Daniel Boone, Backwoodsman

by C. H. Forbes-Lindsay

At a favorable point the boat was run into the bank, the powder hastily brought ashore, and the craft turned loose to drift down the branch. The barrels were now quickly conveyed to a hiding place in the densest brush, the carriers carefully covering their tracks. This accomplished, the entire party struck across country for Harrodsburg. They arrived without mishap and Clark immediately returned with a sufficient guard for the powder, which was found safe and uninjured where it had been secreted. Thus, towards the close of 1776 the Kentucky settlers were assured of the means of defending their homes in the impending struggle.

It must be remembered that the war of the Revolution was by this time in full swing, and, whereas Boone and his associates had entered Kentucky as British subjects, they were now rebels. It is not strange, therefore, that the authorities of the Crown dominions in the north treated them with hostility, nor that the Indian tribes friendly to the British were employed in the attacks upon the settlers. The practice of the times fully sanctioned the employment of savages and the colonists were not above accepting such aid when it was available. Clark, in fact, employed Indians in the defence of Vincennes, although he declined their aid in attacking the town.

Several writers, in ignorance of the facts, or regardless of them, insist on attributing the worst barbarities to the higher officials in Canada, and the frontiersmen of the time were prone to credit them with the utmost cruelty. They believed, and quite recent writers have stated, that the Indians were urged by these officials to massacre the whites in Kentucky unsparingly, and that they offered rewards for scalps with the distinct understanding that they were preferable to prisoners.

Now the most cursory examination of the records proves these statements to be utterly false and shows that Governor Hamilton and other officials rescued prisoners from the Indians and ransomed them whenever possible. Thus, Boone’s fellow captives in the year 1778 were secured from the Shawnees and kindly treated. Every effort was made to induce them to give up Boone, and when these failed, money and gifts were pressed upon them by the officers at Detroit.

It is true that certain agents of the British, such as Caldwell and McKee, were guilty of the worst kind of atrocities in their dealings with the American settlers; but these were men of the Simon Girty stamp, natural blackguards, for whose actions their superiors cannot be justly held accountable. It would be difficult to find in human history records of more cruel and bloody deeds than some of those attributable to men amongst the Kentucky pioneers themselves, but the historian who should blame the settlers as a body, or their leaders, for the villanies of such brutes as Greathouse, or Lewis Wetzel, could not more effectually prove his unreliability.

It was well understood that the Governor of Canada was doing his utmost to encourage and aid the Indians in the war which all felt to be imminent, but it remained for Clark to devise the daring scheme of crippling the enemy by adopting the policy of Hannibal in his conflict with the Carthaginians, when he “carried the war into Africa.” Clark conceived that the most effective way of defending Kentucky lay in attacking the posts in the British territory on the north. He hoped thus to keep the garrisons in Canada too busy in their own defence to consider aggressive action, and also to curtail the supplies of ammunition that they would be willing to give to the Indians. The former object was of vital importance, for had they enjoyed freedom of movement during this momentous period, a few small bodies of English with cannon might have enabled the Indians to clear Kentucky of the American colonists.

Clark’s plan met with the approval of the authorities in Virginia and he was permitted to raise a body of one hundred and fifty men, and was furnished with tents, supplies and ammunition. It was a very small force for such an ambitious enterprise, but the leader was a man of dauntless courage and resource and the men were picked fighters who had the utmost confidence in their captain. The whole-souled devotedness that Clark inspired in his followers, and the willing manner in which they coöperated in his most hazardous plans, mark him as one of the truly great leaders that this nation has produced. Had his exploits been performed in the full limelight of the revolutionary stage, instead of in the shadow of the wings, he must have attained to a greatly wider fame than actually fell to his lot.

In May, 1778, Clark and his force, which had been somewhat increased by the addition of a score or so of Kentucky volunteers, descended the Ohio in flat-bottom boats as far as the mouth of the Tennessee, where preparations were made for the advance upon the Illinois posts. At this juncture the leader was extremely fortunate to fall in with some American hunters who had recently been in the French settlements. From these friends he acquired useful information, and secured their services as guides.

At length a force of fewer than two hundred men started upon the march across the wilderness to Kaskaskia. This place was fortified and garrisoned by a strong body of militia, so that the only prospect of capturing it lay in effecting a surprise. The party, therefore, proceeded with the utmost caution, their front and flanks screened by scouts. After a toilsome journey of fifty miles through dense forest, they emerged upon the prairie and the difficulties of the march were lightened whilst the danger of discovery increased. However, the adventurers seem to have been attended by the most extraordinary good fortune, for on the evening of the fourth of July they arrived without mishap on the southern bank of the river, upon the opposite side of which stood the town they sought.