Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Part 14

CHAPTER V.-An Unbidden Guest.

Beginning with the abduction of the children, the whole Virginia frontier was subjected to Indian raids. While the majority of the settlers attributed the uprising to Governor Dunmore's agency, the better informed knew that it was traceable to the murder of the Logan family.

As Jackson River was a frontier settlement, the farmers met at the school house and made preparations for defense.

All able bodied freemen between the ages of fifteen and fifty were enrolled in the local militia. All realized that serious days were ahead for the colony, which must not only suppress the Indians, but be prepared to join with the other colonies in resisting, even by force of arms, the oppressive measures adopted by the mother country.

In the reorganization, they insisted upon choosing new and competent officers to command them; men who had seen military service and whose loyalty to the colony was not tainted by Toryism.

Mr. Campbell's efforts at organization coupled with the knowledge that he had been an officer in and seen actual service in the British army and that a warrant had been issued for his arrest resulted after careful consideration in his selection as their captain. This selection after some delay was confirmed upon the recommendation of Mr. Peyton Randolph and Mr. Fairfax.

After receiving his commission he worked zealously in organizing, drilling and equipping his company of 170 men; all of whom were experienced woodsmen and excellent marksmen.

With this command he counted not only upon protecting the frontier; but if all peaceful means failed, at an opportune time of rescuing his son and little Dorothy.

His plantation, well up the mountain side, was the first settlement on the trail coming over the mountain from the Kanawha country, and at night half a dozen men used his barn as barracks, while he and his two servants slept in the house, their rifles within easy reach of their beds. A guard of three men was also placed in the mountain pa.s.s to watch the trail and give warning.

Signal flags were set upon John Calvin Rock to give warning by day and a great pile of wood and timber, ready for flint and steel, was placed upon its summit to give a blaze of warning by night.

On the night of the thirtieth of July, the party in the barn were awakened by Indians stealing the two horses. They gave the alarm by firing at them just as they were leaving the lot, and then followed up the mountain trail in close pursuit, occasionally taking a shot when a rolling stone or the noise made by the horses indicated the location of the marauders.

The shooting warned the guards at the pa.s.s, and they, at close range, making out the figures of the Indians even in the darkness, killed one and recovered one of the horses.

When daylight came, Mr. Campbell and his two servants scoured the western mountain side in search of the other horse and found him. He had been shot through the fleshy part of the neck and the halter rope was entangled in a laurel bush.

While they were examining his wounds, Jerry, who had followed them, kept up an incessant barking and growling in a thick cl.u.s.ter of laurels.

Investigating the cause they found an Indian, shot through the chest and murmuring in unconscious monotone.

Richard said: "Let's kill him, he is going to die any way and a dead Indian is always a good Indian." But Mr. Campbell forbade it, not only from kindness of heart but with the hope that from him he might learn news of the children.

He was placed upon the horse; and supported on either side by his captors was carried to the Campbell home. There, exhausted and delirious, he was put to bed in a small shed used as a store room.

After two weeks' careful nursing he began to recover and shortly after Mr. Campbell was told by the Valley doctor: "In a few days you will have a dangerous Indian on your hands, but he is yet too weak to leave his bed."

The morning after the doctor's visit Mr. Campbell found the bed empty and the patient gone. Scratched on the wall in charcoal, he read: "One white man good to Indian; before cahonks fly bring back papoose.

Tah-gah-jute."

Tah-gah-jute, son of Skikellemy, a Cayuga Indian chief, was born in 1725, at Shamokin, on the Susquehanna. He was given the name of Logan, after John Logan, then Secretary of the Pennsylvania Colony, a man who many times had shown himself a friend of the Cayugas.

Logan grew to be a man of intelligence and fine personal appearance; and until he moved westward on the Ohio River in 1770, was of good personal habits. There, because of his friendliness with the whites, he, with his family, usually camped in the neighborhood of the stations of the white traders and by the a.s.sociation not only he but his family acquired habits of intemperance.

On the twentieth of April, 1774, they moved to the mouth of Yellow Creek, on the north bank of the Ohio, just across the river from Joshua Baker's joint and trading station.

Shortly afterwards some land jobbers near the month of Sandy Creek were robbed by a band of Indians. In retaliation Captain Cresap gathered a gang of men and began killing Indians in the neighborhood of Wheeling.

On Grave Creek, below Wheeling, they killed two of Logan's kinsmen.

Hearing a rumor of this and wishing to ascertain the truth, Logan on the twenty-seventh of April accompanied by two braves traveled down to Grave Creek. In the meantime, Captain Cresap and Daniel Greathouse with their gang came to Baker's.

Logan's mother, sister and cousin, a little girl, with four Indian men, crossed in a canoe to Baker's; where after being made drunk, they were all murdered, except the little girl who was carried off a prisoner.

In retaliation, Logan with several Indians, not being able to find Cresap, came up the river to the mouth of the Kanawha, where they murdered several white men; then ascending the Kanawha to its head, crossed the mountain to Campbell's plantation and stole the two children. They carried them to Shauane-Town, on the Scioto, near the present site of Circleville.

