The sudden retreat of the enemy inspired the people with joy as great as their consternation had been at the news of his unexpected advance.  Had he pressed on, there is but little doubt that all the Stations would have fallen into his hands, for there were not men enough to spare from them to meet him in the field.  The greatest difficulty would have been the carriage of the artillery.  The unfortunate people who had fallen into the hands of the Indians at Ruddle’s Station, were obliged to accompany their captors on their rapid retreat, heavily laden with the plunder of their own dwellings.  Some returned after peace was made, but too many, sinking under the fatigues of the journey, perished by the tomahawk.

Soon after the retreat of the enemy, General Clark, who was stationed at Fort Jefferson, called upon the Kentuckians to join him in an invasion of the Indian country.  The reputation of Clark caused the call to be responded to with great readiness.  A thousand men were collected, with whom Clark entered and devastated the enemy’s territory.  The principal towns were burned and the fields laid waste.  But one skirmish was fought, and that at the Indian village of Pickaway.  The loss was the same on both sides, seventeen men being killed in each army.  Some writers who have not the slightest objection to war, very gravely express doubts as to whether the expedient of destroying the crops of the Indians was justifiable.  It is generally treated by these men as if it was a wanton display of a vindictive spirit, when in reality it was dictated by the soundest policy; for when the Indians’ harvests were destroyed, they were compelled to subsist their families altogether by hunting, and had no leisure for their murderous inroads upon the settlements.  This result was plainly seen on this occasion, for it does not appear that the Indians attacked any of the settlements during the remainder of this year.

An adventure which occurred in the spring, but was passed over for the more important operations of the campaign, claims our attention, presenting as it does a picture of the varieties of this mode of warfare.  We quote from McClung: 

“Early in the spring of 1780 Mr. Alexander McConnel, of Lexington, Kentucky, went into the woods on foot to hunt deer.  He soon killed a large buck, and returned home for a horse in order to bring it in.  During his absence a party of five Indians, on one of their usual skulking expeditions, accidentally stumbled on the body of the deer, and perceiving that it had been recently killed, they naturally supposed that the hunter would speedily return to secure the flesh.  Three of them, therefore, took their stations within close rifle-shot of the deer, while the other two followed the trail of the hunter, and waylaid the path by which he was expected to return.  McConnel, expecting no danger, rode carelessly along the path, which the two scouts were watching, until he had come within view of the deer, when he was fired upon by the whole party, and his horse killed.  While laboring to extricate himself from the dying animal, he was seized by his enemies, instantly overpowered, and borne off as a prisoner.