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Archiver > KYBOURBO > 1999-07 > 0931655934


From: "Bob Francis" <>
Subject: [KYBOURBO-L] Early History--Part One
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 21:18:54 -0400


To one and all,

A little early history for your enjoyment.

Bob Francis

THE BRITISH INVASION
OF
KENTUCKY
With an Account of the Capture of Ruddell's
and Martin's Stations, June, 1780

By

J. Winston Coleman, Jr., Litt.D.

The British Invasion of Kentucky
During the summer of 1779, as the slowly-moving American Revolution was
dragging along into its fifth year, the cause of the British arms was
beginning to look desperate and the red-coated soldiery of King George III
had gained but few foot-holds in the revolted colonies. To bolster their war
effort, the British high command adopted an overall strategy which, among
other things, called for an all-out campaign against the American frontier
settlements in the West.
Added to the British failure in their struggle against the colonies was
Spain's intervention in the war with England. In June of this year (1779),
His Most Catholic Majesty allied his government with that of France and the
United States, at the same time declaring war against the much harassed
George III. The Spanish Dons were eager to recover property formerly seized
by the predatory British, and especially to retake the rich lands of the
Mississippi Valley. The Spaniards would, as the War Office assumed, quickly
launch campaigns against the English posts on the Gulf.
Another cause for British alarm was the rapid influx of "rebel" settlers
into the Kentucky region, or the "County of Kentucky"-a vast area beyond the
Alleghenies which the state of Virginia had erected by an act of her
Legislature nearly three years before. A new and improved Virginia land act
of 1779 provided far better pre-emption rights for settlers and more secure
land tenure than had previously existed. During the fall, winter and spring
of 1779-1780, an unprecedented flow of immigrants came to Kentucky, "with a
view of exploring the country, so as to enable them to locate their warrants
to the greatest advantage," [1] before the land office (at Wilson's Station,
near Harrodsburg) was scheduled to open on May 1st, 1780. This large
transmontane immigration from the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and
Virginia caused undue apprehension among the British officers and greatly
accelerated their war activity.
In May, 1780, Major Arent S. De Peyster, Lieutenant-Governor of Canada and
commander of the British forces at Detroit, wrote to General Frederick
Haldiman, Governor-General of Canada, at Montreal, giving information on the
alarming conditions in the Western Country:
"The Delawares and Shawnese are . . . daily bringing in scalps & prisoners .
. . those unhappy people being part of the one thousand families who to shun
the oppression of Congress are on their way to possess the country of
Kentuck[y]. where if they are allowed quietly to settle, they will soon
become formidable both to the Indians & to the Posts."[2]
and ten days later, he wrote to Lieut. Col. Mason Bolton, Deputy Indian
Agent, at Montreal, telling of the rapidity with which the settlers were
gaining foot-holds in the territory beyond the Allegheny Mountains. "They
report that the Rebels . . . have now surrounded the Indian hunting ground
of Kentuck[y], having erected small Forts at about two days journey from
each other." Major De Peyster added, in closing, that this was "the finest
country for new settlers in America, but it happens unfortunately for them
to be the Indians best hunting ground, which they will never give up, and in
fact, it is our interest not to let the Virginians, Marylanders &
Pennsylvanians get possession there, lest in a short while they become
formidable to this [Detroit] Post."[3]
Thus, by reason of the foregoing circumstances, the British authorities in
Canada and Detroit, headquarters for the Northwest, began lavishing large
sums of money and presents on the Indians in order to satisfy their
evergrowing demands and prepare them to assist in carrying out another part
of the comprehensive plan for the conquest of the West. The Indians, in
turn, seeing their favorite hunting grounds being taken over by the white
settlers, turned to the British for help and Major De Peyster set about
retaining their good will on an ambitious scale, as some of his bills for
"Indian goods" show. One account for 12,185 pounds included:

"750 lb. vermilion [paint] 750 pounds
8000 lbs. powder 2000 pounds
14,975 ball, lead & shot 1123 pounds
476 doz. scalping knives 428 pounds
188 tomahawks 119 pounds"[4]

