The Militia Marches
September 1–October 1, 1774
THE SIGHTS and sounds of military activity filled Pittsburgh and the surrounding area in early September. As most of the right wing, or Northern Division, of Dunmore’s army marched from its rendezvous camp and Winchester, quartermaster and commissary officers continued to gather supplies and provisions, and company commanders drilled their men and conducted patrols. Like their counterparts in Fincastle, Botetourt, and the rest of Augusta County, they were preparing to support the offensive expedition as well as defend the district and its inhabitants from marauding Indian warriors. Amid the activity, an officer of the regular British army became an observer, as well as a minor participant.
Lieutenant Augustine Prevost, adjutant of the British army’s 60th “Royal American” Regiment of Foot, arrived in Pittsburgh on September 3, 1774, at the same time “My Lord Dunmore was expected hourly.” The officer had come in his official capacity to recruit men for his unit, then posted in Jamaica, but took time from his duties to visit and conduct personal business with George Croghan, his partner in some land interests as well as the father of his wife, Susannah. Before heading west, Prevost stopped at Williamsburg on July 2 and paid his respects to the governor. He remarked that his lordship not only received him “very politely” but invited him to dine with him and Lady Dunmore at the palace on July 4.1
Except for the few days in Virginia’s capital, Prevost spent most of the next two months in the company of Pennsylvanians while visiting relatives in Lancaster and stopping at Bedford, Ligonier, and Hanna’s Town on the road to Pittsburgh. He exclusively engaged in conversation with individuals whose positions unabashedly favored their colony in its boundary dispute with Virginia and undoubtedly influenced his opinions. By the time Prevost reached Pittsburgh, the views of William Saunderson, who represented Cumberland County in the provincial assembly, William Thompson, a Westmoreland County magistrate, and Alexander McKee of the Indian Department had likely darkened his views of anything Virginian. With their own financial as well as political interests at stake, Indian traders McKee and Thompson, along with Matthew Elliott, Alexander Ross, and Thomas Smallman, added to the Pennsylvania influence reflected in Prevost’s actions and diary entries.
Prevost reached Croghan Hall to find his father-in-law “laid up with the gout & rheumatism.” The Delaware chief White Eyes waited for Dunmore’s arrival with Croghan since, as local members of the Pennsylvania faction claimed, “two or three Virginia militia” had attacked three unarmed Delaware walking along the road from town to Croghan’s plantation on September 1. The assailants killed two, but one of the Indians “got off” and swam across the Alleghany to safety. Major Angus McDonald, “happening to be there” in town, immediately issued a reward of £50 to anyone who apprehended the attackers. Prevost did not expect much would come of the gesture and blamed the violence on the “want of discipline among such a set of lawless vagabonds.”
When the British officer met Major John Connolly and his wife for dinner at a local tavern two days later, the major impressed the lieutenant as “sincere and friendly” despite “the many accounts . . . heard to his prejudice.” The rest of the meeting did nothing to change Prevost’s opinion, although when their fellow diners McKee and Ross informed him that someone had threatened White Eyes and his companion, Connolly immediately ordered a party of militiamen to scout the road between the fort and Croghan’s to arrest anyone seeking to harm the two Indians. The general situation led Prevost to understand that the crisis had reached the point that “the Indians were all exceedingly alarmed, that a party of Mingoes were out 14 days now in order to strike somewhere; but God only knows.”
Dunmore arrived on the evening of September 10, ahead of the rest of his army, after coming down the Monongahela with a small party in three small canoes. The governor landed and immediately went to the “apartments” that Connolly had prepared for his quarters in the fort. “Coming in this manner totally disappointed the poor commandant, who had with vast pain and labor introduced a new mode & system of discipline amongst his veterans,” Prevost noted. Connolly had “intended to receive his Lordship with all the pomp &c. imaginable,” but instead, “the sentry at the gate,” on seeing Dunmore approaching, “laid by his rifle, went up to his Lordship, & with hat off welcomed him heartily.” Perhaps the lieutenant added too much gravity in the ceremonial expectations since it “made my Lord laugh heartily.”
McKee confided his belief to Prevost that Connolly had “succeeded with his Lordship as to lead him to adopt his measures & way of thinking with respect to the Shawnees, that that nation had a long time since maltreated the Virginians, and that the latter had never scourged them for it, & that now he was come with troops of that Province to chastise them.” McKee, as an officer of the Indian Department, informed Dunmore that some representative chiefs, or “deputies from the Delawares, Mingos & Six Nations,” had arrived to intercede in behalf of the Shawnees. They had camped across the Allegheny from Pittsburgh, in Indian country, where they felt they could more safely conduct their deliberations without having such a “banditti” about them. Dunmore sent McKee to tell the Indians he desired to meet with them at the fort the next day.
As soon as Major McDonald informed him of the killings earlier in the week, the governor “issued a proclamation by beat of the drum” that offered £100 reward for the apprehension of those guilty of murdering the two Delaware, and for anyone with information to come forward and report it. As to the situation that brought him to Pittsburgh, the governor ordered McDonald to begin the construction of canoes for transporting troops down the Ohio.
Prevost held a low opinion of Dunmore’s military competence and described his “schemes & plans of operations” as very much those typical of an amateur, novice, and man “ignorant of the matter he is upon.” The lieutenant may not have known that the man he criticized as a military amateur had served as an officer in the elite 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards during the Seven Years War. As a relatively junior officer on a regimental staff, Prevost also may not have known about Dunmore’s tenure as royal governor of New York. When it appeared that Great Britain and Spain would go to war in 1770 after the Viceroy of “Buenos Ayres” invaded the British settlement at Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands, Dunmore saw to the repair and improvement of New York’s long-neglected and inadequately armed costal defenses. After “putting the province into a condition to resist a sudden attack” by the enemy, he assured his superiors at Whitehall that he had taken all measures necessary for the safety of the colony.2
Prevost charged that the governor had no store of provisions, ammunition, or other supplies, but most of all money, and incorrectly believed that the House of Burgesses was very unwilling to appropriate any to him. Fortunately for the governor, according to Prevost, a few individual traders offered to “pay off his soldiers and officers with goods out of their stores, provided they might charge a large, very large, advance such as 300 pr. ct.” In fact, Prevost only showed his ignorance of the Virginia government’s processes that paid for military activities, as prescribed in the Militia Law and Laws for Repelling Invasions and Suppressing Insurrections.
When Prevost paid his respects to Dunmore at a dinner hosted by McKee, he remarked that “the people of the country seemed happy at his Lordship’s arrival as they hoped to see peace & tranquility restored in this part of the country.” The governor replied that the “Indian matters . . . would be easily accommodated” but admitted the “troubles fomented by a parcel of bad people were not likely to be so soon adjusted.” Obviously with a view diametrically opposed to the opinions Prevost had thus far heard, the governor stated that Pennsylvania partisans, not his colony’s militiamen, had murdered the two Delaware “as a stroke of policy in order to throw the odium upon the Virginians.”
