"3. That returning from captivity, he encouraged a party of men to accompany him to the Paint Lick Town, weakening the garrison at a time when the arrival of an Indian army was daily expected to attack the fort.
"4. That preceding the attack on Boonesborough, he was willing to take the officers of the fort, on pretense of making peace, to the Indian camp, beyond the protection of the guns of the garrison."
Boone defended himself at length, maintaining that he aimed only at the interests of the country; that while hunting at the licks he was engaged in the necessary service of the camp; that he had used duplicity to win the confidence of the enemy, and it resulted favorably, as he was thereby enabled to escape in time to warn his people and put them in a state of defense; that his Scioto expedition was a legitimate scouting trip, and turned out well; and that in the negotiations before the fort he was simply "playing" the Indians in order to gain time for expected reenforcements. He was not only honorably acquitted, but at once advanced to the rank of major, and received evidences of the unhesitating loyalty of all classes of his fellow borderers, the majority of whom appear to have always confided in his sagacity and patriotism.
Personally vindicated, the enemy departed, and several companies of militia now arriving to garrison the stations for the winter, Major Boone once more turned his face to the Yadkin and sought his family. He found them at the Bryan settlement, living comfortably in a small log cabin, but until then unconscious of his return from the wilderness in which they had supposed he found his grave.
CHAPTER XII
SOLDIER AND STATESMAN
In Daniel Boone's "autobiography," he dismisses his year of absence from Kentucky with few words: "I went into the settlement, and nothing worthy of notice passed for some time." No doubt he hunted in some of his old haunts upon the Yadkin; and there is reason for believing that he made a trip upon business of some character to Charleston, S.C.
Meanwhile, his fellow settlers of Kentucky had not been inactive. In February (1779) Clark repossessed himself of Vincennes after one of the most brilliant forced marches of the Revolution; and having there captured Governor Hamilton—the "hair-buying general," as the frontiersmen called him, because they thought he paid bounties on American scalps—had sent him a prisoner to Virginia. The long siege of Boonesborough and the other attacks of the preceding year, together with more recent assaults upon flatboats descending the Ohio, had strongly disposed the Kentuckians to retaliate on the Shawnese. Two hundred and thirty riflemen under Colonel Bowman rendezvoused in July at the mouth of the Licking, where is now the city of Covington. Nearly a third of the force were left to guard the boats in which they crossed the Ohio, the rest marching against Old Chillicothe, the chief Shawnese town on the Little Miami. They surprised the Indians, and a hotly contested battle ensued, lasting from dawn until ten o'clock in the morning; but the overpowering numbers of the savages caused Bowman to return crestfallen to Kentucky with a loss of nearly a dozen men. This was the forerunner of many defeats of Americans, both bordermen and regulars, at the hands of the fierce tribesmen of Ohio.
Readers of Revolutionary history as related from the Eastern standpoint are led to suppose that the prolonged struggle with the mother country everywhere strained the resources of the young nation, and was the chief thought of the people. This high tension was, however, principally in the tidewater region. In the "back country," as the Western frontiers were called, there was no lack of patriotism, and bordermen were numerous in the colonial armies; yet the development of the trans-Alleghany region was to them of more immediate concern, and went forward vigorously, especially during the last half of the war. This did not mean that the backwoodsmen of the foot-hills were escaping from the conflict by crossing westward beyond the mountains; they were instead planting themselves upon the left flank, for French and Indian scalping parties were continually harrying the Western settlements, and the Eastern forces were too busily engaged to give succor. Kentuckians were left practically alone to defend the backdoor of the young Republic.
In this year (1779) the Virginia legislature adopted laws for the preemption of land in Kentucky, which promised a more secure tenure than had hitherto prevailed, and thus gave great impetus to over-mountain emigration. Hitherto those going out to Kentucky were largely hunters, explorers, surveyors, and land speculators; comparatively few families were established in the wilderness stations. But henceforth the emigration was chiefly by households, some by boats down the Ohio River, and others overland by the Wilderness Road—for the first official improvement of which Virginia made a small appropriation at this time. Says Chief Justice Robinson,[16] whose parents settled in Kentucky in December: