69. CHAPTER LXIX.
ON THE BANKS OF BELLE RIVIERE.
The aim of this book is rather to show what led to our
Revolution, than to narrate great public events; rather to
present something like a picture, however feeble and faint,
of the state of society which preceded the struggle, than to
follow that struggle through its bloody, but triumphant
steps, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown.
The precursor of the greater contest was the war of '74,
which is now known as “Dunmore's war,” perhaps on the
principle of lucus a non lucendo, for he did not fight the battle
which began and ended it.
This is not the place or the occasion to trace the details
of that splendid campaign, if we may call it such; that campaign
in which the Indian dominion, on the banks of “la
belle riviere,” the Ohio, was leveled at a blow, and the ferocious
savage driven back to his fastnesses.
We listen with dull ears to the old frontier story, and can
not believe that the sweet and smiling fields, blooming now
with the fairest flowers of peace, were once the battle field
on which the Anglo-Saxons opposed a merciless enemy. In
our comfortable homes to-day, we read carelessly the old
chronicle which clasps in its embrace such bleeding forms
and desolated hearth-stones. It is in the midst of peace and
plenty, with the blessings of a ripe civilization around us,
with the bright eyes and cheeks, and the laughter of happy
children at our side, that we read the moving story. What
does it say? Let an incident, similar to a thousand others,
and no worse, tell what horrors were then enacted on the
border.
“An Indian seized Mrs. Scott, and ordered her to a particular
spot, and not to move; others stabbed and cut the
throats of the three younger children, in their bed, and afterwards
lifting them up, dashed them upon the floor, near
the mother; the eldest, a beautiful girl of eight years old,
awoke, escaped out of the bed, ran to her parent, and, with
the most plaintive accents, cried, `O! mamma! mamma!
save me!' The mother, in the deepest anguish of spirit,
and with a flood of tears, entreated the savages to spare her
child, but, with a brutal fierceness, they tomahawked and
stabbed her in her mother's arms.”
In the pages of Withers and Kercheval, the Commines
and the Froissart of the Valley, we read all this, and follow
the details of a hundred massacres—the burning of houses,
the murder of men, the merciless beating out of women and
children's brains against the door posts of the dwellings of
the West. We read it all, and then close the chronicle, and
go to the routine of business, and scarcely give a thought to
the men who prostrated the power of the savage, thus dyeing
the very soil with the best blood of our country.
It is matter of rejoicing to all who admire and love the
great hearts of the past, that Virginia has finally decreed
recognition of the claims of one at least of these heroes of
the border.
The names of Andrew Lewis and his noble companions
shine like stars in the western horizon. Let the valiant soldier
stand on his well-won pedestal in the capital of the land
which he fought for; let the children of to-day and the
future be told, that long ago, when the sky was dark, in
old years which they do not remember, this stalwart gentleman
and his brave followers opposed their broad breasts to
the flood of savage cruelty, and stood up between the tomahawk
and the bosoms from which the present generation
drew their life. Let them be told that when women and
children were cowering before a foe which knew no mercy,
this man and his companions came to succor them; let the
names of those who came from the bloody fight be honored;
let the memory of those who fell be perennial in the nation's
heart, and all coming generations delight to honor them.
At some other time we may relate the “old and moving
story;” how, entering the wilderness at the head of his noble
army, General Lewis reached the junction of the Kanawha
and Ohio, in October, and how there, at Point Pleasant,
on the banks of that stream which was called “belle
riviere” for its beauty, he defeated the combined forces of
the great northern nations.
It was the flower of the Indian tribes, led on by their
most celebrated chiefs, which were thus routed. Redhawk,
the renowned Delaware, Cornstalk, the greatest of the Shawnees,
and Ellinipsico, the “Mountain Deer,” his son; Scoppathus,
the Mingo; Chiyawee, the Wyandot, and Logan,
the last of the Cayugas, whose mournful speech, in reply to
Dunmore, is the pearl of Indian eloquence.
At sunset on the 10th day of October, the Indian power
was completely broken, and the tribes were flying into the
forest.
The Virginians returned to count their dead.
