The Winning of the West

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by Theodore Roosevelt


  Incidents such as these followed one another in quick succession. They deserve notice less for their own sakes than as examples of the way the West was won; for the land was really conquered not so much by the actual shock of battle between bodies of soldiers, as by the continuous westward movement of the armed settlers and the unceasing individual warfare waged between them and their red foes.

  For the same reason one or two of the more noted hunters and Indian scouts deserve mention, as types of hundreds of their fellows, who spent their lives and met their deaths in the forest. It was their warfare that really did most to diminish the fighting force of the tribes. They battled exactly as their foes did, making forays, alone or in small parties, for scalps and horses, and in their skirmishes inflicted as much loss as they received; in striking contrast to what occurred in conflicts between the savages and regular troops.

  One of the most formidable of these hunters was Lewis Wetzel.79 Boone, Kenton, and Harrod illustrate by their lives the nobler, kindlier traits of the dauntless border-folk; Wetzel, like McGarry, shows the dark side of the picture. He was a good friend to his white neighbors, or at least to such of them as he liked, and as a hunter and fighter there was not in all the land his superior. But he was of brutal and violent temper, and for the Indians he knew no pity and felt no generosity. They had killed many of his friends and relations, among others his father; and he hunted them in peace or war like wolves. His admirers denied that he ever showed “unwonted cruelty”80 to Indian women and children; that he sometimes killed them can not be gainsaid. Some of his feats were cold-blooded murders, as when he killed an Indian who came in to treat with General Harmar, under pledge of safe conduct; one of his brothers slew in like fashion a chief who came to see Colonel Brodhead. But the frontiersmen loved him, for his mere presence was a protection, so great was the terror he inspired among the red men. His hardihood and address were only equaled by his daring and courage. He was literally a man without fear; in his few days of peace his chief amusements were wrestling, footracing, and shooting at a mark. He was a dandy, too, after the fashion of the backwoods, especially proud of his name of long hair, which, when he let it down, hung to his knees. He often hunted alone in the Indian country, a hundred miles beyond the Ohio. As he dared not light a bright fire on these trips, he would, on cold nights, make a small coalpit, and cower over it, drawing his blanket over his head, when, to use his own words, he soon became as hot as in a “stove room” Once he surprised four Indians sleeping in their camp; falling on them he killed three. Another time, when pursued by the same number of foes, he loaded his rifle as he ran, and killed in succession the three foremost, whereat the other fled. In all, he took over thirty scalps of warriors, thus killing more Indians than were slain by either one of the two large armies of Braddock and St. Clair during their disastrous campaigns. Wetzel’s frame, like his heart, was of steel. But his temper was too sullen and unruly for him ever to submit to command or to bear rule over others. His feats were performed when he was either alone or with two or three associates. An army of such men would have been wholly valueless.

  Another man, of a far higher type, was Captain Samuel Brady, already a noted Indian fighter on the Alleghany. For many years after the close of the Revolutionary War he was the chief reliance of the frontiersmen of his own neighborhood. He had lost a father and a brother by the Indians; and in return he followed the red men with relentless hatred. But he never killed peaceful Indians nor those who came in under flags of truce. The tale of his wanderings, his captivities, his hairbreadth escapes, and deeds of individual prowess would fill a book. He frequently went on scouts alone, either to procure information or to get scalps. On these trips he was not only often reduced to the last extremity by hunger, fatigue, and exposure, but was in hourly peril of his life from the Indians he was hunting. Once he was captured; but when about to be bound to the stake for burning he suddenly flung an Indian boy into the fire, and in the confusion burst through the warriors, and actually made his escape, though the whole pack of yelling savages followed at his heels with rifle and tomahawk. He raised a small company of scouts or rangers, and was one of the very few captains able to reduce the unruly frontiersmen to order. In consequence his company on several occasions fairly whipped superior numbers of Indians in the woods; a feat that no regulars could perform, and to which the backwoodsmen themselves were generally unequal, even though an overmatch for their foes singly, because of their disregard of discipline.81

  So, with foray and reprisal, and fierce private war, with all the border in a flame, the year 1781 came to an end. At its close there were in Kentucky seven hundred and sixty able-bodied militia, fit for an offensive campaign.82 As this did not include the troops at the Falls, nor the large shifting population, nor the “fort soldiers,” the weaker men, gray-beards, and boys, who could handle a rifle behind a stockade, it is probable that there were then somewhere between four and five thousand souls in Kentucky.