And in another account, labeled "Goods suitable for the Indian trade", there
is listed a large quantity of vermilion paint, "New Pinsilvania rifles" and
"scalping knives [with] good blades & solid handles."[5] Armed with these
formidable presents and inspired by rewards of others, the Indians stepped
up their scalp-hunting trips to Kentucky. All along the lonely trails,
scores of hapless men, women and children were ambushed, murdered and
scalped.[6] Their fiendish work done, the savages with such captives as they
saw fit to take, would hasten back to Detroit to collect from the British
government, money or presents for each scalp or prisoner delivered.
Meanwhile, the British grand strategy provided for a series of far-reaching
military operations in the West, embracing the whole area from the Great
Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Their gigantic plan called for the capture of
the stations in Illinois and Indiana, including Kaskaskia, Cahokia and
Vincennes, as well as the settlements at the falls of the Ohio; moreover, it
contemplated the taking of Fort Pitt (on the Ohio) and Fort Cumberland (on
the Potomac); and, furthermore, it involved seizure of the Spanish
strongholds along the Mississippi, the principals of which were St. Louis
and New Orleans.
However, the prosecution of this ambitious project could not match the
boldness of the plan, and it broke down in almost every part. The only
successful campaign in 1780 was under the direction of Captain Henry
Bird,[7] of His Majesty's 8th Regiment of Foot. And even this enterprise, as
executed, was not contemplated in the original planning since the object of
the campaign was to attack and capture George Rogers Clark's fort (Tort
Nelson) at the falls of the Ohio, after which it was confidently expected
that all Kentucky could be swept clear of settlers.
Bird, who had served a number of years in the British army, came to Detroit
from Niagara in 1778, and, on May 11th of that year, was promoted to the
rank of captain.[8] Later, he assisted in the laying out of a fort on the
elevated ground in the rear of the village where the present-day streets of
Fort and Shelby intersect. For the next year or so, Captain Bird was
stationed at Sandusky, charged with the duty of stirring up Indian
war-parties to raid the Ohio frontier and other settlements. In the spring
of 1780 he was ordered to lead an expedition against the exposed Kentucky
settlements on the American frontier, as a part of the overall British
strategy for the conquest of the straggling colonists.
It is apparent that the British knew that the secret plans of their Kentucky
invasion had spread throughout the Western Country, as evidenced by one of
Captain Bird's letters to his superior officer, Major De Peyster. On May
21st, 1780 he wrote:
"Col. [George Rogers] Clarke is advised of our coming, tho' ignorant of our
numbers and artillery. There are ten or fifteen forts near each other,
houses put in the form of a square. I keep the little gun [three pounder]
for quick transportation from one [place] to the other ... Col. Clarke says
he will wait for us, instead of going to the Mississippi. His numbers do not
exceed two hundred. His provisions & ammunition [are] short . . . "[9]
On May 25th, 1780, Captain Bird left Detroit with an army of 150 whites and
one hundred lake Indians. From the accounts of Macomb, Edgar & Macomb,[10]
fiscal agents to the British Government at Detroit, one may read the names
and rates of pay of the Detroit volunteers who joined Bird's army of
invasion. These were chiefly Frenchmen, since Detroit was still a French
settlement "overlaid with a thin veneer of British officialdom." Captain
Louis J. Chabert and Lieutenant Jonathan Schieffelin headed the list of the
militia muster, with four sergeants and three corporals. Of the 150 white
men in the expedition, only thirty appear to have been volunteers; the rest
were "ordered out," proving that so far as the French settlers were
concerned, they had but little desire to fight the Americans. Bird's motley
force left Detroit by water; descended the Detroit River in sailing vessels,
bateaux and birch canoes; paddled across Lake Erie to the mouth of the
Maumee; rowed up that river to the portage; transported to the Great Miami
and dropped down that stream to the Ohio. Bird had considerable trouble in
bringing the artillery up shallow rivers in canoes and then portaging the
guns over wilderness roads, with so few pack-horses that they had to make
several trips back and forth over the portage. Reaching the mouth of the
