History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia

CHAPTER LXXIII.

1773-1774.

In the year 1770, all the duties on articles imported into America having been repealed, save that on tea, the American merchants refused to import that commodity from England. Consequently a large stock of it was accumulated in the warehouses of the East India Company; and the government in 1773 authorized the company to ship it to America free from any export duty. The light import duty payable in America being far less than that from which it was exempted in England, it was taken for granted that it would sell more readily in the colony than before it had been made a subject of taxation. It was, indeed, by some looked upon as now rather a question of commerce than of taxation; the main object of the British government appears to have been to put an end to the trade between the colonies and Holland, (a trade contraband according to the letter of the law, but the law had been practically long obsolete,) and to give to the East India Company a monopoly of the colonial markets. But it was in general regarded in America as a test question of revenue.

The tea-ships arrived in America, and measures were taken to prevent the landing of the tea; at Boston several cargoes were thrown overboard in the night of December the eighteenth, into the sea, by a party of men disguised as Indians, acting under the advice of Samuel Adams, and other leading patriots. Other colonies either compelled the masters of the tea-ships to return with their cargoes, or excluded them from sale; and thus not a chest of it was sold for the benefit of the company. Tea had hitherto been imported by Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts into the colonies to the value of three hundred thousand pounds annually from Holland and her dependencies. In Virginia the use of this beverage was now generally abandoned.[569:A]

Intelligence of the occurrences at Boston having reached England, parliament ordered the port of that town to be closed on the fourth day of June; and other strong measures were adopted in order to reduce Massachusetts to submission. The colonies, like the captives in the cave of Polyphemus, were conscious of being involved in a common danger; and that if one should fall a victim, the destruction of the rest would be only a question of time.

When John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, the newly-appointed governor of Virginia, reached Williamsburg, early in 1772, he found that he had already incurred suspicion on account of the appointment of Captain Foy as his clerk, or private secretary, with a salary of five hundred pounds, to be derived from new-created fees. Foy had distinguished himself at the battle of Minden, and had been afterwards governor of New Hampshire. Dunmore summoned the assembly which met in February; and his apparent haughtiness at the first rather heightened the prejudice against him. He, however, relinquished the objectionable fees, and thus conciliated so good a feeling that the assembly expressed their gratitude in warm and affectionate terms. Some important acts were passed during this session, including several for the promotion of internal improvement—for improving the navigation of the Potomac; for making a road from the Warm Spring to Jenning's Gap; for clearing the Matapony; for circumventing the falls of James River by a canal from Westham; and for cutting a canal across from Archer's Hope Creek to Queen's Creek, through Williamsburg, to connect the James River with the York. The Counties of Berkley and Dunmore were carved out from Frederick.[569:B]

The assembly was prorogued to the tenth of June. Dunmore, notwithstanding his recent complaisance, evinced his distaste for assemblies by proroguing them from time to time, until at length a forgery of the paper-currency of the colony compelled him to call the legislature together again, by proclamation, March 4th, 1773—the thirteenth year of the reign of George the Third. His lordship's measures in apprehending the counterfeiters had been more energetic than legal, and the assembly, not diverted by their care for the treasury from a regard to personal rights, requested that his proceedings might not be drawn into a precedent.

The horizon was again darkened by gathering clouds. A British armed revenue vessel having been burnt in Narraganset Bay, an act of parliament was passed making such offences punishable by death, and authorizing the accused to be transported to England for trial. Virginia had already, in 1709, remonstrated against this last measure. The conservatives, the statu quo party in the assembly, as usual, differed with the movement party as to the proper measure to be adopted. Patrick Henry, Mr. Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Francis L. Lee, Dabney Carr, and perhaps one or two others were at this gloomy period in the habit of meeting together in the evening in a private room of the Raleigh, to consult on the state of affairs. In conformity with their agreement, Dabney Carr, on the twelfth of March, moved a series of resolutions, recommending a committee of correspondence, and instructing them to inquire in regard to the newly-constituted court in Rhode Island. Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry made speeches of memorable eloquence on this occasion. Mr. Lee was the author of the plan of intercolonial committees of correspondence; and Virginia was the first colony that adopted it. The resolutions passed without opposition, and Dunmore immediately dissolved the house. These resolutions "struck a greater panic into the ministers" than anything that had taken place since the passage of the stamp act.[570:A]

The committee of correspondence appointed were Peyton Randolph, Robert C. Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Cary, and Thomas Jefferson. On the day after the dissolution, this committee addressed a circular to the other colonies. Robert Carter Nicholas published, during this year, a pamphlet in defence of colonial rights.

