This time Colonel Lewis was quite open in expressing his disgust at the governor’s lack of strategy. The Kanawha was the gate to Augusta, Botetourt and Fincastle Counties. To leave it and move up-river would leave the way open for the red army to stream into Virginia and work its savagery while the colonials were cooped up on the Ohio or hunting Indian wigwams in the wilderness.
In the package was a letter to our colonel from Colonel Adam Stephens, second in command to His Excellency, which was given wide publicity. Colonel Stephens reported very disagreeable news from Boston. It was to the effect that General Gage had fired on the people at Cambridge. Later we learned that while some gun-powder and two cannon had been seized by His Majesty’s troops there had been no massacre of the provincials. But while the rumor remained uncontradicted it caused high excitement and great rage.
On the evening of the ninth Cousin and I were ordered out to scout up the river beyond Old Town Creek. Our camp was near the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio, almost at the tip of the Point. About a fourth of a mile to the east is Crooked Creek, a very narrow stream at that season of the year, with banks steep and muddy. It skirts the base of some low hills and flows nearly south in emptying into the Kanawha. Half-way between our camp and Old Town Creek, which empties into the Ohio, is a small stretch of marsh-land extending north and south, with bottom-lands on each side.
Cousin and I planned to keep along the Ohio shore until a few miles above Old Town Creek, when we would separate, one returning along our course to keep an eye on the river, the other circling to the east and swinging back through the low hills drained by Crooked Creek. This double reconnaissance should reveal any spies.
The men were very anxious to cross the river and come in contact with the Indians. They believed they would have the allied tribes within their grasp once they reached the Scioto. They were cheered by the report that the army would cross on the morrow. One tall Watauga boy boastfully proclaimed that all the Shawnees and Mingos beyond the Ohio wouldn’t “make more’n a breakfast for us.” Davis, because a man of family and more conservative, insisted it would be a “pretty tough chunk of a fight.”
This was the optimistic spirit Cousin and I left behind us when we set out at sunset. Cousin was in a new mood. There was a certain wild gaiety, rather a ferocious gaiety, in his bearing. His drawn face had lost some of the hard lines and looked almost boyish and his eyes were feverishly alight. He seemed possessed of superabundant physical strength, and in pure muscular wantonness went out of his way to leap the fallen timbers which littered the shore.
As darkness increased he ceased his wild play and became the prince of scouts. We advanced most leisurely, for we had all night if we cared to stay out. We halted when abreast of the marsh-land and seated ourselves on the banks of the Ohio and watched the starlight find a mirror in the water. After a protracted silence he abruptly asked:
“My sister said she was sendin’ me a new sister, you say?”
“Those were her words.”
“I wish she could know to-night I ain’t needin’ any new sister. Wish she could know right now that she’s always been my sister. When I reckoned I’d lost her I was just mistook. She was just gone away for a little while. She found a mighty hard an’ rough trace to travel. I ’low the Almighty will have to give her many belts afore He smooths out the path in her mind. I ’low it’ll take a heap o’ presents to make up for the burrs an’ briers an’ sharp stones she had to foot it over. Thank God she died white!”