Kentucke's Frontiers

4. Peopling Kentucke

4. Peopling Kentucke Below Kentucke’s topsoils lay fissures and fault lines, hidden scars of the earth’s primordial continental collisions. From the Point, the small jut of land pushing into the Ohio River where George Rogers Clark and John Gabriel Jones had debarked as they fled from the Shawnees, a minor fault line stretches southward across the region. Over millennia, as the two plates met and pushed downward, shale pushed upward onto the surface, creating a natural barren trace for bison and humans. The Shawnees called it Alanantowamiowee. In mid-­ August 1782, a force of some three hundred Indians— Wyandots, Shawnees, Mingos, and Lenni Lenapes—joined by some members of Colonel John Butler’s Loyalist “Rangers” moved southward along Alanantowamiowee. Simon Girty addressed the warriors on the eve of their advance on Bryan’s Station, a small fort in the center of the Great Meadow. The following morning, the force laid siege to Bryan’s Station with little effect before retreating northward along the trace. Less than a day behind them raged a hodgepodge of determined militiamen from Boones­ borough, Lexington, and Harrodstown who had gathered as news of the siege spread across the countryside, determined to strike a fatal • Kentucke’s Frontiers 100 • blow to the northwestern Indians’ incessant attacks on Kentucke’s pioneers. After the Indians crossed the Licking River, they camped atop a wooded hill overlooking the U-­ shaped river bend and the bottom­ lands known as the Lower Blue Licks. On August 19, two days after the siege on Bryan’s Station, the militias finally caught up to their enemies. Initially, the men hesitated, hoping reinforcements under Kentucke sheriff Benjamin Logan would catch up. Hugh McGary, however, insisted that no further time be lost and taunted his own militia troops: “Them that ain’t cowards follow me, and I’ll show you where the yellow dogs are.” As ­ McGary’s men charged across the river, the rest could not abandon them to death. Daniel Boone led the Fayette County militia up the west­ ern slope of the hill; Stephen Trigg led a Lincoln County regiment up the eastern slope; and McGary’s Lincoln County militia marched directly from the south: all were under the leadership of John Todd. But the pioneers lost the Battle of Blue Licks in minutes. The Indians rained gunshot down on the regiments as they climbed the hill. With Wyandots and Shawnees crashing into the flank of Trigg’s regiment, his men broke into full retreat , colliding with McGary’s militia. Unaware of the collapse, Boone’s troops kept fighting until McGary rode by in retreat, warning his comrades to abandon the battlefield. As they turned to run, Boone’s men had to fight through the Indians who had surrounded them. Most of Boone’s militia made it to the river, where they swam to safety; his son, Israel, did not. Israel Boone was among the seventy-­ seven pioneers who died at Blue Licks, as were John Todd, Stephen Trigg, and Andrew McConnell, whose twin sons had been captured and returned seven years earlier. The Native Ameri­ cans celebrated their victory by torturing the few prisoners they had taken. Jesse Yocum, who escaped, “did not know how many they burned but the smell of a human was the awfullest smell he ever in his life.” Over the course of the next few days, stragglers like Yocum, some severely injured, returned to Bryan’s Station. In the meantime, Benjamin Logan had busily gathered reinforcements, and four days after the battle, when he had nearly 470 ready at Bryan’s Station, Lo- Peopling Kentucke • 101 gan led them to the battleground. The Indians, however, had already retreated north of the Ohio River. Just as Ameri­ cans had begun to move into Kentucke in larger numbers, the embarrassing and overwhelming defeat at Blue Licks made a significant statement about the lack of security that all pioneers faced. Blame was spread widely, from the militia leaders on the ground to George Rogers Clark. As early as 1780, Clark had been pushed by Governor Jefferson to oversee construction of six forts along the Ohio River, which, when joined with the posts already established at Pittsburgh, the mouth of the Wheeling River, the Falls of the Ohio, and Fort Jefferson, would have formed a defensive chain. Yet, Jefferson had no money to fund the constructions, and seemed to expect Kentucke’s settlers to invest: “We...