by Allan Eckert
Chapter 5
[January 10, 1781—Wednesday]
Martin Wetzel peered through the screen of bushes at the cluster of cabins and the small fort a few hundred yards ahead, and he knew that what he was about to do was extremely dangerous, especially in view of what had happened here last night. It would be grimly ironic, he thought, to have come this far with his plan, only to have his brains blown out by some individual who thought with his trigger finger instead of his head. Yet, considering what he had gone through in the past several days, he really had little choice but to go ahead with it.
He wondered what Skootekitehi’s reaction would be when he finally put together the pieces and realized what his adopted brother had done. In a way, he felt sorry for the pain it would cause him. More than once Skootekitehi had protected him from other members of the tribe at no little risk to himself, and now Martin had betrayed him.
The whole matter had its beginning when the war party was put together at Chalahgawtha in December. Skootekitehi had planned to go and to take Martin along this time, but then, just before they were to leave, Skootekitehi was incapacitated with influenza, as were so many others of the tribe. The ill warrior, feverish though he was, placed Martin in the care of his wife’s brother, Cholutha, and told them to go ahead as planned, without him. Having been with the tribe for more than two and a half years by this time, Wetzel spoke the Shawnee tongue fluently, so there would be no problem in communication.
The war party included close to 100 warriors and had been formed as much to get horses from the Kentucky settlements as it was to strike whomever they could. Wetzel had been under the impression that he would be crossing the Ohio River with them and planned that somewhere along the way he would find an opportunity to escape back to the whites. His disappointment was keen when, as they neared the Ohio River, he discovered he was not to be allowed to cross.
The large party had made its camp a few miles north of the big river and here they had broken into half a dozen or more smaller parties that were to cross the river and then spread out to strike at various settlements. A fair-size segment of the main party was to remain on the Ohio side and Cholutha, with Wetzel in tow, was assigned to that segment. Their task would be to hunt and bring in meat for the warriors who would be returning from Kentucky and bringing across the horses they had taken. Those warriors would then be fed and get some rest before being resupplied to go back across the river for more raiding. In the meanwhile another contingent of the party to which Wetzel was attached would herd the captured horses in relays to Chalahgawtha.
The hunting party to which Wetzel was attached consisted of four men including Cholutha and himself, plus a burly warrior named Kwitateh—Otter—and a younger warrior named Niewe Kilechi—Four Fingers—who walked with a slight limp from a bullet wound suffered several years ago. Each was armed with a flintlock rifle and a small amount of ammunition, as well as their tomahawks and skinning knives. They were to do their hunting somewhat to the north and east of the camp, along the waters of a tributary of the Little Miami.414
Knowing that, as always, he was being carefully watched, Wetzel at first performed entirely as was expected of him. Though permitted to go off by himself and hunt alone, he knew that the others were not far distant and it would be foolhardy to merely attempt to run off. His three companions were all good trackers and there was every likelihood that if he did so, they would quickly track him down, at which point they would have the right to kill him on the spot or return him to Chalahgawtha for death at the stake.
On the first day of their hunt, he managed to bring down a deer about a half-mile from their camp and carried his quarry back there. He was the first to return and he gutted and hung the deer, then gathered new wood for the fire and performed other camp duties, certain he was being watched all the while. The others came into camp one at a time over the next hour. Niewe Kilechi had been unsuccessful, but Kwitateh had bagged a turkey and Cholutha, like Wetzel, brought in a deer. Martin cleaned and cooked the turkey for their dinner, after which, sitting about the fire, each in turn related his day’s activities.
By the end of the first week of their hunt, Wetzel was aware that the attitude of the others toward him had become more relaxed and he no longer felt he was under such close scrutiny as previously. He decided that he was now ready to initiate his escape plan. The next morning when they separated to hunt, Wetzel went his own way at first but then circled around quickly and began to follow Kwitateh, keeping a close watch on the big, barrel-chested hunter, while at the same time remaining out of sight and making sure that neither of the other two hunters were nearby.
