CHAPTER XI

THE SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH

We have seen that Kentucky's numerous salt-springs lured wild animals thither in astonishing numbers; but for lack of suitable boiling-kettles the pioneers were at first dependent upon the older settlements for the salt needed in curing their meat. The Indian outbreak now rendered the Wilderness Road an uncertain path, and the Kentuckians were beginning to suffer from lack of salt--a serious deprivation for a people largely dependent upon a diet of game.

Late in the year 1777 the Virginia government sent out several large salt-boiling kettles for the use of the Western settlers. Both residents and visiting militiamen were allotted into companies, which were to relieve each other at salt-making until sufficient was manufactured to last the several stations for a year. It was Boone's duty to head the first party, thirty strong, which, with the kettles packed on horses, went to Lower Blue Licks early in January. A month passed, during which a considerable quantity of salt was made; several horse-loads had been sent to Boonesborough, but most of it was still at the camp awaiting shipment.

The men were daily expecting relief by the second company, when visitors of a different character appeared. While half of the men worked at the boiling, the others engaged in the double service of watching for Indians and obtaining food; of these was Boone. Toward evening of the seventh of February he was returning home from a wide circuit with his packhorse laden with buffalo-meat and some beaver-skins, for he had many traps in the neighborhood. A blinding snow-storm was in progress, which caused him to neglect his usual precautions, when suddenly he was confronted by four burly Shawnese, who sprang from an ambush. Keen of foot, he thought to outrun them, but soon had to surrender, for they shot so accurately that it was evident that they could kill him if they would.

The prisoner was conducted to the Shawnese camp, a few miles distant. There he found a hundred and twenty warriors under Chief Black Fish. Two Frenchmen, in English employ, were of the party; also two American renegades from the Pittsburg region, James and George Girty. These latter, with their brother Simon, had joined the Indians and, dressed and painted like savages, were assisting the tribesmen of the Northwest in raids against their fellow-borderers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Boone was well known by reputation to all these men of the wilderness, reds and whites alike; indeed, he noticed that among the party were his captors of eight years before, who laughed heartily at again having him in their clutches.

He was loudly welcomed to camp, the Indians shaking his hands, patting him on the back, and calling him "brother"--for they always greatly enjoyed such exhibitions of mock civility and friendship--and the hunter himself pretended to be equally pleased at the meeting. They told him that they were on their way to attack Boonesborough, and wished him to lead them, but insisted that he first induce his fellow salt-makers to surrender. Boone thoroughly understood Indians; he had learned the arts of forest diplomacy, and although generally a silent man of action, appears to have been a plausible talker when dealing with red men. Knowing that only one side of the Boonesborough palisade had been completed, and that the war-party was five times as strong as the population of the hamlet, he thought to delay operations by strategy. He promised to persuade the salt-makers to surrender, in view of the overwhelming force and the promise of good treatment, and to go peacefully with their captors to the Shawnese towns north of the Ohio; and suggested that in the spring, when the weather was warmer, they could all go together to Boonesborough, and by means of horses comfortably remove the women and children. These would, under his persuasion, Boone assured his captors, be content to move to the North, and thenceforth either lived with the Shawnese as their adopted children or place themselves under British protection at Detroit, where Governor Hamilton offered L20 apiece for American prisoners delivered to him alive and well.

The proposition appeared reasonable to the Indians, and they readily agreed to it. What would be the outcome Boone could not foretell. He realized, however, that his station was unprepared, that delay meant everything, in view of possible reenforcements from Virginia, and was willing that he and his comrades should stand, if need be, as a sacrifice--indeed, no other course seemed open. Going with his captors to the salt camp, his convincing words caused the men to stack their arms and accompany the savages, hoping thereby at least to save their families at Boonesborough from immediate attack.

