During the eighteenth century, the eastern woodlands blanketed the American continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River with a thick, unbroken tangle of evergreen and deciduous forests, vines, shrubs, and a nearly impenetrable thicket of ground cover. The only way to travel through that jungle of foliage was by boat or by walking alongside the rivers and streams. The problem with that was that a person could go only where the waterways allowed him to go. It was, therefore, considered an amazing breakthrough any time trailblazers and road builders cut down enough trees to establish an overland passageway that was wide enough to allow for the passage of horses, oxen, and the wagons they struggled to pull. It was less amazing, considering that nearly every road penetrated deeply into Indian territory, that Indian fighters were called upon to build those...