Toward midday Kwitateh became more alert and crept up behind the roots of an overturned tree, from which he peered out at something ahead. As Wetzel moved in closer, he could see that what had taken the warrior’s attention was a little group of seven or eight buffalo approaching from the other side of a prairie. Wetzel was now no more than 30 yards away and, as Kwitateh slowly raised his rifle and took aim, Martin brought his own gun up and sent a ball into the back of Kwitateh’s skull.
The buffalo ran off together at a tangent and, after waiting a few minutes to make sure he was unobserved, Wetzel moved to the fallen tree, scalped Kwitateh and then shoved his body into the deepest part of the root hole and covered both him and his gun with dead leaves. He then covered that with branches and brush. Satisfied, he shook the scalp free of blood and stuffed it into his pouch, then hastened back to the camp, killing a raccoon on the way. As previously, he was first to return and he cleaned the animal, gathered wood, built the fire and was roasting the raccoon when Cholutha returned, having bagged nothing, and then, about half an hour later, Niewe Kilechi showed up with a yearling doe.
Twilight was gathering by the time the raccoon was fully cooked and Martin frowned. “I wonder what is keeping Kwitateh?” he asked.
Cholutha shrugged. “Maybe,” he said, “he went out farther looking for a new hunting place.”
“Or,” added Niewe Kilechi, “he may be trailing an animal he wounded and it has gotten too late for him to get back here. We’ll see him tomorrow. Let’s eat.”
They ate, then rolled up in their blankets before the fire and Cholutha and Niewe Kilechi went to sleep. Wetzel, however, remained awake and argued with himself over whether it would be better to try to kill the other two now or wait till the morrow and kill them one by one. He finally decided there was too much risk involved in trying to kill both at once and elected to follow the latter plan. Then he went to sleep.
In the morning Cholutha said that this day’s hunt or the next should be enough and they would use the deer skins to make bundles to carry the meat back to the main camp. The three then separated to hunt and, as before, Wetzel circled and got behind Niewe Kilechi. After following him until midday, he suddenly called to the warrior and approached him as if he had just come across him by accident. The two discussed their morning’s hunt and when Niewe Kilechi, completely off guard, turned to look at something, Wetzel jerked out his tomahawk and buried it in the young man’s head, killing him. After taking the scalp, he dragged the body to a nearby sycamore that was hollow at its base and stuffed it inside, along with the gun, then pushed in branches and brush to hide it.
Returning to camp he waited for the return of Cholutha. Toward late afternoon he showed up carrying another deer over his shoulders and Wetzel hurried toward him as if to aid him by taking the burden from him. Cholutha bent over to let Martin get a grip on the animal and while he was in this position, Wetzel swung his tomahawk a violent blow and killed him. Relaxing now, he scalped Cholutha, taking some of the meat and whatever else he wanted from the camp and simply walked away, leaving the body where it had fallen.
He headed directly south toward the Ohio River and was just approaching it when he encountered a small raiding party of seven warriors from the main body, heading out for their second foray across the river to take horses and perhaps capture a settler from whom they could perhaps glea
n some important information about the present defenses of the Kentucky settlements. Familiar with him, they were not suspicious, and when he told them he had gotten lost and had been separated from his companions for two days, they told him he should come along with them. They went to where their canoes were hidden at a creek mouth and crossed the river, pulling their craft well up on the shore and covering them with brush before striking out southward.
Yesterday they had reached the vicinity of Strode’s Station just a few miles southwest of the ruins of Ruddell’s and Martin’s stations. They carefully spied on the place from hiding during the day and that night, well after dark, moved in stealthily toward the horse corral. As they did so, Wetzel separated himself from the others in the darkness and then loped away to the south and west toward where the warriors had told him Boonesboro was located.
After a mile he slowed to a walk and continued walking for another hour or so before stopping to rest and nap. He had awakened with the sunrise this morning, inwardly exulting at having escaped his captivity, and continued in the direction he had been headed, gnawing at some of the meat he had brought along. He was now keenly aware that, clad as an Indian and with streaks of paint on his face, he was likely to be shot by any white who saw him before he had a chance to identify himself. He stopped at the next little stream he encountered. It was coated with a thin skin of ice but he broke through it easily with his tomahawk and washed away all the war paint. That still left him, however, clad in Indian garb. He considered discarding it and continuing naked, which was probably safest, but it was simply too cold for that.