The first of July, Logan, accompanied by seven Mingoes, into which confederacy he had been adopted and made a chief, ascended the west fork of the Monongahela into what was then West Augusta county where they came upon William Robinson and two farm hands working in a field. They killed one of his men and made Robinson and the other prisoners, carrying them to Shauane-Town; Logan declaring it to be his purpose to kill or make captive as many whites as they had murdered of his kindred.

Though Logan spoke English he could write very little. He therefore made Robinson write a note to Captain Cresap, in the nature of a declaration of war, which was tied to a war club and thrown into the first white settlement he pa.s.sed. It read:

"Captain Cresap:

"What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga and I let it pa.s.s. But you killed my kin, even my mother and sister on Yellow Creek and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to war since; but the Indians are not angry, only myself.

"July 21, 1774.

John Logan."

Cresap, Greathouse and certain other traders continued murdering Indians, until they stirred up the whole Indian country; then the tribes in retaliation began killing the settlers west of the Alleghanies, making no discrimination between the settlers and traders. The settlers deserting their homes fled eastward across the mountains.

A man by the name of Connelley, the confidential agent of Governor Dunmore, came to Shauane-Town and there met in council with the chiefs of the Shauanese, Delawares, Wyandottes and Mingoes; his mission being to induce them to war with the "Long Knives," or Virginians. He was successful and war was declared.

Four hundred of the Virginia militia a.s.sembled at Wheeling, marched down the Ohio and up the Muskingum, killing Indians and destroying their towns.

Jefferson in his "Notes on Virginia," comments upon these incidents as follows:

"In the spring of the year 1774 a robbery was committed by some Indians on certain land adventurers on the Ohio River. The whites in that quarter, according to their custom undertook to punish this outrage in a summary way. Captain Michael Cresap and a certain Daniel Greathouse leading on these parties, surprised at different times traveling and hunting parties of Indians, having their women and children with them and murdered many. Among these were unfortunately the family of Logan, a chief celebrated in peace and in war and long distinguished as a friend of the whites. This unworthy return provoked his vengeance. He accordingly signalized himself in the war which ensued."

On the fifth of September Captain Campbell received orders from General Andrew Lewis, directing that he with his company report for service at Fort Union on the tenth of September, prepared for a sixty day campaign into the Ohio River country. He and his wife were delighted at the receipt of the order, believing the opportunity was now presented to rescue the children.

His company of ninety-seven left the settlement on the morning of the eighth, and about noon on the ninth reached Fort Union on the western slope of the Alleghanies.

On September eleventh, General Lewis led his detachment of eleven hundred men down the mountain side into the Kanawha valley, beginning a one hundred and sixty mile tramp through the pathless, rough and heavily timbered wilderness of the valley to Point Pleasant, where they arrived on the first of October. Here Governor Dunmore was supposed to meet him with two thousand men, who were to march over the mountains to the Monongahela River and descend that stream and the Ohio to the rendezvous in canoes and batteaux.

After waiting nine days he received word that the Governor had changed his plans, and instead of meeting them as agreed, had come down the Ohio to the mouth of the Hocking River and ascended that stream to the falls; declaring it his intention to march across country and attack the Indian towns on the Scioto.

On the afternoon of the day this information was received, Captain Campbell and one of his men, thinking to supplement his company's rations by killing a deer or two, left the camp and traveled more than a mile back into the timbered river valley.

There a large party of Indians hiding in a cane brake attacked them, killing the soldier. Two Indians close at hand rushed the captain, intending to take him a prisoner. He killed one, the other, a powerful man, throwing him to the ground rolled upon him. Each looked into the other's face and recognition was mutual. It was Logan. He muttered: "Throw Indian off and run to camp." This he did, and was so closely pursued by the chief, who kept even with but apparently could not overtake him, that the other Indians dared not fire.

General Lewis expecting every day to be joined by Governor Dunmore had neglected to fortify his camp near the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. There the Indians, superior numerically, cornered his detachment and cut off retreat.

The morning following Captain Campbell's escape, while the camp was being broken up to join Dunmore's forces, the Indians in great numbers, began the attack with a well directed fire, howling and screeching as only wild men can; and for several hours had the best of the conflict.

They were commanded by Chief Cornstalk, who moving back and forth along their line when it began to waver, could be heard above the din of conflict, calling out in Indian tongue: "Be strong! Be strong!" The battle continued throughout the day and by evening it was evident the whites were victorious. At dark the Indians withdrew, and during the night crossed the Ohio.

Of the colonists, ten officers, including two colonels and five captains and more than a hundred private soldiers were killed. Of the Jackson River Company, seven were killed and eleven were wounded. Among the wounded was Captain Campbell, who with the other wounded were left behind at the camp, now strongly entrenched and well guarded, while the General with most of his men marched up the river to join Lord Dunmore.

Opposite the mouth of the Hocking River they ferried the Ohio in the Governor's boats and marched rapidly northward expecting to join Dunmore who had entrenched about five miles east of Shauane-Town, giving the camp the name of Fort Charlotte.

Learning of General Lewis' approach, he rode out and met him several miles from his fort, having as his escort several officers and Indian chiefs, two of whom had been in the Point Pleasant battle. When they met he peremptorily ordered Lewis to return to Virginia. This order the General reluctantly obeyed; his men grumbling and threatening, even charging that the Governor had been cognizant of the contemplated attack upon them, perhaps had instigated it; and was now showing his disappointment because they had defeated the Indians.