Battle at Mount Pleasant.—March to the Shawnee Towns.—Old Chillicothe.—Fort Gower.
Indians approached, that within one hour after Lewis's scouts discovered those of the enemy a general battle was in progress.
Colonel Charles Lewis, a brother of the general, with three hundred men, received the first assault. He and his aid, Hugh Allen, were mortally wounded, and so overwhelming in numbers and fierce in aspect were the assailants, that his line broke and gave way. * At this moment, a party under Colonel Fleming attacked the enemy's right, and, being sustained by a reserve under Colonel Field, the Indians were driven back. The battle continued with unabated fury until one o'clock in the afternoon, the Indians slowly retreating from tree to tree, while the gigantic Cornstalk encouraged them with the words, "Be strong! Be strong!" ** The peculiarity of the ground, it being upon a point at the junction of two rivers, made every retreat of the enemy advantageous to the Virginians, because as their line extended from river to river, forming the base of an equilateral triangle, it was lengthened, and consequently weakened. The belligerents rested within rifle shot of each other, and kept up a desultory fire until sunset. The battle was a desperate one, and neither party could fairly claim the victory. The Virginians lost one half of their commissioned officers, and fifty-two privates were killed. The Indians lost, in killed and wounded, two hundred and thirty-three. During the night they retreated, but Lewis did not think it prudent to pursue them. Lieutenant Shelby (the hero at King's Mountain, and afterward governor of Kentucky) was left in command of a garrison at Point Pleasant, until July, 1775.
On the day after the battle, Colonel Lewis received orders from Dnnmore to hasten on toward the Shawnee towns, on the Sciota, and join him at a point eighty miles distant.
Dunmore was ignorant of the battle, and the weakened condition of Lewis's division. But the latter did not hesitate. Leaving a small garrison at Point Pleasant, he pressed onward, through an unbroken wilderness to the banks of Congo Creek, in Pickaway township, within striking distance of the Shawnee or Shawanese towns. The principal village of the Indians stood upon the site of the present borough of Westfall, on the west bank of the Seiota, and was called Old Chillicothe, there being other towns of the same name. When Colonel Lewis arrived, he found Dunmore and his party in the neighborhood. The governor had descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Hockhocking, where he built a redoubt or block-house, and called it Fort Gower. **** From this point he marched up that
* From a "Song of Lament," written at the time, I quote the following stanzas, which are more remarkable for pathos than poetry:
"Colonel Lewis and some noble captains,
Did down to death like Uriah go,
Alas! their heads wound up in napkins,
Upon the banks of the Ohio.
Kings lamented their mighty fallen
Upon the mountains of Gilboa,
And now we mourn for brave Hugh Allen,
Far from the banks of the Ohio.
Oh bless the mighty King of Heaven
For all his wondrous works below,
Who hath to us the victory given
Upon the banks of the Ohio."