The Winning of the West, Volume Two From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783

Mora

nhutten, and Sch?nbrunn received no damage whatever. During the early years of the Revolutionary struggle they were not molested, but dwelt in peace and comfort in their roomy cabins of squared timbers, cleanly and quiet, industriously tilling the soil, abstaining from all strong drink, schoolin

e bitterest foes of the Americans, and those most completely under British influence. They were on the trail that the war-parties followed whether they struck at Kentucky or at the valleys of the Alleghan

Indians H

atchet against the whites. As they could not goad them into declaring war, they took malicious pleasure in trying to embroil them against their will, and on returning from raids against the settlements often passed through their towns solely to cast suspicion on them and to draw down the wrath of the backwoodsmen on their heads. The British at Detroit feared lest the Americans might use the Moravian villag

the Am

mad frenzy of rage by the awful nature of their wrongs, saw that the Moravians rendered valuable help to their cruel and inveterate foes, and refused to see that the help was given with the utmost reluctance. Moreover, some of the young Christian Indians backslid, and joined their savage brethren, accompanying them on their war parties and ravaging with as much cruelty as any of their number. [Foot

ly Court t

om the other side, likewise tried to persuade them to abandon their dangerous position, and to come well within the Indian and British lines, saying: "Two mighty and angry gods stand opposite to each other with their mouths wide open, and you are between them, and are in danger of being crushed by one or the other, or by both." [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 41, Vol. III., pp. 78, 79; extract from diary of Rev. David Zeisburger.] But in spite of these warnings, and heedless of the safety that would have followed the adoption of either course, the Moravians followed the advice of their missionaries and continued where they were. They suffered greatly from the wanton cruelty of their red brethren; and their fate remai

Dunkards-Quaker-like Germans-who had built a settlement on the Monongahela. As they helped neither side, both distrusted and hated them. The whites harassed them in every way, and the Indians finally fell upon and massacred them. [Footnote: Withers, 5

t of the Ba

before passing too severe a judgment. In the turmoil of the harassing and long-continued Indian war, and the consequent loosening of social bonds, it was inevitable that, as regards outside matters, each man should do what seemed right in his own eyes. The bad and the good alike were left free and untrammelled to follow the bent of their desires. The people had all they could do to beat off their savage enemies, and to keep order among themselves. They were able to impose but slight

xplan

human being. The warrior was not to them a creature of romance. They knew him for what he was-filthy, cruel, lecherous, and faithless. He sometimes had excellent qualities, but these they seldom had a chance to see. They always met him at his worst. To them he was in peace a lazy, dirty, drunken beggar, whom they despised, and yet whom they feared; for the squalid, contemptible creature might at any moment be transformed into a foe whose like there was not to be found in

the Backwood

the settlement were also taken prisoners or massacred by the savages, whom they had never wronged in any way. She was taken to the Big Bone Lick in Kentucky. On the way her baby was born, but she was not allowed to halt a day on account of this incident. She left it in the Indian camp, and made her escape in company with "an old Dutch woman." They lived on berries and nuts for forty days, while they made their way homewards. Both got in safely, though they separated after the old Dutch woman, in the extremity of hunger, had tried to kill her companion that she might eat her. When Cornstalk's party perpetrated the massacre of the Clendennins during Pontiac's war (see Stewart's Narrative), Mrs. Clendennin likewise left her baby to its death, and made her escape; her husband had previously been killed and his bloody scalp tied across her jaws as a gag.] The man who daily imperilled his own life, would, if water was needed in the fort, send his wife and daughter to draw it from

ands they, another chosen people, should in their turn inherit? They believed that the Lord was king for ever and ever, and they believed no less that they were but obeying His commandment as they strove mightily to bring about the day when the heathen should have perished out of the land; for they had read in The Book that he was accursed who did the work of the Lord deceitfully, or kept his sword back from

Themselves n

ns. No matter how reluctant the aid thus given, the pursuers were right in feeling enraged, and in demanding that the towns should be removed to where they could no longer give comfort to the enemy. When the missionaries refused to consent to this removal, they thereby became helpers of the hostile Indians; they wronged the frontiersmen, and they still more grievously wronged their own flocks. They certainly had ample warning of the temper of the whites. Col. Brodhead was in command at Fort Pitt until the end of 1781. At the time that General Sullivan ravaged the country of the Six Nations, he had led a force up the Alleghany and created a diversi

the British an

. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 41, Vol. III., p. 77.] With them came also Shawnees, Chippewas, and Ottawas. All were acting in pursuance of the express orders of the commandant at Detroit. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, October 5th and 21st, 1781; McKee to De Peyster, October 18th.] These warriors insisted on the Christian Indians abandoning their villages and accompanying them back to Sandusky and Detroit; and they destroyed many of the houses, and mu

the Am

rmed. [Footnote: Gibson was the old friend of the chief Logan. It is only just to remember that the Continental officers at Fort Pitt treated the Moravians even better than did the British officers at Detroit.] Gibson had all along been a firm friend of the Moravians. He had protected them against the violence of the borderers, and had written repeated and urgent letters to Congress and to his superior officers, asking that some steps might be taken to prot

o are always led by others, chimed in, in a somewhat lower key; and many good men were silent for the reasons given already. In a frontier democracy, military and civil officers are directly dependent upon popular approval, not only for their offices, but for what they are able to accomplish while filling them. They are therefore generally extremely sensitive to either praise or blame. Ambitious men flatter and bow to popular prejudice or opinion, and only those of genuine power and self-reliance dare to withs