Dabney Carr, although young, was, according to Mr. Jefferson, a formidable rival at the bar to Patrick Henry, and promised to become a distinguished statesman; but he died shortly after, in the thirtieth year of his age, greatly lamented. The judge of the same name was his son. Washington was a member of this assembly, and supported the patriotic measures, perhaps, however, as yet little dreaming that the colonies were on the verge of revolution and war. He was still on friendly terms with Governor Dunmore, who appreciated his abilities and character. He, indeed, intended about this time, in compliance with the governor's invitation, to accompany him in a tour of observation to the western frontier of Virginia, where both of them had an interest in lands; but this was prevented by the illness and death of Miss Custis, the daughter of Mrs. Washington by a former marriage.

Dunmore visited the frontier and remained some time at Pittsburg, and endeavored, by the help of Dr. Conolly, to extend the bounds of Virginia in that quarter; and this was attributed to a design to foment a quarrel between Virginia and Pennsylvania; but the suspicion was probably without sufficient foundation.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER LXXIV.

1774.

Late in April there arrived at the palace in Williamsburg, the Right Honorable the Countess of Dunmore, with George, Lord Fincastle, the Honorable Alexander and John Murray, and the Ladies Catherine, Augusta, and Susan Murray, accompanied by Captain Foy and his lady. On this occasion there was an illumination, and the people with acclamations welcomed her ladyship and family to Virginia. The three sons of Lord Dunmore were students in the College of William and Mary in that year.

When the assembly met in May, Williamsburg presented a scene of unwonted gayety, and a court-herald published a code of etiquette for the regulation of the society of the little metropolis. Washington, arriving there on the sixteenth, dined with Lord Dunmore. At the beginning of the session the burgesses made an address congratulating the governor on the arrival of his lady, and the members agreed to give a ball in her honor on the twenty-seventh; but the sky was again suddenly overcast by intelligence of the act of parliament shutting up the port of Boston. The assembly made an indignant protest against this act, and,[572:A] imitating the example of the Puritans in the civil wars of England, set apart the first of June, appointed for closing the port, as a day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation, in which the Divine interposition was to be implored to protect the rights of the colonies, and avert the horrors of civil war, and to unite the people of America in the common cause.

On the next day Dunmore, summoning the burgesses to attend him in the council chamber, dissolved them in the following words: "Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the house of burgesses, I have in my hand a paper published by order of your house, conceived in such terms as reflect highly upon his majesty and the parliament of Great Britain, which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you, and you are dissolved accordingly."

The burgesses repaired immediately to the Raleigh,[573:A] and in the room called "the Apollo" adopted resolutions against the use of tea and other East India commodities, and recommended the annual convening of a congress. In this measure, as in the appointment of committees of correspondence, Virginia took the lead. North Carolina promptly followed her example. Notwithstanding the untoward turn of events, Washington dined with the governor on the twenty-fifth, and passed the evening with him, rode with him to his farm, and breakfasted there on the following day, and attended the ball given on the twenty-seventh in honor of Lady Dunmore.

Further news being received from Boston, the members who remained in Williamsburg held a meeting on the twenty-ninth, at which Peyton Randolph presided, and they issued a circular, recommending a meeting of deputies in a convention to assemble there on the first of August.

A dissolution of the assembly had been expected, but it had been supposed that it would be deferred until the public business should be despatched—toward the latter part of June. Consultations and measures for the preservation of the public rights and liberties were conducted and matured very privately, and by very few members, of whom Patrick Henry was the leader. George Mason, who arrived in Williamsburg in the latter part of May, says, in a letter to a friend: "At the request of the gentlemen concerned, I have spent an evening with them upon the subject, where I had an opportunity of conversing with Mr. Henry and knowing his sentiments, as well as hearing him speak in the house since on different occasions. He is by far the most powerful speaker I ever heard. Every word he says not only engages, but commands the attention, and your passions are no longer your own when he addresses them. But his eloquence is the least part of his merit. He is, in my opinion, the first man upon this continent as well in abilities as public virtues, and had he lived in Rome about the time of the first Punic war, when the Roman people had arrived at their meridian glory, and their virtue not tarnished, Mr. Henry's talents must have put him at the head of that glorious commonwealth."

