Gibson could not by any such decapitating exploit, have originated the designation of “Big Knife,” or “Big Knife warrior,” for this appellation had long before been applied to the Virginians. Gist says in his Journal, Dec. 7th, 1750, in speaking of crossing Elk’s Eye Creek––the Muskingum––and reaching an Indian hamlet, that the Indians were all out hunting; that “the old Frenchman, Mark Coonce, living there, was civil to me; but after I was gone to my camp, upon his understanding I came from Virginia, he called me Big Knife.” Col. James Smith, then a prisoner with the Indians, says the Indians assigned as a reason why they did not oppose Gen. Forbes in 1758, that if they had been only red coats they could have subdued them; “but they could not withstand Ash-a-le-co-a, or the Great Knife, which was the name they gave the Virginians.”––L. C. D.
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Comment by R. G. T.––See note on p. 77, regarding erection of early forts at Redstone. James Veech, in Monongahela of Old, says, “We know that the late Col. James Paull served a month’s duty in a drafted militia company in guarding Continental stores here [Fort Burd] in 1778.” The term “Big Knives” or “Long Knives” may have had reference either to the long knives carried by early white hunters, or the swords worn by backwoods militia officers. See Roosevelt’s Winning of the West, I., p. 197.
Footnotes for Chapter 3
Father of Dr. Archibald Alexander, sometime president of Hampden Sydney College in Virginia, and afterwards a professor at Princeton in New Jersey.
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Comment by L. C. D.––He was the grandfather of Dr. Alexander.
The attacks on the Roanoke settlement, mentioned by Withers, occurred in June and July, 1755 (not the spring of 1757, as he states); that on Greenbrier, in September following; and the expedition against the Shawnees did not take place in 1757, but in February and March, 1756. Diaries and other documents in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s library prove this. Dr. Draper estimated that Lewis’s force was about 263 whites and 130 Cherokees––418 in all. The several companies were officered by Peter Hogg, John Smith, William Preston, Archibald Alexander, Robert Breckenridge, Obadiah Woodson, John Montgomery, and one Dunlap. Two of Dr. Thomas Walker’s companions in his Kentucky exploration of 1750, were in the expedition––Henry Lawless and Colby Chew. Governor Dinwiddie had stipulated in his note to Washington, in December, 1755, that either Col. Adam Stephen or Maj. Andrew Lewis was to command. Washington having selected the latter, dispatched him from Winchester about the middle of January, 1756, with orders to hurry on the expedition. To the mismanagement of the guides is attributed much of the blame for its failure. The interesting Journals of Capt. William Preston and Lieut. Thomas Norton are in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society.––R. G. T.