That Dark and Bloody River

by Allan Eckert

  Whittaker dodged in and out past the looming bulk of trees in the darkness, avoiding the patches of snow if he could, so he would leave no tracks. His feet were already cut and bruised, but he paid little attention to them. After running for about ten minutes, he came to the conclusion that what immediate pursuit of him there may have been had broken off. He slowed to an easier, steady run and promptly slammed his forehead into a heavy, low-hanging branch.

  When he regained consciousness, it was daytime. It took him several minutes to realize where he was and what had happened. His head hurt terribly and, when he felt his forehead, it was crusted with clotted blood on an enormous swelling that was very tender to the touch. More snow had fallen while he was unconscious, and the ground was now all but covered. The overcast was breaking up, and he was shocked to see that the sun had already passed its meridian. His feet were painfully cold, though not frostbitten as he at first feared. He tore the sleeves off his woolen hunting shirt and, using the tomahawk that still lay on the ground near him, he cut strips of bark from a leatherwood tree and bound them to his feet.

  Twice more before nightfall he cut more pieces off his shirt to bind his feet. Fearing he would lose his sense of direction in the night, he found a sycamore with a large hollow at its base and huddled inside, cold and hungry and miserable, sleeping fitfully until dawn this morning, when he started off again.

  The course he set for himself would, he thought, bring him to the Ohio River somewhat above Wheeling. But when the great river finally became exposed before him and well below, he saw to his intense relief that he was not more than half a mile above the mouth of Indian Wheeling Creek, and the upper portion of Wheeling Island was directly in front of him.

  When Whittaker reached the river’s edge, he cut more strips of leatherwood and bound lengths of dead dry branches into a makeshift raft, which he leaned his upper body against in the water and kicked his way across the west channel to the island. With difficulty he dragged the raft across to the east channel and again used it as he kicked his way to the left bank of the Ohio.

  Now, staggering and falling as he made his way up the bank and toward Fort Henry, his approach was seen, and several men came running to help him. His vision was fading and, as they reached him, he collapsed into their arms.

  “I never should’ve gone on that damned hunt,” Whittaker mumbled, just before he lost consciousness.

  [January 2, 1791—Sunday]

  The war party of 40 Indians under Blue Jacket were largely Shawnees, but a few Ottawas, Delawares and Kickapoos had come along with them, eager to participate in the strike that would pour salt into the wound of humiliation Gen. Josiah Harmar had suffered on his recent expedition to the Maumee. What better way to do so than to attack and destroy the new settlement built so close to the large fort that bore his name? As a result, on this bright, crisp Sunday morning, they watched from cover the activity taking place among the residents of the brand-new Big Bottom Settlement and poised themselves for the moment when Blue Jacket would give the signal for the attack to commence.

  Hardly a fortnight ago a party of 21 adventurous and enterprising would-be settlers had stopped briefly at Marietta and told the residents of their determination to establish a new settlement on land that had been sold to them by the Ohio Land Company at Big Bottom, 40 miles up the river from this town and Fort Harmar. When settlers at Marietta and officers at Fort Harmar warned that they would be exposing themselves to Indian attack by doing so, they were neither dismayed nor discouraged. The new settlement, they argued, was really not all that far away and, if danger threatened, they could easily flee to Fort Harmar for refuge, since by land it was only 24 miles distant.715

  Studying the activities occurring at the Big Bottom Settlement before them, Blue Jacket smiled coldly. A few small buildings had been erected from lumber that the settlers had brought with them, along with several half-face shelters. The men were busily engaged in cutting, trimming and shaping logs for what would probably be a strongly fortified house, but it was a long way from being finished. At the whispered instructions from the war chief, the warriors spread out in a wide semicircle around the settlement and awaited the attack signal. It was not long in coming.

