while the savages certainly would have destroyed them had they tried to go back to Kentucky. Their leaders again wrote urgent appeals for help to Clark, asking that a general guard might be sent them if only to take them out of the country. Filson had already gone overland to Louisville and told the authorities of the straits of their brethren at Vincennes, and immediately an expedition was sent to their relief under Captains Hardin and Patton.

Meanwhile, on July 15th, a large band of several hundred Indians, bearing red and white flags, came down the river in forty-seven canoes to attack the Americans at Vincennes, sending word to the French that if they remained neutral they would not be molested. The French sent envoys to dissuade them from their purpose, but the war chiefs and sachems answered that the red people were at last united in opposition to "the men wearing hats," and gave a belt of black wampum to the wavering Piankeshaws, warning them that all Indians who refused to join against the whites would thenceforth be treated as foes. However, their deeds by no means corresponded with their threats. Next day they assailed the American block-house or stockaded fort, but found they could make no impression and drew off. They burned a few outlying cabins and slaughtered many head of cattle, belonging both to the Americans and the French; and then, seeing the French under arms, held further parley with them, and retreated, to the relief of all the inhabitants.

At the same time the Kentuckians, under Hardin

and Patton, stumbled by accident on a party of Indians, some of whom were friendly Piankeshaws and some hostile Miamis. They attacked them without making any discrimination between friend and foe, killed six, wounded seven, and drove off the remainder. But they themselves lost one man killed and four wounded, including Hardin, and fell back to Louisville without doing anything more.47

These troubles on the Wabash merely hardened the determination of the Kentuckians no longer to wait until the Federal Government acted. With the approval of Governor Patrick Henry, they took the initiative themselves. Early in August the field officers of the district of Kentucky met at Harrodsburg, Benjamin Logan presiding, and resolved on an expedition, to be commanded by Clark, against the hostile Indians on the Wabash. Half of the militia of the district were to go; the men were to assemble, on foot or on horseback, as they pleased, at Clarksville, on September 10th.48 Besides pack-horses,

The two con

47 Letter of Legrace and Filson's Journal. tradict one another as to which side was to blame. Legrace blames the Americans heavily for wronging both the French and the Indians; and condemns in the strongest terms, and probably with justice, many of their number, and especially Sullivan. He speaks, however, in high terms of Henry and Small; and both of these, in their letters referred to above, paint the conduct of the French and Indians in very dark colors, throwing the blame on them. Legrace is certainly disingenuous in suppressing all mention of the wrongs done to the Americans. For Filson's career and death in the woods, see the excellent Life of Filson, by Durrett, in the Filson Club publications.

48 Draper MSS. Minutes of meetings of the officers of the

VOL. VII.-8

salt, flour, powder, and lead were impressed,49 not always in strict compliance with law, for some of the officers impressed quantities of spirituous liquors also.50 The troops themselves, however, came in slowly.51 Late in September, when twelve hundred men had been gathered, Clark moved forward. But he was no longer the man he had been. He failed to get any hold on his army. His followers, on their side, displayed all that unruly fickleness which made the militia of the Revolutionary period a weapon which might at times be put to good use in the absence of any other, but which was really trusted only by men whose military judgment was as fatuous as Jefferson's.

After reaching Vincennes the troops became mutinous, and at last flatly refused longer to obey orders, and marched home as a disorderly mob, to the disgrace of themselves and their leader. Nevertheless, the expedition had really accomplished something, for it overawed the Wabash and Illinois Indians, and effectively put a stop to any active expressions of disloyalty or disaffection on the part of the French. Clark sent officers to the Illinois towns, and established a garrison of one hundred and fifty men at Vincennes,52 besides seizing the district of Kentucky, Aug. 2, 1786. State Dept. MSS., No. 150, Vol. II. Letter of P. Henry, May 16, 1786.

49 Draper MSS. J. Cox to George Clark, Aug. 8, 1786. 50 State Dept. MSS., Madison papers. Letter of Caleb Wallace, Nov. 20, 1786.

51 State Dept. MSS., Papers Continental Congress. No. 150, Vol. II. Letter of Major Wm. North, Sept. 15, 1786.

52 Do. Virginia State Papers. G. R. Clark to Patrick

goods of a Spanish merchant in retaliation for wrongs committed on American merchants by the Spaniards.

This failure was in small part offset by a successful expedition led by Logan at the same time against the Shawnee towns.5 53 On October 5th, he attacked them with seven hundred and ninety men. There was little or no resistance, most of the warriors having gone to oppose Clark. Logan took ten scalps and thirty-two prisoners, burned two hundred cabins and quantities of corn, and returned in triumph after a fortnight's absence. One deed of infamy sullied his success. Among his colonels was the scoundrel McGarry, who, in cold blood, murdered the old Shawnee chief, Molunthee, several hours after he had been captured; the shame of the barbarous deed being aggravated by the fact that the old chief had always been friendly to the Americans.5 Other murders would probably have followed, had it not been for the prompt and honorable action of Colonels Robert Patterson and Robert Trotter, who ordered their men to shoot down any one who molested another prisoner. McGarry then threatened them, and they in return demanded that he be court-martialled for murder.55 Logan, to his discredit, reHenry. Draper MSS., Proceedings of Committee of Kentucky Convention, Dec. 19, 1786.

54

53 State Department MSS., Virginia State Papers, Logan to Patrick Henry, December 17, 1786.

54 Draper MSS., Caleb Wallace to Wm. Fleming, October 23, 1786. State Department MSS., No. 15, Vol. II, Harmar's Letter, November 15, 1786.

55 Virginia State Papers, Vol. IV, p. 212.

fused the court-martial, for fear of creating further trouble. The bane of the frontier military organization was the helplessness of the elected commanders, their dependence on their followers, and the inability of the decent men to punish the atrocious misdeeds of their associates.

These expeditions were followed by others on a smaller scale, but of like character. They did enough damage to provoke, but not to overawe, the Indians. With the spring of 1787 the ravages began on an enlarged scale, with all their dreadful accompaniments of rapine, murder, and torture. All along the Ohio frontier, from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, the settlers were harried; and in some places they abandoned their clearings and hamlets, so that the frontier shrank back.56 Logan, Kenton, and many other leaders headed counter expeditions, and now and then broke up a war party or destroyed an Indian town;57 but nothing decisive was accomplished, and Virginia paralyzed the efforts of the Kentuckians and waked them to anger by forbidding them to follow the Indian parties beyond the frontier.58

The most important stroke given to the hostile Indians in 1787 was dealt by the Cumberland people. During the preceding three or four years, some scores of the settlers on the Cumberland had

56 Durrett MSS., Daniel Dawson to John Campbell, Pittsburg, June 17, 1787. Virginia State Papers, Vol. IV, p. 419. 57 Draper MSS., T. Brown to T. Preston, Danville, June 13, 1787. Virginia State Papers, Vol. IV, pp. 254, 287, etc. 58 Virginia State Papers, Vol. IV, p. 344.