Mr. Mason found the minds of all at Williamsburg entirely absorbed in the news from Massachusetts. The burgesses, at their own expense, sent to their counties copies of the resolution adopted against the Boston port bill, in order that it should be ratified by the people. Mr. Mason, as other members probably did, directed that his elder children should attend church on the day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, in mourning. The first of June was observed as set apart by the house of burgesses. The same day being the time fixed for the discontinuance of the use of tea, the ladies, before that day, sealed up their stock, with a determination not to use it until the duty should be repealed, and resolutions of sympathy and encouragement, and contributions of money and provisions, were sent from Virginia for the relief of "our distressed fellow-subjects of Boston."

In the midst of these excitements John Page, of Rosewell, was elected president of the Society for the Advancement of Useful Knowledge.

In the latter part of June, Washington presided as moderator at a meeting held in his own county, Fairfax, and he was made chairman of a committee appointed to draught resolutions on the alarming state of public affairs, to be reported at a future meeting. He about this time warmly supported the patriotic measures, in a correspondence with his neighbor and friend, Bryan Fairfax, who adhered to the Anglican side in the dispute. On the twenty-fourth of August he wrote to him: "I could wish, I own, that the dispute had been left to posterity to determine; but the crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use will make us as tame and abject slaves as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway."

The Fairfax committee framed resolutions, intimating that a persistence of the government in its measures of coercion would result of necessity only in a resort to the arbitrament of arms. These resolutions were adopted by a county meeting held on the eighteenth of July, and Washington was elected a delegate to the convention which was about to convene. This body met on the first day of August, (although Dunmore had issued writs for a new assembly,) its object being to consider the state and condition of the colony, and to appoint delegates to congress. A new and more thorough non-importation association was organized. Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Washington, Henry, Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Jr., of Berkley, and Pendleton, were appointed[575:A] delegates to congress. Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee were listened to with delight, and Washington said, "I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston."[575:B]

Mr. Jefferson was elected a member of this convention, but was prevented from attending by the state of his health. In the interval before the meeting he prepared instructions for the Virginia delegates in congress, in which he assumed the ground that the British parliament had no right whatever to exercise any authority over the colony of Virginia. These instructions being communicated through the president of the convention, Peyton Randolph, were generally read and approved of by many, though considered too bold for the present. But they printed them in a pamphlet, under the title of "A Summary View of the Rights of British America."[575:C] The following excerpts are taken from it: "History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny." "Scarcely have our minds been able to emerge from the astonishment into which one stroke of parliamentary thunder has involved us before another more heavy and more alarming is fallen on us." "The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counsellors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest; only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail. No longer persevere in sacrificing the rights of one part of the empire to the inordinate desires of another, but deal out to all equal and impartial right. Let no act be passed by any one legislature which may infringe on the rights and liberties of another." "Accept of every commercial preference it is in our power to give for such things as we can raise for their use, or they make for ours. But let them not think to exclude us from going to other markets to dispose of those commodities which they cannot use, or to supply those wants which they cannot supply."

On the subject of slavery Mr. Jefferson used the following language: "The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa, yet our repeated attempts to effect this, by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative; thus preferring the immediate advantage of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States and to the rights of human nature deeply wounded by this infamous practice."

In consonance with these opinions, the convention adopted the following resolution: "After the first day of November next we will neither ourselves import, nor purchase any slave or slaves imported by any other person, either from Africa, the West Indies, or any other place."

Mr. Jefferson's pamphlet displays a thorough knowledge of the history and constitutional rights of the colony; it breathes a fiery spirit of defiance and revolution, and the rhythmical splendor of elevated declamation in some of its passages is hardly inferior to Junius. If some of its statements and views are extravagant or erroneous, yet it is bold, acute, comprehensive, luminous, and impressive. This pamphlet, it is said, found its way to England, was taken hold of by the opposition, interpolated a little by Edmund Burke, so as to make it answer opposition purposes, and in that form it ran through several editions.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER LXXV.