  As a fierce shriek erupted from Blue Jacket, the warriors sent a thunderous volley of shots at the settlers, taking them wholly by surprise and, in that first firing, killing 11 men, a woman and two children. Then they rushed the place. Three of the settlers, unharmed, managed to sprint away and escape into the nearby woods. The remaining four surrendered without firing a single shot in their own defense.716

  Hardly twenty minutes after the three survivors reached Marietta and reported what occurred, Judge Rufus Putnam was putting the finishing words to the hurried details of the attack he was writing to his good friend, President George Washington. Now he added:

  Sir, unless the government speedily sends a body of troops for our protection we are a ruined people.

  [January 16, 1791—Sunday]

  In an effort to protect himself from the ramifications of his miserable showing in the recent campaign against the Shawnees and Miamis, Gen. Josiah Harmar had named Capt. David Zeigler to head a court of inquiry to investigate and determine the causes of the failure. The court had been seated and, after examination of many witnesses, exonerated the general of any fault and placed the blame entirely on the militia, describing them as an “unruly and riotous group who would not follow orders.”

  The Kentucky militia bellowed their fury when the results became known, and Gen. Harmar smugly retired to his own quarters to imbibe his favorite potable. His vindication, if such it was, was brief in the extreme because the Kentuckians were not mollified, nor was the federal government. The Congress felt that Gen. Harmar should be recalled in the near future and a new army commander be named to resolve this new Indian war speedily and effectively. It then gave President Washington virtually a free hand to act toward this end as he saw fit. Washington did so, calling upon Gov. Arthur St. Clair, who had served him so well during the Revolution, to once more don the mantle of generalship and punish the tribes. St. Clair, he said, would be in command of the army with the rank of major general. He ordered him to begin at once to raise an army of 2,300 men—for which Congress was appropriating over $300,000—and expeditiously prepare them to march against the Shawnees and Miamis on the Maumee and Wabash by the end of summer.

  This time there was to be a different procedure. St. Clair was instructed that en route to the Maumee, he was to build a chain of intermediate forts between Fort Washington and the head of the Maumee, with a major installation to be erected at that latter place on the site of Kekionga. Each of these posts was to be garrisoned as he left it and was to provide a place of refuge for the army should it need to fall back.

  Already the wheels were in motion toward this end, though many of the Kentuckians—Simon Kenton among them—were grumbling that they would never again serve under a commander unfamiliar with Indian warfare. When the discredited and disgruntled Gen. Harmar commented that if St. Clair actually led an army against the tribes on the Maumee, he would be utterly defeated, a comment that was quickly repeated all over the frontier and did little to encourage enlistment. When Simon Kenton was asked his opinion of the governor-general, he put into words what many of the skilled frontiersmen were thinking:

  “St. Clair?” he said. “Well, sir, I’ll tell you. St. Clair, he’s a minister-looking man. He’s well disciplined, too, but he has no briar look about him, no keenness. I’ll not serve under that man.”

  Few Kentuckians, however, would have the option to choose whether they would go, as they would be drafted from the various counties. In this respect Harry Innes, special agent of President Washington, was just beginning to write to the militia commander of each Kentucky county:

  Danville, January 16, 1791

  To: Henry Lee, Colonel

  Commanding Officer of Mason County

  Sir:—I received a letter from Governor St. Clai
r on the 8th Instant dated on the 5th at the Rapids of the Ohio, by which I am informed he had come to the resolution to order out an expedition against the Indians on the Wabash and hath requested me to inform the Commanding Officers of the Militia to hold the proportions to be furnished in each County in readiness as he shall soon call for them, and that he supposes the governor of this state has made the necessary communications to you.

  The residents of Cincinnati, Columbia, North Bend, Colerain and the other settlements that had been springing up so rapidly in the Symmes purchase were overjoyed with the news. Ever since Harmar’s inglorious return, the boldness of the Indians in harassing this frontier was almost beyond belief. New settlement had ground to nearly a standstill and those settlers on hand were petrified with fear and felt that something had to be done to stop it. John Symmes himself was irate over the attacks and believed they would cause him financial ruin if not curtailed without delay, writing:

  I should have had several new stations advanced further into the purchase by next spring but now I shall be very happy if we are able to maintain the three advanced stations. The settlers at them are very much alarmed.… I expect that the panic running through this country will reach Jersey and deter many prospective settlers.

