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Show The L&si Yetu? r ' ' T x. i. . V. - J ..'. ' lit---."- 4--s .. : if I n K f " cfc-''Ai r Iff ? ' V ! . i , r ip'f , yy f ' . fl - VA . , r . , Burmntf o Col. Crawford. x By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Blue LlCKS MOTlUm.n.t (Tm.nold engraving In "Incidents of Border Life") jCTOliEK, 17S1. Northward through -P!rar the spring which lay outside the fort and who, J Maryland, through Pennsylvania, gj gambling that the Indians would not spoil their f ! through New Jersey, New York ''vf chance for a surprise attack on the fort by ::9 and New England speed horsemen, $W I molesting them, went singing down the path as t 1. 1 and sleeping village and farm- t, i r j ,J though no enemy were near, although they knew V far house awaken to listen wonder- . . -vij&l&M that savage eyes looked out at them from every Ingly to the cry that rings through 'r't$hj bush along the trail- Inclu(ied in !t. to- is tha (jgA, the night: "Cornwallis is taken 1 -av,r.W etory of young Aaron Reynolds. When Simon CiLm Cornwallis is taken !" So the six- ffx J r'V Girfy tried to get the defeiulers of tne fort t0 QjftOQ year struggle for freedom is end- f o f J V surrender by assuring them that reinforcements (wf I ed and George Washington and ifv ? l k "V witn artillery were on the way and that no his ragged Continentals have tri- 'T y. f quarter would be given if the savages stormed nmphed at last! The Revolution is over! ,r '"f, ' u tl!e fort. Reynolds sprang to the top of the Such Is the picture which the school histories d&&-tJr PVr iXi t'-!$ walls and replied to the renegade, telling him have painted In our minds. But the impression 4-!',t " )4 I that the t"6011'6 of Bryan's Station feared neither they have given lis that the surrender at York- vj R ? , ) their reinforcements nor artillery but that if town meant the dawn of peace and the prosper- ?1 r " - $ Girty and his followers gained entrance to the ous beginning of a new nation is only a half- t J i f'tfifX yVVysi? fort Reynolds and his friends would scorn to truth. True It Is that 17S1 was the last year t-' ( hJ i n? cse their rilles but would drive them out with of the Revolution in the main theater of war 1Vm raVf'i " f switches. the Atlantic seaboard. But there was one peo- l 1"Av'' After the fail"re of attempts to set fire to pie in the new nation who were to know an- jf JV") " the fort, the enemy withdrew. Meanwhile mes- cther year of the horrors of war such as their 2-' V r - sengers had been sent to the other stations ask- eastern neighbors had never known. ln for help and by the evenins of August 17 a To the scattered border settlements west of Va UiiJ Ife.tKTW force of ISO men had assembled at Bryan's Sta- the Alleghenies there had not yet come a Vft l'jJ tion. From Boone's Station came that famous "winged Victory with smooth brow laurelled to ' '.' .."vr-A ' Kentuckian at the head of his men, among them teach us to forget the holocaust." Instead, the his youngest son. Israel : from Lexington and , , ICTOBKR, 17S1. Northward through " r T Maryland, through Pennsylvania, i W through New Jersey, New Y'ork f ;S and New England speed horsemen, t I. S and sleeping village and farm-i farm-i jtr house awaken to listen wonder- . ingly to the cry that rings through . g. A the night: "Cornwallis is taken 1 iffllM Cornwallis is taken !" So the six-GjCv!.j six-GjCv!.j year struggle for freedom is end-v' end-v' 1 ed and George Washington and his ragged Continentals have triumphed tri-umphed at last! The Revolution is over! Such Is the picture which the school histories have painted In our minds. But the impression they have given lis that the surrender at York-town York-town meant the dawn of peace and the prosperous prosper-ous beginning of a new nation is only a half-truth. half-truth. True it is that 17S1 was the last year of the Revolution in the main theater of war the Atlantic seaboard. But there was one people peo-ple in the new nation who were to know another an-other year of the horrors of war such as their eastern neighbors had never known. To the scattered border settlements west of the Alleghenies there had not yet come a "winged Victory with smooth brow laurelled to teach us to forget the holocaust." Instead, the year 17S2 was to be a repetition of 1777, the "year of the bloody sevens," and again, virtually deserted by those governments to whom