“At any rate, when the army arrived within two days’ march of the Indian towns, no less than three hundred of the men refused to proceed, nor could all the appeals of Clark induce them to alter their determination.  They marched off in a body; and so discouraged were the others by this desertion, and the unfavorable circumstances in which they were placed, that a council held the evening after their departure concluded to relinquish the undertaking.”

The whole of the troops returned to Kentucky in a very disorderly manner.  Thus did this expedition, begun under the most favorable auspices—­for the commander’s reputation was greater than any other in the West, and the men were the elite of Kentucky—­altogether fail of its object, the men not having even seen the enemy.  Marshall, in accounting for this unexpected termination, says that Clark was no longer the man he had been; that he had injured his intellect by the use of spirituous liquors.  Colonel Logan had at first accompanied Clark, but he soon returned to Kentucky to organize another expedition; that might, while the attention of the Indians was altogether engrossed by the advance of Clark, fall upon some unguarded point.  He raised the requisite number of troops without difficulty, and by a rapid march completely surprised one of the Shawanee towns, which he destroyed, killing several of the warriors, and bringing away a number of prisoners.  In regard to the results of the measures adopted by the Kentuckians, we quote from Marshall: 

“In October of this year, a large number of families traveling by land to Kentucky, known by the name of McNitt’s company, were surprised in camp, at night, by a party of Indians, between Big and Little Laurel River, and totally defeated, with the loss of twenty-one persons killed; the rest dispersed, or taken prisoners.

“About the same time, Captain Hardin, from the south-western part of the district, with a party of men, made an excursion into the Indian country, surrounding the Saline; he fell in with a camp of Indians whom he attacked and defeated, killing four of them, without loss on his part.

“Some time in December, Hargrove and others were defeated at the mouth of Buck Creek, on the Cumberland River.  The Indians attacked in the night, killed one man, and wounded Hargrove; who directly became engaged in a rencontre with an Indian, armed with his tomahawk; of this he was disarmed, but escaped, leaving the weapon with Hargrove, who bore it off, glad to extricate himself.  In this year also, Benjamin Price was killed near the three forks of Kentucky.

“Thus ended, in a full renewal of the war, the year whose beginning had happily witnessed the completion of the treaties of peace.

“By this time, one thing must have been obvious to those who had attended to the course of events—­and that was, that if the Indians came into the country, whether for peace or war, hostilities were inevitable.”