Meanwhile, Connolly had presided over a court of inquiry on the matter of Richard Butler, a trader who favored the Pennsylvania interests. Two weeks earlier, the major commandant ordered Butler arrested and confined for violating the ordinance against transporting goods, which were seized, from Pittsburgh by way of the new Pennsylvania trading town at Kittanning to the enemy. The court determined that it could find nothing criminal after two days of testimony and remanded the accused back to jail while the magistrates turned to the governor for a determination. Showing what Prevost surprisingly described as “superior sagacity & profound knowledge,” Dunmore ordered Connolly to release Butler as soon as the trader posted a security bond and promised to “never prosecute his oppressors.”3
Led by White Eyes and Custaloga, Indian deputies assembled at the fort on Wednesday, September 14, to begin the long-awaited conference. In the precouncil ritual that governed Indian diplomacy, White Eyes first extended a string of wampum to symbolically “remove the fatigue” of Dunmore’s journey, open and clear his ears to what his Indian brothers had to say, and remove every concern from his heart that he held about the Shawnees. Continuing with several affirmations of friendship at this troublesome time, accompanying each again with strings of wampum, the chief expressed that “their hearts, & their wives & children’s, were once more rejoiced to see the great man of Virginia & the other brothers of the other provinces” for the efforts at restoring peace on the Ohio. White Eyes concluded by presenting the governor with a belt of wampum to affirm that the gathered Indian deputies “hoped & wanted to assist him in healing up the breach that had been made in the chain of friendship by some rash young people of both parties” and appealed that the Virginians not treat the Shawnees too harshly. With the formalities completed, both sides returned to their respective lodgings to wait to hear Dunmore’s reply to their speeches when the council reconvened the next day.4
When the council did not reconvene the next day, the Indians seemed very dissatisfied that Dunmore had kept them waiting. They were used to hearing replies to speeches on the following day of a council and were unaware of the governor’s practice of keeping even those who called on him in Williamsburg waiting. McKee informed Dunmore about the Indians’ displeasure, warning the governor that the chiefs would only wait until noon on Friday for him to do so, “& then would be gone.” The Indian Department officer added that many Indians already did not hold a high opinion of him and suspected that he only wanted to keep them near Pittsburgh until his army made ready to go down the river against the Shawnees. They further complained about Dunmore’s evasive answers about his intentions and not even providing them “an ounce of provision, powder, and other necessities.” Indian leaders expected to receive presents from British and colonial officials when they attended diplomatic councils, and Dunmore’s inattention to the practice made them “prodigiously uneasy.”5
Shortly after the council began on September 16, St. Clair arrived from Kittanning and requested an immediate meeting with the Virginia governor on behalf of the governor of Pennsylvania. He then demanded custody of one of Dunmore’s officers, who had committed the murder of a Delaware Indian and for whose apprehension a proclamation had been issued that offered a £50 reward. When they met on the fort’s parade, St. Clair delivered a packet from Governor Penn, which Dunmore took but did not open before the meeting ended.
Although he seemed sympathetic to the Pennsylvania faction in the intercolonial dispute, Prevost realized that his father-in-law could not afford to alienate Connolly or the governor while the matter of his land grants remained unresolved. The next day, he began an attempt to repair the apparent rift that had developed between Croghan and the Virginia faction in general and Connolly in particular, and asked the governor what he perceived to be the cause. Dunmore told Prevost that he heard on good authority, other than Connolly, that his father-in-law had slandered him by saying that the governor “had occasioned all this broil between the Indians & the colonies in order to secure a tool for the purpose of ministry.” He also told Prevost that Croghan had “strove to set the Shawnees upon the backs of the Virginians by his insidious and dangerous speeches,” and that Croghan could be blamed as the “author & sole cause” for the current disturbances. The governor continued that although appointed the chief magistrate of the West Augusta district, Croghan had “denied the jurisdiction of the Province of Virginia” and had “constantly acted a duplicate part throughout the tenor of his conduct.”
Following Prevost’s intercession with both men, Croghan and Connolly met and repaired their misunderstandings. The next day, September 16, Dunmore also met Croghan and put their differences behind them. The mediation proved mutually beneficial, as Croghan needed Governor Dunmore to validate his land claims in Virginia while Dunmore needed Croghan’s assistance in managing diplomatic relations with the Indians, “upon which he frankly owned he believed the whole success of his expedition depended.” Having the retired deputy superintendent again in his favor also made Dunmore’s negotiations with the Indian deputies much easier and more effective.6
After Dunmore received him civilly, Croghan notified the Indians that the governor would respond to their speeches on September 12. When the chiefs arrived the next morning, Dunmore reciprocated the Indian welcome by “condoling with them for the loss they had sustained through the rashness of some vagabonds” to open the discussions. He then answered White Eyes’s opening speech by telling the assembled chiefs he appreciated the pains they had taken to “heal the sores made by the Shawanese” and would have preferred to give them a more favorable answer. Instead, he reminded them how little the Shawnees deserved the “treatment or appellation of brethren” from him and charged that they had never complied with the terms of the peace treaty they had made with Colonel Bouquet at the end of Pontiac’s War to give up and return their white prisoners, “nor have they ever truly buried the hatchet.”7
The governor then recounted the numerous violations the Shawnees had committed with the encouragement of the Pennsylvania faction “upon the frontiers of my Government” since 1764. These included, Dunmore charged, “the murder of a man the very next summer” and another “eight of my people upon Cumberland River” the next year. He reminded them of numerous similar incidents, one by one, which included not only attacks but the stealing of horses and goods from Virginia settlers and traders by Shawnee warriors, who “disposed of them (together with a considerable quantity of peltry)” to the traders from Pennsylvania. The governor then reminded his audience that while the Shawnee “banditti” robbed, killed, and injured several Virginians in their country, they allowed Pennsylvania traders to pass unharmed. Dunmore then drew particular attention to the murders of nineteen men, women, and children on the Virginia side of the Ohio from 1771 to 1773, including the family of Adam Stroud on the Elk River and young James Boone and Henry Russell in Powell’s Valley. In the latter incident, he added that the guilty warriors “carried off their [victims’] horses and effects” to their towns, where they sold them to Pennsylvania traders. The Shawnees had committed “All these, with many other murders” against Virginians, Dunmore maintained, “before a drop of Shawanees blood was spilt” by Virginians.
The governor concluded that since the beginning of 1774, Shawnee warriors had “continually perpetrated robberies upon my defenseless Frontier inhabitants,” which at length irritated them so much that they began to retaliate. While Dunmore assured the Delaware and Iroquois of his colony’s friendship and justice to the other nations represented, he posed them a question about how they thought the Virginians should treat the Shawnees. Having stated the dispute “between them and us,” Dunmore left it to the deputies to judge what they merited.8
Captain Pipe and his delegation, whom the Indian deputies sent to mediate with the Shawnees, returned on September 18. He informed Croghan that the Shawnees “were willing to come to terms” with Dunmore in order to avoid war. They desired to know what the Virginians expected and would willingly make restitution as soon as they were permitted to go hunting. The next morning, the governor’s party, which included Colonel Stephen, Major Connolly, two musicians playing French horns, and a “Scotch Piper,” arrived at Croghan Hall in two boats that displayed the British flag. The deputies of the several nations waited on the opposite bank to meet with them but requested to consult with Croghan before they answered the governor. Croghan recommended to Dunmore that Connolly and McKee also accompany him to the meeting.