  1 May, 1779; they did not take effect nor was a land court established until the following fall, when the land office was opened at St. Asaphs, Oct. 13th. Isaac Shelby’s claim was the first one considered and granted. He had raised a crop of corn in the country in 1776.

  2 The Ohio Company was the greatest of the companies. There were “also, among private rights, the ancient importation rights, the Henderson Company rights,” etc. See Marshall, I, 82.

  3 McAfee MSS.

  4 Prom the Clay MSS. “Virginia, Frederick Co. to wit: This day came William Smith of [illegible] before me John A. Woodcock, a Justice of the Peace of the same county, who being of full age deposeth and saith that about the first of June, 1780, being in Kentucky and empowered to purchase Land, for Mr. James Ware, he the deponent agreed with a certain Simon Kenton of Kentucky for 1000 Acres of Land about 2 or 3 miles from the big salt spring on Licking, that the sd. Kenton on condition that the sd. Smith would pay him £100 in hand and £100 more when sd. Land was surveyed, … sd. Kenton on his part wou’d have the land surveyed, and a fee Simple made there to… . sd. Land was first rate Land and had a good Spring thereon… . he agreed to warrant and defend the same … against all persons whatsoever sworn too before me this 17th day of Nov. 1789.” Later on, the purchaser, who did not take possession of the land for eight or nine years, feared it would not prove as fertile as Kenton had said, and threatened to sue Kenton; but Kenton evidently had the whip-hand in the controversy, for the land being out in the wilderness, the purchaser did not know its exact location, and when he threatened suit, and asked to be shown it, Kenton “swore that he would not shoe it at all.” Letter of James Ware, Nov. 29, 1789.

  5 Thus the increase of population is to be measured by the net gain of immigration over emigration, not by immigration alone. It is probably partly neglect of this fact, and partly simple exaggeration, that make the early statements of the additions to the Kentucky population so very untrustworthy. In 1783, at the end of the Revolution, the population of Kentucky was probably nearer 12,000 than 20,000, and it had grown steadily each year. Yet Butler quotes Floyd as saying that in the spring of 1780 three hundred large family boats arrived at the Falls, which would mean an increase of perhaps four or five thousand people; and in the McAfee MSS. occurs the statement that in 1779 and 1780 nearly 20,000 people came to Kentucky. Both of these statements are probably mere estimates, greatly exaggerated; any Westerner of to-day can instance similar reports of movements to Western localities, which under a strict census dwindled woefully.

  6 Durrett MSS., in the bound volume of “Papers Relating to Louisville and Kentucky.” On May 1, 1780, the people living at the Falls, having established a town, forty-six of them signed a petition to have their title made good against Conolly. On Feb. 7, 1781, John Todd and five other trustees of Louisville met; they passed resolutions to erect a grist mill and make surveys.

  7 MS. “Notes on Kentucky,” by George Bradford, who went there in 1779; in the Durrett collection. Haldimand MSS., Letter of Henry Bird, June 9, 17
79. As this letter is very important, and gives for the first time the Indian side, I print it in the Appendix almost in full. The accounts of course conflict somewhat; chiefly as to the number of cabins burnt—from five to forty, and of horses captured—from thirty to three hundred. They agree in all essential points. But as among the whites themselves there is one serious question, Logan’s admirers, and most Kentucky historians, hold Bowman responsible for the defeat; but in reality (see Butler. p. 110) there seems strong reason to believe that it was simply due to the unexpectedly strong resistance of the Indians. Bird’s letter shows, what the Kentuckians never suspected, that the attack was a great benefit to them in frightening the Indians and stopping a serious inroad. It undoubtedly accomplished more than Clark’s attack on Piqua next year, for instance.

  8 Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, Nov. 20, 1779.

