This failure was in small part offset by a successful expedition led by Logan at the same time against the Shawnee towns. [Footnote:  State Department MSS., Virginia State Papers, Logan to Patrick Henry, December 17, 1786.] 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. [Footnote:  Draper MSS., Caleb Wallace to Wm. Fleming, October 23, 1786.  State Department MSS., No. 150, vol. ii., Harmar’s Letter, November 15, 1786.] 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. [Footnote:  Virginia State Papers, vol. iv., p. 212.] Logan, to his discredit, refused 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. [Footnote:  Durret MSS., Daniel Dawson to John Campbell, Pittsburg, June 17, 1787.  Virginia State Papers, vol. iv., p. 419.] Logan, Kenton, and many other leaders headed counter expeditions, and now and then broke up a war party or destroyed an Indian town; [Footnote:  Draper, MSS., T. Brown to T. Preston, Danville, June 13, 1787.  Virginia State Papers, vol. iv., pp. 254, 287, etc.] 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. [Footnote:  Virginia State Papers, vol. iv., p. 344.]

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 been slain by small predatory parties of Indians, mostly Cherokees and Creeks.  No large war band attacked the settlements; but no hunter, surveyor, or traveller, no wood-chopper or farmer, no woman alone in the cabin with her children, could ever feel safe from attack.  Now and then a savage was killed in such an attack, or in a skirmish with some body of scouts; but nothing effectual could be thus accomplished.