Indians suspected her errand and discharged a volley at her, as she swiftly glided toward the gate and entered it, amid a shower of balls, unharmed with her prize. It was a noble exploit, one rarely equaled in self-devotion and moral intrepidity. After an intermission of about two hours, the Indians renewed the attack with great energy. Toward evening, the rifles of the garrison had become so much heated by continued firing that they were obliged to have recourse to a supply of muskets. After dark, the Indians brought up a hollow maple log, which they had converted into a fieldpiece. They bound it round with iron chains to give it additional strength, and loaded it to the muzzle with slugs of iron, and then pointed it against the main gate. Upon being discharged, its contents did no harm to the garrison, but as it burst into many fragments a number of Indians were killed and wounded. A loud yell announced their disappointment, and the crowd gathered around dispersed. About four o'clock next morning, Col. Swearingen succeeded in entering the fort with fourteen men from Cross Creek, and shortly after, forty mounted men from Short Creek, under Major McCulloch, though closely beset by the Indians, made their way into the gate which opened to receive them. But McCulloch, like a brave officer, was the last man, and he was cut off from his men, and nearly surrounded by the Indians. He wheeled and galloped toward a lofty hill in the rear of the fort, beset the whole way by Indians, who might have killed him, but knowing him as one of the bravest and most successful of Indian fighters on the frontier, wished to take him alive and gratify their full revenge by subjecting him to the severest tortures. He intended to ride along the ridge, and thus make his way to Short Creek; but on gaining the top, he found himself headed by a hundred savages, while the main body was in keen pursuit in his rear. He was hemmed in all sides but the east, where the precipice was almost perpendicular and the bed of the creek lay like a gulf, near two hundred feet below him. This, too, would have been protected by the cautious enemy, but the jutting crags forbade his climbing or even descending it on foot, and to attempt it on horseback seemed inevitable death to both rider and steed. But with McCulloch it was but a chance of death and a narrow chance of life. He chose like a brave man. Setting himself back in his saddle and his feet firmly braced in the stirrups, with his rifle in his left hand and the reins adjusted in his right, he cast one look upon the approaching savages, pushed his spurs into his horse's flanks, and made the decisive leap. In a few moments the Indians saw their mortal foe, whose daring act they beheld with astonishment, emerging from the valley below still safely seated on his noble steed, and shouting defiance to his pursuers. After the escape of McCulloch the Indians set fire to the cabins and fences outside the fort, and then raised the siege. The defense had been admirably conducted by the garrison in the face of an enemy thirty times their numbers. In the hottest of the fight even the females showed great intrepidity, employing themselves in running bullets, preparing rifle-patches, and infusing new life into the soldiers by words of encouragement. Inside of the fort not a man was killed, and only one wounded, while the loss of the enemy was from sixty to one hundred. Just previous to the siege of Fort Henry, a party of forty-five men, under Captain Foreman, fell into an ambuscade on the banks of the Ohio, eight miles below the fort. Twenty-one, including their commander and his two sons, were slain, and several of the others wounded. A simple monument marks the spot of this fatal tragedy. Conquest of Illinois. British authority was extended over the Illinois country shortly after the peace of 1753. The commandant was always some officer of his majesty's army, who generally exercised despotic authority over the people. The population was composed entirely of a few thousand French, who dwelt isolated in their settlemants in the depths of a vast wilderness. Their principal settlements were Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Cahokia, at each of which forts were erected and garrisoned by British troops. These posts, and that of Detroit, were the points where were planned the hostile incursions of savages that desolated the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the new settlements of Kentucky. The whole of the Illinois country being at that time within the chartered limits of Virginia, Col. George Rogers Clarke, an officer of extraordinary genius, who had recently emigrated to Kentucky, with slight aid from the mother State projected and carried out a secret expedition for the reduction of these posts, the great fountains of Indian massacre. About the middle of June (1778), Clarke by extraordinary exertions assembled at the falls of the Ohio six incomplete companies. From these he selected about one hundred and fifty men, and descended the Ohio in keelboats en route for Kaskaskia; on their way down they learned, by a messenger, of the alliance of France with the United States. About forty miles from the mouth of the Ohio, having first concealed their boats by sinking them in the river, they commenced their march toward Kaskaskia. Their route was through a pathless wilderness interspersed with morasses, and almost impassable to any except backwoodsmen. After several days of great fatigue and hardships, they arrived unperceived, in the evening of the 4th of July, in the vicinity of the town. In the dead of night Clarke divided his little force into two divisions. One division took possession of the town while the inhabitants were asleep; with the other Clarke in person crossed to the opposite side of the Kaskaskia river and secured possession of Fort Gage. So little apprehensive was he of danger that the commandant, Rocheblave, had not even posted a solitary sentinel, and that officer was awakened by the side of his wife to find himself a prisoner of war. The town containing