CHAPTER VII.

KENTUCKY UNTIL THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 1782-1783.

Seventeen hundred and eighty-two proved to be Kentucky’s year of blood.  The British at Detroit had strained every nerve to drag into the war the entire Indian population of the northwest.  They had finally succeeded in arousing even the most distant tribes—­not to speak of the twelve thousand savages immediately tributary to Detroit. [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS.  Census for 1782, 11,402.] So lavish had been the expenditure of money and presents to secure the good-will of the savages and enlist their active services against the Americans, that it had caused serious complaint at headquarters. [Footnote:  Do. Haldimand to De Peyster, April 10, October 6, 1781.]

    Renewal of the Indian Forays.

Early in the spring the Indians renewed their forays; horses were stolen, cabins burned, and women and children carried off captive.  The people were confined closely to their stockaded forts, from which small bands of riflemen sallied to patrol the country.  From time to time these encountered marauding parties, and in the fights that followed sometimes the whites, sometimes the reds, were victorious.

One of these conflicts attracted wide attention on the border because of the obstinacy with which it was waged and the bloodshed that accompanied it.  In March a party of twenty-five Wyandots came into the settlements, passed Boonsborough, and killed and scalped a girl within sight of Estill’s Station.  The men from the latter, also to the number of twenty-five, hastily gathered under Captain Estill, and after two days’ hot pursuit overtook the Wyandots.  A fair stand-up fight followed, the better marksmanship of the whites being offset, as so often before, by the superiority their foes showed in sheltering themselves.  At last victory declared for the Indians.  Estill had despatched a lieutenant and seven men to get round the Wyandots and assail them in the rear; but either the lieutenant’s heart or his judgment failed him, he took too long, and meanwhile the Wyandots closed in on the others, killing nine, including Estill, and wounding four, who, with their unhurt comrades, escaped.  It is said that the Wyandots themselves suffered heavily. [Footnote:  Of course not as much as their foes.  The backwoodsmen (like the regular officers of both the British and American armies in similar cases, as at Grant’s and St. Clair’s defeats) were fond of consoling themselves for their defeats by snatching at any wild tale of the losses of the victors.  In the present instance it is even possible that the loss of the Wyandots was very light instead of very heavy.]