Wheeling itself, more fighting men were gathered at those two places than anywhere else, especially at Fort Vanmetre, where Capt. Samuel McCulloch was in command of upward of 30 militiamen. Another dozen, perhaps, were at Holliday’s Cove, 17 miles above Vanmetre’s.

  But Bonnett admitted glumly that it was dubious whether anything could be done to save Wheeling.

  [September 1, 1777—Monday, 10:45 A.M.]

  Maj. Samuel McCulloch was facing the worst predicament of his
entire life and had only instants in which to make a decision that could well result in a terrible death no matter which way he chose.

  The whole situation that had brought him to this point had begun just a little over an hour ago, when the express messenger from Shepherd’s Fort had arrived at Fort Vanmetre, where McCulloch was in command. The rider had covered the circuitous route of some 18 miles to Fort Vanmetre in record time, arriving just after nine-thirty. As soon as he blurted out to them what had transpired at Wheeling and then spurred his horse on toward Holliday’s Cove, Sam McCulloch had ordered his men into a flurry of activity, preparing their weapons and mounts for departure. Within a quarter-hour they were on their way.

  With Sam in the lead on his big white gelding and his brother John, also a major, close behind, the 30 men of the company galloped on the river bottom road to Wheeling, seven miles distant. With the fort finally in sight, they thundered past the flanking cornfields and abruptly found themselves in the midst of an attack by scores of Indians emerging from among the tall stalks.

  “Take ’em in, John,” Sam yelled, spinning his mount around and heading toward the rear to see that everyone got through. As he galloped, he repeatedly shouted, “To the fort!” and not until he had thundered past the rear did he wheel his own mount and attempt to follow. It was too late: A horde of Indians had burst from cover between him and his company, and he had no choice but to try to get away on the road he had just traveled. But it was too late for that too, for as he wheeled and started back, more Indians flooded into view in that direction. With all these Indians shrieking hideously and running toward him as fast as they could, he reined to the right and spurred his horse through the corn, heading toward the base of Wheeling Hill and the trail that led to its summit.

  In Fort Henry the defenders had witnessed what was occurring, and as the riders approached through the hail of gunfire, the main gate was momentarily thrown open enough to let John McCulloch and his men plunge in. The instant they did, the gate was slammed shut and barred. Several of the arriving militia had received superficial wounds, and several of the horses had taken bullets, but no one had been killed. At least not yet; Sam McCulloch’s fate still hung in the balance.

  His horse emerged from the cornfield near the southernmost base of the hill and close to the trail that led to the crest. Having already run well over seven miles, the big gelding was beginning to strain badly and slowed despite his urgings. Behind, the swarm of following Indians burst from the cornfield and continued their pursuit, less than a minute behind him and running fast. They followed him onto the trail.

  The grade of the trail was steep, and it was 250 feet to the summit. By the time McCulloch reached it, his weakened horse gasping for breath, the Indians behind him had closed the gap to about 50 yards and were coming on hard. That was when more warriors appeared on the trail well ahead to the north and others began emerging in numbers from the woods to the west.294

  The shrieking Indians approaching at a run were now on three sides of him, while to his right there was nothing but a veritable precipice plunging downward in a series of benches or narrow levels until it reached the base where Wheeling Creek makes its sharp horseshoe bend: a drop so steep that only a dozen feet or so from the edge were the tops of tall trees projecting from below.

  It was an extremely desperate situation, and there was no time for lengthy deliberation. Sam McCulloch knew full well what lay in store if he surrendered, and he had no intention of doing so. Instead, he spun the big white gelding around and spurred him over the edge. The horse whinnied in terror as he dropped and, virtually sliding on his haunches, plunged down the precipitous slope, straining to avoid the trees growing in the few precarious toeholds.

  There was a great clatter of rocks jarred loose, adding to the crackle and snapping of branches and saplings struck as the horse scrambled and slid down the slope. A wild thought struck McCulloch as he clung fiercely: He and his mount would undoubtedly reach the bottom, but whether they would be alive when they got there was doubtful.

  Above, the Indians gathered, panting, at the clifftop and looked down in wonder and admiration for the courage of the man they had been pursuing, an admiration that even overcame their disappointment at losing their quarry. And a few moments later, when the white horse and its rider emerged from the woods at the bottom and continued riding upstream on the narrow right bank bottom of Wheeling Creek, their admiration became vocal as they actually cheered the incredible feat. There were few things the Indians admired more than great daring and courage.