When the council reconvened at the fort on September 23, Pipe announced that the Shawnees stated their desire to restore friendship. Pipe related that in the council held in their towns on the Scioto, Cornstalk claimed he had told the warriors to stay home and “be quiet” and not “molest” the Virginia backcountry inhabitants. Except for a few “rash young men” who went out on their own, he maintained that his nation’s people and their Mingo friends had complied. Plukkemehnotee, a Mingo chief whom whites called Pluggy, blamed the recent disturbances on Wyandot, Miami, and Ottawa warriors who had disregarded their own nations’ chiefs to fight the Virginians. He said that because the Shawnees and Mingoes desired peace, when the war parties entered their towns to offer their aid, the Shawnees told their erstwhile allies to return to their homes. Big Apple Tree, a Mohawk deputy who accompanied Pipe, told Dunmore that the Shawnees would “pursue proper measures to restore peace” and meet with the Big Knife and Dunmore wherever he built his council fire, which the Six Nations, Wyandots, and Delaware would attend to restore a proper peace.9
Dunmore had heard enough. He thanked Pipe and the delegation for their intercession in attempting to broker a peace. He reminded all those present that the Shawnees had always shown hostility toward the Virginians. On the other hand, Dunmore said that the Big Knife remained ready to do even their greatest enemies justice. He asked Big Apple Tree to invite Cornstalk and the Shawnee chiefs to meet him either at Wheeling, the mouth of the Little Kanawha, or any other place farther down the Ohio they chose. The governor assured them that if they came, he would listen to them and treat them fairly. He then presented wampum as he told the several deputies that if his brethren of the Six Nations, Wyandots, and Delaware led the Shawnees to the council fire, he could trust that the meeting would occur. As a further sign of their desire to see the dispute resolved without war, Pipe and a fellow Delaware chief named Wanganam offered to accompany Dunmore on the expedition to help facilitate any negotiations.10
When Croghan returned home that evening, he told Prevost that the Delaware, Wyandot, and Six Nations deputies “seemed extremely pleased” with the outcome of the council. Dunmore waited on the canoes to arrive on the Monongahela. While the Indian council occupied much of the governor’s time, Colonel Stephen saw to it that the right wing completed its preparations for the expedition. Three hundred to four hundred militiamen, mostly from the West Augusta district, joined those who had marched from Winchester to raise the division’s strength to about seven hundred men. After Majors McDonald and Connolly had the newly constructed or impressed vessels loaded with supplies and provisions, the soldiers climbed aboard and waited for Dunmore. He came to the landing and immediately set off with them to go downriver to join Colonel Andrew Lewis at the mouth of the Kanawha.11
COLONEL ANDREW LEWIS’S left wing, or Southern Division, had begun its march from Camp Union toward the mouth of the Kanawha. The advance party, the first to leave the Great Levels, marched with scouts out in front, followed by a fatigue party of ax-wielding woodsmen, or pioneers, and their detail of guards. The pioneers cleared the path of obstructions and widened it enough for the packhorses and cattle to pass, and cut blazes on the trees to mark the way the divisions were to follow. A general order, whose execution had been drilled and practiced before leaving Camp Union, provided for the orderly defense of a camp without the need for posting it in the daily plan. In the case of an alarm, “each Company is to form on the Ground [where] they are encamp’d and face outwards, & stand fast until they receive orders.” Each morning after the beating of the general, captains inspected their companies as bullock drivers gathered their herds and counted the beeves, the packhorse men loaded their animals with cargo, and all prepared to march.12
By the fifth day of marching, the column had gone about thirty miles from Camp Union on its way to the Elk River. Not far away, having taken a different trail and traveling faster, Colonel Field’s detachment of Culpepper County men halted near Little Meadow River for the night of September 10, unaware of the location of Colonel Charles Lewis’s division. Early the next morning, Privates John Clay and Francis Cowheard (or Coward) of Captain James Kirtley’s company went out to gather the packhorses that had wandered away from camp in the night. At the same time, two Ottawa warriors approached Field’s camp looking for grazing horses they could easily bridle and lead out from under the very noses of the picket guards. From their hiding place they saw Clay but did not notice Cowheard, who walked about one hundred yards away. One of the Indians shot and killed Clay. Cowheard looked in the direction of the musket’s report in time to see an Indian, scalping knife in hand, running toward the body of his dead companion. Reacting quickly, Cowheard evened the score with a shot that killed the warrior before he could take the scalp. The other Indian ran off and escaped but left behind a number of rope bridles in his hiding place. After the soldiers gathered and loaded the horses, they stood ready to resume the march. The Indians’ appearance compelled Field to change course, and by the end of the day, the Culpepper men fell in with Colonel Charles Lewis’s division.13
The advance party reached the Elk River on September 21, fifteen days after leaving, and eighty-five miles from, Camp Union. The men established the camp upstream from its confluence with the Kanawha River and not far from the ruins of Walter Kelly’s farm. Colonel Charles Lewis posted guards and sent out patrols to look for signs of recent Indian activity. In accordance with his brother’s plan of campaign, he determined the division’s priority of work. The men established cattle and horse pens and began working on the fortification, supply magazine, and canoes while they waited for the main body.14
THE AUGUSTA COUNTY spies posted on Gauley Mountain, about fifty miles from Camp Union, watched as one war party returned toward Indian country from the direction of the settlements on September 6. Three days later, they saw three more warriors heading east toward the settlements. Except for Major Angus MacDonald’s raid on Wakatomika, the Virginians had fought a completely defensive and largely local war. Although Dunmore had decided to take the fight to Shawnee country, the expedition had yet to cross the Ohio River. Virginia’s militia forces remained on defense, with Indian war parties active on the south bank, particularly in Fincastle County. The hard-pressed militia struggled to protect the lives and property of the backcountry inhabitants as shortages of all classes of supply, especially ammunition, hampered effective responses to enemy attacks.15 Fortunately, a convoy had just reached the lower district headquarters carrying, among other stores, one and one-half pounds of much-needed gunpowder. In an effort to stretch the supply as far as possible, Campbell judiciously divided it and kept some in reserve for issue in an appropriate contingency.16
Like Augusta, Fincastle County recruited men as “Indian spies” to monitor the likely avenues of approach to the settled regions. Just as the militia companies found it difficult to muster adequate forces that could defend all the places that needed protection, the county had only a limited number of men for that service to observe or detect evidence of approaching war parties at the mountain passes, water gaps, and trails. With no other option, some of the spies had two or more observation posts at such a distance apart that it took several days for them to check them. Consequently, one pair of spies discovered footprints that revealed an enemy party had crossed the Sandy River heading toward Maiden Springs. The spies immediately headed for the settlement to alert the five soldiers of Captain Smith’s company who manned the small fort and sound the alarm to muster the local militia. With a two- or three-day head start over the spies, the Indians struck without warning.17
Early in the morning on September 8, as his wife and three small children remained in bed, John Henry stood in the door of his home in the Clinch River area. Two Indians concealed in the nearby woods shot him. Although severely wounded, Henry ran into the woods hoping his assailants would pursue him instead of entering the house and harming his family. By chance, he met his neighbor “Old John Hamilton,” who concealed Henry in a thicket before running the four miles to Fort Christian to alert the militia. Stopping to check at the house on his way, Hamilton found no one present, and presumed the Indians had taken Henry’s family captive. Henry died of his wounds within a day without learning of their fate. Meanwhile, another neighbor, named Bradshaw, had also fled from his farm after noticing some “Indian signs” in his cornfield. He met Hamilton, and the two men walked together toward Captain Smith’s station. After going about three miles, they came to a place where twelve to fifteen warriors, by their estimate, had evidently “Breakfasted” earlier in the day and left some of their provisions behind when they departed. Hamilton and Bradshaw spread the alarm when they reached Rich Valley, at which several distressed inhabitants fled to Royal Oak or other defended communities. Indian raiders also struck on the North Fork of the Holston. About one mile from “the upper End of Campbell’s Choice” near the Clay Lick, warriors captured Samuel Lemmey, but the families of John and Archibald Buchanan narrowly escaped.18
In response, Major Campbell ordered Captain Smith to send out patrols in the Clinch area, and for the three nearest companies on the Holston—Crockett’s, Herbert’s, and the “late Doack’s”—to muster all available men on September 10. He expected the raiders to follow their last blow by continuing to advance deeper into the settled areas and striking all the homes, farms, and other improvements in their path. The major also anticipated that the warriors would stop and loot all the abandoned property in their path, which he viewed as a vulnerability that he intended to exploit. He therefore instructed the local commanders to have their men turn out with their arms and bring as much ammunition as possible and enough rations for an operation of several days’ duration. When the Holston men assembled, Campbell issued enough powder from the contingency stock he had set aside so that the soldiers, including those who brought none, had at least “3 loads apiece.”19 The major divided the Holston men into three units and sent them by different routes to intercept the raiders.20
Three days later, about one-half mile from Maiden Spring, three Indian warriors saw a lone white man approaching. Unaware that their intended target was a member of one of Captain Smith’s patrols moving in extended order, they decided to kill and scalp him. The warriors opened fire from behind the cover of large trees but missed. The soldier returned fire, hitting one of his assailants, then ran to rejoin his comrades. The wounded Indian fell to the ground a few steps from the tree. Although the brave bled profusely, which caused a “plug” to “burst out of the wound,” he somehow made his way about eighty yards to the refuge of a large pit or cave, where he later died. The other two warriors fled while the soldiers, although spread out for about three hundred yards, moved toward the sound of the gunfire and gave them “a good chase.” A few days later, a patrol went back to the area to find the dead man’s corpse. “Anxious to get his scalp,” the troops took ropes to lower one man down with “lights” to search the cave for the wounded Indian.21
Elsewhere, on the evening of September 13, some of Captain Smith’s scouts discovered the tracks of an enemy war party that had captured some prisoners and some horses from the settlements. Once informed, Smith led a twenty-one-man detachment in pursuit. They moved quickly in an attempt to overtake the warriors and rescue the captives. The Indians became aware they were being followed, and before the militiamen drew near, the raiders mounted the stolen horses and escaped with their prisoners.22
On September 17, Campbell reported to Preston on the action he had taken to counter the enemy attacks in that part of the county during the preceding week. He praised the conduct of the district’s militia in general. Most of them had willingly performed any service asked of them when called out, but a few men caused him concern. He therefore requested Colonel Preston’s guidance, as well as the authority to maintain good order and discipline among the soldiers guilty of misconduct. For example, he wanted to know how to best deal with “a few obstinate Wretches, that selfishly refuses Duty,” lest they set a bad example that others may follow at the next alarm. Campbell also wanted to know how to proceed against those men who turned out but were derelict in their duty or committed acts of misconduct while in service. 23
The latter category came to Campbell’s attention after the members of one detachment behaved “indifferently” while on a mission. After they arrived at the scene where Indian raiders had wounded John Henry, the men conducted only a cursory search for the invaders before they retired to Captain Smith’s station to get provisions from the magazine. They drew three days’ rations, including bacon, on the pretense that they needed the food in order to sustain them on an extended patrol operation in which they would search for footprints and other signs of enemy activity in the surrounding country in order to prevent another raid. Instead of performing any service, much less this operation, they immediately started for home. As they made their way, they received the report that someone had discovered fresh signs of Indian activity nearby, but the homeward-bound troops refused to investigate. Although Campbell considered the men’s “ill-Conduct” in forsaking their mission egregious enough, he viewed the deceptive acquisition of scarce provisions as having significantly added to the infraction. The misappropriation of the bacon had particularly vexed Campbell. He explained that the magazine kept that item in reserve primarily to sustain the parties ordered out in the arduous pursuit of Indian raiders and for the spies who stayed at their posts for extended periods without the ability to acquire rations from local sources. Furthermore, with any meat—not only bacon—in short supply on the Clinch, the county had difficulty maintaining a sufficient ration for those who deserved it.24 When rations constitute part of a soldier’s pay, the offense equates to men receiving pay without having performed any service to earn it.