A short time later he had reached the spot where he was now, peering at the cluster of buildings and the small, sturdy fortification of a settlement that he took to be Boonesboro. He could see at least two sentinels making their rounds and wondered if he would be able to make it in without being shot. At this stage of the game, there was nothing to do but try.
Setting his rifle aside and stepping boldly from his hiding place, he strode toward the station and began repeating loudly as he walked, “Don’t shoot! I’m a white man! Don’t shoot!”
Either they did not understand him or they believed it to be a ruse. In any case, the sentries shouted a warning and within moments armed men were appearing all over. Still, they hadn’t shot and Wetzel was beginning to lose the apprehension that filled him, when, as he came within about 50 yards of the place, one of the sentries aimed at him and squeezed the trigger. There was a snap and a puff of smoke but no report; the firing, fortunately for Wetzel, had been a flash in the pan.
Wetzel immediately threw himself to the ground and bawled out even louder, “For God’s sake, don’t shoot! I’m white. I’ve just escaped from the Shawnees.”
There was a confusing babble of voices and then half a dozen men began approaching carefully, their guns at ready and their gaze not only taking in the man on the ground but carefully studying the heavier cover now well behind him, more than half convinced that a large party of Indians lay in ambush somewhere out there. When it became apparent that such was not the case, they pulled him rather ungently to his feet and led him to the settlement. That was when Wetzel discovered that this was not Boonesboro but, rather, Bryan’s Station, a dozen miles north of Boonesboro.415
Although he identified himself as Martin Wetzel and related details of his captivity, which had lasted two years and nine months, and even showed them the three scalps he had taken in effecting his escape, they did not believe him. They accused him of being a renegade spy and threatened to kill him. Part of the reason they did not believe him was because he told them that the war party he had accompanied came from Chalahgawtha, but many of the men at Bryan’s Station had been on Clark’s expedition last August and had found Chalahgawtha abandoned and burning when they arrived.
Wetzel had never met Daniel Boone but knew of him and asked that he be summoned to hear his story and judge for himself the truth of it. They agreed that, since Boone had himself been held captive by the Shawnees at Chalahgawtha and escaped from them, this would be a good idea and they sent a rider off to Boonesboro immediately. Slightly less than four hours later, Daniel Boone returned with the messenger and several other men. Once again Wetzel told the story of his captivity. He added, as well, that the Shawnees had rebuilt Chalahgawtha and, aided by the British, were planning to commence another major assault against the Kentucky settlements next spring.
“Well, boys,” Boone said, when Wetzel finished his relation, “I don’t find anything at all improbable ’bout what he says. There ain’t no doubt in my mind that he’s who he says he is and that things’ve happened the way he’s told ’em. Better let ’im go.”
“Still think we ort’a kill ’im,” one of the settlers grumbled.
“Would you’ve wanted to kill me when I got away from ’em?” Boone asked reasonably. “If you’re gonna kill white captives who escape from the Injens, that sure ain’t gonna be much encouragement for others t’try t’get away.”
Martin Wetzel was released. Impressed by Boone and the beautiful rolling hills and vast meadows of this area, and hoping to have a chance to also meet Simon Kenton, of whom he had heard a great deal, Wetzel decided he’d stay in Kentucky and serve as a scout and spy for a while before heading back to Wheeling Creek.
[April 20, 1781—Friday]
Gov. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia sat back in his chair and gazed dejectedly at the piles of correspondence and reports stacked on his desk, material he had spent all morning and much of the afternoon going over, bringing himself up to date in matters of the war and especially the situation on the frontier in respect to the Indians. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling decades older than his 38 years.