The captives were but twenty-seven in number, some of the hunters not having returned to camp. Not all of the captors were, despite their promise, in favor of lenient treatment of the prisoners. A council was held, at which Black Fish, a chieftain of fine qualities, had much difficulty, through a session of two hours, in securing a favorable verdict. Boone was permitted to address the savage throng in explanation of his plan, his words being interpreted by a negro named Pompey, a fellow of some consequence among the Shawnese. The vote was close--fifty-nine for at once killing the prisoners, except Boone, and sixty-one for mercy; but it was accepted as decisive, and the store of salt being destroyed, and kettles, guns, axes, and other plunder packed on horses, the march northward promptly commenced.

Each night the captives were made fast and closely watched. The weather was unusually severe; there was much suffering from hunger, for the snow was deep, game scarce, and slippery-elm bark sometimes the only food obtainable. Descending the Licking, the band crossed the Ohio in a large boat made of buffalo-hides, which were stretched on a rude frame holding twenty persons; they then entered the trail leading to the Shawnese towns on the Little Miami, where they arrived upon the tenth day.

The prisoners were taken to the chief town of the Shawnese, Little Chillicothe, about three miles north of the present Xenia, Ohio. There was great popular rejoicing, for not since Braddock's defeat had so many prisoners been brought into Ohio. Boone and sixteen of his companions, presumably selected for their good qualities and their apparent capacity as warriors, were now formally adopted into the tribe. Boone himself had the good fortune to be accepted as the son of Black Fish, and received the name Sheltowee (Big Turtle)--perhaps because he was strong and compactly built.

Adoption was a favorite method of recruiting the ranks of American tribes. The most tractable captives were often taken into the families of the captors to supply the place of warriors killed in battle. They were thereafter treated with the utmost affection, apparently no difference being made between them and actual relatives, save that, until it was believed that they were no longer disposed to run away, they were watched with care to prevent escape. Such was now Boone's experience. Black Fish and his squaw appeared to regard their new son with abundant love, and everything was done for his comfort, so far as was possible in an Indian camp, save that he found himself carefully observed by day and night, and flight long seemed impracticable.

Boone was a shrewd philosopher. In his so-called "autobiography" written by Filson, he tells us that the food and lodging were "not so good as I could desire, but necessity made everything acceptable." Such as he obtained was, however, the lot of all. In the crowded, slightly built wigwams it was impossible to avoid drafts; they were filthy to the last degree; when in the home villages, there was generally an abundance of food--corn, hominy, pumpkins, beans, and game, sometimes all boiled together in the same kettle--although it was prepared in so slovenly a manner as to disgust even so hardy a man of the forest as our hero; the lack of privacy, the ever-present insects, the blinding smoke of the lodge-fire, the continual yelping of dogs, and the shrill, querulous tones of old women, as they haggled and bickered through the livelong day--all these and many other discomforts were intensely irritating to most white men. In order to disarm suspicion, Boone appeared to be happy. He whistled cheerfully at his tasks, learning what little there was left for him to learn of the arts of the warrior, sharing his game with his "father," and pretending not to see that he was being watched. At the frequent shooting-matches he performed just well enough to win the applause of his fellow braves, although, for fear of arousing jealousy, careful not to outdo the best of them. His fellow prisoners, less tactful, marveled at the ease with which their old leader adapted himself to the new life, and his apparent enjoyment of it. Yet never did he miss an opportunity to ascertain particulars of the intended attack on Boonesborough, and secretly planned for escape when the proper moment should arrive.