  There was more than good reason for such alarm. Recently, about a dozen miles northeast of Cincinnati, while out hunting with Abel Cook and Levi Buckingham just south of the new Covalt’s Station to provide the settlers with meat, young Abraham Covalt, Jr., had been killed and scalped.717 That was hardly the worst of it. At the larger and more populous settlement called Dunlap’s Station by some and Colerain Station by others, the 75 residents were at this moment packing up and preparing to leave, even though there was a government blockhouse on the site with a cannon and a garrison of a dozen soldiers under the command of Lt. Jacob Kingsbury.718 That was the result of an attack that had occurred less than a fortnight ago. Blue Jacket, accompanied by Simon Girty, had led upward of 300 warriors—Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares and some Potawatomies—in an attack that lasted 24 hours. The residents had managed to get into the blockhouse before the attack, and only one person—one of the privates—was wounded and the Indians were held off by fire from the cannon and rifles. Prior to arriving at the station, however, the Indians had encountered a couple of surveyors. They killed one and took the other, Abner Hunt, captive. Frustrated in their efforts to breach the defenses, the Indians tied Hunt to a tree within sight of the station, gouged out his eyes, disemboweled him with tomahawk blows and finally burned him. Withal, it took Abner Hunt a long time to die.

  [March 25, 1791—Friday]

  Virginia Gov. Beverley Randolph took no pleasure in the order he was writing this moment to the various county lieutenants and militia commanders throughout the state, but he had no choice. The directive he had just received from Secretary of War Henry Knox was painfully clear. By order of the Congress and President of the United States, all troops specifically embodied by the states to make expeditions against the Indians of the Northwest Territory were to be immediately discharged. Further, no man was to harm any Indians with whom the United States was presently at amity. As of the date of the order, defense of the western frontiers was now the exclusive province of the federal government, which would, at its pleasure, should volunteers and regular troops be insufficient, draft into service from the various states whatever men would be required.

  Only too aware of the great increase in attacks by marauding Indians on the frontier since the failure of Harmar’s campaign, Gov. Randolph sighed and began writing the orders, his only consolation being that it would take upward of a month, perhaps even longer, for the order to reach the more distant officials.

  [March 26, 1791—Saturday]

  At his new little station some four miles from Maysville, Col. Henry Lee, county lieutenant of Mason County, was jerked awake by the pounding on his door, accompanied by an unmistakable voice.

  “Henry … Henry! Open up. This is Simon Kenton. No Injens here, but we gotta’ talk. Open up.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Lee called back, climbing out of bed, “and let me get a lamp lit.”

  He hurriedly brought up the low flame on the lamp, brightening the interior, then turned and spoke softly, calmly to his wife, who had also gotten up and stood uncertainly beside the bed. “Get your gun and hold it ready.” As she moved to do so, he snatched his own rifle off the rack on the wall, checked the load and then, gun waist high, opened the door.

  “You k’n put it away, Henry.” Kenton’s huge bulk filled the doorway, and he moved inside as Lee lowered the weapon. “Sorry ’bout the intrusion, Mrs. Lee,” he added when he saw her. Three men followed him inside, two of whom Henry Lee recognized—Alex McIntire and Ben Whiteman. The third man was a stranger, a man in his early twenties with a fresh bandage around his upper left arm.

  Lee motioned toward the table and invited them to sit. Without being asked to do so, Mrs. Lee put her rifle back on the rack, stirred up the fire and hung a kettle over it to heat water for tea. Kenton was speaking as she did so, and Lee joined them at the table.

  “Bad news, Colonel,” he said. “Shawnee war party upstream has hit hard. Harder’n ever on the river. Mebbe thirty-forty dead.” He turned to the stranger seated on a hardback chair beside him. “This here’s William Hubbell, cap’n of a keelboat. He’ll tell you what happened.”

