Washington appointed General Wayne to this arduous task. On the 15th of July this detachment set out, having to march over mountains, across morasses, and through difficult defiles, where they were obliged to advance in single file the greater part of the way. By eight in the evening they were within a mile of the fort, when they halted and formed into two columns as they came up; after which Wayne and his officers silently reconnoitred the works. About midnight the two columns marched to the attack from different points; and here it is worth observing that the van, consisting of 150 picked men, advanced with unloaded muskets and bayonets fixed—the bayonet, which had been so often fatal to the Americans, being the only weapon used in this attack. The most wonderful discipline prevailed in these troops; both columns were commanded not to fire a shot, and not a shot was fired. They advanced through the most difficult approaches, the ground being covered at that time with the tide, through a morass, removing as they went the formidable works in front and flank, and in the face of an incessant fire of musketry. On they went, their numbers thinned at every step, and at about one in the morning the two columns met at the same moment in the centre of the works. Wayne, though wounded in the head, refused to retire; his loss in killed and wounded was about 100; about fifty of the garrison were killed; the remainder, 450, were made prisoners.
As soon as Stony Point was taken, the artillery was turned against Verplank’s; but before anything could be effected, the news of the former achievement had reached Sir Henry Clinton, and the whole British army marched out, whilst the navy advanced up the river to the scene of action. But Washington, who had already completed the object he had in view, which was no other than the destruction of the works and the carrying away the artillery and stores, abandoned the place before the arrival of the British either by land or water.
About the same time that Stony Point was recaptured by Wayne, Major Lee surprised the British garrison at Paulus Hook, New Jersey city, a point of land opposite New York; killed thirty and took 160 prisoners. These triumphs, however, were painfully counterbalanced by an unsuccessful attempt in the north. During the summer an expedition had been undertaken by the British to plant a strong post on the Penobscot, in the eastern and unsettled parts of Maine, which, causing serious alarm, led the state of Massachusetts to fit out an expedition to prevent its accomplishment. So urgent and important was the undertaking considered, that in order to secure armed vessels and transports, Massachusetts laid an embargo on its shipping for forty days. By this means a very considerable armament was fitted out with no loss of time, under the conduct of Commodore Saltonstall, a Connecticut sea-captain.
Fifteen hundred militia were embarked in this fleet, under General Lovel, a man greatly beloved and esteemed, though without military experience.[[27]] On the 25th July, the fleet, to the amount of thirty-seven sail, appeared in the Penobscot, the British colonel, Macleane, having in the meantime put the unfinished fort in as complete a state of defence as the time permitted. With great labour and the loss of about 100 men, the American general at length effected a landing, and on the third day opened a battery, in spite of which, and for many days afterwards, the internal works of the fort went on every day adding to its strength. For a whole fortnight this was continued, cannonading from without, and increasing strength within. At length a general attack both of the fort and the shipping was resolved upon; intelligence of which being carried to the commander by a deserter, he instantly threw up new works which covered the place. But this precaution was unnecessary; news of this expedition had already reached Sir Henry Clinton, and Sir George Collier was despatched with five ships of war to the Penobscot. The commander and the garrison were awaiting the expected attack on the 11th of August, the day intended for it, when, to their infinite astonishment, the Americans were gone; they had during the night re-embarked their forces and artillery, and were nowhere to be seen. At the first approach of the British they had fled up the river. The enemy pursued, three sloops of war which had been confined to the harbour now joining in the chase. Escape was impossible; five frigates and ten smaller vessels were run ashore and blown up; the remainder were taken. The soldiers and sailors escaped to the shore, but the whole region in which they found themselves was a desolate and uninhabited wilderness. The indignation of the land forces on this dastardly termination of their enterprise was so great, that they are said to have come to blows with the seamen in the dreary solitudes through which they had to travel before they could reach an inhabited country. Saltonstall was tried by court-martial and cashiered.
Besides the humiliation and shame of this flight, the loss to Boston in its shipping was almost ruinous. Nineteen vessels of which the squadron consisted were destroyed or taken—a force, it is said, little inferior to that of the royal navy of England at the accession of Elizabeth.
We must now for a moment return to the frontiers to see what is going on there, and taking Hildreth for our guide we shall receive a lucid summary of events. “George Rogers Clarke, still commanding in the newly-conquered Illinois, was giving fresh proofs of vigour and enterprise, and extending also the authority of Virginia. Hamilton, the British commandant of Detroit, descended the Wabash with eighty soldiers to watch Clarke, and organise an expedition against him, in which he expected to be greatly aided by the Indians. Informed of these facts by a French trader, Clarke mustered 170 men, and after sixteen days’ march, five of which were spent in wading the drowned lands on the Wabash, suddenly appeared before Vincennes, which the British had recaptured, and where Hamilton then was. The fort surrendered in a few days, and Hamilton was sent prisoner to Virginia on the charge of having instigated the Indians to cruelty against the colonial settlers.
Security being thus given against the Indians north of the Ohio, the settlement of Kentucky began rapidly to increase, and in April of this year a log-erection formed the commencement of the present city of Lexington. By the Virginia land system, all who had settled west of the mountains before June of the preceding year were entitled to 400 acres, merely for the payment of the taxes on that quantity of land. The whole tract between the Green River and the Tennessee was reserved for military bounties.
While Clarke was extending the domains of Virginia, the first settlements took place in Western Tennessee, under the guidance of James Robinson, who eleven years before had been the patriarch and founder of Eastern Tennessee. With a company of ten persons he followed the Oby to its junction with the Cumberland; some of his companions embarked there, while the rest pursued the riverbanks by land to the spot where now stands the city of Nashville. Here, planting a crop of corn, and leaving three persons to watch it, they returned for their families. Some travelled through the woods, driving their cattle before them; others embarked with the women and children on the head waters of the Tennessee, intending to descend that river to its mouth and then proceed up the Cumberland. But a severe winter delayed them by the way, and their destination was not reached till the following spring.
Thus sprung up the future states of the West, and the red man retired from before the white. In the meantime war, which the Indian rendered so much more formidable from his British alliance, was continued on the western frontiers of the eastern states. Again we will follow our former guide. “The Six Nations, with the exception of the Oneidas, carried on a border warfare. The Senecas, and the loyalist refugees among them, ravaged the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania; and the Onondagas, though professing neutrality, shared in their hostilities.
“To check these depredations, a strong force under General Sullivan was sent against them. The troops assembled at Wyoming, where they were joined by a New York brigade, under James Clinton, who effected the junction of the troops in a singular manner; crossing from the Mohawk, where he had been stationed, to Lake Otsego, he dammed up the lake, and so raised up its level, and then, by breaking away the dam, produced an artificial flood, by which the boats were rapidly earned down the north-east branch of the Susquehannah. While this was being effected, the terrible Brandt surprised, plundered and burnt the village of Minisink, near the north-west corner of Jersey; and a detachment of militia sent in pursuit, falling into an ambush, were nearly all slain.