The insufficient supply of ammunition continued to threaten the effective defense of the settlements. The wasteful and reckless practice of shooting off ammunition without cause or to no useful purpose in which some incautious inhabitants indulged had exacerbated the problem. Campbell explained that although the garrisons had little gunpowder on hand, if the county could spare one or two pounds more, he would divide it in the same sparing manner as he had before the alarm of September 10. The major assured the colonel that the soldiers of his command could then effectively respond to the next threat.25 If the shortage of gunpowder did not present enough of a problem, the major added that if not soon replenished, his district’s magazine would soon run low on flour as well. Despite these challenges, the major confidently assured the county lieutenant that the soldiers of the district’s militia would give a good account of themselves in action if the enemy dared to trouble the area’s inhabitants again.26
As for the state of the garrisons, Major Campbell had recently inspected the defenses of settlements in his district. Ensign Hendly Moore and Sergeant John Duncan had fifteen men at Fort Christian, or Glade Hollow, twelve miles east of Fort Preston at Castle’s Woods. Eighteen men served under Sergeant John Kingkead (or Kinkaid) at Elk Garden. Sergeant Robert Brown commanded five men at Maiden Spring. These numbers indicated that these forts all had their full complements. In contrast, Captain Smith had chosen to fully garrison the station at Maxwell Mill last since no women and children took shelter there, and had expected the recent levies from New River and Reed Creek to arrive before long. Major Campbell therefore sent a patrol composed of some of the most reliable men to see how Captain Smith and the three men posted with him and Ensign John Campbell fared at “Smith’s Upper Station” at Maxwell’s Mill. The place was sometimes also called Big Crab Orchard or Witten’s (Whitton’s) fort, at the home of John Whitton.27
To help hurry the reinforcements, Campbell asked Preston to have Lieutenant Jeremiah Pierce, who commanded Captain Crockett’s administrative unit while the captain was away on the expedition, to send him fifteen men. He explained, “That Company that is covered by so thick a settlement as Reed Creek” could detach them without significantly degrading the local defense. He requested that the county lieutenant order the “upper settlements” on the New and Elk Rivers, which had sent “few if any Men” on the expedition, likewise muster detachments to aid those communities that were left less well defended when their men answered the governor’s call. Doack’s company was also tasked to detach fifteen men. Twelve of them arrived before another week passed, with two more men expected a few days later, but the fifteenth, Campbell learned, “was an obstinate Gent that despises Authority,” and would therefore not turn out as ordered.
Major Campbell explained to Colonel Preston that he frequently traveled about the district to distant localities in the county to acquire provisions for the soldiers on duty at the various stations and “stir up others” to honor their service obligations. Campbell recommended that the county lieutenant consider increasing the number of men on active duty in the district for at least a few weeks to help the “weakly guarded” lower settlements. Of these, Campbell also asked for additional men on full-time duty to also be posted at Royal Oak. When Captain John Wilson arrived with his company of levies from Pittsylvania County, Campbell urged Preston to immediately detach a “Subaltern’s Command”—fifteen to twenty-five men—to Maxwell Mill to reinforce Captain Smith’s weak garrison there. After he conceded that the additional men expected from several other Fincastle companies could probably not be raised, Campbell recommended that Preston deploy the rest of Wilson’s company of Pittsylvania County men on Reed Creek and in Rich Valley in order to protect and encourage the inhabitants to stay in their homes and save their crops.28
By Friday, September 23, reports from local militia officers indicated the situation in the Clinch and lower Holston settlements had deteriorated when patrols and scouts discovered signs of a large enemy war party. Logan—the Mingo leader—and his raiders arrived in the vicinity of Fort Byrd. It was built on the property of William Moore and included his fortified home, hence it was often also referred to as Moore’s fort. The fort was located in Lower Castle’s Woods, and Lieutenant Daniel Boone commanded its twelve-man detachment. As they scouted for weaknesses in the settlement’s defenses, the marauders killed or seized and drove off several head of cattle and horses. Others surprised two black men working in the fields and took them prisoner before they could reach safety. The warriors then used the captives as bait by forcing them to run the gantlet within sight of the fort in an attempt to draw its defenders into an ambush. Not strong enough to sally out to attempt a rescue with any prospect of success, the garrison stood helplessly by and watched the prisoners endure the ordeal.29
John Roberts and his neighbors thought they had nothing to fear living near Kings Mill on Reedy Creek, a tributary of the Holston North Fork, and close to the Cherokee line. No war parties from that nation had ever ventured or conducted raids there, leading the settlers to believe the very remoteness of the location afforded them enough security that they need not worry. The families chose to not seek shelter in any of the nearby forts when they received the alarm. Focused on a possible incursion by Cherokee warriors, they had not counted on Logan’s war party coming across Moccasin Gap after attacking William Moore’s—Fort Byrd—on the Clinch and approaching from a direction they did not expect. The folly of such a false sense of security became all too apparent when Logan’s warriors attacked. Although Roberts’s neighbors managed to escape, his family fell victim to a gruesome assault. The raiders took ten-year-old James captive, killed and scalped his parents and sisters, and left his younger brother “Scalped and Tomahawked” but alive. As they escaped with their trophies, the attackers most likely left the child behind because he appeared dead or dying and therefore had no further value.
