towns which, like
Marietta in the following year, grew up under the shadow of a Federal
fort, were comparatively safe. But the frontier of Kentucky, and of
Virginia proper along the Ohio, suffered severely. There was great
scarcity of powder and lead, and even of guns, and there was difficulty
in procuring provisions for those militia who consented to leave their
work and turn out when summoned. The settlers were harried, and the
surveyors feared to go out to their work on the range. There were the
usual horrible incidents of Indian warfare. A glimpse of one of the
innumerable dreadful tragedies is afforded by the statement of one party
of scouts, who, in following the trail of an Indian war band, found at
the crossing of the river "the small tracks of a number of children,"
prisoners from a raid made on the Monongahela settlements. [Footnote:
State Dept. MSS., No. 71, vol. ii. Letters of David Shepherd to Governor
Randolph, April 30, and May 24, 1787.]

Difficulties in Extending Help to the Frontiersmen.

The settlers in the harried territory sent urgent appeals for help to
the Governor of Virginia and to Congress. In these appeals stress was
laid upon the poverty of the frontiersmen, and their lack of ammunition.
The writers pointed out that the men of the border should receive
support, if only from motives of policy; for it was of great importance
to the people in the thickly settled districts that the war should be
kept on the frontier, and that the men who lived there should remain as
a barrier against the Indians. If the latter broke through and got among
the less hardy and warlike people of the interior, they would work much
greater havoc; for in Indian warfare the borderers were as much superior
to the more peaceful people behind them as a veteran to a raw recruit.
[Footnote: Draper MSS. Lt. Marshall to Franklin, Nov. 6, 1787.]

These appeals did not go unheeded; but there was embarrassment in
affording the frontier adequate protection, both because the party to
which the borderers themselves belonged foolishly objected to the
employment of a fair-sized regular army, and because Congress still
clung to the belief that war could be averted by treaty, and so forbade
the taking of proper offensive measures. In the years 1787, '88, and
'89, the ravages continued; many settlers were slain, with their
families, and many bodies of immigrants destroyed; while the scouting
and rescue parties of whites killed a few