The Indian forces that had fought at the Blue Licks, in the exultation of victory and revenge, returned homeward with their scalps.  Those from the north—­and they constituted the greater numbers—­returned quietly.  The western bands took their route through Jefferson county, in hopes to add more scalps to the number of their trophies.  Colonel Floyd led out a force to protect the country.  They marched through the region on Salt river, and saw no traces of Indians.  They dispersed on their return.  The greater number of them reached their station, and laid down, fatigued and exhausted, without any precaution against a foe.  The Indians came upon them in this predicament in the night, and killed several women and children.  A few escaped under the cover of the darkness.  A woman, taken prisoner that night, escaped from her savage captors by throwing herself into the bushes, while they passed on.  She wandered about the woods eighteen days, subsisting only on wild fruits, and was then found and carried to Lynn’s station.  She survived the extreme state of exhaustion in which she was discovered.  Another woman, taken with four children, at the same time, was carried to Detroit.

The terrible blow which the savages had struck at the Blue Licks, excited a general and immediate purpose of retaliation through Kentucky.  General Clarke was appointed commander-in-chief, and Colonel Logan next under him in command of the expedition, to be raised for that purpose.  The forces were to rendezvous at Licking.  The last of September, 1782, General Clarke, with one thousand men, marched from the present site of Cincinnati, for the Indian towns on the Miami.  They fell in on their route with the camp of Simon Girty, who would have been completely surprised with his Indians, had not a straggling savage espied the advance, and reported it to them just in season to enable them to scatter in every direction.  They soon spread the intelligence that an army from Kentucky was marching upon their towns.

As the army approached the towns on their route, they found that the inhabitants had evacuated them, and fled into the woods.  All the cabins at Chillicothe, Piqua, and Willis were burned.  Some skirmishing took place, however, in which five Indians were killed, and seven made prisoners, without any loss to the Kentuckians, save the wounding of one man, which afterwards proved mortal.  One distinguished Indian surrendered himself, and was afterwards inhumanly murdered by one of the troops, to the deep regret and mortification of General Clarke.

In October, 1785, Mr. McClure and family, in company with a number of other families, were assailed on Skegg’s creek.  Six of the family were killed, and Mrs. McClure, a child, and a number of other persons made prisoners.  The attack took place in the night.  The circumstances of the capture of Mrs. McClure, furnish an affecting incident illustrating the invincible force of natural tenderness.  She