That Dark and Bloody River

by Allan Eckert

  Lewis Wetzel, he was told, when only 13, had been captured by the Indians after being shot in the chest and, along with his younger brother, Jacob, had been taken by his captors to the Ohio country. Yet wounded as he was, he had managed to escape, then even went back to the Indian camp and recovered his father’s gun, which the Indians still had, after which he and his little brother got safely back to Wheeling.

  Lewis Wetzel, Wells was told, had in that same year, while still recovering from his wound, taken part in the defense of Wheeling when it was attacked by a large force of Indians.

  Lewis Wetzel, he was told, had developed to a fine art the ability of running and reloading at the same time. He had proven this ability when, the next year, he rescued Frazier and Rose Forrest by shooting one Indian and inducing another to chase him. The Indian saw Wetzel shoot and knew his gun was empty, so he pursued him, but Wetzel had reloaded while running and then calmly turned and shot his pursuer dead.

  Lewis Wetzel, Wells was told, had last fall built a blind to hunt deer from along Wheeling Creek. Only a day or so later, his brother Jacob came to him and told him it appeared to have been tampered with. The two, with their guns, went to the site, and Lewis, in scouting around, found moccasin tracks of five Indians. With Jacob right behind him, Lewis had skillfully tracked the Indians for several miles and found them in the evening just setting up their camp. The boys crept up and Lewis shot one. The others started running off together and the brothers chased them, Lewis reloading as he ran, and they closed the gap enough that they were finally able to stop and shoot, killing two more. By then, the twilight was too deep for further tracking, and the boys returned home with the three scalps, Lewis lamenting that two had gotten away.

  Lewis Wetzel, Caleb Wells was told, only a month ago, had been sent out in the morning by his father to cultivate the cornfield about a mile from their house. As he was doing so, a party of a dozen mounted men from farther up Wheeling Creek rode into view and approached him. Some of their horses, they said, had been stolen during the night and they wanted Lewis to join them to help track the Indians and try to recover the stolen animals.

  “Paw said I shouldn’t go nowhere ’til I got this here cultivatin’ done,” Lewis had responded. “An’ my horse is down at the cabin.”

  “Hell, Lew,” one of them replied, “you’re cultivatin’ with a horse, ain’t ye? Use that one. I shore as hell know you k’n ride bareback.”

  Wetzel was sorely tempted. “That’s Paw’s favorite mare,” he said, then added, “but, what the hell. Sure, let’s go.”

  He unhitched the mare and, rifle in hand and tomahawk in his belt, leaped up on her back and was taken to where the trail of the stolen animals had been lost in a small creek. Lewis picked up the sign very easily and led the way. They followed the trail to the Ohio River, where the horses had been driven across. The party swam their own horses to the Ohio side and Lewis quickly picked up the trail again. By early afternoon they came to where the Indians were camped.

  Thinking themselves safe with the Ohio behind them, the six Wyandots, having marauded all the previous night, had stopped early to rest and eat and had spanceled the horses so they could graze at will in a pasture a short distance away. The whites rushed the camp and easily put the Indians to flight, without their stolen horses. These were rounded up and preparations made to go back, but the mounts the whites had been riding were by now fairly jaded. It was decided to leave them hobbled here and ride the recovered horses back, leaving three men to watch over them for a half hour or so while they rested and grazed, then to bring them along.

  They had traveled only a couple of miles, however, when the three who had been left behind overtook them on foot. The Indians, they said, had come back and surprised them, getting between them and the horses and they had had no recourse but to flee without the animals. The whites talked it over and decided it would be best not to push their luck and simply to go on back to the settlements.

  Not Lewis Wetzel. He leaped off the recovered horse he had been riding and stood looking up at them. “My Paw’s favorite mare is back there,” he said, “which I took when I wasn’t ‘sposed to, an’, by damn, I know what Paw’s like when he’s mad. I sure as hell ain’t gonna go back and face him without that mare. I’d a sight rather git home without my scalp rather than without that mare! Let’s go back and get them horses. Ain’t that what we come t’do?”