The lad, however, had enough life in him to go for help. He started to run when he mistook an approaching patrol for another Indian raiding party, but he stopped and rejoiced for his deliverance when he heard his uncle’s voice calling his name. He ran to them and told the soldiers what had happened. Despite his young age and recent ordeal, the boy spoke sensibly in response to their questions and led his uncle to the mutilated bodies of his murdered parents and sisters. The militiamen found a war club, with a message attached, near the corpses. The parchment bore a message dated July 24, 1774, from “Captain John Logan” to Captain Michael Cresap. In it, Logan asked, “What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for [?]” It was the letter the Mingo warrior had dictated to William Robinson, the man he had taken prisoner near Prickett’s fort in June.30
In extending his revenge to the Roberts family, Logan and his war party had killed and scalped the mother, father, and daughters, took one boy captive, and left another for dead. It may be recalled that Carlisle merchant and Pennsylvania partisan John Montgomery had expressed his belief to Governor Penn that the Mingo leader had sated the vengeance for the murder of his relatives in June. Now in September, Montgomery’s prediction that Logan would “sit Still” had not proven true. The commander of the patrol sent Logan’s war club and message parchment up the chain of command to Major Campbell, who forwarded it to Colonel Preston on October 12.31
In his report, Campbell described that the Roberts boy had received but one blow to the back of his head with a tomahawk. Although the weapon had cut through the child’s skull, the major “believed his Brains is safe.” With compassion and sympathy, the district commander sent for “an Old Man that has some Skill” to attend the young patient and asked Preston to send a Dr. Lloyd, or at least some medicines, to treat the injury. Unfortunately, the boy did not survive long. Campbell reported that after “frequently lamenting ‘he was not able to fight enough for to save his mammy,’” the poor child passed away on October 6.32
Although the local militia commander, Captain William Cocke, pledged to do his duty and everything in his power “to promote the Honour and Safety of this Frontier,” he advised the inhabitants who had not yet forted that they should not repeat the Roberts’s error by placing their trust in the remote locations of their settlements to preserve them from harm. He urged them to erect a fort at a suitable place as near as possible to the line that separated the Virginia colony from Cherokee country so as to not yield “one foot of Ground” to the hostile Indians. He warned that by abandoning and fleeing their homes, they not only surrendered their property and means of support but revealed their weakness and inability to resist to the invaders. The captain ordered his sergeant to deploy all available men in the company for the community’s protection. In the meantime, he pledged to travel to South Carolina to recruit some volunteers to help them, and he hoped Virginia’s government would vote them recompense for their service.33
At the first sound of “hallooing, and the report of many guns at several houses” at Kings Mill, an express rode off to Major Campbell’s headquarters with the news of yet another attack. The series of frequent alarms and sightings of war parties had convinced many of Fincastle County’s backcountry inhabitants that the Cherokees had indeed taken the warpath and committed the latest atrocities. Two traders, Archibald Taylor and a local man named Shoat, had recently returned from Cherokee country. Like other traders who frequently ventured into that nation’s towns, Taylor and Shoat were greatly concerned when they saw that the Cherokees “appeared in a very bad temper.” They testified to Major Campbell that during their stay they watched two war parties leave their towns but confessed that they did not know whether the warriors intended to join forces with the Shawnee and their allies gathering on the Scioto or to attack Fincastle County settlements on their own.34
Back in the settlements, since so many of the militia’s best soldiers had gone on the expedition, the men who remained back for home defense responded to many alarms. To make matters worse, since the expedition required such a large quantity of what was available, the forces that remained had only a limited supply of gunpowder and lead. The settlers on the Holston understandably experienced much anxiety because they knew they had little to sustain them in a protracted fight. Major Campbell reflected their sentiment when he confided to Colonel Preston “it would ruin us” if they had to engage the Cherokees in a war at that time. As the people of Kings Mill gathered to build a fort in which to make a stand, Campbell ordered Captain Cocke to take what men he could raise from his company and go to their support and said he would further reinforce them as soon as Captain Wilson’s Pittsylvania County men arrived, as well as with whatever forces Colonel Preston could send their way.35
After he examined Taylor and Shoat more closely, Campbell determined that Shawnee and Mingo—not Cherokee—war parties were to blame for the recent attacks. The traders told the major that Oconostota had endeavored to remain peaceful with the English, and most of his people wanted no part in the war. Furthermore, the chief pledged that while he had nothing to do with the decision of any of his nation’s warriors to fight against the Virginians, a strong faction among them favored the Shawnees. Campbell offered to forward a letter from Preston to Oconostota that he suggested might help the chief “resume his authority” over some of the more impertinent warriors. Campbell also wrote to ask his friend Alexander Cameron, the Southern Indian Department’s deputy superintendent for that nation, to intercede. Even if the Cherokees decided to join the Shawnees on the warpath, negotiations might delay hostilities long enough to allow the Virginians time to better prepare their defenses.36
The defenders of the Clinch and Holston districts of Fincastle County began to experience frequent alarms and noticed increased signs of Indian activity even in “the very Heart of the Settlement.” Except for one man narrowly escaping capture on the South Fork, they had not actually seen warriors in force since the attacks on Reedy Creek earlier in the month. The reports led Major Campbell to believe most of the warriors seen moving about the settlements were only “Spies.” Despite the recent enemy activity, the major took some satisfaction from the fact that he had convinced the people not to flee from the settlements, and that the Cherokees had not perpetrated the attacks. He assured Preston that if the county lieutenant could send them more ammunition, they could defend the county even if they did have to fight the Cherokees and the Shawnees as well.37
Lieutenant Boone sent Campbell a war club that differed markedly in appearance from the one left at Blackmore’s and suggested “it is the Cherokees that is now annoying us.” Campbell preferred to believe that some of the Indians who had fled from Wakatomika in the wake of McDonald’s raid in August, including Logan, had “taken refuge” just beyond the settlements. He ventured that these refugees would willingly sew confusion and like nothing more than to see a misunderstanding arise between the Virginians and the old Cherokee chiefs who had thus far kept the peace. Campbell continued to believe the Cherokees had not committed the “mischief.” He not only had the war club and message that Logan left at the Roberts’s home but viewed the circumstances in which someone found Cherokee clubs and other signs as “suspicious.”38
Amid the turmoil, a gentleman from “Carolina” contacted Campbell with an interesting offer to bring fifty Catawba warriors who desired to be employed against the Shawnees. These warriors would be accompanied by “fifty prime white men” who wished to come and assist “their Neighbours,” the Virginians. Before giving the Carolina gentleman an answer, Campbell consulted Preston. He recommended that the best way they could use such volunteers was to have them march through Cumberland Gap to the Ohio, where they could act as scouts against the Shawnees during the coming winter. Campbell heard nothing more of the offer from the Carolina gentlemen. He then confided a thought to Preston. If war with the Cherokees appeared likely, he proposed stationing one company at or near the Long Island of the Holston. Control of that feature would offer the Virginians a decided advantage in the event of such a contingency.39
Defending the frontier had become more complicated since the recent series of attacks. The companies on the Holston felt they faced as much danger as those on the Clinch, which made them reluctant to go to their neighbors’ aid at the expense of their own families’ protection. Meanwhile, the defenses at Blackmore’s and the head of the Clinch were stretched thin, and ammunition was in such short supply that neither Captain Looney’s nor Captain Smith’s companies could effectively pursue an enemy force of a dozen or more warriors. With his men unhappy with their lodgings, Captain Wilson told Major Campbell that they would rather have had Colonel Preston station them in the woods. As a remedy, Campbell suggested the colonel might better employ them on the Clinch toward the head of the Blue Stone. There they could effectively defend the frontier as well as the Reed Creek settlement as they presently did. The major reported that the middle stations on the Clinch remained strong, but when employed in small ranging operations, the militiamen who were also local inhabitants feared leaving the protection of the forts to tend the crops in their fields. And while Boone conducted an active defense of the Castle’s Woods area, the spies who operated out of the post at Blackmore’s had lately become remiss in reporting signs of the enemy. Despite these concerns, Major Campbell remained confident of the district’s ability to guard the inhabitants until the expedition returned.40
During the period between sunset and darkness on Thursday, September 29, Indian raiders fired at three men near Fort Christian on the Clinch, where Ensign Hendly Moore commanded. In the exchange, the warriors killed and scalped Sergeant John Duncan within three hundred yards of the post. As soon they heard the gunfire, the men of the garrison mustered a small detachment that marched out to engage the invaders. The Indians immediately “ran off,” and the soldiers pursued them until it became too dark to continue. The ensign sent an express explaining the situation to Campbell early the next morning. Lieutenant Boone prepared to lead a patrol from Fort Byrd in search of any enemy in the area of his station when he received an express from Blackmore’s fort. After reading it, the lieutenant relayed the report that detailed the increased enemy activity in the area around Stony Creek and the lower Clinch River during the preceding week. Captain Looney, able to muster only eleven men from his company at that time, reluctantly reported to Campbell that he could neither range in search of the warriors who had raided Fort Christian nor investigate the latest enemy activity.41
