After the boy, struggling with his sobs, had told him, there was silence for several minutes. Morgan’s hand was laid kindly on the boy’s shoulder, and finally he said, “I’d like to comfort ye, boy. He wouldn’t like ye to mourn. He’d say, if he could, ‘just go ahead an’ do yer duty.’ Death comes to us all sometime. An’ I want you to remember that Daniel Morgan’ll never be too busy to lend ye a helpin’ hand if it comes his way.”
A pressure of the sinewy hand on the boy’s shoulder followed the words, and the kindliness it signified went straight to Rodney’s heart. He never forgot it. That day another was added to the full ranks of those who loved Daniel Morgan and would follow where he led, though they might know certain death awaited them.
Governor Dunmore sent runners to the Indian towns requesting the chiefs to meet him. All complied with the request save a few in the northerly towns and Chief Logan. Major Crawford was sent with a force to destroy the towns of those who had failed to respond to the request, and in this force went the men under Morgan. They met with no resistance and, after burning the villages, the troops returned. An interpreter and a messenger were sent to Logan, and to them he is said to have made the memorable speech, 135 a model of dignified eloquence and sublime pathos, beginning: “I appeal to any white man to say that he ever entered Logan’s cabin but I gave him meat.” Broken in spirit, he afterwards became a sot and was killed while in a drunken fury.
Hostages having been taken from among the Indian chiefs and arrangements made for the return by the Indians of all whites held captive by them, they promising to observe the Ohio River as the boundary of their territory, Governor Dunmore’s army returned to Virginia.
On arriving at Fort Gower they were met by the news that England had closed the port of Boston, hoping by this arbitrary measure to punish the independent colonists. This news was doubtless received by Governor Dunmore with delight, but it was otherwise with the great majority of those in his army. Expressions of sympathy for the Bostonians were heard on all sides. Moreover, Dunmore’s delight was to be tempered with chagrin when he heard that the House of Burgesses had appointed a day of fasting, as an expression of the Old Dominion’s disapproval of England’s act.
For several months these men of Dunmore’s army had been deprived of what many, even in that day of primitive living, considered necessities. For weeks at a time they had eaten no salt; they had slept without other covering than the sky overhead. They were returning victorious, yet believing that Dunmore, instead of contributing to that victory, had belittled it.
Self-reliant, hardy, convinced they possessed in their own strong arms the power to live and rear their families in this great country of the new world without interference from England, they spoke very plainly. Meetings were held, and at one of these a speech was made which, alluding to what they had been able to accomplish, concluded: “Blessed with these talents, let us solemnly engage to one another, and our country in particular, that we will use them for no purpose but for the honour and advantage of America and Virginia in particular.”
A resolution was passed to bear faithful allegiance to King George, the Third, “while his majesty delights to reign over a free people,” a proviso worth noting; also worthy of note is the fact that this resolution pledged them to do everything in their power for the defence of American liberty. Indeed, many of the men shook hands on an agreement to march to the defence of Boston if necessary. Some of them were to be called upon to fulfil this promise.
Such demonstrations away out there on the frontier ought to have served as a warning to the royalists, but they gave it little heed. The “Chevalier” forbore to take part and looked upon the whole affair with a pitying smile. “I know of none more in need of being ruled over, than you, my merry lads,” he said and laughed at the scowls in the faces of his associates. He laughed, too, at the retort of Ferguson, “Sure, me gallant warrior, ’tis we as will have a word to say aboot the ruler an’ how he rules, mind ye.”