March was a third gone, when Black Fish and a large party of his braves and squaws went to Detroit to secure Governor Hamilton's bounty on those of the salt-makers who, from having acted in an ugly manner, had not been adopted into the tribe. Boone accompanied his "father," and frequently witnessed, unable to interfere, the whipping and "gauntlet-running" to which his unhappy fellow Kentuckians were subjected in punishment for their fractious behavior. He himself, early in his captivity, had been forced to undergo this often deadly ordeal; but by taking a dodging, zigzag course, and freely using his head as a battering-ram to topple over some of the warriors in the lines, had emerged with few bruises.[14]

Upon the arrival of the party at Detroit Governor Hamilton at once sent for the now famous Kentucky hunter and paid him many attentions. With the view of securing his liberty, the wily forest diplomat used the same sort of duplicity with the governor that had proved so effective with Black Fish. It was his habit to carry a leather bag fastened about his neck, containing his old commission as captain in the British colonial forces, signed by Lord Dunmore. This was for the purpose of convincing Indians, into whose hands he might fall, that he was a friend of the king; which accounts in a large measure for the tender manner in which they treated him. Showing the document to Hamilton as proof of his devotion to the British cause, he appears to have repeated his promise that he would surrender the people of Boonesborough and conduct them to Detroit, to live under British jurisdiction and protection. This greatly pleased the governor, who sought to ransom him from Black Fish for L100. But to this his "father" would not agree, stating that he loved him too strongly to let him go--as a matter of fact, he wished his services as guide for the Boonesborough expedition. Upon leaving for home, Hamilton presented Boone with a pony, saddle, bridle, and blanket, and a supply of silver trinkets to be used as currency among the Indians, and bade him remember his duty to the king.

Returning to Chillicothe with Black Fish, the hunter saw that preparations for the spring invasion of Kentucky were at last under way. Delawares, Mingos, and Shawnese were slowly assembling, and runners were carrying the war-pipe from village to village throughout Ohio. But while they had been absent at Detroit an event occurred which gave Black Fish great concern: one of the adopted men, Andrew Johnson--who had pretended among the Indians to be a simpleton, in order to throw off suspicion, but who in reality was one of the most astute of woodsmen--had escaped, carrying warning to Kentucky, and the earliest knowledge that reached the settlers of the location of the Shawnese towns. In May, Johnson and five comrades went upon a raid against one of these villages, capturing several horses and bringing home a bunch of Indian scalps, for scalping was now almost as freely practised by the frontiersmen as the savages; such is the degeneracy wrought by warlike contact with an inferior race. In June there was a similar raid by Boonesborough men, resulting to the tribesmen in large losses of lives and horses.

Upon the sixteenth of June, while Black Fish's party were boiling salt at the saline springs of the Scioto--about a dozen miles south of the present Chillicothe--Boone managed, by exercise of rare sagacity and enterprise, to escape the watchful eyes of his keepers, their attention having been arrested by the appearance of a huge flock of wild turkeys. He reached Boonesborough four days later after a perilous journey of a hundred and sixty miles through the forest, during which he had eaten but one meal--from a buffalo which he shot at Blue Licks. He had been absent for four and a half months, and Mrs. Boone, giving him up for dead, had returned with their family to her childhood home upon the Yadkin. His brother Squire, and his daughter Jemima--now married to Flanders Calloway--were the only kinsfolk to greet the returned captive, who appeared out of the woods as one suddenly delivered from a tomb.

During the absence of Daniel Boone there had been the usual Indian troubles in Kentucky. Colonel Bowman had just written to Colonel George Rogers Clark, "The Indians have pushed us hard this summer." But Clark himself at this time was gaining an important advantage over the enemy in his daring expedition against the British posts of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, in the Illinois country. Realizing that there would be no end to Kentucky's trouble so long as the British, aided by their French-Canadian agents, were free to organize Indian armies north of the Ohio for the purpose of harrying the southern settlements, Clark "carried the war into Africa." With about a hundred and fifty men gathered from the frontiers of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, he descended the Ohio River, built a fort at Louisville, and by an heroic forced march across the country captured Kaskaskia, while Cahokia and Vincennes at once surrendered to the valorous Kentuckian.

Meanwhile there was business at hand for the people of Boonesborough. Amid all these alarms they had still neglected to complete their defenses; but now, under the energetic administration of Boone, the palisades were finished, gates and fortresses strengthened, and all four of the corner blockhouses put in order. In ten days they were ready for the slowly advancing host.