they had a right to look for aid, the pioneers in the Ohio valley, especially those in Kentucky, must crouch behind the log walls of their stockaded forts with the savage war-whoop ringing in their ears and a shower of Indian arrows and bullets whistling over their heads. So in its sesqui-centennial year, we Americans should not forget what these ancestors of ours who won the West for us suffered and endured in 17S2, the last year of the Revolution. It opened with an affair which must ever be a blot on our history, the massacre of 96 of the "Moravian Indians" at Gnadenhuetten, Ohio, by a party of Pennsylvanians, led by Col. David Williamson. Maddened by the slaughter of their brethren, the Delawares rallied to their aid the Wyandots and other Indians allied with the" British and waited for a good chance for revenge, re-venge, which soon came. In May a body of 4S0 Pennsylvania and Virginia militia gathered at Mingo Bottom on the Ohio and prepared to march against the Wyandot and Shawnee towns on the Upper Sandusky. The commander of the expedition was a Virginian, Vir-ginian, Col. William Crawford, a personal friend of Washington, who had won a reputation as a brave and active officer in the Continental army but who was utterly unfitted for leadership against such an enemy as the tribesmen he was ordered to crush. Crawford hoped to surprise the Indians but enemy scouts discovered his force soon after he started and Indian spies followed fol-lowed every movement of his army. On June 4 Crawford reached one of the Wyandot Wy-andot towns but found it deserted. He marched on to find another and encountered a small force of Indians and Canadian rangers, under the command of Captain Caldwell, which had been sent by the British in Detroit to aid the Indians. There was a sharp skirmish with neither side gaining any advantage, although Crawford had the superiority in numbers. The next morning, instead of forcing a battle and crushing the enemy, Crawford's army lay idle. Caldwef also was willing to delay proceedings for he was expecting reinforcements. They came in the afternoon in the person of 140 Shawnee warriors. At the sight of this, Crawford's militia began to waver and Crawford decided that the only course left for him was to retire from the field. That night his force began a hurried and disorderly dis-orderly retreat. In the darkness the troops be-cam be-cam WriTtered nd -hen wrning came there Simcn Girty were only about 300 left together In one body. Crawford was among those missing and Col. David Williamson, perpetrator of the Gnadenhuetten Gnaden-huetten massacre, who was second in command, directed the retreat If poetic Justice had been at work it would have been Williamson who ' was missing and Crawford who was to lead the disorganized remnants of the command back in safety to Mingo Bottom. But instead Colonel Crawford, Doctor Knight, the surgeon of the command, and nine others were captured by the Indians. All, except Crawford Craw-ford and Knight, were killed at once but these two were taken to a Delaware town for torture. Crawford was burned at the stake and Doctor Knight was forced to watch the sufferings of his friend. Crawford is said to have appealed in vain to Simon Girty, the white renegade among the Indians, to end his sufferings by shooting him, but Girty either could not or would not heed his plea. Later Doctor Knight managed to escape and after wandering in the woods for 21 days reached Fort Pitt in safety. Encouraged by their success the Indians appeared ap-peared In large numbers on the Upper Ohio and fell upon the settlement of Hannastown. Pa., which they burned and captured or killed 20 of its inhabitants. Then the partisan Captains Mc-Kee Mc-Kee and Caldwell assembled a force of 1,100 Indians, the greatest single body of savages brought together during the Revolution, for an attack on Wheeling. But while they were marching march-ing thither they became alarmed by a report that George Rogers Chirk was leading his "Long Knives" again to attack the Shawnee towns. So McKee and Caldwell marched to meet him but upon reaching the Shawnee towns discovered discov-ered that the alarm of those Indians was groundless, it having originated in the appearance appear-ance of an armed galley-boat at the mouth of the Licking river. Most of the Indians, showing a characteristic fickleness, declined to go any farther on the expedition hut Caldwell and McKee