  The rest of the party, wary now that the Indians were alerted, refused to return, and Lewis, frustrated and angry, spoke tightly. “Then, by God, if just one o’ you’ll go with me t’back me up a little, we’ll get them horses back.”

  Again they refused and turned their mounts and started toward home. Glaring after them, Lewis yelled, “God damned cowards! That’s what you are, every last one o’ you. I swear I’ll get them horses back if I have t’do it all alone.”

  He started striding away, at which two of the party reluctantly dismounted, turned their horses over to the others and joined him. The rest rode on, leading the three riderless horses. Lewis grinned at the two and said, “Thanks, boys. I exclude you from that last remark I made. Now, let’s go get them horses.”

  They went back on foot with care and, at the same Indian campsite they saw that the horses were still hobbled in the pasture. There were only three Indians in sight, squatting by the fire and eating, the other three having evidently gone on. Now, however, with the enemy in view, even though they were equal in number, what little courage Lewis’s companions had shown evaporated, and they said they wanted to get out of there. It took several minutes for Lewis to convince them otherwise and to lay out a plan of attack that satisfied them.

  Lewis’s plan was to advance in single file, himself in front, until they passed two trees ahead of them, at which point the other two would take positions hidden behind them. A third tree, standing alone in the knee-high grasses and weeds, was much closer to the camp, and when Wetzel got there, it would be the signal for the attack to begin. Wetzel, however, was spotted by the Wyandots just an instant before he reached the tree and the Indians, too, leaped up and treed.

  Lewis yelled for his companions to fire and, when they did not, looked around in time to see them just disappearing, running as fast as they could. It was now a very dangerous situation and Lewis thought fast. He made sure his rifle was primed and cocked and laid it on the ground beside him. He then put his hat on a stick and slowly eased it out from behind the tree, as if he were taking a peek. The range was short—no more than 50 yards—and all three Indians fired almost simultaneously. The hat spun off the stick and instantly Lewis lurched into view, gripping his chest, and then fell headlong into the weeds and tall grasses. Hidden by them, he scooted back on his stomach and recovered his rifle.

  The Indians, believing him to be badly wounded if not dead, left their empty guns behind and burst from cover, tomahawks in hand, and raced toward where he had fallen. When they were 30 yards distant, he leaped up and shot the foremost Indian through the heart. With savage howls, the other two came on at full speed, knowing his gun was now empty.

  Fleet as he was, Lewis was able to maintain the distance separating them, even though reloading while running. In a short while he was ready to fire again and abruptly stopped, wheeled and did so, killing the next Indian as he had the first. Then he turned and fled, the final Wyandot still approaching at full run and closing fast. Once again Lewis reloaded as he ran, but he had lost much of the gap separating them now and, as he turned to fire a third time, saw the Indian was so close that he was in the act of hurling the tomahawk at him. Lewis sidestepped the whizzing weapon, and shot from the hip a bullet into the middle of the warrior’s forehead.

  Lewis scalped the three dead Indians, gathered up their weapons and ammunition and tied them in a bundle. By this time twilight was gathering. He went out into the pasture, easily caught his father’s mare and tied the bundle to her, then caught the hobbled horses and tethered them together in single file behind the mare. Removing her
hobbles, he mounted and led the whole string of horses back the way they had come.

  It had been dark for quite a while by the time he neared the Ohio River. He spied a campfire’s glint and approached cautiously. As anticipated, it turned out to be the Wheeling settlers, who had decided to camp for the night rather than cross the Ohio in the dark. To avoid being mistaken for an Indian and shot, Wetzel called out, identifying himself and saying that he was coming in. The group’s surprise was great and their awe and admiration boundless when they saw that he had recovered not only all the horses, but all the Indian weapons and their scalps to boot. If they hadn’t considered Lewis Wetzel something of a wonder heretofore, they certainly did now, and the story of his incredible feat was still making the rounds on the frontier.

