Nearly all the Indian bodies found, and nearly all the Virginians killed and wounded, were shot in the head or the breast. That was the marksmanship and the kind of fighting!
The Long Knives lost seventy-five men killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. They lost two great chiefs: Colonel Charles Lewis, the brother of the general, and Colonel John Field—both Braddock men; six captains and as many lieutenants were killed, also.
The Indians said that had they known how to clean their rifles, they would have done better. Cornstalk and Logan lost the sub-chief Puck-ee-shin-wah, but only forty or fifty others in killed and wounded. But when they hastened for their towns they found them in danger from the Lord Dunmore column.
Governor Dunmore sent Chief White-eyes, of the Delawares, who had not joined in the war, to ask Chief Cornstalk for a talk. Chief White-eyes returned with no answer, for the Cornstalk chiefs were in bitter council.
Cornstalk addressed them:
"You would not make peace before Point Pleasant; what is your voice now, when the Long Knives are pressing on in two columns?"
There was no reply.
"We cannot save our villages," he continued. "If your voice is for war, let us first kill our women and children. Then let us warriors go out and fight like men until we, too, are killed."
Still no reply. Cornstalk dashed his hatchet into the council post.
"You act like children," he thundered. "I will go and make peace, myself."