CHAPTER XCVI.
1780.
Logan—Leslie's Invasion—Removal of Convention Troops.
In the fall of 1779 Logan, the Indian chief, had again resumed his onslaughts on the banks of the Holston. In June, 1780, when Captain Bird, of Detroit, long the headquarters of British and Indian barbarity, invaded Kentucky, Logan joined in the bloody raid. He was now about fifty-five years of age. Not long after this inroad, Logan, at an Indian council held at Detroit, while phrenzied by liquor, prostrated his wife by a sudden blow, and she fell apparently dead. Supposing that he had killed her, he fled to escape the penalty of blood. While travelling alone on horseback he was all at once overtaken, in the wilderness between Detroit and Sandusky, by a troop of Indians, with their squaws and children, in the midst of whom he recognized his relative Tod-hah-dohs. Imagining that the avenger was at hand, Logan frantically exclaimed that the whole party should fall by his weapons. Tod-hah-dohs perceiving the danger, and observing that Logan was well armed, felt the necessity of prompt action; and while Logan was leaping from his horse to execute his threat, Tod-hah-dohs levelled a shot-gun within a few feet of him and killed him on the spot. Tod-hah-dohs, or the Searcher, originally from Conestoga, and probably a son of Logan's sister who lived there, was better known as Captain Logan. He left children, (two of whom have been seen by Mr. Lyman C. Draper;) so that in spite of Logan's speech some of his blood, at least collaterally, still runs in human veins. Logan's wife recovered from the blow given her by her husband, and returned to her own people.[706:A]
On the 2d of October, 1780, Major Andre was executed as a spy.
Beverley Robinson, a son of the Honorable John Robinson, of Virginia, president of the colony, removed to New York, and married Susanna, daughter of Frederick Philipse, Esq., who owned a vast landed estate on the Hudson. When the Revolution commenced, Beverley Robinson desired to remain in retirement, being opposed to the measures of the ministry, and to the separation of the colonies from the mother country. The importunity of friends induced him to enter the military service of the crown, and he became colonel of the Loyal American Regiment. He was implicated in Arnold's treason, and accompanied Andre in the Vulture. Andre, when captured, was taken to Colonel Robinson's house, which had been confiscated, and then occupied by Washington. Robinson was sent by Sir Henry Clinton as a witness in behalf of Andre.
Prince William Henry, afterwards William the Fourth, was a guest of Colonel Robinson, in New York, during the revolutionary war. Several of his descendants, and those of Captain Roger Morris, have attained distinction. Among them Sir Frederick Philipse Robinson, son of Colonel Beverley Robinson, was an officer of rank under Wellington, and saw hard service in the Peninsular war, and was dangerously wounded at the siege of St. Sebastians. In the war of 1812 he led the British in the attack on Plattsburg, under Prevost.[707:A]
On the twentieth of October, a British fleet, in accordance with intelligence which had been communicated by spies and deserters, made its appearance in the Chesapeake. General Leslie was at the head of the troops aboard. Having landed, they began to fortify Portsmouth. Their highest post was Suffolk, and they occupied the line between Nansemond River and the Dismal Swamp. A person of suspicious appearance, endeavoring to pass through the country from Portsmouth toward North Carolina, was apprehended; and upon its being proposed to search him he readily consented, but at the same time he was observed to put his hand into his pocket and carry something toward his mouth, as if it were a quid of tobacco. Upon examination it proved to be a letter, written on silk-paper, and rolled up in gold-beaters' skin, and nicely tied at each end, so as to be no larger than a goose-quill. The letter was as follows:—
"To Lord Cornwallis:—
"My Lord,—I have been here near a week, establishing a post. I wrote to you to Charleston, and by another messenger by land. I cannot hear with certainty where you are. I wait your orders. The bearer is to be handsomely rewarded if he brings me any note or mark from your lordship.
A. L.
"Portsmouth, Virginia, November 4, 1780."
It was a source of mortification to Governor Jefferson and other patriots that the State was unable to defend herself for want of arms. In compliance with the call of the executive, General Nelson made an effort to collect the militia of the lower counties, and to secure at least the pass at the Great Bridge; but his exertions were ineffectual, as the alarmed inhabitants made it their first business to secure their families and property from danger. General Lawson, who had at this time raised a corps of five hundred volunteers to march to the aid of South Carolina, was called on to aid in defending his own State, and General Stevens was preparing to march with a detachment of the Southern army to her aid when[708:A] Leslie sailed for South Carolina to re-enforce Cornwallis. Leslie during his stay had abstained entirely from depredation and violence. Many negroes who had gone over to him were left behind, either from choice or from want of ship-room. The chief injury resulting from this invasion was the loss of cattle collected for the use of the Southern army. Another consequence of it was the removal of the troops of convention from the neighborhood of Charlottesville. They marched early in October, and crossing the Blue Ridge proceeded along the valley to Winchester, where they were quartered in barracks. Some of the men occupied a church, and about sixty were confined in jail, probably to prevent desertion. The troops were thence removed to Fredericktown, Maryland, and afterwards to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The German troops of convention remained longer in Albemarle: they were removed early in 1781, and quartered at Winchester, and the Warm Springs, in Berkley.
The assembly of Virginia was preparing, in the winter of this year, to weather, as well as possible, the storm which was gathering against her; but without Northern assistance she was hardly able to cope with the enemy. She wanted clothes, arms, ammunition, tents, and other warlike stores. Ten millions of paper dollars were issued from necessity, but it was evident that it would be as transient, as a dream at the present, and pernicious in its consequences; yet without it no resistance could be made to the enemy.
FOOTNOTES:
[706:A] Brantz Mayer's Discourse on Logan and Cresap, 66.
[707:A] Sabine's Loyalists, 562.
[708:A] November fifteenth.