  9 Do., Oct. 20, 1779.

  10 Haldimand MSS. Haldimand’s letter, July 23, 1779.

  11 Haldimand MSS., April 8, 1779.

  12 One hundred and fifty strong, under Col. George Slaughter.

  13 Boone, in his Narrative, makes a mistake in putting this hard winter a year later; all the other authorities are unani mous against him.

  14 McAfee MSS. Of the McAfees’ horses ten died, and only two survived, a brown mare and “a yellow horse called Chickasaw.” Exactly a hundred years later, in the hard winter of 1879-80, and the still worse winter of 1880-81, the settlers on the Yellowstone and the few hunters who wintered on the Little Missouri had a similar experience. The buffalo crowded with the few tame cattle round the hayricks and log-stables; the starving deer and antelope gathered in immense bands in sheltered places. Riding from my ranch to a neighbor’s I have, in deep snows, passed through herds of antelope that would barely move fifty or a hundred feet out of my way.

  15 Do.

  16 From fifty dollars (Continental money) a bushel in the fall to one hundred and seventy-five in the spring.

  17 McAfee MSS.

  18 Boone’s Narrative.

  19 McAfee MSS.

  20 “Historical Magazine,” Second Series, Vol. VIII.

  21 McAfee MSS.

  22 Do.

  23 Marshall, p. 124.

  24 McAfee MSS.

  25 Lettres d’un Cultivateur Américain, St. John de Creve Cœur, Paris, 1787, p. 407. He visited Kentucky in 1784.

  26 MS. Journals of Rev. James Smith. Tours in Western country in 1785-1795 (in Col. Durrett’s library).

  27 State Department MSS. No. 41, Vol. V, Memorials K, L, 1777-1787, pp. 95-97, Petition of Low Dutch Reformed Church, etc.

  28 Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to Guy Johnson, June 30, 1780.

  29 Do. Haldimand to De Peyster, Feb. 12 and July 6, 1780.

  30 Do. De Peyster to Haldimand, June 1, 1780.

  31 Do. March 8, 1780.

  32 Do. May 17 to July 19, 1780.

  33 He marched overland from the forks of the Licking. Marshall says the season was dry and the waters low; but the Bradford MSS. particularly declare that Bird only went up the Licking at all because the watercourses were so full, and that he had originally intended to attack the settlements at the Falls.

  34 Collins, Butler, etc. Marshall thinks that if the forces could have been held together it would have depopulated Kentucky; but this is nonsense, for within a week Clark had gathered a very much larger and more efficient body of troops.

  35 Haldimand MSS. Letter of Bombardier Wm. Homan, Aug. 18, 1780. He speaks of “the gun” and “the smaller ordnance,” presumably swivels. It is impossible to give Bird’s numbers correctly, for various bands of Indians kept joining and leaving him.

  36 Bradford MSS.

  37 McAfee MSS.; the Bradford MS. says six quarts of parched corn.

  38 This date and number are those given in the Bradford MS. The McAfee MSS. say July 1st; but it is impossible that the expedition should have started so soon after Bird’s inroad. On July 1st, Bird himself was probably at the mouth of the Licking.

  39 The Indians so frequently shifted their abode that it is hardly possible to identify the exact location of the succes sive towns called Piqua or Pickaway.

  40 “Papers relating to G. R. Clark.” In the Durrett MSS. at Louisville. The account of the death of Joseph Rogers. This settles, by the way, that the march was made in August, and not in July.

  41 There is some conflict as to whether Logan went up or down stream.

  42 Haldimand MSS. McKee to De Peyster, Aug. 22, 1780. He was told of the battle by the Indians a couple of days after it took place. He gives the force of the whites correctly as nine hundred and seventy, forty of whom had been left to guard the boats. He says the Indians were surprised, and that most of the warriors fled, so that all the fighting was done by about seventy, with the two Girtys. This was doubtless not the case; the beaten party in all these encounters was fond of relating the valorous deeds of some of its members, who invariably state that they would have conquered, had they not been deserted by their associates. McKee reported that the Indians could find no trace of the gun-wheels—the gun was carried on a pack-horse,—and so he thought that the Kentuckians were forced to leave it behind on their retreat. He put the killed of the Kentuckians at the modest number of forty-eight; and reported the belief of Girty and the Indians that “three hundred [of them] would have given [Clark’s men] a total rout.” A very common feat of the small frontier historian was to put high praise of his own side in the mouth of a foe. Withers, in his “Chronicles of Border Warfare,” in speaking of this very action, makes Girty withdraw his three hundred warriors on account of the valor of Clark’s men, remarking that it was “useless to fight with fools or madmen.” This offers a comical contrast to Girty’s real opinion, as shown in McKee’s letter.

