This cape was called Point Pleasant, and is now occupied by the West Virginia town of that name.––R. G. T.
This is misleading. On September 6, Col. Charles Lewis, with his Augusta troops, numbering about six hundred, were detached to proceed to the mouth of the Elk, and there make canoes for transporting the supplies to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. This body had in charge a drove of 108 beef cattle, and 400 pack-horses laden with 54,000 lbs. of flour. Field’s company soon followed this advance.––R. G. T.
Saturday, the 10th, Clay and Coward were sent out to hunt deer for Field’s company, on the banks of the Little Meadow. Then occurred the incident related by Withers. The Indian who escaped, hurried on to the Shawnee towns and gave them their first notice of the approach of the army. Alarmed at this incident, Field hurried and caught up with the advance under Charles Lewis. The text reads as though he had hastened back to Andrew Lewis, who had not yet left Camp Union.––R. G. T.
Col. Andrew Lewis marched out of Camp Union the 12th, with about 450 men. These consisted of Fleming’s Botetourt troops, three companies of Fincastle men under Capts. Evan Shelby, William Herbert, and William Russell, the Bedford men under Thomas Buford, and Dunmore men under Slaughter. They had with them 200 pack-horses laden with flour, and the remainder of the beeves. Col. William Christian, who arrived at Camp Union the day Andrew Lewis left, was ordered, with the rest of the Fincastle men, to remain there, to guard the residue of the provisions, and when the brigade of horses sent to the mouth of the Elk had returned, to hurry every thing forward to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Five weeks were thus consumed in transporting the troops and the supplies a distance of 160 miles through the tangled forest, to Point Pleasant, where the main army, upwards of 1,100 strong, had arrived, quite spent with exertions, on the 6th of October.
When Christian left Camp Union for the front, Anthony Bledsoe, with a company of Fincastle men, was detailed to remain behind with the sick, while the base of supplies at the mouth of the Elk was placed in charge of Slaughter. As will be seen, Christian arrived too late to engage in the battle of Point Pleasant.––R. G. T.