The Indians knew well that the riflemen were mustering at all the neighboring forts; and, as soon as their effort to treat failed, they withdrew during the forenoon of the 17th. [Footnote:  There are four contemporary official reports of this battle:  two American, those of Boon and Levi Todd; and two British, those of McKee and Caldwell.  All four agree that the fort was attacked on one day, the siege abandoned on the next, pursuit made on the third, and the battle fought on the fourth.  Boon and Todd make the siege begin on August 16th, and the battle take place on the 19th; Caldwell makes the dates the 15th and 18th; McKee makes them the 18th and 21st.  I therefore take Boon’s and Todd’s dates.

McClung and Marshall make the siege last three or four days instead of less than two.

All the accounts of the battle of the Blue Licks, so far, have been very inaccurate, because the British reports have never been even known to exist, and the reports of the American commanders, printed in the Virginia State papers, have but recently seen the light.  Mr. Whitsitt, in his recent excellent “Life of Judge Wallace,” uses the latter, but makes the great mistake of incorporating into his narrative some of the most glaring errors of McClung and Marshall.] They were angry and sullen at their discomfiture.  Five of their number had been killed and several wounded.  Of the fort’s defenders four had been killed and three wounded.  Among the children within its walls during the siege there was one, the youngest, a Kentucky-born baby, named Richard Johnson; over thirty years later he led the Kentucky mounted riflemen at the victory of the Thames, when they killed not only the great Indian chief Tecumseh, but also, it is said, the implacable renegade Simon Girty himself, then in extreme old age.

    Battle Of the Blue Licks.

All this time the runners sent out from Bryan’s had been speeding through the woods, summoning help from each of the little walled towns.  The Fayette troops quickly gathered.  As soon as Boon heard the news he marched at the head of the men of his station, among them his youngest son Israel, destined shortly to be slain before his eyes.  The men from Lexington, McConnell’s, and McGee’s, rallied under John Todd, who was County Lieutenant, and, by virtue of his commission in the Virginia line, the ranking officer of Kentucky, second only to Clark.  Troops also came from south of the Kentucky River; Lieutenant-Colonel Trigg and Majors McGarry and Harlan led the men from Harrodsburg, who were soonest ready to march, and likewise brought the news that Logan, their County Lieutenant, was raising the whole force of Lincoln in hot haste, and would follow in a couple of days.