  Hubbell cleared his throat a bit self-consciously and then spoke in a low, cultured voice. “Sir,” he said, “I started out at Pittsburgh, hired to bring down the families of Mr. William Plaskett, Daniel Light, Capt. John Ray, John Stoner, the Reverend Mr. Tucker, a Mr. Bagley and one other, an Irish gentleman whose name I can’t recollect. Shortly after we passed Marietta, a smaller boat overtook and joined us—Capt. Francis Kirkpatrick and three passengers, a German fellow and his two daughters, and some others. Then, just after that another boat put out from shore, and the captain—he said his name was Jacob Greathouse, a big fellow—asked permission to join us for mutual protection. He had his wife, a dozen children and two young men on board. Maybe some others, too, I’m not sure. We all tied up together and continued downstream. We passed a flatboat pulled up on shore, and they waved. Mostly discharged soldiers heading for Cincinnati or Louisville. We asked if they wanted to go down with us, but the captain, he said he was Elijah Strong, said they were going to stretch their legs a little more and would follow us pretty soon.”

  Col. Lee interjected a question: “How many in Strong’s party, Captain Hubbell?”

  Hubbell shrugged and then winced from the pain in his arm. “Don’t know for sure, sir, but quite a few. Twenty, twenty-five, maybe even thirty. Anyway, we kept on drifting. We took off the ropes that were holding the boats together because they were causing some difficulty in steering, but we all were still keeping within a couple hundred yards of each other. And then on Thursday morning—that was last Thursday, at dawn—when we were … Oh, thank you, ma’am,” he interrupted himself as Mrs. Lee set a cup of steaming tea before him. She served the others as well.

  Hubbell eagerly took a sip, then set his cup down and continued. “When we were about six or seven miles above the mouth of the Scioto, we sighted three big Indian canoes—fifty-footers, they looked like—paddling upstream close to the Ohio shore.”

  “How many Indians?” Lee asked, adding, “Shawnees?”

  “Yes sir, Shawnees. About twenty or more in each one. Someone in one of the boats called and told us to put in to the Ohio shore, that we wouldn’t be hurt, but we didn’t believe that for a minute. Capt. Kirkpatrick stood up and hollered back at them that maybe the Devil would trust them, but we wouldn’t. Then he yelled, ‘Come on, we’re ready for you.’

  “Well, sir,” Hubbell went on, “I guess maybe he shouldn’t’ve yelled that because, right off, two of the boats started heading for my boat and the other for Mr. Greathouse’s boat, which was bringing up the rear. They were a lot faster than the flatboats and we saw them catch up and scramble aboard, but
we really couldn’t tell what happened because we got too busy with the two that were coming at us about twenty yards apart. At Captain Plaskett’s order we held our fire until they were about forty yards from us, and when he yelled, ‘They’re near enough!’ we opened fire with seven rifles at once. I saw three of the Indians fall, and the others ducked down for cover. I guess maybe they didn’t think we had much in the way of guns aboard. Those paddling started moving the canoes away fast and those who were crouched down began firing at us a lot.

  “It all got pretty hot for a while,” he said. “Preacher Tucker, who was kneeling on the deck and praying when they began shooting, was struck right off, and John Stoner, too. Bad hits. They were both still alive but, from the looks of it, sure to die. The German fellow took a bullet, too, pretty bad, but he pulled himself out of sight. Mr. Light caught a ball in his shoulder, and Captain Plaskett’s son, who was twelve, had his forehead creased by a ball and was bleeding pretty bad. Several of the horses aboard were hit and fell down either dead or dying, and they and the others were kicking a lot and doing a lot of screaming, they were so scared.

  “They got out of range of us,” Hubbell continued. “At first we thought maybe they were turning back to hit some other boats that were planning to leave Marietta right after us, but they didn’t. They just followed us for about half an hour before they began closing in again. We were beginning to get close to shore and there was a bar ahead and we knew if we grounded on it, we’d be lost. Captain Kirkpatrick’s boat was closest in, and so he jumped up onto the roof of the big cabin and grabbed up one of the poles and began shoving out toward deeper water and better current. He got it headed right, but then he got hit by a ball in the head and fell dead off the roof and landed between two of the dead horses.