  McCulloch, as battered and bruised as the gelding he rode, having emerged on the creek bottom, reined the horse down to a panting, snorting trot upstream toward the mouth of Wood’s Run, somewhat over a mile distant.295 There he planned to head up the smaller stream and follow it northward to where he would encounter a trail that would take him to Fort Vanmetre and Holliday’s Cove.

  Now, shortly after safely reaching the bottom of the great slope, he leaned forward and patted the big gelding’s sweat-soaked neck with soft slaps.

  “You did good, boy,” he said. “Real good!”296

  [September 1, 1777—Monday, 1 P.M.]

  For some six hours the assault against Wheeling had raged virtually without pause. The Indians fired at every gap in the upright pickets that enclosed the fort, at the gate, at every porthole and at every conceivable spot behind which someone might have been taking cover; at the same time, another body of the Indians were firing at the fortified Ebenezer Zane house. They wasted a great deal of ammunition with little real effect.

  A very serious situation arose at the Zane Blockhouse. There were four men there and three women, all of whom had been firing continuously from the rifle ports ever since the fighting first broke out. Up in the loft space, where they had been taken to get them out of the way and give them greater safety, seven small children were huddled, four of them the Zane girls.297 Now the defenders discovered that a keg of gunpowder that was supposed to be on hand was empty, and the remaining supply in their powderhorns was nearly exhausted. Their only hope was to try to get some from the fort, where there was believed to be an ample supply. But Fort Henry was fully 60 yards away. The men began discussing who among them should attempt to pass through the gauntlet of gunfire twice to get it and bring it back here.

  “I’ll go get it.” The words were spoken by Elizabeth Zane, and the others were shocked.

  “You can’t do that, Betsy!” exclaimed Jonathan. “It’s too dangerous. One of us will go.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No, it’ll be safer for me than for one of you. We all know that any man leaving here will be killed before he can get ten feet away. No,” she repeated, “they’ll see I’m a woman, and I’m betting they won’t shoot.”

  They argued for a while, but Elizabeth was adamant, and everyone knew that once her mind was made up, there was no changing it. Silas gave in with an exasperated groan. “All right, do it, but try not to get killed. If you don’t get through, it won’t be the Indians who’ll kill me, it’ll be Ebenezer.” He was only half-joking.

  Gathering up her skirts so they would not impede her, Elizabeth nodded for the door to be opened, and as soon as it was, she raced outside and headed for the nearest portal of the fort, which in this case was the small sally port in the south picket wall. She knew lookouts in the fort would see her coming and have the doorway open for her when she arrived.

  The Indians were stunned when she ran out, and at once the cry was raised, “Squaw! Squaw!”

  As she anticipated, no shots were fired as she ran the 60 yards, and she was able to get into the fort safely. She was met by her husband, who scolded her for taking such a chance, but she merely shrugged it off. “I thought I would get through all right, Eb,” she said, “and I did. I’ll get back just as safely, I promise. Now there’s no time to waste. We’ve got to have gunpowder there, or we’re going under. And the girls are there, Eb.”

  Col. Zane nodded grimly and, though their
own supply was low, called for a keg to be brought. However, when they tried to lift it to her shoulder, it was simply too heavy for her to manage, especially since she would be running. The top of the keg was removed, and while Elizabeth held the ends of her apron to make a pouch, the gunpowder was poured in. She was able to handle about two-thirds of it, and she pulled the apron ends to her chest, the large bulge of the apron in front now making her look as if she were pregnant. She smiled at Ebenezer and kissed him and then nodded her head for the sally port to be opened.

  Once again she raced out, going a little slower now because of the weight she was carrying. She covered a third of the distance back before being discovered, and once again the cry of “Squaw” was raised, but this time there were shots as well. Little spurts of dirt flew up as bullets struck the ground near her, and she began running a zigzag course. More shots were fired, and several balls passed through her skirts without striking her. Amazingly, she reached the blockhouse and plunged inside as the door was momentarily opened. Their own gunpowder was now completely gone, and that which she brought back was their salvation.298