IN LATE SEPTEMBER, the period of relative calm that had lasted along the Monongahela and its tributaries since July came to an end. War parties returned, and the inhabitants in that part of Augusta County once again experienced the ravages of Indian war. One group of warriors murdered a man and his wife and took several neighbors prisoner in the Tenmile Creek area on the morning of September 28. Another raiding party moved in the vicinity of Prickett’s Fort. When they heard cow bells, the Indians took position along the side of a trail and waited in ambush. When Josiah Prickett and Mrs. Susan Ox drove some cows in toward the post for milking, the braves killed and scalped him and took her captive.42
As Lord Dunmore conducted his diplomatic efforts at Pittsburgh, Major William Crawford ordered his men to break camp near Redstone. On September 20, his five-hundred man division of the right wing marched overland to Wheeling with a train of fifty packhorses and a herd of two hundred head of cattle. When his men reached Fort Fincastle, the major allowed them only a short respite before they prepared for the next phase of the expedition. His brother Augustine Crawford, a commissary officer, supervised the Fort Fincastle magazine. He and his men would remain to forward provisions and supplies as the division advanced.43
Lord Dunmore arrived at Fort Fincastle on September 30, after traveling the ninety miles downstream from Pittsburgh. With the union of Crawford’s division and the main body, the men who had been detached to garrison Fort Fincastle since August rejoined their companies. As it encamped about Wheeling, the strength of the right ring of Dunmore’s army stood at about one thousand two hundred men. The governor then learned about the recent raids on the Monongahela communities. The news could not have come at a worse time. Commissary officer Augustine Crawford noted that it “alarmed his Lordship, much as the Indians had been peaceable [in the area] for some time, and some of the defiant nations had met him at Fort Dunmore” for optimistic negotiations about avoiding war. The governor still expected Cornstalk and the Shawnee leaders to meet him near the mouth of the Hockhocking, but prospects for peace had dimmed in spite of the optimism expressed when the council concluded at Pittsburgh. Crawford probably expressed the feelings of many when he wrote, “We were in hopes of a peace being concluded between his Lordship and the Indians,” but in the wake of the recent raids on the Monongahela, he doubted it would happen. If the governor could affect a resolution of differences with the Indians, the commissary officer believed that the Virginians could relieve “the poor distressed Bostonians,” referring to a widely circulated but unfounded rumor that General Gage had attacked the city with artillery.44
Early on the morning of October 2, while the drums and fifes of most of the corps encamped around Wheeling sounded reveille, the musicians of Major Crawford’s division beat the general. On hearing the signal, the men packed their individual loads and unit baggage, packhorse men loaded cargo onto their charges, and the cattle drivers gathered the herd. When they heard assembly, the captains formed their companies and took their places. When his subordinate notified him that they all were ready, Crawford saluted the governor and gave the order. The musicians sounded the march, and the column moved forward along the south bank of the Ohio. Following a plan similar to that of the left wing, Crawford’s division, like that of Colonel Charles Lewis, would establish a forward support base at the mouth of Hockhocking Creek, where it would await the main body before continuing its advance against the enemy.45 According to the change of plan that the governor communicated to Colonel Andrew Lewis from Oldtown, Maryland, on August 30, Crawford expected to meet the left wing marching up from the Great Kanawha when he arrived, or shortly thereafter.
Crawford’s division arrived near the mouth of the Little Kanawha—on about October 4—after a march of eighty miles and prepared to cross the Ohio, which the terms of the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix defined as the boundary between the Virginia colony and the land reserved to the Indians. When all was ready, Crawford gave the order. Boatmen ferried the soldiers across the river on rafts and canoes, as the horses and cattle swam alongside. Once they landed on the north bank, scouts went forward along the intended route, officers reformed their companies and posted security, and the cattle and packhorse drivers arranged their animals for the next leg of the march. When the captains indicated their units were ready, the division continued its advance, now moving along the north bank to the mouth of Hockhocking Creek “where the whole of the troops [the left and right wings] are to rendezvous.” When they arrived, Crawford’s men did not encounter any troops from the left wing, nor did his scouts report seeing any signs of them.
As the spearhead of an invading army, the Virginians found themselves in enemy country and acted accordingly. They dutifully took the necessary precautions according to the doctrine contained in Bland’s Treatise on Military Discipline and what experience had taught them. The division mounted the necessary guard force, with the concomitant picket posts and local patrols. Those soldiers not assigned to guard duty began clearing land and felling trees in order “to build a stockade fort, or large block-house” located—as Crawford noted from having surveyed the tract—just across the Ohio from some “bottom land” owned by George Washington. When completed, the post constituted the first fortified forward supply base on the north bank of the Ohio. Back at Wheeling, Sergeant Ebenezer Zane assumed command of the detachment that remained to garrison Fort Fincastle and guard the magazine operated by Augustine Crawford. That post became important as the last link on the south bank in the logistical chain that conducted supplies and provisions to the right wing, and the entire army after the planned junction with Colonel Andrew Lewis’s command, in its protected advance into hostile territory.
With seven hundred men embarked aboard a flotilla of canoes, pirogues, and keelboats, Dunmore gave Colonel Stephen the command to advance, on about October 2. The main body of the right wing moved down the Ohio from Wheeling to the mouth of the Hockhocking. After the boatmen banked the watercraft and the troops disembarked, Dunmore had the entire wing present to wait for Colonel Lewis’s wing to join him, and for Cornstalk’s delegation to arrive and resume negotiations. As Colonel Stephen assumed command of the encampment on about October 5, the newly arrived soldiers assumed their share of camp duties, including security, and assisted Crawford’s men in building the storehouse and fortifications. Dunmore named the post Fort Gower in honor of the lord president of the Privy Council, Granville Leveson-Gower, second Earl of Gower—Lady Charlotte Dunmore’s brother-in-law and the governor’s political sponsor.46 He then sent Sam Kenton, Simon Girty, and Peter Parchment by canoe to Point Pleasant carrying orders for Lewis to march to the place of rendezvous without delay.47 When they found that the left wing had not yet reached the mouth of the Kanawha, the three scouts deposited the written orders in a hollow tree, along with an “advertisement,” or sign, posted nearby telling Lewis’s men of its presence, before they returned to Fort Gower.
AS THE EVENTS on the Ohio transpired, Colonel Andrew Lewis planned to march to the Elk River with the main body of the left wing, most of the Botetourt County contingent, and two companies from the Fincastle, approximately six hundred men, on Monday, September 12. In addition to the companies of Russell and Shelby, Colonel Lewis ordered Christian to detach some of his men—not drawn from the aforementioned companies—to Fleming’s command for driving horses and cattle and to “work at [building] Canoes” at the Elk River. Private Joseph Duncan of Captain Crockett’s Fincastle County company, for example, was appointed as a driver of cattle and “to guard the Beeves” during the march to the Ohio. Since the detail reduced the number of Fincastle County soldiers at Camp Union to just a few more than one hundred, Christian asked Preston to “send about 100 rank & file men if they can be got with Convenience” and without detriment to those garrisons in the forts or units patrolling the frontier. While some officers believed the frontiers would be in less danger after the army marched, owing to the Indian war parties’ leaving to guard their own homes, most had confidence that Preston would not leave the people unguarded.48
Although disappointed that he would lead the last element to march and have responsibility to convoy the last major supply train, Colonel Christian nonetheless worked tirelessly to prepare the next division, as well as his own, for the march. He wrote to Colonel Preston and requested that he “hurry on Majr. Robertson & the men” to Camp Union. Although most of the county’s contingent would bring up the rear, he wanted to leave no one behind and urged that they go on together and try to overtake the rest of the army at the mouth of the Elk, or at the mouth of the Kanawha by the latest. Christian wanted neither to cross the Ohio much behind the main body nor “miss lending our Assistance” to the army in an engagement. Since Christian assumed any additional Fincastle men would have a good number of packhorses but only a little flour, he requested they come quick. Although no beeves remained at camp after the advanced body departed, Christian expected more to arrive soon through the efforts of Major Posey and his department. Major Mathews, for example, had to bring an additional one hundred sixty thousand weight of beef on the hoof. Of the fifty-four head of cattle expected to go with Colonel Fleming’s division, only twenty-six were on hand in camp, with the rest on the way.49
