| Show W tj T I 1 ac 7 aul f ion io n k q V alik I 1 i I 1 ta A 4 N M wr ay arten 4 A i K I 1 I 1 0 dearv Y W 41 J af R lit et J ra tha the bauming 0 of col crawford Craw tord the blue licks nta of by ELMO SCOTT WATSON 1781 northward through maryland through pennsylvania through new jersey new york and new england speed horsemen and sleeping village and farmhouse awaken to listen wonder angly to the cry that rings through the night cornwallis Cornwall ls Is taken 1 ia cornwallis ls Is taken so the six year struggle for freedom Is end J cd ed and george IN washington ashington and his ragged continentals have tri at list I 1 the revolution Is overt such Is the picture which the school histories hae haie painted in our minds mindl but the impression they have given us that the surrender at york ton meant the dawn of peace and the prosper ous beginning of a new nation Is only a half truth true it Is that 1781 was the list last year of the revolution in the main theater of war the atlantic seaboard but there was one people in the new nation who were to know an ether other year of the horrors of war such ruch as their eastern neighbors had never known to the scat scattered terea border settlements west of the alleghenies there had not yet come a I 1 winged victory with smooth brow laurellen laurel led to teach us to forget the holocaust instead the year 1782 was to be a repetition of 1777 the byear of the tho 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 ct of their forts with the savage war whoop ringing IL their ears and a shower of indian arrows and bullets whistling over their heads so in its sesquicentennial centennial year we ne americans should not forget what these ancL ancestors of ours who won on the west for us suffered ani endured in 1782 the last year of the it opened with an affair which mu t ever be a blot on our history the massacre of OG 00 of the 11 lur kuruvi oVlan 1 ata T hu Indi 1 mn alio at ian ohio oh 0 O by a n party of led by col david maddened by the slighter of their brethren the delawarek Dela wares rallied to their aid the Wyan dots and other indians allied ith the british and waited for a good chance for revenge which soon came in may a body of 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 vir finlan ool 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 tut fur 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 be he started and indian spies fol lowed every movement of his army on june 4 crawford reached reacted one of the wyandot towns but found it deserted he ile marched on to find and another and encountered a small force of indians and canadian rangers under the command of captain caldwell which bad had been cent sent by the british in detroit to aid the indians there was a sharp skirmish with neither side gaining any tiny advant advantage alre although crawford had the superiority in numbers num beia bets the next morning instead of forcing a battle and crushing the enemy crawfords Craw forde army lay idle caldwell also wag was illing to delay proceedings for hp b was expecting reinforcements they came in the aftem afternoon oon in the person of shawnee shawn warriors at the sight of this Craw crawford fords s militia began to waver water and crawford decided that the only course left for him was to retire from the field fiell that night his force began a hurried and disorderly retreat in the darkness the troops be acne scattered and when morning aa came there 1 arcu I 1 it tr nt A gir ty were only about SOO left together in one body crawford was among those missing and col david perpetrator of the gnaden huetten massacre who was second in command directed the retreat it if poetic justice had been at work it would have been amson 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 craw ford aad and knight were killed at once but these two were taken to a delaware town for torture cr py P y rd W burnad at na fant and docto 9 knight was forced to watch the sufferings ct of bis his friend crawford Is said to have appealed in vain to simon Girty the i hite bite renegade among the indians to end his sufferings by shooting him but girty either could not or would not heed bis his plea later doctor knight managed to escape and after wandering in the woods for 21 days reached fort ritt pill in safety encouraged by their success the indians appeared in large numbers on the upper ohio and fell upon the settlement of ra which they burned and captured or killed 20 of its inhabitants then the partisan captains me mckee and caldwell assembled a force of 1100 indians the greatest single body of savages brought together during the revolution for an attack on IN wheeling heeling but while they were march ing blither they became alarmed by a report that george rogers dark clark was leading his long knives again to attack the shawnee towns so go mckee and calda ell marched arched in to meet urn him but upon reaching the shawnee towns discor ered that the alarm of those indians was groundless it having originated in the appear ance of an armed amed galley boat at the mouth of the licking river most of the indians showing a characteristic Ockle declined to go any farther on the expedition but caldwell and mckee managed to keep to together eaber some wy ivy andors and lake lale indians and with these and their detroit rangers set out to invade ken tucky and to attack the five small blockaded settlements in fayette county on august 15 they appeared before bryans station the northernmost settlement in fayette clenty which was defended by less than CO 50 men the story of the brief siege glege of bryans station Is one of the classics of kentucky his tory included in it Is the story of its heroic women who took their lives livel in their hands to 0 o bring rail of refreshing water drawn from f I 1 the spring which lay outside the tort fort and who gambling that the indians indiana would sot lot spoil their chance for a surp surprise rite attack on the fort by molesting them went ringing down the path as though no enemy were near lear although they knew that savage eyes looked out at them from every bush along the trail trait included in 14 it too Is the story of young aar aaron on reynolds when simon girty tried to get the defenders of the fort to surrender by assuring them that reinforcements with ith artillery were on the way and that no quarter would be div it 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 a 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 rifles but would drive them out with switches after the failure of attempts to set fire to the fort the enemy NIth withdrew drew meanwhile messengers had been sent to the other stations ask ing for help and by the evening of 0 august 17 a force of men had assembled at bryans station from boones boone a station came that famous kentuckian at the head bead of his men among them his youngest son israel from lexington and mcconnell a and mcgee a stations camel the men under john todd and from came those under colonel trigg and majors mcgarry and harlan more were ere reported coming from lincoln county under colonel logon but the kentuckians Kentuck lans decided to follow fie te 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 tha banks of the licking river on august 19 1782 there the rash counsel of a hotheaded officer prevailed over the wisdom of daniel boone and precipitated an attack which ended in disaster for the flower of manhood fell that day bayout out of approximately ISO aen men 67 ollied ou outright tricht or murdered an lay 1 w end nna seven captured of whom four died at the tor ture stake for a time it seamed seemed that kentucky could not recover from this crushing dis disaster astor then george rogers dark clark who had teemed seemed to be suffering from a strange lethargy during this critical year was aroused to his old time energy he sent scat out runners to all oil the settlements call ing upon all able bodied men to rally for a blow at the indians again the magic of hia his name asserted itself and in a short time he had gath cred ered together a force of more than a thou thousand sanI mounted riflemen on november 4 he left the banks of the ohio and started north on novem ber 10 he attacked and burned the miami todos the loss to the savages at the beginning of cold weather was very great write writes roosevelt roosevell I 1 they were utterly cast down and panic strick en at such a proof of the power of the whites coming as it did so scon soon after tho the battle of blue licks the expedition returned in triumph and the kentuckians Kentuck lans completely regained their self confidence and though for ten years long er kentucky suffered from the inroads of small parties of savages it was never again th threat reat ened by a serious invasion so the disastrous last year of the revolution ended in triumph but even more Import important act than the fact of triumph over savage foes was the importance of the events of that year to the future history of america fo when it came time for the peace commissioner commissioners to make the treaty which ended tho the revolution it was the conquests of george rogers clark in the old northwest ending rith his hi in 1782 alch strengthened the hand of 0 the american commissioners in demanding tha thal the western boundaries of the new nation should be the mississippi river and the great lakes and merlea was assured of her inland empire G Q by calon |
