They crossed the Ohio and took up their march toward the Indian towns. When Dunmore’s messenger arrived with orders for them to join him they were angry. He had left them to their fate, they had won a hard earned victory and were determined to follow it to its logical conclusion.
Lord Dunmore’s force, after building a hastily constructed fort at the mouth of the Hockhocking River as a base for their supplies, continued to advance on the Indian towns. The savages had met overtures for peace with evasive replies or delays until they heard of the defeat of Cornstalk at Point Pleasant, then they earnestly sued for peace.
Cornstalk urged a continuation of the war, but in vain. The savages had acted more determinedly under him than ever before, but now they wished to save their towns and crops from destruction.
Dunmore moved forward to a place called Camp Charlotte. Lewis pushed ahead to wreak vengeance on the savages, not stopping until a third order had been sent him by Dunmore commanding him to halt.
Lewis and his men thought this an interference with their rights. There were many heartburnings in his command, and rumours that Dunmore was acting under the advice of England to put an end to the war were generally believed.
Rodney obtained permission to visit the camp of General Lewis, eager to find his father. He went without forebodings and with a feeling of assurance that he should find him. The Indians had been defeated. The command had won a glorious victory, and, as is usually the case, while exulting over it, he overlooked the sacrifices made and hardships endured. He did not realize that General Lewis had lost half his commissioned officers and between fifty and sixty of his men. When told that his father, the man he loved above all others, was missing and undoubtedly had fallen in the battle, the blow was terribly hard to bear. He had known nothing like it, and made his way back to his quarters as one walking in his sleep. There, Morgan chanced to find him, his head bowed in his hands.
“Homesick, my lad, or a fit o’ the blues?”
Morgan had a voice that sounded in battle like the roar of a lion, but in it, as he spoke to Rodney, was a tone of genuine sympathy and the boy broke down and sobbed, as though heartbroken. Throughout his 134 captivity and when in extreme danger he had not shed a tear.
“Take heart, lad, an’ let me know what I can do for ye.”