Part 10 (1/2)
Boone sent forward some swift runners as spies, and they speedily returned with the report that the Indians in a panic had entirely abandoned Paint Creek. Aware that the warriors would rush to join the four hundred and fifty from Old Chilicothe, and that they might cut off his retreat, or reach Boonesborough before his return, he immediately commenced a rapid movement back to the fort. Every man would be needed there for an obstinate defence. This foray had extended one hundred and fifty miles from the fort. It greatly alarmed the Indians. It emboldened the hearts of the garrison, and gave them intelligence of the approach of their foes. After an absence of but seven days, Boone with his heroic little band quite triumphantly re-entered the fort.
The approach of the foe is described in the following terms by Boone:
”On the eighth of August, the Indian army arrived, being four hundred and forty-four in number, commanded by Captain Duquesne, eleven other Frenchmen and some of their own chiefs, and marched up in view of our fort, with British and French colors flying. And having sent a summons to me in His Britannic Majesty's name to surrender the fort, I requested two days' consideration which was granted. It was now a critical period with us. We were a small number in the garrison; a powerful army before our walls, whose appearance proclaimed inevitable death; fearfully painted and marking their footsteps with desolation. Death was preferable to captivity; and if taken by storm, we must inevitably be devoted to destruction.
”In this situation we concluded to maintain our garrison if possible. We immediately proceeded to collect what we could of our horses and other cattle, and bring them through the posterns into the fort; and in the evening of the ninth, I returned the answer 'that we were determined to defend our fort while a man was living.'
”'Now,' said I to their commander who stood attentively hearing my sentiments, 'we laugh at your formidable preparations, but thank you for giving us notice, and time for our defence. Your efforts will not prevail, for our gates shall forever deny you admittance.'
”Whether this answer affected their courage or not, I cannot tell, but contrary to our expectations, they formed a scheme to deceive us, declaring it was their orders from Governor Hamilton to take us captives, and not to destroy us; but if nine of us would come out and treat with them, they would immediately withdraw their forces from our walls, and return home peaceably. This sounded grateful in our ears, and we agreed to the proposal.”
CHAPTER IX.
_Victories and Defeats._
Situation of the Fort.--Indian Treachery.--Bombardment.--Boone goes to North Carolina.--New Trials.--Boone Robbed.--He Returns to Kentucky.--Ma.s.sacre of Col. Rogers.--Adventure of Col. Bowman.--New Attack by the British and Indians.--Retaliatory Measures.--Wonderful Exploit.
There were but fifty men in the garrison at Boonesborough. They were a.s.sailed by a body of more than ten to one of the bravest Indian warriors, under the command of an officer in the British army. The boldest in the fort felt that their situation was almost desperate. The ferocity of the Indian, and the intelligence of the white man, were combined against them. They knew that the British commander, however humane he might be, would have no power, should the fort be taken by storm, to save them from death by the most horrible tortures.
General Duquesne was acting under instructions from Governor Hamilton, the British officer in supreme command at Detroit. Boone knew that the Governor felt very kindly towards him. When he had been carried to that place a captive, the Governor had made very earnest endeavors to obtain his liberation. Influenced by these considerations, he consented to hold the conference.
But, better acquainted with the Indian character than perhaps Duquesne could have been, he selected nine of the most athletic and strong of the garrison, and appointed the place of meeting in front of the fort, at a distance of only one hundred and twenty feet from the walls. The riflemen of the garrison were placed in a position to cover the spot with their guns, so that in case of treachery the Indians would meet with instant punishment, and the retreat of the party from the fort would probably be secured. The language of Boone is:
”We held a treaty within sixty yards of the garrison on purpose to divert them from a breach of honor, as we could not avoid suspicion of the savages.”
The terms proposed by General Duquesne were extremely liberal. And while they might satisfy the British party, whose object in the war was simply to conquer the colonists and bring them back to loyalty, they could by no means have satisfied the Indians, who desired not merely to drive the white men back from their hunting grounds, but to plunder them of their possessions and to gratify their savage natures by hearing the shrieks of their victims at the stake and by carrying home the trophies of numerous scalps.
Boone and his men, buried in the depths of the wilderness, had probably taken little interest in the controversy which was just then rising between the colonies and the mother country. They had regarded the King of England as their lawful sovereign, and their minds had never been agitated by the question of revolution or of independence. When, therefore, General Duquesne proposed that they should take the oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain, and that then they should be permitted to return unmolested to their homes and their friends beyond the mountains, taking all their possessions with them, Colonel Boone and his a.s.sociates were very ready to accept such terms. It justly appeared to them in their isolated condition, five hundred miles away from the Atlantic coast, that this was vastly preferable to remaining in the wilderness a.s.sailed by thousands of Indians guided by English energy and abundantly provided with all the munitions of war from British a.r.s.enals.
