The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, Vol. 2 (of 2) / or, Illustrations, by Pen And Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence

by Benson John Lossing

*** When I visited Williamsburg in December, 1848, the front part of the old Raleigh tavern had been torn down, and a building in modern style was erected in its place. The old tavern was in the form of an L, one portion fronting the street, the other extending at right angles, in the rear. Both parts were precisely alike in external appearance, and as the rear building was yet standing and unaltered, I am able to give a restored view of the Raleigh, as it appeared during the Revolution. The wooden bust of Sir Walter Raleigh, which graced the front of the old inn, now ornaments the new building.

**** The latter colony could not have heard of the action of the former, and therefore the recommendation was as original with it as with Virginia.

Delegates to the Continental Congress.—Expedition against the Indians.—Dunmore's Schemes.—Camp at the Great Kenawha.

ing, in Philadelphia, * and then adjourned, each pledged to do all in his power to effect the results contemplated in their proceedings.

While these clouds of difficulty were gathering in the horizon of Virginia politics, and the colony was menaced with civil-war, the Indians on the frontiers had commenced fierce hostilities, and were driving civilization back from its adventurous settlements west of the Blue Ridge. Although several times chastised, they were still bold. In 1764, Colonel Bouquet, ** having dispersed the Indians besieging Detroit, passed into the Wyandot country, by the way of Sandusky Bay, and compelled the head men of the tribes to agree to a treaty of peace. The Shawnees and Delawares in the Ohio county still continued hostile. Bouquet, the same year, marched from Fort Pitt to the Muskingum, awed the Indians, procured the restoration of prisoners in their hands, and made a treaty of peace with them, and for several years they kept comparatively quiet, though exhibiting unmistakable signs of deadly hostility.

Early in 1777, the hatchet again fell with terrible fury upon the frontier settlements of Virginia, and its keenness was heightened by the encouragement which the savages received from a few white scoundrels, who hoped to gain personal advantage in the contest. The scheme which Governor Dunmore afterward entered into for banding these forest tribes against the colonists, has left upon his memory the suspicion that even thus early, in view of impending hostilities, he had tampered with them, through his agents, and made them bold. History gives no positive warrant for suspicions so damning, and we may charitably hope that his expedition against the Indians, in the summer of that year,1774 was undertaken with a sincere desire to save the colony from their cruel incursions. It is true, Dunmore was very tardy in his preparations, and his expedition did not march until the voice of his indignant people compelled him to go, and alert suspicion made him fearful of its consequences.

The chief rendezvous of the hostile Indians was on the Sciota, within the limits of the present Pickaway county, Ohio. There were three principal towns, and against these Dunmore marched with a force of three thousand men, early in August.1774 The army proceeded in two divisions; one composing the left wing, under Colonel Andrew Lewis, the other led by Dunmore in person. The left wing struck the Great Kenawha, and followed that stream to the Ohio; the right wing passed the mountains of the Potomac gap, and reached the Ohio a little above Wheeling. The plan of the campaign was to form a junction before reaching the Indian villages. Lewis encamped on the site of Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kenawha, on the sixth of October. In expectation of the approach of Dunmore, he cast up no intrenchments. In this exposed situation, he was attacked on the morning of the tenth, by one thousand chosen warriors of the western confederacy under the celebrated Cornstalk, who came from the Pickaway Plains to confront Colonel Lewis before the other division should join him. *** So stealthily had the

* The following were the delegates appointed: Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, and Edmund Pendleton. These were all present at the opening of the Congress in Carpenter's Hall, and, as wc have seen, Peyton Randolph was chosen the first president of that body.

** Henry Bouquet was of French descent. He was appointed lieutenant colonel in the British army in 1756. He was active in his co-operations with General Forbes, and was highly esteemed by Amherst. That officer sent him to the relief of Fort Pitt, with stores, in 1763. He was attacked on his way by a powerful body of Indians, whom he defeated. In 1764, as noticed in the text, he was successful in the Ohio county. The following year he was appointed a brigadier. He died at Pensacola, Florida, in February, 1766.

*** Stuart, in his Memoir of Indian Wars, and Withers, in his Chronicles of Border Warfare, express the opinion, and adduce strong corroborating evidence of its truth, that Dunmore arranged the expedition in such a way, that the whole Indian force should fall upon and annihilate Lewis's detachment, and thereby weaken the physical strength, and break down the spirit of the Virginians. It must be admitted that the fact of the great body of Indians leaving their towns and marching directly to attack Lewis, when Dunmore, with a foree equally strong, was approaching in another direction, gives the color of probability to these suspicions. His subsequent conduct in inciting servile war in Virginia, shows that he was capable of so nefarious a scheme.