As the surrender of Earl Cornwallis was the last important military event between the main armies, so was the disastrous expedition of Majors Ross and Butler the last attempt of any magnitude upon the Valley of the Mohawk. True, indeed, that beautiful region of country had been so utterly laid waste, that there was little more of evil to be accomplished. But the chastisement of Major Ross, equally severe and unexpected, had discouraged the enemy from making any farther attempt in that quarter. Not, however, that the Indians were entirely quiet. On the contrary, they hung around the borders of the settlements in small parties, sometimes causing serious alarms, and at others great trouble and fatigue, and likewise inflicting considerable injury. On one occasion a party of thirty-five Indians crossed over from Oswegatchie to Palatine. Falling in with a scouting party, consisting of Jacob Timmerman and five others, the Indians fired upon them. Timmerman was wounded, and with one of his comrades taken prisoner. Two of the party were killed, and the other two succeeded in making their escape. The prisoners were taken to Oswegatchie, and thence down to Montreal, where they were confined until the peace. In consequence of exposures of this description, a vigilant watchfulness was necessary at all points; and Colonel Willett, who retained the command, was exactly the officer for the station. He had frequent occasion to despatch considerable bodies of troops against the straggling parties of Indians and Tories; but their lightness of foot, and dexterity in threading the mazes of the forests, generally, if not always, enabled them to escape. So that no important event transpired in that section of country during the year.
But while there was so little active warfare on the frontiers of New-York during the Summer of 1782, the Indians of the remoter west were more active along the Kentucky frontier than in the preceding year. In May they ravished, killed, and scalped a woman and her two daughters near Ashton's station. [FN] The Indians perpetrating this outrage were pursued by Captain Ashton, at the head of a band of twenty-five men. Being overtaken, a battle ensued, in which the Indians were victorious. The Captain was killed, together with eight of his men, and four others were mortally wounded. In the month of August another Kentucky settlement, called Hoy's Station, was visited by the Indians, by whom two lads were carried into captivity. This band was also pursued by Captain Holder, with a party of seventeen men, who, coming up with the Indians, were likewise defeated with a loss of seven killed and two wounded. [FN]
[FN] Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon. There is strong reason to doubt whether the Indians abused the persons of the women. If true, it was the only instance of the kind that is believed to have occurred during the war. It is a proud characteristic of the Indians, that they never violate the chastity of their female prisoners.
On the 15th of August, the post at Briant's station, five miles from Lexington, was invested by a far more considerable party of the enemy, numbering five hundred Indians and Canadians. After killing all the cattle in the neighborhood, they assaulted the post on the third day but were repulsed with a loss of about eighty killed and numbers wounded;—how many, was not known. They were pursued on their retreat by Colonels Todd, Trigg, and Boon, and Major Harland, at the head of one hundred and seventy-six men, well armed and provided. The Indians drew the pursuers into an unfavorable position on the 19th, when a severe battle ensued, in which the Kentuckians were beaten with the loss of seventy-six men; among whom were Colonels Todd and Trigg, Major Harland, and a son of Colonel Boon. The battle lasted only fifteen minutes. The retreat from the field was yet more disastrous than the battle itself. It was fought on the banks of the main fork of the Licking river, at the great bend, forty-three miles from Lexington. The Kentuckians were pursued across the river, some on horseback and others on foot. Some were killed in the river, and others while ascending the cliffs beyond. The arrival of the fugitives at Lexington with the melancholy tidings, occasioned a scene of weeping and deep lamentation, since a large portion of the male population had fallen. Being reinforced a few days afterward, Colonel Boon returned to bury the dead, which he represents as an affair of a most painful description. So mangled and disfigured were the bodies, that their identity could not be ascertained. The Colonel was afterward informed that when the Indians discovered their own loss to have been four more than that of the Kentuckians, four of the seven prisoners they had taken were handed over to their young men to be put to death by torture.
On hearing of this disastrous affair, General Clark, who was at the Falls of the Ohio, directed a pursuit of the Indians to their own towns of Old and New Chilicothe, Peccaway, and Wills Town. Colonel Boon seems to have led this expedition, although the fact is not expressly stated in his narrative. Failing in an attempt to fall upon the Indians by surprise, the Colonel took possession of their deserted towns, which were burnt with fire. Seven prisoners and fifteen scalps were taken by the Kentuckians, whose own loss was but four men; two of whom were killed by accident, not by Indians. With these incidents closed the Indian war of the Revolution on the Kentucky border.
But there yet remains a tale of murderous character to be recorded, which, in its black and inexcusable atrocity, transcends any and every Indian massacre which marked that protracted and unnatural contest It is a tale of blood, too, in which the white men—not the Indians—are to be branded as the savages.
On the banks of the Muskingum resided several communities of Indians, who had embraced the peaceable tenets of the Moravians. They were of the Delaware nation, and had removed to the Muskingum from Friedenshutten on the Big Beaver, and from Wyalusing and Sheshequon on the Susquehanna, in the year 1772. Notwithstanding the annoyance experienced by them in consequence of the Cresap war, in 1774, their settlements, which were named Schoenbrunn, Salem, and Gnadenhuetten, rose rapidly in importance, and in a short time numbered upward of four hundred people. Among their converts was the celebrated Delaware chief Glickhickan, famous alike for his bravery on the war-path, his wisdom in council, and his eloquence in debate. Their location, being a kind of half-way station between the white settlements and the hostile Indians of the lakes, was unpleasant after the war of the Revolution came on, and subjected them to difficulties alternately arising from the suspicions of both or all of the belligerent parties, against whose evil intentions toward them they were occasionally admonished. Still, their labors, their schools, and their religions exercises were conducted and practised as usual.
Their spiritual guides, at the period now under discussion, were, Michael Jung, David Zeisberger, and John Heckewelder, known in later times as the Indian Historian. These people looked upon war with abhorrence; maintaining that "the Great Being did not make men to destroy men, but to love and assist each other." They had endeavored to dissuade some of their own race from taking any part in the contest, and had likewise given occasional information to the white settlements when threatened with Indian invasions.
The hostile Indians frequently hovered around their settlements, and sometimes threatened their destruction, under the pretext that their neutrality was equivocal, and that they were secretly in alliance with the Americans, to whom they were in the practice of giving timely notice of the hostile advances of the Indians in the service of the King. [FN] In 1777 they were visited by the noted Huron chief, Half King, at the head of two hundred of his warriors, on his way to attack some of the frontier settlements of Virginia. Half King at first menaced the Moravian non-combatants; but Glickhickan appeased his ire by a timely supply of refreshments, and diverted him from his purpose by an opportune speech, declaring their religious sentiments and praising their missionaries.