  So, with all these stories being told of the amazing abilities of this remarkable 16-year-old, Caleb Wells was more than just a little jealous of Wetzel’s fame. Wells, at 21, was a big man—six feet four inches in height and 215 pounds.403 He was very muscular, a good runner, fighter and shooter—who had also long been practicing the skill of reloading as he ran. He considered himself more than a match for the young Wetzel and today he was going to prove it.

  One of the more enjoyable recreations observed by the settlers at Wheeling, usually on a Sunday afternoon following services, was a competition of frontier skills. Because of the planned Muskingum expedition, the competition had at first been canceled, but now, with the expedition deferred and the assembled men very restive, it had been decided to go ahead with the event. Today’s affair would be especially interesting, not only because there were a great many more men here than usual, both to participate and spectate, but because Lewis Wetzel was going to join in. Unfortunately, however, some of the more skilled men would be absent from this day’s event—men such as Samuel Brady, Thomas Edgington, John and Abram Cuppy, Samuel and John McCulloch, John and Hezekiah Bukey and the Dickerson brothers, Vachel and Kinzie, all of whom were presently off on one of Brady’s patrols.

  The various competitions were simple yet demanding, involving speed, skill, dexterity, marksmanship and physical endurance. In each event, contestants would gradually be eliminated until only two remained, and those two would then compete on a one-to-one basis to see whose skills would prevail.

  One of the highly popular events was tomahawk-throwing at different distances, both while standing still and in full run, with a series of marked barrels as targets. Knife-throwing at a number of posts planted upright in the ground to a height of six feet was yet another event, again both at a standstill and while running. Leaping was a popular and demanding event; first over two barrels beside one another, then over three with the third placed atop the other two, then over five, with three on the bottom and two on the top.

  In the final event a barrel would be placed on its side, and the contestant would start off to one side with an empty gun, run about 100 yards, loading as he did so, and, as he reached a point opposite the end of the barrel some 50 yards distant, quickly wheel about and fire. The judges would then examine the barrelhead to see if the ball had struck truly and, if so, determine its nearness to the center, where there was a circle about the diameter of a walnut.

  The prizes were not large—normally a quart of rum for the winner of each event and a gallon of rum to the individual judged best in all events. Of course, a certain amount of cash betting went on between individuals who had specific favorites.

  Hour after hour the competition progressed and finally there were only two contestants left—Lewis Wetzel and Caleb Wells. The crowd was wild with excitement as the last round of trials began. Wetzel won the tomahawk-throw by a fair margin; Wells won the knife-throw by an even greater margin. In the barrel-jumping, Wells cleared five and so did Wetzel, so this time an unprecedented sixth was added atop the two elevated barrels. Wells couldn’t clear it in three attempts and knocked the barrels—and himself—into a jumble each time. Wetzel knocked them over the first time, but on the second attempt he launched himself through the air in an upward dive, cleared the top barrel just barely and struck the ground on the other side with a rolling somersault amid the excited cheers of the onlookers.

  The last test was now at hand. Two barrels were laid on end ten feet apart, 50 yards from the starting line and 50 yards apart. The two men were to begin running, loading their weapons as they did so, Wetzel firing at the first barrelhead as he passed the nearest point, Wells at the second. They were then to continue running, circle a post 50 yards farther distant and return, reloading as they ran and firing at the same barrels. At the finish line they were to turn and repeat the whole process; 400 yards and four shots. It was a test of speed, reloading ability and accuracy. A gunshot started them off, and they ran side by side, reloading, for the first 40 yards; then Wetzel took the lead by a yard or so. As he wheeled and fired at the first barrel, Wells passed him by. As Wells wheeled and fired at the second, Wetzel passed him by, and they rounded the post at the end with Wetzel having a two-yard lead. On the second pass, Wells couldn’t get his gun reloaded in time and passed without shooting, but Wetzel got his shot off. On the third pass, Wetzel’s foot caught on a root just before reaching the barrels and he tumbled, his gun flying and losing its prime. Wells passed him by and made his shot. Wetzel scooped up his gun and followed, not having taken his shot. The exertions were taking their toll and Wells began to flag a bit. They reached and rounded the far post with Wetzel at his heels, and they passed the barrels, wheeling and firing at almost a dead heat. At the finish line, Wetzel was fully three yards in the lead. There were wild cheers, but the winner was not yet pronounced; the barrelheads had to be checked. At the first barrel, Wetzel had placed two balls close to the center, no more than an inch apart, and a third hole was a hand’s breadth away. At the Wells barrel, one bullet hole was midway between the center of the barrelhead and the rim. Another had nicked the rim. One had evidently missed.

  The two contestants shook hands and then Wetzel grinned and said, “You’re good. Real good. I’m better.”

  [July 24, 1780—Monday]

  That settlers would continue to penetrate into the wilderness and establish themselves and their families there in spite of the continued Indian attacks was incredible, yet so strong was their drive to possess land that they considered the risk worthwhile. For their rashness, many paid the ultimate price.

  This had been especially true of late in the valley of the Kanawha and its tributaries, where the Shawnees were ranging in a number of small- to medium-size raiding parties. Ten days ago in the Greenbrier Valley, experienced frontiersman Hugh McIver had been ambushed near his cabin and killed and his wife captured. Not far away the next day, July 15, the same or another war party spied veteran frontiersman John Pryor crossing the Kanawha River with his wife and little daughter. The Indians attacked as the boat came ashore, shooting Pryor through the chest and taking his family prisoner. Pryor, though severely wounded, managed to get away and reach the settlement, but he died that night.404

  The next day another party of some 30 Shawnees hit three cabins about a mile upstream from the Little Levels Settlement. Creeping up unseen, they unexpectedly plunged into the three cabins simultaneously. In the first cabin they killed and scalped Thomas Drennon and captured his wife and two of their children, but his 14-year-old son, Andrew, managed to escape and ran toward the Little Levels Settlement for help. In an adjoining cabin the Indians killed Jacob Smith and took his wife and children captive. Outside the third cabin they killed Henry Baker, but his partner, Richard Hill, though wounded, managed to get inside the cabin and bar the door. Quickly plundering the two open cabins, the Indians took what they wanted and then departed with their captives. They had only gone a half-mile when they encountered Capt. Samuel McClung and his wife, along with her elderly father, William Munday, coming their way. The Indians opened fire. Munday was killed, but McClung and his wife, both slightly wounded, managed to escape into the forest.

  Andrew Drennon returned from Littl
e Levels with a party of 20 men and found the Indians gone with their prisoners and the cabins plundered. They treated Hill’s wound as best they could and buried the dead. It was too late in the day and too dangerous to follow so large a Shawnee party, so they barricaded themselves in the cabins overnight. At dawn they started their return to Little Levels. Two brothers in their early twenties—John and Henry Bridges—decided to take a shortcut on a less-used trail. They were ambushed and both were tomahawked and scalped.

  The following day, several miles farther down the Greenbrier, the isolated cabin of William Griffith was struck, Griffith and his daughter, Beth, were killed, and his wife, Elizabeth, and son, James, were taken captive.

  The main Shawnee party broke up then and dispersed in smaller groups, most of them heading back toward the Ohio country. The trail of one of these parties was discovered by four whites who were hunting on the Kanawha. William Arbuckle, John Young, Robert Aaron and Benjamin Morris took up the trail at once, followed it across the Elk River and then upstream on that tributary to the mouth of Little Sandy Creek. Here the trail went up the west bank of the creek to an unnamed tributary entering from the west. Bob Aaron promptly named the stream Aarons Fork, after himself. This fork soon branched and they followed the raiders to near the headwaters, where they found them camped.405 There were only two men and a boy, and they believed the latter to be a captive. They crept up close and fired on the camp, killing one of the men. The other leaped off into the dark woods and escaped. The dead man turned out to be a white renegade in Indian garb, though none knew who he was, and the boy was James Griffith, who said his mother had been taken by another group of the Indians.406 The party named the smaller branch after the dead renegade, calling it White Man’s Branch.