Richard Henry Lee was born at Stratford, on the Potomac, January 20th, 1732, his father being Thomas Lee, and his mother, Hannah, daughter of Colonel Ludwell, of Greenspring, near Jamestown. Richard, second son of Richard Lee, was of the council, and an adherent of Sir William Berkley; and Thomas Lee, third son, was some time president of the council. He was one of the majority of that body who persecuted the dissenters. Richard Henry Lee's maternal relations were conspicuous for their wealth, influence, and public stations. Colonel Ludwell, the father of Mrs. Lee, was of the council, as also was a son of his. Her grandfather was a collector of the customs, (having succeeded in that office Giles Bland, who was executed during Bacon's rebellion,) and afterwards governor of North Carolina. The Ludwells were staunch supporters of Sir William Berkley and the Stuart dynasty. Richard Henry Lee's mother, one of the high-toned aristocracy of the colony, confined her care chiefly to her daughters and her eldest son, and left her younger sons pretty much to shift for themselves. After a course of private tuition in his father's house, Richard Henry was sent to Wakefield Academy, Yorkshire, England, where he distinguished himself by his proficiency in his studies, particularly in the Latin and Greek. Having completed his course at this school, he travelled through England, and visited London. He returned when about nineteen years of age to his native country, two years after his father's death, which occurred in 1750. Young Lee's patrimony rendering it unnecessary for him to devote himself to a profession, he now passed a life of ease, but not of idleness; for he indulged his taste for letters, and diligently stored his mind with knowledge. In 1755, being chosen captain of a company of volunteers raised in Westmoreland, he marched with them to Alexandria, and offered their services to General Braddock; but the offer was declined. In his twenty-fifth year Mr. Lee was appointed a justice of the peace, and shortly afterwards elected a burgess for his county. Naturally diffident, and finding himself surrounded by able men, for one or two sessions he took no part in the debates. One of his early efforts was in support of a resolution "to lay so heavy a tax on the importation of slaves as effectually to put an end to that iniquitous and disgraceful traffick within the colony of Virginia." On this question he argued against the institution of slavery as a portentous evil, moral and political.[578:A] When the defalcations of Treasurer Robinson came to be suspected, Mr. Lee insisted with firmness, in the face of a proud and embittered opposition, on an investigation of the treasury. In November, 1764, when the stamp act was first heard of in America, Mr. Lee, at the instance of a friend, wrote to England, making application for a collector's office under that act. He alleged that at that time neither he, nor, as he believed, his countrymen, had duly reflected on the real nature of that act. Observing soon, however, the growing dissatisfaction with that measure, and bestowing more deliberate reflection upon it, he became convinced of its pernicious character, and of the impropriety of his application; and from that time he became one of the most strenuous opponents of the stamp act. In the year 1766 he brought to the consideration of the assembly the act of parliament claiming a right to tax America; and he draughted the address to the king, and the memorial to the commons. His accomplishments, learning, courtesy, patriotism, republican principles, decision of character and eloquence, commanded the attention of the legislature. Although a member at the time of the introduction of Henry's resolutions, in 1765, Mr. Lee happened not to be present at the discussion; but he heartily concurred in their adoption. Shortly afterwards he organized an association in furtherance of them in Westmoreland. He vigorously opposed the act laying a duty on tea, and that for quartering British troops in the colonies. He was now residing at Chantilly, his seat on the Potomac, a few miles below Stratford, in Westmoreland. The house at Chantilly is no longer standing. On the 25th of July, 1768, in a letter to John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Lee suggested "that not only select committees should be appointed by all the colonies, but that a private correspondence should be conducted between the lovers of liberty in every province." In the year 1773 the Virginia assembly, at the suggestion of Mr. Lee, appointed the first committee of intercolonial correspondence, consisting of six members, of whom he was one.

