Lewis had not proceeded half a mile from the camp, when, soon after sunrise, his front line was vigorously attacked by the united tribes of the Shawanoes, Delawares, Mingoes, Ioways, and some others, in number between eight hundred and one thousand.  At the commencement of the attack, colonel Lewis received a wound, which in the course of a few hours proved fatal:  several of his men were killed at the same time, and his division was forced to fall back.  In about a minute after the attack upon Lewis, the enemy engaged the front of the other division, on the bank of the Ohio, and in a short time, colonel Fleming, the leader of it, was severely wounded, and compelled to retire to the camp.  Colonel Lewis’ division having now been reinforced from the camp, pressed upon the Indians until they had fallen back in a line with Fleming’s division.  During this time, it being now twelve o’clock, the action continued with unabated severity.  The close underwood, the ravines and fallen trees, favored the Indians; and while the bravest of their warriors fought from behind these coverts, others were throwing their dead into the Ohio, and carrying off their wounded.  In their slow retreat, the Indians, about one o’clock, gained a very advantageous position, from which it appeared to our officers so difficult to dislodge them, that it was deemed advisable to maintain the line as then formed, which was about a mile and a quarter in length.  In this position, the action was continued, with more or less severity, until sundown, when, night coming on, the Indians effected a safe retreat.[A]

[Footnote A:  Official Report, xii. vol., Niles Register.]

McClung, in his valuable Sketches of Western Adventure, in describing this sanguinary battle, speaks of the Indians fighting from behind a breastwork; Stone, in his Life of Brant, says the Indians were forced to avail themselves of a rude breastwork of logs and brushwood, which they had taken the precaution to construct for the occasion.  There must be some mistake in regard to this breastwork, as it is evident from the circumstances of the case, that the Indians could not, before the battle, have erected one so near the camp without discovery; and after the action commenced, it was too fiercely prosecuted for a rampart of this kind to have been thrown up.

In regard to the number killed on either side, there is no very certain information.  Doddridge, in his Notes on the Indian wars, places the number of whites killed in this action at seventy-five, and the wounded at one hundred and forty.  Campbell, in his History of Virginia, says the number of whites who were killed was upwards of fifty, and that ninety were wounded, which is probably near the truth.  The Indian force engaged in this action has been estimated by different writers, at from eight hundred to fifteen hundred men.  It is probable that the number did not exceed eight hundred.  They were led on by some bold and warlike chiefs, among them Cornstalk,