Alas! among those dead ones was Charles Lewis, the
brother of the general, one of the colonels of the expedition,
and beloved by all for his courage and nobility.
Receiving in his heart the fatal ball, which he had come
from such a distance to oppose his bresst to, he fell at the
foot of a tree, only murmured a few words, and expired as
the soldiers came back from the pursuit, amid the tears of
his companions, and his brother.[1]
It was not only this valiant gentleman who fell, who there,
on the banks of the great stream, breathed his last, stiffening
in the arms of those faithful comrades, who wept for
him and held him on their bosoms. The bloody foliage of
October was dyed with a deeper crimson, and the waves of
“la belle riviere” were stained with the life current of the
noblest hearts of the land. The bright waves rolled on, the
brilliant sun of October shone on forest and river, the stains
disappeared, and the birds chirped and sang where the volleys
of musketry and the clash of arms had startled the silence
of the woods. But that blood was not lost in the immensity
of waters—that crimson stain did not idly imbrue
the soil of the West. It fertilized and enriched, not the
spot where it fell only, but the whole land, east and west.
Borne along through the length of the land to the dark
waves of the Gulf, it diffused its influence wherever it flowed;
though invisible, and swallowed in the waste of waters, it
blazed with red fires before the eyes of the country. From
the earth which drank it sprang the bright flowers of peace,
and the golden fruits of civilization. Not in vain thus did
they bleed, those noble hearts of the old border, those heroes
of western and eastern Virginia. To him who writes, all
their names are sacred. The sun which shone down on their
lifeless bodies, shines more brightly now because they fell.
They rolled back the cloud from our horizon, and in that
horizon, now calm and beautiful, let them shine as the stars
for ever!
General Lewis would have completed the extermination of
the enemy on the border, and driven them into the wilderness
never to return; but here he was opposed by his
Excellency, Lord Dunmore.
In courts of law, men are condemned upon circumstantial
evidence, and hanged for the crimes thus proven on them.
Why should the judge of historical events and characters
be confined within narrower bounds? The circumstantial
evidence which connects Lord Dunmore's name with
treachery, and the most horrible schemes excludes every
other hypothesis than guilt, and has long since gibbeted
that nobleman in the popular mind. Some day, that treachery
will be established by irrefutable documentary proof.
We do not follow in detail the events succeeding the
battle of Point Pleasant, to show, as we think we have it
in our power, that the Governor had been guilty of “foul
play.” It is no part of our undertaking to bring home to
him a particular treason. It is enough to say that General
Lewis was sent by an order from Lord Dunmore, who was
on the Sciota, to disband his forces and return.
The General could scarcely believe his senses; and for
reply, indignantly refused. He resolutely continued his
march, and finally halted within three miles of the Governor's
camp.
Lord Dunmore was at the head of his own army, and
yet had failed to come to Lewis's assistance at Point Pleasant.
The General's men were very much inflamed against
his Excellency, as the event which followed demonstrated.
Most truly did an eye-witness of these events say of Dunmore
and Conolly, “there were wheels within wheels, dark
things behind the curtain between this noble earl and his
sub-satellite.”
That the Virginians under General Lewis believed as
much, is very plain.
“His lordship,” says the historian, “accompanied by the
Indian chief, White-Eyes, now visited the camp of Lewis,
and he (according to some relations) with difficulty restrained
his men from killing the Governor and his Indian
companion.”
But we trench upon history, and only add here, that the
General was forced to obey. With a heavy heart, and
surrounded by men who thirsted to revenge the horrible
cruelties of the Indians on a thousand occasions, General
Lewis bowed to the command of his superior and marched
back: Lord Dunmore remained to perfect his schemes.
He returned in November to Williamsburg.
Thus ended the war of '74.
It had demonstrated to the minds of all men three important
things.
That the men of Virginia were ready for the field in a
moment, and too stubborn to yield.
That the struggle of the Revolution would not be embarrassed
by incursions on the frontier.
That Lord Dunmore was a traitor to the colony.
This was what “Dunmore's war” impressed upon the
most careless and unthinking.