Washington was joined at Mount Vernon by Henry and Pendleton, and they proceeded together to Philadelphia. Here the old Continental Congress, consisting of fifty-five delegates, representing all the colonies except Georgia, assembled on the 5th day of September, 1774.[579:A]

Upon the motion of Mr. Lynch, of South Carolina, Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was unanimously elected president, and Charles Thomson, secretary. At the opening of the session, on the second day, the prolonged silence was at length broken by Patrick Henry. Reciting the grievances of the colonies, he declared that all government was dissolved, and that they were reduced to a state of nature; that the congress which he was addressing was the first in a perpetual series of congresses. A few sentences roughly jotted down in John Adams' diary[579:B] are all that survive of this celebrated speech.

Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee towered supereminent in debate; yet it soon came to be remarked that in composition and the routine of actual business they were surpassed by many.[579:C] But "the egotism of human nature will seldom allow us to credit a man for one excellence, without detracting from him in other respects; if he has genius, we imagine he has not common sense; if he is a poet, we suppose that he is not a logician."[580:A] It has been seen that George Mason considered Henry "the first man on this continent in ability as in public virtues." A great man only can adequately appreciate a great man. Henry was capable of being no less efficient in the committee-room than on the floor of debate.[580:B] There was no test of intellectual excellence too severe for him. The state-papers of Richard Henry Lee are sufficient proofs of his capacity.

The proceedings were conducted in secret session. Intelligence which was received from Boston riveted more closely the union of the North and South; minor differences were lost sight of in view of the portentous common danger. The congress made a declaration of rights. Dickinson composed the petition to the king, and the address to the inhabitants of Quebec; Jay an address to the people of Great Britain; and Richard Henry Lee a memorial to the inhabitants of the British colonies. The congress, after a session of fifty-one days, adjourned in October.

Mr. Henry, on his return home, being asked, "Who is the greatest man in congress?" replied, "If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, is by far the greatest orator; but if you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor." John Adams, the eloquent and indomitable advocate of independence, mentions Lee, Henry, and Hooper as the orators of that body. Washington, in a letter addressed to Captain Mackenzie, who had formerly served under him, and was now among the British troops at Boston, gave it as his opinion, that it was neither the wish nor the interest of Massachusetts, nor of any of the colonies, to set up for independence; yet they never would submit to the loss of their constitutional rights. The same opinion was avowed by Jefferson, Franklin, and other leading men; yet there was undoubtedly then, and long had been, a strong undercurrent, a heavy ground-swell in the direction of independence, it being evident that England would never restore the colonies to their condition previous to 1763. A declaration of war is usually preceded by a hypothetical denial of hostile designs: it is the lull whose mysterious silence heralds in the approaching storm.

Patrick Henry stood foremost among the statesmen of Virginia, from the beginning of the contest, in favor of independence; he was on this point ten years in advance of them;[581:A] standing out in bold relief the prominent and pre-eminent figure on the canvas. Samuel Adams, in Massachusetts, was a patriot of the same stamp.

The danger of an outbreak of hostilities between the people of Boston and the British troops growing daily more imminent, the spirit of warlike preparation, by a sort of contagion, pervaded the colonies. It had long been a custom in Virginia to form independent military companies; and several of these now solicited Colonel Washington to review them and take command; and he consented; and in the apprehension of war, all eyes involuntarily turned to him as the first military character in the colony. At Mount Vernon he occasionally saw his former companions in arms, Dr. James Craik, and Captain Hugh Mercer, also a physician, both natives of Scotland, and with them talked over the recollections of former years, and discussed the prospects of the future. Washington was visited during the year also by General Charles Lee and Major Horatio Gates, natives of England, who had distinguished themselves in the British army, and destined to become conspicuous in the American war of revolution. They had recently purchased estates in Berkley County, Virginia.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER LXXVI.

1774.

In April, 1774, some extraordinary hostilities occurred between the Indians and the whites on the frontier of Virginia. On which side these outrages commenced was a matter of dispute, but the whites appear to have been probably the aggressors. An Indian war being apprehended, Dunmore appointed General Andrew Lewis, of Botetourt County, then a member of the assembly, to the command of the southern division of the forces raised in Botetourt, Augusta, and the adjoining counties east of the Blue Ridge, while his lordship in person took command of those levied in the northern counties, Frederick, Dunmore, and those adjacent. According to the plan of campaign, as arranged at Williamsburg, Lewis was to march down the valley of the Kanawha[582:A] to Point Pleasant, where that river empties into the Ohio, there to be joined by the governor, who was to march by way of Fort Pitt, and thence descend the Ohio.