Unless fleeing, Indians are never in a hurry; they spend much time in noisy preparation. Hunters and scouts came into Boonesborough from time to time, and occasionally a retaliatory expedition would return with horses and scalps from the Little Miami and the Scioto, all of them reporting delays on the part of the enemy; nevertheless all agreed that a large force was forming. Toward the close of August Boone, wearied of being cooped up in the fort, went forth at the head of thirty woodsmen to scout in the neighborhood of the Scioto towns. With him were Kenton and Alexander Montgomery, who remained behind in Ohio to capture horses and probably prisoners, while Boone and the others returned after a week's absence. On their way home they discovered that the enemy was now at Lower Blue Licks, but a short distance from Boonesborough.

At about ten o'clock the following morning (September 7th) the Indian army appeared before the fort. It numbered fully four hundred warriors, mostly Shawnese, but with some Wyandots, Cherokees, Delawares, Mingos, and other tribesmen. Accompanying them were some forty French-Canadians, all under the command of Boone's "father," the redoubtable Black Fish. Pompey served as chief interpreter.

Much time was spent in parleys, Boone in this manner delaying operations as long as possible, vainly hoping that promised reenforcements might meanwhile arrive from the Holston. Black Fish wept freely, after the Indian fashion, over the ingratitude of his runaway "son," and his present stubborn attitude; for the latter now told the forest chief that he and his people proposed to fight to the last man. Black Fish presented letters and proclamations from Hamilton, again offering pardon to all who would take the oath of allegiance to the king, and military offices for Boone and the other leaders. When these were rejected, the Indians attempted treachery, seeking to overpower and kill the white commissioners to a treaty being held in front of the fort. From this final council, ending in a wild uproar, in which bullets flew and knives and tomahawks clashed, the whites escaped with difficulty, the two Boones and another commissioner receiving painful wounds.

A siege of ten days now ensued (September 8th to 17th), one of the most remarkable in the history of savage warfare. The site of the fort, a parallelogram embracing three-quarters of an acre, had been unwisely chosen. There was abundant cover for the enemy under the high river bank, also beneath an encircling clay bank rising from the salt-lick branch; from hills upon either side spies could see what was happening within the walls, and occasionally drop a ball into the small herd of cattle and horses sheltered behind the palisades; while to these natural disadvantages were added the failure of the garrison to clear from the neighborhood of the walls the numerous trees, stumps, bushes, and rocks, each of which furnished the best of cover for a lurking foe.

[Illustration: CLIMAX OF THE TREATY. Indians and British agents treacherously attack treaty commissioners. (See pp. 161, 162.) Reduced from Ranck's "Boonesborough."]

Such, however, was the stubbornness of the defense, in which the women were, in their way, quite as efficient as the men, that the forces under Black Fish could make but small impression upon the valiant little garrison. Every artifice known to savages, or that could be suggested by the French, was without avail. Almost nightly rains and the energy of the riflemen frustrated the numerous attempts to set fire to the cabins by throwing torches and lighted fagots upon their roofs; a tunnel, intended to be used for blowing up the walls, was well under way from the river bank when rain caused it to cave in; attempts at scaling were invariably repelled, and in sharpshooting the whites as usual proved the superiors.

But the result often hung in the balance. Sometimes the attack lasted throughout the night, the scene being constantly lighted by the flash of the rifles and the glare of hurling fagots. Besiegers and garrison frequently exchanged fierce cries of threat and defiance, mingled with many a keen shaft of wit and epithet; at times the yells and whoops of the savages, the answering shouts and huzzahs of the defenders, the screams of women and girls, the howling of dogs, the snorting and bellowing of the plunging live stock, together with the sharp rattle of firearms, created a deafening hubbub well calculated to test the nerves of the strongest.

