A skilled marksman and mighty hunter, of commanding presence, who treated all men with grave courtesy and dignity, and exacted the same treatment in return, he was a prime favorite with all the white hunters and borderers whose friendship and goodwill was worth having. They admired him for his skill and courage, and they loved him for his straightforward integrity and his noble loyalty to his friends of both races.
In the "American Pioneer" an old hunter is quoted as saying that he considered "Logan the best specimen of humanity he ever met with, either white or red."
Logan was never tempted to touch a drop of "fire-water" until after his great wrongs kindled revenge in his soul. He adopted few of the customs and rejected all the vices of civilization. Such was Logan before the evil days came upon him and his heart was fired with the passion for revenge. And such, indeed, would have been recorded of many other Indians had they received the same kind treatment they extended to the whites. But, "alas for the rarity of human charity under the sun."
Early in the spring the border settlers began to suffer from the deeds of straggling bands of Indians. {FN} Horses were stolen, one or two murders were committed, the inhabitants of the more outlying cabins fled to the forts, and the frontiersmen began to threaten fierce vengeance.
{FN} Thatcher says these robberies were all charged to Indians, "though perhaps, not justly, for it is well known that a large number of civilized adventurers were traversing the frontiers at this time, who sometimes disguised themselves as Indians and committed many depredations and even murder."
On April 16 an Indian trader by the name of Butler had his store attacked and plundered by a roving band of Cherokees. Of the three men in charge at the time one was killed, another wounded, but the third made his escape and raised the alarm. Immediately after this, Connolly, who was acting as Governor Dunmore's lieutenant on the border, issued an open letter, commanding the frontiersmen to hold themselves in readiness to repel any attack of the Indians, as the Shawnees were known to be hostile.
Among the backwoodsmen was one Michael Cresap, a Maryland borderer, who had moved to the banks of the Ohio to establish a home for his family. Roosevelt, in "The Winning of the West," says of Cresap: "He was of the regular pioneer type; a good woodsman, sturdy and brave, a fearless fighter, devoted to his friends and his country; but alas, when his blood was heated, and his savage instincts fairly roused, inclined to regard any red man, whether hostile or friendly as a being who should be slain on sight. Nor did he condemn the brutal deeds done by others on innocent Indians."
Cresap, who had been appointed a captain of the frontier militia, was near Wheeling at the time Connolly's letter was received, with a band of hunters and scouts. These were fearless men who had adopted many of the ways of the Indians, including their method both of declaring war and fighting. Of course, they put a very liberal interpretation upon the order given them by Connolly to repel an attack and proceeded to declare war in the regular Indian style. Calling a council, they planted the war-post, and after marching around it many times, brandishing their hatchets, knives, swords or whatever weapon they carried, all at a signal from their leader struck the post, leaving their weapons sticking in it, and waited eagerly for a chance to attack their common enemy, the Indians.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, the first blood shed was that of friendly Indians. It seems that Butler, the Indian trader, hoping to recover some of the peltries of which he had been robbed by the Cherokees, had sent two friendly Shawnees in a canoe to the place of massacre. Cresap and his men ambushed these friendly Indians on the 27th near Captina, and killed and scalped them. Some of the more humane of the frontiersmen strongly protested against this outrage; but a large majority of them were excited and enraged by the rumor of Indian hostilities, and threatened to kill whoever interfered with them, cursing the traders as being worse than the Indians, as was often the case. Cresap boasted of the murder, and never said a word against scalping. The next day he again led out his men and attacked another party of Shawnees, who had been trading near Pittsburg, killed one and wounded two others, one of the whites being also wounded.