Late in August the Virginia Gazette announced news from the frontier that Lord Dunmore was to march in a few days for the mouth of New River, where he was to be joined by Lewis.

Early in September the troops under his command made their rendezvous at Camp Union,[582:B] now Lewisburg, in the County of Greenbrier. They consisted of two regiments, under Colonel William Fleming, of Botetourt, and Colonel Charles Lewis, of Augusta, comprising about four hundred men. At Camp Union they were joined by a company under Colonel Field, of Culpepper, one from Bedford, under Colonel Buford, and two from the Holston settlement, (now Washington County,) under Captains Shelby and Harbert. These were part of the forces to be led on by Colonel Christian, who was to join the troops at Point Pleasant as soon as his regiment should be completed.

On the eleventh of September General Lewis, with eleven hundred men, commenced his march through the wilderness, piloted by Captain Matthew Arbuckle; flour, ammunition, and camp equipage being transported on pack-horses and bullocks driven in the rear of the little army. After a march of one hundred and sixty miles, they reached, on the thirtieth of September, Point Pleasant, at the junction of the Great Kanawha with the beautiful Ohio. "This promontory was elevated considerably above the high-water mark, and afforded an extensive and variegated prospect of the surrounding country. Here were seen hills, mountains, valleys, cliffs, plains, and promontories, all covered with gigantic forests, the growth of centuries, standing in their native grandeur and integrity, unsubdued, unmutilated by the hand of man, wearing the livery of the season, and raising aloft in mid-air their venerable trunks and branches as if to defy the lightning of the sky and the fury of the whirlwind. This widely-extended prospect, though rudely magnificent and picturesque, wanted, nevertheless, some of those softer features which might embellish and beautify, or, if the expression were permitted, might civilize the savage wilderness of some of nature's noblest efforts. Here were to be seen no villages nor hamlets, not a farm-house nor cottage, no fields nor meadows with their appropriate furniture, shocks of corn, nor herds of domestic animals. In its widest range the eye would in vain seek to discover a cultivated spot of earth on which to repose. Here were no marks of industry, nor of the exercise of those arts which minister to the comfort and convenience of man; here nature had for ages on ages held undisputed empire. In the deep and dismal solitude of these woodlands the lone wanderer would have been startled by the barking of the watch-dog, or the shrill clarion of a chanticleer. Here the whistling of the plough-boy, or the milk-maid's song, sounds elsewhere heard with pleasing emotions, would have been incongruous and out of place."[583:A]

Dunmore, who had marched across the country to the Shawnee towns, failing to join Lewis, runners were sent out by him toward Fort Pitt in quest of his lordship. October the sixth the Williamsburg Gazette announced advices from the frontier that the Earl of Dunmore had concluded a treaty of peace with the Delaware Indians. And before the return of the runners despatched from Point Pleasant, an express from the governor reached Point Pleasant on Sunday, the nineteenth of October, ordering General Lewis to march for the Chilicothe towns and there join him. Preparations were immediately made for crossing the Ohio.

In the mean time the Indians, headed by Cornstalk, had determined to cross the Ohio, some miles above Point Pleasant, and to march down during the night, so as to surprise the camp at daybreak. "Accordingly, on the evening of the ninth of October, soon after dark, they began to cross the river on rafts previously prepared. To ferry so many men over this wide river and on these clumsy transports must have required considerable time. But before morning they were all on the eastern bank, ready to proceed. Their route now lay down the margin of the river, through an extensive bottom. On this bottom was a heavy growth of timber, with a foliage so dense as in many places to intercept, in a great measure, the light of the moon and the stars. Beneath lay many trunks of fallen trees, strewed in different directions, and in various stages of decay. The whole surface of the ground was covered with a luxuriant growth of weeds, interspersed with entangling vines and creepers, and in some places with close-set thickets of spice-wood or other undergrowth. A journey through this in the night must have been tedious, tiresome, dark, and dreary. The Indians, however, entered on it promptly, and persevered until break of day, when, about a mile distant from the camp, one of those unforeseen incidents occurred which so often totally defeat or greatly mar the best concerted military enterprises."[584:A]