  43 Durrett MSS. Volume: “Papers referring to G. R. Clark.” The cousin’s name was Joseph Rogers, a brother of the commander of the galley.

  44 Bradford MS.; the McAfee MSS. make the loss “15 or 20 Indians” in the last assault, and “nearly as many” whites. Boone’s Narrative says seventeen on each side. But McKee says only six Indians were killed and three wounded; and Bombardier Homan, in the letter already quoted, says six were killed and two captured, who were afterward slain. The latter adds from hearsay that the Americans cruelly slew an Indian woman; but there is not a syllable in any of the other accounts to confirm this, and it may be set down as a fiction of the by-no-means-valorous bombardier. The bombardier mentions that the Indians in their alarm and anger immediately burnt all the male prisoners in their villages. The Kentucky historians give very scanty accounts of this expedition; but as it was of a typical character it is worth while giving in full. The McAfee MSS. contain most information about it.

  45 Bradford MS.

  46 See Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, Aug. 30, 1780.

  47 McAfee MSS.

  48 Virginia State Papers, I, 451.

  49 McAfee MSS. The last was an incident that happened to a young man named McCoun on March 8, 1781.

  50 Boone’s Narrative.

  51 For all this see McAfee MSS.

  52 State Department MSS. No. 48. See Appendix E. As containing an account of the first, and hitherto entirely unnoticed, separatist movement in Kentucky, I give the petition entire.

  53 Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. II, p. 47.

  54 Do., Vol. I, p. 452.

  55 Collins, I, 20.

  56 Roughly, Payette embraced the territory north and northeast of the Kentucky River, Jefferson that between Green River and the lower Kentucky, and Lincoln the rest of the present State.

  57 State Department MSS., No. 147, Vol. V. Reports of Board of War. Letter of Washington, June 8, 1781. It is impossible to study any part of the Revolutionary struggle without coming to the conclusion that Washington would have ended it in half the time it actually lasted, had the jangling States and their governments, as well as the Continental Congress, backed him up half as effectively as the Confederate people and government backed up Lee, or as
the Northerners and the Washington administration backed up McClellan—still more as they backed up Grant. The whole of our Revolutionary history is a running commentary on the anarchic weakness of disunion, and the utter lack of liberty that follows in its train.

  58 State Department MSS. Letters to Washington, Vol. 49, p. 235, May 21, 1781. The entire history of the Western operations shows the harm done by the weak and divided system of government that obtained at the time of the Revolution, and emphasizes our good fortune in replacing it by a strong and permanent Union.

  59 Calendar of Virginia State Papers, I, pp. 502, 597, etc.; II, pp. 108, 116, 264, 345. The Kentuckians were far more eager for action than the Pennsylvanians.

  60 As Loughry’s Creek, some ten miles below the mouth of the Miami, on August 24, 1781. Diary of Captain Isaac An derson, quoted in “Indiana Hist. Soc. Pamphlets, No. 4,” by Charles Martindale, Indianapolis, 1888. Collins, whose ac curacy by no means equals his thirst for pure detail, puts this occurrence just a year too late. Brant’s force was part of a body of several hundred Indians gathered to resist Clark.

  61 It is most difficult to get at the number of the Indian parties; they were sometimes grossly exaggerated and sometimes hopelessly underestimated. The commanders at the unmolested forts and the statesmen who stayed at home only saw those members of the tribes who claimed to be peaceful, and invariably put the number of warriors on the warpath at far too low a figure. Madison’s estimates, for instance, were very much out of the way, yet many modern critics follow him.

 

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