More troops had mustered to join the expedition than were expected. Consequently, the quartermasters and commissary officers realized they had not acquired sufficient stocks of supplies or enough provisions to support the force at hand. To remedy the situation, Colonel Andrew Lewis notified Colonel Preston and those who commanded the rear detachments in Augusta and Botetourt Counties of a plan for effectively employing the surplus manpower and reduce the rate of consuming rations that had been gathered for the expeditionary force. Expecting a total of as many as 1,490 men, on September 10, Lewis ordered the captains of the units scheduled to march on September 12 to inspect and report on the physical condition and health of their men by the end of the day. After they identified them, the colonel proposed posting those “not fully fit to undergo the fatigue of the Expedition” to garrison the small forts. This measure ensured that the colony gainfully employed the men taken into pay, improved the defenses of the communities served by those forts, and issued the soldiers stationed there rations from the stores acquired for the subsistence of the garrisons.50
Later in the evening, according to Colonel Fleming, one of the spies came in from Gauley Mountain with some new intelligence. On Tuesday the sixth he had observed a war party of five Indians returning toward Indian country from the direction of the settlements with three horses. In the morning three days later, he saw three more warriors heading toward the settled areas. The officers expressed their concern that “Somebody would be killed,” since the inhabitants of the neighborhood tended to travel about carelessly. Colonel Christian suggested that the Indians the spies had observed had mainly come only to watch the motions of the army. Regardless of what motives brought the warriors through there, Fleming and his fellow officers agreed that the enemy closely watched the movements and activities of their army.51
On Sunday, the Fincastle contingent took over the remaining camp duties and the main guard in order to allow the Botetourt companies, and the others attached to them, to complete their preparations for marching. The order went to the troops from Botetourt, Captain Thomas Buford’s company of riflemen from Bedford, and Captains Shelby’s and Russell’s companies from Fincastle County, to “hold themselves in Readiness to move on the Shortest Notice.” Orders also directed each captain to inspect and examine and report the status of the ammunition distributed in their companies. The staff officers set to their tasks as well. Majors Posey and Ingles had to “have all the packhorses loaded as early as possible.” Ingles therefore reported on the number of packhorses in camp, excluding those of the Fincastle line, and had “the brigade under his care” loaded with all the ammunition. The main body’s commissary officer, Captain Charles Simms, inventoried and reported on the quantity of salt and other provisions, as his assistant conductors fixed all the tools not already issued to the companies to pack saddles for loading. Despite the flurry of activity in camp, officers and men made time for the “Divine Service to begin at 12 o’clock” noon.52
The general, the signal for the troops to prepare to march, beat for the main body at daybreak—in lieu of reveille—on September 12. After the musicians beat the march, Fleming, accompanied by Andrew Lewis, led his division out of Camp Union. The first day’s march took the troops, packhorses, and cattle seven miles to Camp Pleasant, its next stop on the way to the Elk River. After the marching men had halted for the day, a man entered camp with a message for Colonel Andrew Lewis from his brother Charles. It informed him that the company from Culpepper County that left Camp Union with Colonel Field in command had caught up with the advance party on Sunday night after an encounter with the enemy that left one soldier and one Indian dead.53
When the division broke camp on Buffalo Creek on the fourth day of the march, Colonel Andrew Lewis thought it necessary to warn the men that they had entered onto “ground much frequented by the Enemy.” He also found it necessary to have the captains repeat to their companies the order that forbade the unauthorized firing of weapons. Not only was it a matter of preventing the waste of ammunition, but since the enemy could be present, it also could be a matter of life or death by potentially inviting an attack. Fleming told the captains to announce to their companies that any soldier who fired his gun without first obtaining permission would be considered disobedient and treated accordingly by his comrades. If the shooter fired against an enemy, however, the admonition did not apply, since the sound of gunfire served as an alarm for the division that someone had sighted or engaged the enemy.54
With Colonels Andrew Lewis and Fleming gone, Christian assumed command of Camp Union until his division marched to the Elk River. The rear body included the last of the Fincastle County contingent and some Culpepper men, plus the Augusta men ordered to remain behind to wait for the county’s packhorses that went with the lead division to return for new loads. Major Posey went to Staunton to “hurry out all the flour possible” before the end of the week, while several soldiers were employed to assist the drovers in gathering the beeves scattered around camp. The quartermaster had forwarded about “72,000wt” of flour with the first two march units, leaving about 8,000 in camp, with 130 horse loads expected to arrive in camp by the next evening, 96 more loads at Warm Springs waiting for transport to the Great Levels, and “between 20 and 30,000 wt beyond the Springs.”
Christian planned to march by the following Monday, September 19, with all the supplies he could obtain in one or two days so his division could reach the mouth of the Kanawha and cross the Ohio with the rest of the army. He still waited for Major Robertson and the rest of the Fincastle contingent to arrive on Sunday or Monday, in enough time to march, and hoped that he would endeavor to get some more beeves on the way, and perhaps provide thirty more. Although Colonel Lewis had mentioned Robertson as the best officer to leave in command of a detachment to “take on what Provisions” he could not get ready by the time he marched, Christian wanted the major with him on the expedition.55
As the division prepared for the campaign, Christian complained that by the time the Fincastle companies had arrived at the rendezvous, the camp equipment in most need, kettles and tents, had mostly been distributed to the other contingents. This left only sixteen or seventeen battered tin kettles and only a few tents for all of his county’s companies. The quartermaster assured him on Monday, September 12, that he had ordered enough linen to make the necessary tents to be brought with packhorses expected to arrive the next day. By the end of the week, Captain Floyd expressed his confidence that his men would “make out pretty well” in receiving enough kettles and the allowed sixty yards of tent cloth for each company. Christian meanwhile wrote to Preston for Robertson “to send over that whole Country and try to buy beg or borrow kettles” before he marched for the rendezvous—if he had not yet left. The lack of a simple item threatened the health of the troops. He explained that to do without kettles “is very hard, almost impossible,” because men would become ill if forced to subsist on roasted meat without broth. 56
Back in Fincastle County, as he prepared to leave Woods’s fort for Camp Union, Major Robertson reported to Colonel Preston that he had collected some “Beeves and Cattles” at Rich Creek. He and Captain Michael Woods had combined their two understrength units into one company of fifty-five men. The number included some men of the Woods’s fort garrison willing to enlist again once discharged from their current terms, which Robertson gladly obliged. When six of Woods’s drafted men refused to go, they appealed to Preston to try to get off and not face a court-martial. Robertson and Woods requested that the county lieutenant “not Countenance any of them.” Since two of the men had previously served as scouts, Woods threatened to withhold their pay certificates and told them their stopped pay would satisfy their fines for not marching. Despite the controversy, an elated Robertson expressed his gratitude to all of the good friends who assisted him in raising enough men to complete his company to full strength, a task he “thought merely Impossible to do” only a short time earlier.57
With Robertson at last heading toward the Great Levels with additional men and cattle, Colonel Christian decided to remain at Camp Union until Monday or Tuesday, September 25 or 26, when he led a large convoy of provisions and about 220 men. On Friday, the colonel issued orders for the division to prepare to march on short notice and for captains to recall all their men from out in the neighborhood back to camp by Saturday evening and have their companies ready for marching. The army had no horses to spare, and Acting Ensign (Sergeant) James Newell of Captain James Herbert’s company noted that Christian allowed each captain to have three packhorses and no more for himself and company to carry all personal baggage and camp equipment. The orders directed the packhorse masters to have the road completed if possible and their animals supplied with hobbles and breastplates for their saddles and ready to start off by Sunday evening. The drivers of cattle received similar instructions. Finally, the colonel forbade gambling in camp until further notice.58
The general beat at daybreak on Tuesday, September 26, for the men scheduled to march, and they completed their final preparations. After a late start, Colonel Christian led the rear party on the first three miles of its route in the direction of the Elk River before it halted for the evening. According to Captain Floyd, Christian expected that Dunmore would make peace with the Indians before any serious fighting occurred, or certainly before a significant proportion of the Fincastle County contingent reached the Ohio.59
Captain Anthony Bledsoe, quartermaster of the Fincastle County expeditionary contingent, assumed command of Camp Union and the small stay-behind detachment. His command included the soldiers of his own company plus a few stragglers and the sick from several units. Christian had instructed him to wait until the six brigades of packhorses that accompanied the advance party returned from the Elk River, which he expected at any day, and to follow. In the meantime, Bledsoe saw that the men prepared supplies for loading as soon as the pack animals returned and had sufficient rest. However, of “two hundred fifty Loads” that did not arrive at Camp Union as expected, 150 had yet to leave Staunton, with the last 100 still waiting at Warm Springs. To further complicate matters, Major Sampson Mathews sent word to inform Bledsoe that he had the supplies waiting in Staunton, but with no means of transporting them to Camp Union, he was obliged to wait for the pack train to return, which certainly caused further delay.
