ess and infuriated
enemy--"thirsting for blood," and causing it literally to flow, alike
from the hearts of helpless infancy and hoary age--from the timorous
breast of weak woman, and the undaunted bosom of the stout warrior.
Leagued with Great Britain, the Indians were enabled more fully and
effectually, to glut their vengeance on our citizens, and gratify
their entailed resentment towards them.

In the commencement of Indian depredations on North Western Virginia,
during this war, the only places of refuge for the inhabitants,
besides private forts and block-houses, were at Pittsburg, Redstone,
Wheeling and Point Pleasant. Garrisons had been maintained at Fort
Pitt and Redstone, ever after their establishment; and fortresses were
erected at the two latter places in 1774. They all seemed to afford an
asylum to many, when the Indians were known to be in the country; but
none of them had garrisons, strong enough to admit of detachments
being sent, to act offensively against the invaders. All that they
could effect, was the repulsion of assaults made on them, and the
expulsion from their immediate neighborhoods, of small marauding
parties of the savage enemy. When Captain Arbuckle communicated to the
Governor the information derived from Cornstalk, that extensive
preparations were making by the Indians, for war, and the probability
of its early commencement, such measures were immediately adopted, to
prevent its success, as the then situation of the country would
justify. A proclamation was issued, advising the inhabitants of the
frontier, to retire into the interior as soon as practicable; and that
they might be enabled the better to protect themselves from savage
fury, some ammunition was forwarded to settlements on the Ohio river,
remote from the state forts, and more immediately exposed to danger
from incursion. General Hand too, then stationed at Fort Pitt, sent an
express to the different settlements, recommending that they should
be immediately abandoned, and the individuals composing them, should
forthwith seek shelter in some contiguous fortress, or retire east of
the [158] mountain. All were apprized of the impending danger, and
that it was impracticable in the pressing condition of affairs, for
the newly organized government to extend to them any effective
protection.

Thus situated, the greater part of those who had taken up their abode
on the western waters, continued to reside in the country. Others,
deem