Before daylight on the 10th small parties of hunters had, as usual, left Lewis’ camp.  Two of these men, from Russell’s company, after having gone somewhat over a mile, came upon a large party of Indians; one was killed, and the survivor ran back at full speed to give the alarm, telling those in camp that he had seen five acres of ground covered with Indians as thick as they could stand.[26] Almost immediately afterwards two men of Shelby’s company, one being no less a person than Robertson himself and the other Valentine, a brother of John Sevier, also stumbled upon the advancing Indians; being very wary and active men, they both escaped, and reached camp almost as soon as the other.

Instantly the drums beat to arms,[27] and the backwoodsmen,—­lying out in the open, rolled in their blankets,—­started from the ground, looked to their flints and priming, and were ready on the moment.  The general, thinking he had only a scouting party to deal with, ordered out Col.  Charles Lewis and Col.  Fleming, each with one hundred and fifty men.  Fleming had the left, and marched up the bank of the Ohio, while Lewis, on the right, kept some little distance inland.  They went about half a mile.[28] Then, just before sunrise, while it was still dusk, the men in camp, eagerly listening, heard the reports of three guns, immediately succeeded by a clash like a peal of thin thunder, as hundreds of rifles rang out together.  It was evident that the attack was serious and Col.  Field was at once despatched to the front with two hundred men.[29]

He came only just in time.  At the first fire both of the scouts in front of the white line had been killed.  The attack fell first, and with especial fury, on the division of Charles Lewis, who himself was mortally wounded at the very outset; he had not taken a tree,[30] but was in an open piece of ground, cheering on his men, when he was shot.  He stayed with them until the line was formed, and then walked back to camp unassisted, giving his gun to a man who was near him.  His men, who were drawn up on the high ground skirting Crooked Run,[31] began to waver, but were rallied by Fleming, whose division had been attacked almost simultaneously, until he too was struck down by a bullet.  The line then gave way, except that some of Fleming’s men still held their own on the left in a patch of rugged ground near the Ohio.  At this moment, however, Colonel Field came up and restored the battle, while the backwoodsmen who had been left in camp also began to hurry up to take part in the fight.  General Lewis at last, fully awake to the danger, began to fortify the camp by felling timber so as to form a breastwork running across the point from the Ohio to the Kanawha.  This work should have been done before; and through attending to it Lewis was unable to take any personal part in the battle.