about two hundred and fifty dwellings, was completely surrounded and all avenues of escape carefully guarded. The British had cunningly impressed the French with a horror of Virginians, representing them as blood-thirsty and cruel in the extreme. Clarke took measures for ultimate good, to increase this feeling. During the night the troops filled the air with warhoops; every house was entered and the inhabitants disarined; all intercourse between them was prohibited; the people were ordered not to appear in the streets under the penalty of instant death. The whole town was filled with terror, and the minds of the poor Frenchmen were agitated by the most horrid apprehensions. At last when hope had nearly vanished, a deputation, headed by Father Gibault, the village priest, obtained permission to wait upon Colonel Clarke. Surprised as they had been by the sudden capture of their town, and by such an enemy as their imagination had painted, they were still more so when admitted to his presence. Their clothes were dirty and torn by the briers, and their whole aspect frightful and savage. The priest, in a trembling, subdued voice, said to Clarke: "That the inhabitants expected to be separated, never to meet again on earth, and they begged for permission, through him to assemble once more in the church, to take a final leave of each other." Clarke, aware that they suspected him of hostility to their religion, carelessly told them, that he had nothing to say against their church; that religion was a matter which the Americans left every one for himself to settle with his God; that the people might assemble in the church if they wished, but they must not leave the town. Some further conversation was attempted; but Clarke, in order that the alarm might be raised to its utmost height, repelled it with sternness, and told them at once that he had not leisure for further intercourse. The whole town immediately assembled at the church; the old and the young, the women and the children, and the houses were all deserted. The people remained in church for a long time-after which the priest, accompanied by several gentlemen, waited upon Colonel Clarke, and expressed in the name of the village," their thanks for the indulgence they had received." The deputation then desired, at the request of the inhabitants, to address their conqueror on a subject which was dearer to them than any other. "They were sensible," they said, "that their present situation was the fate of war; and they could submit to the loss of property, but solicited that they might not be separated from their wives and children, and that some clothes and provisions might be allowed for their future support." They assured Colonel Clarke, that their conduct had been influenced by the British commandants, whom they supposed they were bound to obey-that they were not certain that they understood the nature of the contest between Great Britain and the colonies-that their remote situation was unfavorable to accurate information-that some of their number had expressed themselves in favor of the Americans, and others would have done so had they durst. Clarke, having wound up their terror to the highest pitch, resolved now to try the effect of that lenity, which he had all along intended to grant. He therefore abruptly addressed them: "Do you," said he, "mistake us for savages? I am almost certain you do from your language. Do you think that Americans intend to strip women and children, or take the bread out of their mouths? My countrymen disdain to make war upon helpless innocence. It was to prevent the horrors of Indian butchery upon our own wives and children, that we have taken up arms and penetrated into this stronghold of British and Indian barbarity, and not the despicable prospect of plunder. That since the king of France had united his arms with those of America, the war, in all probability, would shortly cease. That the inhabitants of Kaskaskia, however, were at liberty to take which side they pleased, without danger to themselves, their property, or their families. That all religions were regarded by the Americans with equal respect; and that insult offered to theirs, would be immediately punished. And now," continued he, "to prove my sincerity, you will please inform your fellow-citizens, that they are at liberty to go wherever they please, without any apprehension. That he was now convinced they had been misinformed, and prejudiced against the Americans by British officers, and that their friends in confinement should be instantly released.' The joy of the villagers, on hearing the speech of Colonel Clarke, may be imagined. The contrast of feeling among the people, on learning these generous and magnanimous intentions of Colonel Clarke, verified his anticipations. The gloom which had overspread the town was immediately dispersed. The bells rung a merry peal; the church was at once filled, and thanks offered up to God for deliverance from the terrors they had feared. Freedom to come and go as they pleased, was immediately given, knowing that their reports would advance the success and glory of his arms. So great an effect had this leniency of Clarke upon them, that on the evening of the same day, a detachment under Captain Bowman, was dispatched to surprise Cahokia; the Kakaskians offered to go with it, and secure the submission of their neighbors. This having been accomplished, the two chief posts in Illinois had passed without bloodshed, from the possession of England into that of Virginia. But St. Vincennes, upon the Wabash, the most important post in the West, except Detroit, still remained in possession of the enemy. Clarke thereupon accepted the offer of Father Gibault, who, in company with another Kakaskian, proceeded on a mission of peace to St. Vincennes, and by the 1st of August, returned with the intelligence that the inhabitants of that post had taken the oath of allegiance to the American cause. Clarke next established courts, garrisoned three conquered towns, commenced a fort which proved the foundation of the flourishing |