The situation in Kentucky was particularly bad, he knew, and even though the settlements there were no longer so precariously perched on the brink of extinction as they had been in recent years, yet if the planned invasion by British-supported Indians were the success the enemy anticipated, the seeming permanency of the settlements could quickly be undermined.
One factor in the Americans’ favor, of course, was the large number of emigrants still streaming down the Ohio and settling along its shores all the way from Fort Pitt down to the Falls and even lower. On the surface, things looked very good in these remote areas. Interior Kentucky, for example, now had a respectable population and many of the settlements were actually becoming real villages. Several of the older settlements, in fact, such as Harrodsburg, Danville, Lexington and Stanford—which is what Ben Logan’s old fort called St. Asaph’s was being called these days—had substantial populations. The initial log cabins were gradually giving way to new and better and certainly more graceful structures, including brick buildings with fine colonnades. Regular stores were being opened as well as a variety of other businesses: livery stables, blacksmiths, general merchandise establishments, marketplaces, barber shops and others. Schools were being opened and good teachers were now making their way to these distant places. And in Harrodsburg, whose population now exceeded 2,500, plans were already under way to erect a fine, large, stately courthouse, the first of any real character in that great western land.
Despite all such growth and development, Thomas Jefferson was painfully aware that numbers alone were not sufficient to provide security for the Kentucky inhabitants. They, as well as the upper Ohio settlements, needed strong backup—troops, munitions, supplies, provisions—to fend off the marauding bands of warriors constantly making incursions against them. With more massive invasions being planned by the enemy, those fragile stems of American growth sprouting in the entire Ohio River Valley could all too easily be uprooted beyond the point of recovery.
One of the bright spots in this grim prospect was embodied in the frame of the tough frontier officer who had so adroitly taken the Illinois country from British control and had recently and effectively marched his militia army against the Shawnees in their very heartland in Ohio—George Rogers Clark. Now Clark was preparing a major offensive
against the northwestern tribes that was planned to be as devastating against them as Maj. Gen. John Sullivan’s had been against the Iroquois in 1779. This new force was being readied under his command at the recommendation of Gen. Washington, with the states expected to pay their fair share of the cost. To that end, the Virginia Executive Council in January had issued a warrant to him for £400,000, on account. In addition, an order had been sent by that body for Capt. Quick of the Virginia War Office to immediately send to Fort Pitt, for use by Clark’s officers, a total of 100 well-made grenadier swords. At the same time Clark was promoted to brigadier general over “the forces to be embodied on an expedition westward of the Ohio” and was named commander-in-chief of the Western Department of the Army of Virginia. A potential problem with all this was that, although George Washington was aware of all that was going on, he had neglected to mention any of it to Congress.
George Rogers Clark was to temporarily use Fort Pitt as a staging point, where the supplies, provisions, ammunition and some of the troops for his proposed expedition would be stored. The fact that this was a great irritation to Col. Brodhead and the residents of the upper Ohio, who had been crying for just such support for many months, could not be helped. There was not enough for all. Clark, at the moment, had priority.
Moving toward Fort Pitt, Clark stopped temporarily at the Youghiogheny, where he discovered to his dismay that much of what he expected the Continental Congress to provide in supplies and munitions—especially respecting artillery—was not on hand. He had immediately written to Congress in something of a pique:
Yough, April 2d 1781
Gentm:
I make no doubt but that you are fully acquainted with the design of the enterprise I am ordered on to the North West, the success of which greatly depends on the stores ordered by his Excellency, Genl. Washington, to be furnished at Pittsburgh. On examination, it’s found that many articles are wanting that cannot be done without, as per the indent of Capt. Craig, who commands the artillery on the campaign. As you must know, the sentiments of the Commander-in-Chief respecting those furnitures, and confident from the nature of the enterprise, you would wish to give it every aid, I flatter myself the Captain will meet with no difficulty in procuring such articles as he may want to complete him. The Captain’s company at present is very weak. I would take the liberty to solicit a reinforcement to it; also nine or ten artillery artificers, and a tin plate worker. These favors I shall endeavor to acknowledge by doing all the service in my power to my country, and beg leave to subscribe myself; gentm.,