, relinquished his own horse to Colonel Robert
Patterson, who was infirm from former wounds, and was retreating on
foot. He thus enabled that veteran to escape. While thus signalizing his
disinterested intrepidity, he fell himself into the hands of the
Indians. The party that took him consisted of three. Two whites passed
him on their retreat. Two of the Indians pursued, leaving him under the
guard of the third. His captor stooped to tie his moccasin, and he
sprang away from him and escaped. It is supposed that one-fourth of the
men engaged in this action were commissioned officers. The whole number
engaged was one hundred and seventy-six. Of these, sixty were slain, and
eight made prisoners. Among the most distinguished names of those who
fell, were those of Colonels Todd and Trigg, Majors Harland and Bulger,
Captains Gordon and McBride, and a son of Colonel Boone. The loss of the
savages has never been ascertained. It could not have equalled that of
the assailants, though some supposed it greater. This sanguinary affair
took place August 19, 1782.

Colonel Logan, on arriving at Bryant's station, with a force of three
hundred men, found the troops had already marched. He made a rapid
advance in hopes to join them before they should have met with the
Indians. He came up with the survivors, on their retreat from their
ill-fated contest, not far from Bryant's station. He determined to
pursue his march to the battle ground to bury the dead, if he could not
avenge their fall. He was joined by many friends of the killed and
missing, from Lexington and Bryant's station. They reached the battle
ground on the 25th. It presented a heartrending spectacle. Where so
lately had arisen the shouts of the robust and intrepid woodsmen, and
the sharp yell of the savages, as they closed in the murderous contest,
the silence of the wide forest was now unbroken, except by birds of
prey, as they screamed and sailed over the carnage. The heat was so
excessive, and the bodies were so changed by it and the hideous gashes
and mangling of the Indian tomahawk and knife, that friends could no
longer recognize their dearest relatives. They performed the sad rights
of sepulture as they might, upon the rocky ground.

The Indian forces that had fought at the Blue Licks, in the exultation
of victory and revenge, returned homeward with their scalps. Those from
the north--and they constituted the greater numbers--returned quietly.
The western bands took