Warned and Retur

ived. During the long winter they suffered greatly from cold and hunger, at Sandusky, and bef

o the Moravian towns, where they rested and ate, prior to continuing their journey with their remaining captives. When they left they warned the Moravians that white men were on their trail. [Footnote: Heckewelder, 3:1.] A white man who had just escaped this same impaling party, also warned the Moravians that the exasperated borderers were prepa

but a few decent men, to their shame, went along. They started in March, and on the third day reached the fated villages. That no circumstance might be wanting to fill the measure of their infamy, they spoke the Indians fair, assured the

e for putting them instantly to death. Eighteen men protested, and asked that the lives of the poor creatures should be spared; and then withdrew, calling God to witness that they were innocent of the crime

re Mas

aise to the Most High." Then the white butchers entered the houses and put to death the ninety-six men, women, and children that were within their walls. More than a hundred years have passed since this deed of revolting brutality; but even now a just man's blood boils in his veins at the remembrance.

ckians were never implicated in this or any similar massacre. [Footnote: The Germans of up-country North Carolina were guilty of as brutal massacres as the Scotch-Irish backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania. See Adair, 245. There are two or three individual instances of the barbarity of Kentuckians-one being to the credit of McGarry,-but they are singularly few, when the length and the dreadful nature of their Indian wars are taken into account. Throughout their history the Kentucky pioneers had the righ

bout the massacre of Glencoe. For some time the true circumstances of the affair were not widely known among them. They were hot with wrath against all the red-skinned race; and they rejoiced to hear of the death of a number of treacherous Indians who pretended to be

heavily on those who were innocent of any actual complicity in the deed of evil. Nevertheless it is impossible

rches again

felt by that portion of the frontier; and for their repeated and merciless ravages they deserved the severest chastisement. The expedition against them was from every point of view just; and it was undertaken to punish them, and without any definite idea of attacking the remnant of the Moravians who were settled among

d stuff [Footnote: A minute and exhaustive account of Crawford's campaign is given by Mr. C. W. Butterfield in his "Expedition against Sandusky." (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1873). Mr. Butterfield shows conclusively that the accepted accounts are wholly inaccurate, being derived from the reports of the Moravian missionaries, whose untruthfulness (especially Heckewelder's) is clearly demonstrated. He shows the apocryphal nature of some of the pretended narratives of the

bly many of their acts, and praises the generalship of Crawford and the soldiership of his men; when in reality the campaign was badly conducted from beginning to end, and

ky plains; billowy stretches of prairie, covered with high coarse grass and dotted with islands of timber. As the men marched across them

ws conclusively that there is not the slightest ground to accept Heckewelder's assertion that Crawford's people openly declared that "no Indian was to be spared, friend or foe."]; and runners were sent to Detroit asking help. This the Britis

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ficial report of Lt. John Turney of the rangers, June 7, 1782.] The British and Indians united certainly did not much exceed three hundred men; but they were hourly expecting reinforcements, and decided to give battle. They were posted in a grove of trees, from which they were driven by the first charge of the Americans. A hot skirmish ensued, in which, in spite of C

lled and eight wounded-in all seventeen. [Footnote: Do. Probably some of this loss occurred on the following day. I rely on Butterfield for the American loss, as he quotes Irvine's official report, etc.

nclined to renew the attack; they wished to wait until their numbers were increased. The only chance of the American militia was to crush their enemies before reinfor

f the

arsh. Many thus became scattered, and next morning there were only about three hundred men left together in a body. Crawford himself was among the missing, so Williamson took command, and hastily continued the retreat. The savages did not make a very hot pursuit; nevertheless, in the afternoon of that day a small number of Indians and Detroit rangers overtook the Americans. They were all mounted. A slight skirmish followed, and the

and their heads stuck on poles; but if they fell into the hands of the Shawnees or Delawares they were tortured to death with fiendish cruelty. Among them was Crawford himself, who had become separated from the

nd some of the former Moravians, who had rejoined their wild tribesmen, told the prisoners that from that time on not a single captive should escape torture. Nevertheless it is likely that Crawford

tnote: Do. Aug. 18, 1782.] but could accomplish little or nothing. Even the Mingos and Hurons told them that though they wo

Tortured

or twice round the stake. The fire, of small hickory poles, was several yards from the post, so as only to roast and scorch him. Powder was shot into his body, and burning fagots shoved against him, while red embers were strewn beneath his feet. For two hours he bore his torments with manly fortitude, speaking low, and beseeching the Almighty to have mercy on his soul. Then he fell down, and his torturers scalped him, and threw burning coals

with the latter, he lulled his suspicions, the more easily because the Indian evidently regarded so small a man with contempt; and

llages; his mother was afterwards ransomed. He lived twelve years with the savages, at first in the Miami towns, and then with the Shawnees. When twenty years old he went to Fort Pitt, where, by accident, he was made known to some of his relations. They pressed him to rejoin his people, but he had become so wedded to savage life that he

ish agents from Detroit signifying their approval of the resolution. [Footnote: Slover asserts that it was taken in consequence of a message sent advising it by the commandant at Detroit. This is doubtless untrue; the commandant at Detroit did what he could to stop such outrages, although many of his more reckless and uncontrollable subordinates very probably pursued an opposite course. The ignorant and violently prejudiced backwoodsmen naturally believed all man

r's E

the morrow. That night he was bound and put in a wigwam under the care of three warriors. They laughed and chatted with the prisoner, mocking him, and describing to hi

f the halloo of his pursuers. Struggling to his feet he continued his flight, and ran until after dark. He then threw himself down and snatched a few hours' restless sleep, but, as soon as the moon rose, he renewed his run for life, carefully covering his trail whenever possible. At last he distanced his enemies. For five days he went straight through

the F

The Indians were roused to savage anger by the murder of the Moravians, and were greatly encouraged by their easy defeat of Crawford's troops. They harassed the settlements all along the Upper Ohio, the Alleghany and