Two soldiers setting out very early from the camp on a hunting excursion, proceeded up the bank of the Ohio, and when they had gone about two miles they came suddenly upon a large body of Indians, who had crossed the river the evening before, and were now just rising from their encampment and preparing for battle. Espying the hunters they fired and killed one of them; the other escaping unhurt, ran back to the camp, where he arrived just before sunrise, and reported that "he had seen about five acres of ground covered with Indians as thick as they could stand one beside another." It was Cornstalk at the head of an army of Delawares, Mingoes, Cayugas, Iowas, Wyandots, and Shawnees, and but for the hunter's intelligence they would have surprised the camp. In a few moments two other men came in and confirmed the report, and then General Lewis lit his pipe, and sent forward the first division under his brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, and the second under Colonel Fleming; the first marching to the right at some distance from the Ohio, the bottom being a mile wide there; the second marching to the left along the bank of the river. General Andrew Lewis remained with the reserve to defend the camp. Colonel Lewis's division had not advanced along the river bottom quite half a mile from the camp when he was vigorously attacked in front, a little after sunrise, by the enemy, numbering between eight hundred and a thousand. Fleming's division was likewise attacked on the bank of the river. In a short time Colonel Charles Lewis was mortally wounded; this gallant and estimable officer, when struck by the bullet, fell at the foot of a tree, when he was, against his own wish, carried back to his tent by Captain Morrow and a private, and he died in a few hours, deeply lamented. Colonel Fleming also was severely wounded, two balls passing through his arm and one through his breast. After cheering on the officers and soldiers, he retired to the camp. The Augusta troops, upon the fall of their leader, Colonel Lewis, and several of the men, gave way, and retreated toward the camp, but being met by a re-enforcement of about two hundred and fifty, under Colonel Field, they rallied and drove back the enemy, and at this juncture this officer was killed. His place was taken by Captain Shelby. At length the Indians formed a line behind logs and trees, at right angles to the Ohio, through the woods to Crooked Creek, which empties into the Great Kanawha a little above its mouth. The engagement now became general, and was obstinately sustained in the bush-fighting manner on both sides. The Virginia troops being hemmed in between the two rivers, with the Indians in front, General Lewis employed the troops from the more eastern part of the colony (who were less experienced in Indian fighting) in throwing up a breastwork of the boughs and trunks of trees, across the delta between the Kanawha and Ohio. About twelve o'clock the Indian fire began to slacken, and the enemy slowly and reluctantly gave way, being driven back less than two miles during six or seven hours. A desultory fire was still kept up from behind trees, and the whites as they pressed on the savages were repeatedly ambuscaded. At length General Lewis detached three companies, commanded by Captains Shelby, Matthews, and Stuart, with orders to move secretly along the banks of the Kanawha and Crooked Creek, so as to gain the enemy's rear. This manœuvre being successfully executed, the Indians, as some report, at four o'clock P.M., fled; according to other accounts, the firing continued until sunset. During the night they recrossed the Ohio. The loss of the Virginians in this action has been variously estimated at from forty to seventy-five killed and one hundred and forty wounded—a large proportion of the number of the troops actually engaged, who did not exceed five hundred and fifty, as one hundred of General Lewis's men, including his best marksmen, were absent in the woods hunting, and knew nothing of the battle until it was all over. Among the killed were Colonel Charles Lewis, Colonel Field, who had served in Braddock's war, Captains Buford, Morrow, Murray, Ward, Cundiff, Wilson, and McClenachan, Lieutenants Allen, Goldsby, and Dillon. Of the officers present at the battle of Point Pleasant many became afterwards distinguished men.[586:A]

The loss of the savages was never ascertained; the bodies of thirty-three slain were found, but many had been thrown into the Ohio during the engagement. The number of the Indian army was not known certainly, but it comprised the flower of the northern confederated tribes, led on by Red Hawk, a Delaware chief; Scoppathus, a Mingo; Chiyawee, a Wyandot; Logan, a Cayuga; and Ellinipsico, and his father, Cornstalk, Shawnees. But some say that Logan was not present in the battle. The Shawnees were a formidable tribe, who had played a prominent part on many a bloody field. Cornstalk displayed great skill and courage at Point Pleasant. It is said that on the day before the battle he had proposed to his people to send messengers to General Lewis to see whether a treaty of peace could be effected, but his followers rejected the proposal. During the battle, when one of his warriors evinced a want of firmness, he slew him with one blow of his tomahawk; and during the day his sonorous voice was heard amid the din of arms exclaiming, in his native tongue, "Be strong, be strong."

