to join him; but from one cause or another, all save one or two failed
to appear. Most of them did not even start, and one body of
Pennsylvanians that did go met with an untoward fate. This was a party
of a hundred Westmoreland men under their county-lieutenant, Col.
Archibald Loughry. They started down the Ohio in flat-boats, but having
landed on a sand bar to butcher and cook a buffalo that they had killed,
they were surprised by an equal number of Indians under Joseph Brant,
and being huddled together, were all slain or captured with small loss
to their assailants. [Footnote: At Loughry's Creek, some ten miles below
the mouth of the Miami, on August 24, 1781. Diary of Captain Isaac
Anderson, quoted in "Indiana Hist. Soc. Pamphlets, No. 4," by Charles
Martindale, Indianapolis, 1888. Collins, whose accuracy by no means
equals his thirst for pure detail, puts this occurrence just a year too
late. Brant's force was part of a body of several hundred Indians
gathered to resist Clark.] Many of the prisoners, including Loughry
himself, were afterwards murdered in cold blood by the Indians.

Fighting on the Frontier.

During this year the Indians continually harassed the whole frontier,
from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, ravaging the settlements and assailing
the forts in great bands of five or six hundred warriors. [Footnote: It
is most difficult to get at the number of the Indian parties; they were
sometimes grossly exaggerated and sometimes hopelessly underestimated.]
The Continental troops stationed at Fort Pitt were reduced to try every
expedient to procure supplies. Though it was evident that the numbers of
the hostile Indians had largely increased and that even such tribes as
the Delawares, who had been divided, were now united against the
Americans, nevertheless, because of the scarcity of food, a party of
soldiers had to be sent into the Indian country to kill buffalo, that
the garrison might have meat. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 147,
Vol. VI. Reports of Board of War. March 15, 1781.] The Indians
threatened to attack the fort itself, as well as the villages it
protected; passing around and on each side, their war parties ravaged
the country in its rear, distressing greatly the people; and from this
time until peace was declared with Great Britain, and indeed until long
after that event, the westernmost Pennsylvanians knew neither rest nor
safety. [Footnote: _Do_., No. 148, Vol. I.. January 4, 1781; No. 1