Show r ls ap A vo lul ion N W 7 t 1 M 0 M ar P 4 i 1 1 41 m if V C W to A all Z Z VW I 1 1 taz 7 rol r ol deor ge fort k va I 1 U e N r 0 il 9 1 t W A fill V A 5 niel 1 D 11 1 1 tae pone the burning of col crawford the blue licks on old engrav ngn Incident 3 of border afe by ELMO SCOTT WATSON 1781 northward Kort hward through maryland through pennsylvania through new jersey new york and new england speed horsemen and sleeping village and farmhouse awaken to listen wonderingly to the cry that rings through the night cornwallis Cornwall ls Is taken cornwallis Is taken so the six els year struggle for freedom Is ended and george washington and his ragged continentals Continent als have triumphed at bastl the revolution Is overl over such Is the picture which the school histories have painted in our minds but the impression they have given us that the surrender at yorktown meant the dawn of peace and the prosperous beginning of a new nation Is only a halt half truth true it is that 1781 was the last year of the revolution in the main theater ot of war the atlantic seaboard but there was one people in the new nation who were to know another year of the horrors of war such as their eastern neighbors had never known to the scattered border settlements west of the alleghenies there bad not yet come a winged victory with smooth brow laurellen laurel led to teach us to forget the holocaust hOlO CRUSt instead the year 1782 was to be a repetition of ct 1777 the year of the bloody sevens and again virtually deserted by those governments govern menta to whom they had bad a right to look for aid the pioneers in the ohio valley especially those in kentucky must crouch behind the log walls of their forts with the savage war whoop ringing la in their ears and a shower of indian arrows and bullets whistling over their heads so in its centennial year we americans should not forget what these ancestors of ours who won the west for us suffered and endured in 1782 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 Gnaden huetten ohio by a party of pennsylvanians lans ians led by col david williamson maddened by the slaughter of their brethren the delawarek Dela wares rallied milled to their aid the Wyan dots and other indians indiana allied with the british and waited for a good chance for revenge which soon came in may a body of pennsylvania and virginia militia gathered at lungo 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 an 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 be was ordered to crush crawford Craw tord hoped to surprise the indians but enemy scouts dl discovered his force soon after he be started and indian spies followed every movement of his army on june 4 crawford reached one of the wyandot towns but found it deserted jle jie marched on to find another and encountered a small force of indians and canadian rangers under the command of captain caldwell which had bad been sent cent by the british in detroit to aid the Ind indiana lanz there was a sharp skirmish with neither bide aide gaining any advantage although crawford Craw tord had the superiority in numbers the next morning instead of forcing a battle and crushing the enemy crawfords Craw fords army lay idle caldwell also was wa willing to delay proceedings for he was expecting reinforcements they came in the afternoon in the person of shawnee warriors at the sight sigbe of this crawfords Craw fords 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 retreat in the darkness the troops becan became and when ti orning came there A Y a imi simon airty airty were only about left together in one body crawford was among those missing and col david williamson 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 williamson who was missing and crawford who was waa to lead the disorganized remnants of the command back in safety to mingo bingo bottom but instead colonel crawford doctor knight the surgeon of the command and nine others were captured by the indians all except crawford and knight were killed at once hut but these two were taken to a delaware town for torture crawford was as burned tit nt the stake and doctor knight was as forced force to watch the sufferings of his hia friend crawford Is 18 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 pica later doctor knight managed to escape rind and after wandering ring in the woods for 21 days reached fort pitt in safety encouraged by their success the indians appeared in large numbers on the upper ohio and tell fell upon the settlement of pa which they burneil burned and captured or killed 20 of its inhabitants then the partisan captains 3 mckee and caldwell assembled a force of 1100 indians the greatest single body of savages ravages brought together during the revolution for an attack on wheeling rut put while hile they were marching thither they became alarmed by a report that george rogers dirk was leading his long knives again to attack the shawnee towns so mckee and caldwell marched to meet him but upon reaching the shawnee to towns ans discovered that the alarm alarin of those indians was groundless it having originated in the appearance of an armed galley boat at the mouth month of the licking river most of the indians showing a characteristic fickleness declined to go any farther on the expedition but caldwell and mckee managed to keep together some wy andors and lake indians and with these and their detroit rangers set out to invade kentucky and to attack the five small stoc haded settlements in fayette county on august 15 they appeared before bryans station the northernmost settlement in fayette county which was wag defended by less than SO 50 men the story of the brief siege of br bryans vans station Is one of the classics of kentucky history included in it Is the story of its heroic women who took their lives in their bands to bring palls pails of refreshing water drawn from the spring which lay outside the fort and who gambling that the indians indiana 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 anish along the trail included in it too is the story 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 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 bryans station feared neither their reinforcements nor artillery but that it if girty and its his followers gained entrance to the fort reynolds and hla his friends would scorn to use their rifles but would drive them out with ith switches after the failure of attempts to set fire to the fort the enemy withdrew meanwhile messengers had been sent to the other stations asking for help and by the evening of august IT 17 a force of ISO men had assembled at aryans station from doones boones station came that famous kentuckian at the head of his men among them his youngest son israel fram 1 aln ton and McC and mcgeee mcgees stations came the men under john todd and from came those under colonel til ami on majors mcgarry and starlan more were reported coming coining from cincin county under tinder colonel logan but the Kentuck kentuckians ians 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 1782 there the rash counsel of a hotheaded hot headed officer prevailed over the wisdom of daniel bootie boone and precipitated an attak which ended in disaster for the flower of Kentuck ys manhood fell that day out of approximately ISO men 67 killed outright or murdered as they lay wounded nod and seven captured of whom four died fit at the torture stake for a time it seemed Kent kentucky liely could not recover from this crushing disaster then george rogers clark who had bad seemed to be suffering from a strange lethargy during this critical year was wag aroused to his old time energy ile he sent out runners to all the sett settlements calling upon all able bodied men to rally aorl for blow at the indians again the magic of his name came asserted itself and in a short time he be had gathered together a force of more than it a thousand mounted riflemen on november 4 he be left the banks of the ohio and started north on november 10 he attacked and burned the miami towns the loss to the savages ravages at the beginning of cold weather was very great writes roosevelt they were ere utterly cast down and panic strick en at such a proof of the power of the whites coming collating as it did so soon after the battle of clue blue licks the expedition returned in arlu triumph mph and the Kentuck kentuckians ians completely regained their self confidence and though for ten years I 1 longer ong Ien kentucky tucky suffered from the inroads of small parties of savages it was never again threatened 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 pence 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 bis expedition in 1782 which strengthened the hend hand of the american commissioners in demanding that the western boundaries of the new nation should he ha the mississippi river and the great lakes and america was assured of cf her inland empire Q by western newspaper union |