The packhorses returned to the Great Levels late on Friday, September 30. With the animals’ condition “so much Worsted,” however, they could not go to Staunton and Warm Springs for their next loads without three days of rest first. To add to his burden, Bledsoe complained that he needed a hospital and a doctor to care for all the sick from the whole regiment remaining at Camp Union. Finally, his departure for the Elk much delayed by having to collect the supplies at Warm Springs and Staunton, Bledsoe confessed to Preston, “I Judge every person finds the Expedition more tedious than it was generally expected.” 60
ON WEDNESDAY, September 21, after a march of 108 miles in 16 days, the troops of Colonel Charles Lewis’s division arrived at the Elk River, where the elder Colonel Lewis intended to build a fortified magazine. The troops established the encampment about one mile upstream from the mouth, where the Elk flows into the Kanawha River. To get there, the route had taken them to the banks of New River just below the falls and passed near the ruins of Walter Kelly’s farm, the scene of Colonel Field’s harrowing ordeal in July.61
Colonel Fleming’s division, accompanied by Colonel Andrew Lewis, arrived two days later after marching the same distance in twelve days. Following roll call, the combined returns, or strength reports, showed that the body of troops encamped on the Elk River had 977 officers and men present, with 945 fit for duty. With the two divisions joined, Colonel Andrew Lewis planned to march for the mouth of the Kanawha on October 1. To execute the plan, the men of the left wing had much to do, not the least of which was to secure the encampment from surprise attack from marauding Indians. The next day’s order required fifty rank and file with the proper complement of officers and noncommissioned officers for the main guard, as well as the picket guards from each line. To accomplish some of the important tasks required to progress to the next phase of the campaign, commanders reported the number of artificers in the respective corps that were willing to work making canoes and doing other necessary tasks, and quartermasters put all the tools in working order.
With the beating of reveille on Saturday morning, the army fell into a familiar routine of military activity in camp. The main and picket guards established local security for the encampment, and Colonel Andrew Lewis ordered out three different scouts, or small patrols, to determine the extent of enemy activity in the area. One ranged up Elk River, another scouted the right bank of the Kanawha River, and the other reconnoitered the left bank to the mouth of the Coal (or Cole) River. Since Dunmore’s original campaign plan intended for both wings to rendezvous at the mouth of the Kanawha, Colonel Andrew Lewis instructed a scouting party to descend the river by canoe to Point Pleasant. On arriving, they were to wait for Lord Dunmore and the arrival of the “Troops from the Northward.” Because they first had to mend a split in the hull of their canoe, they did not get under way until Sunday.
Soldiers not posted to guard duty or sent on missions performed fatigue duties. Details helped the packhorse men unload cargo and had the flour and gunpowder lodged in the magazine built for that purpose. Major Ingles had three brigades of recently unburdened packhorses sent back to Camp Union for more flour, and had those kept for the main body, as well as the cattle, turned out to graze. Other fatigue parties chopped wood or erected breastworks to fortify the magazine for when the army marched. The artificers, such as carpenters, masons, and shipwrights, went to work building the storehouse and canoes. One board of officers impaneled as a court-martial convened to determine if a case of misconduct warranted a trial. Another board of officers met to set a bill of prices, or rated each variety of liquor peddled in camp to ensure the sutlers did not gouge the soldiers.
The scouts who headed toward the Coal River followed a trail on the left bank of the Kanawha for several hours until they left the path to encamp for the night. Early in the morning, they discovered the hoof prints left by “3 horses, one of them shod, & two moccasin tracks” on the path about four miles from the Elk River encampment. The lead scout sent Private James Mooney, of Arbuckle’s company, back to report to Colonel Fleming as the rest of the patrol proceeded on toward the Coal. Before returning to camp, the scouts discovered a recently abandoned campsite. The signs indicated an estimated fifteen warriors headed upstream in the direction of the New River. Fleming believed the first sighting to be a four- or five-man party returning home from a raid with three captured horses, which did not present a threat. Believing the second report indicated the presence of a dangerous war party, Fleming sent Captain Arbuckle out with a fifty-man company in an effort to intercept them.
The army used the halt at the Elk River to advantage. The men and packhorses got a much-needed rest and chance to recuperate from minor injuries sustained on the difficult march through rugged terrain. Officers and noncommissioned officers took remedial action for some minor acts of misconduct, as some stragglers and deserters who rethought their decisions rejoined their units. Despite the prohibition and consequences concerning the unauthorized discharging of their firearms already posted on September 15, Colonel Fleming ordered the captains to read their companies an even sterner warning. Immediately after reveille at daybreak on the morning of September 27, each company commander assembled and stood at the head of his men and read the final warning. They announced that anyone who continued to disregard the order may rest assured that an officer with a party of men would be ordered out to apprehend and confine them. The captains then inspected arms and ammunition, identified those who were deficient in the amount of gunpowder issued at Camp Union, and added their names to the list of heavy fatigue duties. Due to recent rains, the colonel also ordered the officers to inspect their men’s arms for wet cartridges, and if necessary, send them to the armorer in order to unbreech and clear their weapons. With several days in place, the armorer had the time to make mechanical repairs, giving priority to fixing defective gun-locks.62
Private James Fowler of Russell’s company returned from the scout sent to the mouth of the Kanawha on Thursday, September 29. As he and two companions paddled down the river one night, they saw some suspected Indian fires on the right bank about fifteen miles upstream from its confluence with the Ohio. When they approached for a closer look, the scouts made some noise, at which time whoever tended the fires extinguished them. They banked the canoe and disembarked. Later, two of the men proceed on foot to reconnoiter Point Pleasant. They sent Fowler back to the Elk River in the canoe to report on what they had seen so far and to tell the colonel they would meet him on the march. On his return trip, Fowler paddled close to the left bank and “spied five Indians with three horses” going toward the Indian towns—likely the same party Mooney had reported.63
With the army ready to march, the officers left nothing to chance. To prevent any confusion arising in camp by “the Sutlers retailing of Liquors in such Quantities & so frequently as to make many of the troops drunk,” Colonel Andrew Lewis deemed it necessary to limit the sale of alcohol to that allowed by the orders of the respective captains in their own camps. The colonel further forbade the sutlers from bringing any more liquor supplies into camp until further notice, which restricted sales to that which they already had on hand.64
With the date to march approaching, the pace of preparations quickened. Colonel Fleming noted that “Men have been employed in making canoes since we came here.” By Thursday evening, the shipwrights had eighteen large ones ready to receive their cargo with all possible speed. They needed crews, and the next day the call went out to muster a sufficient number of troops most accustomed to working canoes. The packhorse masters had their men gather and drive their animals to camp, reported the number fit for service, and held them ready for the call to load. Similarly, the cattle drivers gathered their charges to graze and posted grass guards to prevent their wandering off again, and to have them ready in the morning as early as possible. Captains inspected their men, arms, and ammunition as they went through the familiar process of preparing their companies to march, and the commissary and his assistants issued each soldier provisions for two days.
The general did not beat at daybreak as planned on September 30. A hard rain delayed the expedition, and the amended order of the day directed the posted guard to continue as usual. The men, horses, and beeves waited for a break in the weather to cross the one-hundred-yard expanse of river. Another ford lay about one and a half miles above the camp, but the state of the river offered little advantage to crossing there. Although the rain continued, the order came for the infantry to cross, march down the opposite bank of the Elk toward its mouth, and encamp for the night. After they arrived, the commissary issued each soldier provisions for two more days. Back at the magazine, the boatman fixed their loads to the “best Advantage,” ready to embark in the morning. 65
As September drew to a close and October began, despite its bad experience with recruiting men and acquiring supplies, Dunmore’s Virginia army was in motion. The right wing, or Northern Division, commanded by Colonel Adam Stephen, had established one magazine at Wheeling and descended the Ohio to the mouth of Hockhocking Creek, where it built another. The left wing, or Southern Division, commanded by Colonel Andrew Lewis, had begun its march to the Ohio as well. After establishing a magazine at Elk River, two of Lewis’s three divisions began their march along the Kanawha to Point Pleasant. While Indian scouts kept Lewis’s army under observation, Cornstalk’s army of Shawnees and their allies prepared to meet the invaders.