But Boone knew very well that the Indians would never willingly a.s.sent to this treaty. Still he and his fellow commissioners signed it while very curious to learn how it would be regarded by their savage foes. The commissioners on both sides had appeared at the appointed place of conference, as is usual on such occasions, entirely unarmed. There were, however, a large number of Indians lingering around and drawing nearer as the conference proceeded. After the treaty was signed, the old Indian chief Blackfish, Boone's adopted father, and who, exasperated by the escape of his ungrateful son, had been watching him with a very unamiable expression of countenance, arose and made a formal speech in the most approved style of Indian eloquence. He commented upon the bravery of the two armies, and of the desirableness that there should be entire friends.h.i.+p between them, and closed by saying that it was a custom with them on all such important occasions to ratify the treaty by two Indians shaking hands with each white man.
This shallow pretense, scarcely up to the sagacity of children, by which Blackfish hoped that two savages grappling each one of the commissioners would easily be able to make prisoners of them, and then by threats of torture compel the surrender of the fort, did not in the slightest degree deceive Colonel Boone. He was well aware of his own strength and of that of the men who accompanied him. He also knew that his riflemen occupied concealed positions, from which, with unerring aim, they could instantly punish the savages for any act of treachery. He therefore consented to the arrangement. The grasp was given. Instantly a terrible scene of confusion ensued.
The burly savages tried to drag off their victims. The surrounding Indians rushed in to their aid, and a deadly fire was opened upon them from the fort, which was energetically responded to by all the armed savages from behind stumps and trees. One of the fiercest of battles had instantly blazed forth. Still these stalwart pioneers were not taken by surprise. Aided by the bullets of the fort, they shook off their a.s.sailants, and all succeeded in escaping within the heavy gates, which were immediately closed behind them. One only of their number, Boone's brother, was wounded. This escape seems almost miraculous. But the majority of the Indians in intelligence were mere children: sometimes very cunning, but often with the grossest stupidity mingled with their strategy.
Duquesne and Blackfish, the a.s.sociated leaders, now commenced the siege of the fort with all their energies. Dividing their forces into two parties, they kept up an incessant fire upon the garrison for nine days and nine nights. It was one of the most heroic of those b.l.o.o.d.y struggles between civilization and barbarism, which have rendered the plains of Kentucky memorable.
The savages were very careful not to expose themselves to the rifles of the besieged. They were stationed behind rocks, and trees, and stumps, so that it was seldom that the garrison could catch even a glimpse of the foes who were a.s.sailing them. It was necessary for those within the fort to be sparing of their ammunition. They seldom fired unless they could take deliberate aim, and then the bullet was almost always sure to reach its mark. Colonel Boone, in describing this attempt of the Indians to capture the commissioners by stratagem, and of the storm of war which followed, writes:
”They immediately grappled us, but, although surrounded by hundreds of savages, we extricated ourselves from them and escaped all safe into the garrison except one, who was wounded through a heavy fire from their army. They immediately attacked us on every side, and a constant heavy fire ensued between us, day and night, for the s.p.a.ce of nine days. In this time the enemy began to undermine our fort, which was situated about sixty yards from the Kentucky river. They began at the water mark and proceeded in the bank some distance, which we understood by their making the water muddy with the clay. We immediately proceeded to disappoint their design by cutting a trench across their subterranean pa.s.sage. The enemy discovering our counter mine by the clay we threw out of the fort, desisted from that stratagem. Experience now fully convincing them that neither their power nor their policy could effect their purpose, on the twentieth of August they raised the siege and departed.
”During this siege, which threatened death in every form, we had two men killed and four wounded, besides a number of cattle. We killed of the enemy thirty-seven and wounded a great number. After they were gone we picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight of bullets, besides what stuck in the logs of our fort, which certainly is a great proof of their industry.”
It is said that during this siege, one of the negroes, probably a slave, deserted from the fort with one of their best rifles, and joined the Indians. Concealing himself in a tree, where unseen he could take deliberate aim, he became one of the most successful of the a.s.sailants.
But the eagle eye of Boone detected him, and though, as was afterwards ascertained by actual measurement, the tree was five hundred and twenty-five feet distant from the fort, Boone took deliberate aim, fired, and the man was seen to drop heavily from his covert to the ground. The bullet from Boone's rifle had pierced his brain.
At one time the Indians had succeeded in setting fire to the fort, by throwing flaming combustibles upon it, attached to their arrows. One of the young men extinguished the flames, exposing himself to the concentrated and deadly fire of the a.s.sailants in doing so. Though the bullets fell like hailstones around him, the brave fellow escaped unscathed.
This repulse quite disheartened the Indians. Henceforth they regarded Boonesborough as a Gibraltar; impregnable to any force which they could bring against it. They never a.s.sailed it again. Though Boonesborough is now but a small village in Kentucky, it has a history which will render it forever memorable in the annals of heroism.