managed to keep together some 300 Wyandots Wy-andots and Lake Indians and with these and their Detroit rangers set out to Invade Kentucky Ken-tucky and to attack the five small stockaded settlements in Fayette county. On August 15 they appeared before Bryan's Station, the northernmost settlement in Fayette county, which was defended by less than 50 men. The story of the brief siege of Bryan's Station is one of the classics of Kentucky history. his-tory. Included in it is the story of Its heroic women who took their lives in their hands to bring pails of refreshing water drawn from the spring which lay outside the fort and who, gambling that the Indians would not spoil their chance for a surprise attack on the fort by molesting them, went singing down the path as though no enemy were near, although they knew that savage eyes looked out at them from every bush along the trail. Included in It, too, Is the etory of young Aaron Reynolds. When Simon Girty tried to get the defenders of the fort to surrender by assuring them that reinforcements with artillery were on the way and that no quarter would be given if the savages stormed the fort, Reynolds sprang to the top of the walls and replied to the renegade, telling him that the people of Bryan's Station feared neither their reinforcements nor artillery but that if Girty and his followers gained entrance to the fort Reynolds and his friends would scorn to use their rilles but would drive them out with switches. After the failure of attempts to set fire to the fort, the enemy withdrew. Meanwhile messengers mes-sengers had been sent to the other stations asking ask-ing for help and by the evening of August 17 a force of ISO men had assembled at Bryan's Station. Sta-tion. From Boone's Station came that famous Kentuckian at the head of his men, among them his youngest son, Israel ; from Lexington and McConnell's and McGee's Stations came the men under John Todd and from Harrodsburg came those under Colonel Trigg and Majors McGarry and Harlan. More were reported coming from Lincoln county under Colonel Logan, but the Kentuckians decided to follow the invaders at once without waiting for Logan. Then began the pursuit which was to end In the famous Battle of Blue Licks, fought on the banks of the Licking river on August 19, 17S2. There the rash counsel of a hot-headed officer prevailed over the wisdom of Daniel Boone and precipitated an attack which ended in disaster. For the flower of Kentucky's manhood fell that day out of approximately 180 men, 67 killed outright or murdered as they lay wounded and seven captured of whom four died at the torture tor-ture stake. For a time it seemed that Kentucky could not recover from this crushing disaster. Then George Rogers Clark, who had seemed to be suffering from a strange lethargy during this critical year, was aroused to his old-time energy. He sent out runners to all the settlements calling call-ing upon all able-bodied men to rally for a blow at the Indians. Again the magic of his name asserted itself and in a short time he had gathered gath-ered together a force of more than a thousand mounted riflemen. On November 4 he' left the banks of the Ohio and started north. On November Novem-ber 10 he attacked and burned the Miami towns. "The loss to the savages at the beginning of cold weather was very great," writes Roosevelt. "They were utterly cast down and panic-stricken at such a proof of the power of the whites, coming as it did so soon after the Battle of Blue Licks. The expedition returned in triumph, and the Kentuckians completely regained their self-confidence; and though for ten years longer long-er Kentucky suffered from the inroads of small parties of savages, it was never again threatened threat-ened by a serious invasion." So the disastrous last year of the Revolution ended in triumph. But even more Important than the fact of triumph over savage foes was the importance of the events of that year to the future history of America. For when It came time for the peace commissioners to make the treaty which ended the Revolution it was the conquests of George Rogers Clark in the Old Northwest, ending with his expedition in 17S2, which strengthened the hand of the American commissioners in demanding that the western boundaries of the new nation should be the Mississippi river and the Great Lakes and America was assured of her inland empire. by Western Newspaper Union.) |