Miami early in June, the main body camped there to await the arrival of
certain chiefs from Chillicothe.
By this time the expedition had gathered a large body of Indians from the
various nations-Ottawas, Hurons, Shawnees, Chippewas, Delawares and Mingoes.
It was unusual in that it carried along two field-pieces, a threepounder and
a six-pounder, with a detachment of bombardiers from the Royal Regiment of
Artillery to fire them. With such equipment, the British believed the small
Kentucky stockades could be smashed with solid shot and the whole thing
quickly ended with tomahawk and scalping knife.
Numbered among the white men in this British expedition were several
renegade Americans, already notorious on the American frontier: Simon Girty
(the "white savage") and his two brothers, George and Thomas; Matthew
Elliott and Captain Alexander McKee,[11] renowned like the Girtys for their
skill in handling the Indians and exciting them to war against the
Americans; also Jacques Duperon Baby, an influential French citizen of
Detroit, Philip le Due, Duncan Graham and several others employed by the
British Indian department.
Captain Bird's rendezvous at the mouth of the Miami continued for some days;
the Indian allies first were late in arriving and then mutinous. In fact,
the British themselves were worried over Bird's personal safety at their
hands, and General Haldimand, Commander-in-Chief in Canada, expressed
concern over "the fickleness of the Indians and their aversion to controul."
Captain McKee, a trusted agent of the British and second in command, caught
up with Bird's war party on May 31st. Next day a band of 300 warriors joined
him and on June 5th there was to be a general rendezvous of all the tribes,
from a number of different places on the Ohio River.
On June 3rd, Bird was still delayed at the mouth of the Miami River waiting
for the Chillicothe chiefs, though in the meantime a third band of warriors
had brought his force of red men up to about seven hundred. He now received
information that General Clark with most of his effective fighting force had
recently left Fort Nelson, at the falls of the Ohio, and gone down the
Mississippi River several miles below the mouth of the Ohio, to erect a fort
(Fort Jefferson) at the Iron Banks.[12]
Both Captains Bird and McKee were therefore eager to press on to the falls,
hoping to capture it before Clark's return. The former wrote his superior
officer in Detroit that it would be "possible for us to get to the Falls by
the 10th of the month [June], certain[ly] by the 14th, the Indians have
their full spirits, the ammunition & every thing plenty, and in the state we
could wish it. After taking the Falls," continued Bird, "the country on our
return, will be submissive & in a manner subdued, but if we attack the
nearer forts first, the ammunition is wasted, or expended, and our People
far from fresh."[13]
A week later, on June 9th, 1780, Bird's army reached the banks of the Ohio
River, opposite the mouth of the Licking and went into camp on the present
site of Cincinnati. Here again trouble developed between the British
officers and their Indian allies. The braves were not convinced that the
powerful "Chief" of the "Long Knives" would not be at the falls to greet
them and therefore took refuge in delay. A series of powwows and council
fires lasted for two or three days. Clark's wide reputation as an Indian
fighter seems to have thrown a great scare into the Indians, who now flatly
refused to descend the Ohio River to the falls (Fort Nelson), the site of
Louisville. Instead, they insisted on ascending the Licking River and
attacking the interior settlements of Kentucky, or "the forts on Licking
creek," which promised less fighting and more booty than the prospect held
out at Fort Nelson. Then too, the chiefs gave as their reason for their
opposition to the falls venture that it would leave their own villages on
the Ohio "naked & defenseless" in the neighborhood of these forts. Pointing
to the fact that several Kentucky stockades lay on Licking River, they
contended that settlers from these forts might attack their Ohio villages
with success should Bird and his men move down the Ohio. Though warmly
pleading the falls venture, neither Bird nor McKee could shake the braves'
determination not to attack it. Apparently helpless to do otherwise and
thoroughly disgusted, Bird reluctantly consented to the Indian plan of
operations.

--
Bob Francis
1920A Butner St.
Ft. Eustis, VA 23604
Visit My Home Page: http://www.shawhan.co

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