NOTE A.
The stockade at Wheeling, of which a most perfect representation is given
in our drawing, was one of the earliest built in the west, and is memorable
for having undergone two distinct sieges which, for duration, severity, and
manly resistance, are unequalled in the annals of the west. It was built in
1774, and stood upon the spot now occupied by "Zane's row," and the
present residence of Colonel Charles D. Knox. It was considered one of the
most substantial structures of the kind, in the valley of the Ohio, and is
said to have been planned by no less a personage than George Rogers Clark,
certainly one of the first military genius in the land. (The reader will
notice elsewhere, that Clark was at Wheeling in the spring of 1774, at
which time the fort was projected, and it is not therefore improbable, his
master mind may have suggested the plan of this celebrated stockade.)
Fort Henry[33]
was a parallelogram, having its greatest length along the river.
The pickets were of white oak, and about seventeen feet in height; it was
supported by bastions, and thus well adapted for resisting a savage force,
however powerful. It contained several cabins, arranged along the western
wall. The commandant's house, store-house, etc., were in the centre; the
captain's house was two stories high, and the top so adapted as to be used
for firing a small cannon from: this, the artist has caught, and shown in his
drawing. The store-house was but one story, and very strong, so as to
answer for a lock-up. No regular garrison was maintained at this post, or
at least, only for a very brief period. When Lord Dunmore returned from
Camp Charlotte, he left some twenty or thirty men at the fort, who remained
during most of the following year. Towards the close of 1776, the Virginia
Convention, apprehending renewed outbreak on the part of the Indians, since
the repudiation of Dunmore's government, ordered the post at Wheeling to
be garrisoned by fifty men; this order, however, was not fulfilled.
In the fall of the same year, (1776), three new counties having been
created in the west, (Ohio, Youghiogheny, and Monongahela,) the authorities
of the first named lost no time in preparing to meet any force
that might be sent against them. Their militia were organized, and other
steps taken for a vigorous and successful resistance.