At last, on the morning of Friday, the eighteenth, the Indians, now thoroughly disheartened, suddenly disappeared into the forest as silently as they had come. Again Boonesborough was free, having passed through the longest and severest ordeal of attack ever known in Kentucky; indeed, it proved to be the last effort against this station. Within the walls sixty persons had been capable of bearing arms, but only forty were effective, some of these being negroes; Logan's Fort had sent a reenforcement of fifteen men, and Harrodsburg a few others. Of the garrison but two were killed and four wounded, while Boone estimated that the enemy lost thirty-seven killed and a large number wounded. The casualties within the fort were astonishingly small, when the large amount of ammunition expended by the besiegers is taken into account. After they had retired, Boone's men picked up a hundred and twenty-five pounds of flattened bullets that had been fired at the log stronghold, handfuls being scooped up beneath the port-holes of the bastions; this salvage made no account of the balls thickly studding the walls, it being estimated that a hundred pounds of lead were buried in the logs of one of the bastions.

A week later a small company of militiamen arrived from Virginia, and several minor expeditions were now made against the Shawnese upon their own soil. These raids were chiefly piloted by Boone's salt-makers, many of whom had now returned from captivity. Boone is credited with saying in his later years, although no doubt in ruder language than this: "Never did the Indians pursue so disastrous a policy as when they captured me and my salt-boilers, and taught us, what we did not know before, the way to their towns and the geography of their country; for though at first our captivity was considered a great calamity to Kentucky, it resulted in the most signal benefits to the country."

Captain Boone was not without his critics. Soon after the siege he was arraigned before a court-martial at Logan's Fort upon the following charges preferred by Colonel Calloway, who thought that the great hunter was in favor of the British Government and had sought opportunity to play into its hands, therefore should be deprived of his commission in the Kentucky County militia:

"1. That Boone had taken out twenty-six men[15] to make salt at the Blue Licks, and the Indians had caught him trapping for beaver ten miles below on Licking, and he voluntarily surrendered his men at the Licks to the enemy.

"2. That when a prisoner, he engaged with Gov. Hamilton to surrender the people of Boonesborough to be removed to Detroit, and live under British protection and jurisdiction.

"3. That returning from captivity, he encouraged a party of men to accompany him to the Paint Lick Town, weakening the garrison at a time when the arrival of an Indian army was daily expected to attack the fort.

"4. That preceding the attack on Boonesborough, he was willing to take the officers of the fort, on pretense of making peace, to the Indian camp, beyond the protection of the guns of the garrison."

Boone defended himself at length, maintaining that he aimed only at the interests of the country; that while hunting at the licks he was engaged in the necessary service of the camp; that he had used duplicity to win the confidence of the enemy, and it resulted favorably, as he was thereby enabled to escape in time to warn his people and put them in a state of defense; that his Scioto expedition was a legitimate scouting trip, and turned out well; and that in the negotiations before the fort he was simply "playing" the Indians in order to gain time for expected reenforcements. He was not only honorably acquitted, but at once advanced to the rank of major, and received evidences of the unhesitating loyalty of all classes of his fellow borderers, the majority of whom appear to have always confided in his sagacity and patriotism.

Personally vindicated, the enemy departed, and several companies of militia now arriving to garrison the stations for the winter, Major Boone once more turned his face to the Yadkin and sought his family. He found them at the Bryan settlement, living comfortably in a small log cabin, but until then unconscious of his return from the wilderness in which they had supposed he found his grave.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Two lines of Indians were formed, five or six feet apart, on either side of a marked path. The prisoner was obliged to run between these lines, while there were showered upon him lusty blows from whatever weapons the tormentors chose to adopt--switches, sticks, clubs, and tomahawks. It required great agility, speed in running, and some aggressive strategy to arrive at the goal unharmed. Many white captives were seriously crippled in this thrilling experience, and not a few lost their lives.

[15] Account is only taken, in these charges, of the twenty-seven captives.

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