On the morning after the battle General Lewis buried his dead. They were interred without the pomp of war, but the cheeks of hardy mountaineers were bedewed with tears at the fate of their brave comrades. "The dead bodies of the Indians who fell in battle were left to decay on the ground where they expired, or to be devoured by birds or beasts of prey. The mountain eagle, lord of the feathered race, while from his lofty cairn with piercing eye he surveyed the varied realms around and far beneath, would not fail to descry the sumptuous feast prepared for his use. Here he might whet his beak, and feast, and fatten, and exult. Over these the gaunt wolf, grim tyrant of the forest, might prolong his midnight revelry and howl their funeral dirge. While far remote in the deepest gloom of the wilderness, whither they had fled for safety, the surviving warriors might wail their fate, or chant a requiem to their departed spirits."[587:A]

General Lewis, after caring for the wounded, erected a small fort at Point Pleasant, and leaving a garrison there, marched to overtake Dunmore, who, with a thousand men, lay entrenched at Camp Charlotte, called after the queen, near the Shawnee town, (Chilicothe,) on the banks of the Scioto. The Indians having sued to him for peace, his lordship determined to make a treaty with them, and sent orders to Lewis to halt, or, according to others, to return to Point Pleasant. Lewis, suspecting the governor's good faith, and finding himself threatened by a superior force of Indians, who hovered in his rear, disregarded the order, and advanced to within three miles of his camp. His lordship, accompanied by the Indian chief, White Eyes, visited the camp of Lewis, who (as some report) with difficulty restrained his men from killing the governor and his Indian companion. Lewis, to his great chagrin, received orders to return home with his troops, and he obeyed reluctantly, as it seemed a golden opportunity to give the savage enemy a fatal blow.

General Andrew Lewis lived on the Roanoke, in the County of Botetourt. He was a native of Ireland, being one of five sons of John Lewis, who slew the Irish lord, settled Augusta County, founded the town of Staunton, and furnished several sons to fight the battles of their country. He was the son of Andrew Lewis and Mary Calhoun, his wife, and was born in Donegal County, Ireland, (1678,) and died in Virginia, (1762,) aged eighty-four: a brave man, and a firm friend of liberty. All his sons were born in Ireland except Charles, the youngest. Andrew Lewis was twice wounded at Fort Necessity; was appointed by Washington major of his regiment during the French and Indian war, and no officer more fully enjoyed his confidence. Major Lewis commanded the Sandy Creek expedition in 1756, and was made prisoner at Grant's defeat, where he exhibited signal prudence and bravery. His fortitude while a prisoner was equal to his courage in battle, and commanded the respect of the French officers. He was upwards of six feet in stature, of uncommon activity and strength, and of a form of exact symmetry. His countenance was stern and invincible, his deportment reserved and distant. When he was a commissioner on behalf of Virginia at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in New York, in 1768, the governor of that colony remarked of him, that "the earth seemed to tremble under him as he walked along." At the commencement of the revolutionary war Washington considered him the foremost military man in America, and the one most worthy of the post of commander-in-chief of the American army. And it was to the country beyond the mountains that Washington looked as a place of refuge, in case he should be overpowered in the struggle, and there, defended by mountains and mountaineers, he hoped to defy the enemy. The statue of General Andrew Lewis is one of those to be placed on the monument in the capitol square, in Richmond.[589:A]

Dunmore remaining after the departure of Lewis, concluded a treaty with the Indians. Upon this occasion Cornstalk, in a long speech, charged the whites with having provoked the war, his tones of thunder resounding over a camp of twelve acres. The truth is that during the years which elapsed between Bouquet's treaty of 1764 and open war in 1774, a period of nominal peace was one of frequent actual collision and hostilities, and more lives were sacrificed on the frontier by the murderous Indians than during the whole of the year 1774, including the battle of Point Pleasant.[589:B]

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