ountain and Its Heroes," "Autograph Collections
of the Signers," etc.

CINCINNATI
THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY
1895

Copyright, 1895

By REUBEN GOLD THWAITES

All rights reserved

CONTENTS.

Portrait of the Author Frontispiece.

PAGE

Editor's Preface v

Memoir of the Author, by Lyman C. Draper viii

Original Title-page (photographic fac-simile) xiii

Original Copyright Notice xiv

Original Advertisement xv

Original Table of Contents (with pagination revised) xvii

Author's Text (with editorial notes) 1

Index, by the Editor 431

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

It is sixty-four years since the original edition of Withers's
_Chronicles of Border Warfare_ was given to the public. The author was
a faithful recorder of local tradition. Among his neighbors were sons
and grandsons of the earlier border heroes, and not a few actual
participants in the later wars. He had access, however, to few
contemporary documents. He does not appear to have searched for them,
for there existed among the pioneer historians of the West a respect
for tradition as the prime source of information, which does not now
obtain; to-day, we desire first to see the documents of a period, and
care little for reminiscence, save when it fills a gap in or illumines
the formal record. The weakness of the traditional method is well
exemplified in Withers's work. His treatment of many of the larger
events on the border may now be regarded as little else than a thread
on which to hang annotations; but in most of the local happenings
which are here recorded he will always, doubtless, remain a leading
authority--for his informants possessed full knowledge of what
occurred within their own horizon, although having distorted notions
regarding affairs beyond it.

The _Chronicles_ had been about seven years upon the market, when a
New York youth, inspired by the pages of Doddridge, Flint, and
Withers, with a fervid love for border history, entered upon the
task of collecting documents and traditions with which to correct
and amplify the lurid story which these authors had outlined. In the
prosecution of this undertaking, Lyman C. Draper became so absorbed
with the passion of collecting that he found l