ed to hear of the death of a number
of treacherous Indians who pretended to be peaceful, while harboring and
giving aid and comfort to, and occasionally letting their own young men
join, bands of avowed murderers. Of course, the large wicked and
disorderly element was loud in praise of the deed. The decent people, by
their silence, acquiesced.

A terrible day of reckoning was at hand; the retribution fell on but
part of the real criminals, and bore most heavily on those who were
innocent of any actual complicity in the deed of evil. Nevertheless it
is impossible to grieve overmuch for the misfortune that befell men who
freely forgave and condoned such treacherous barbarity.

Crawford Marches against Sandusky.

In May a body of four hundred and eighty Pennsylvania and Virginia
militia gathered at Mingo Bottom, on the Ohio, with the purpose of
marching against and destroying the towns of the hostile Wyandots and
Delawares in the neighborhood of the Sandusky River. The Sandusky
Indians were those whose attacks were most severely felt by that portion
of the frontier; and for their repeated and merciless ravages they
deserved the severest chastisement. The expedition against them was from
every point of view just; and it was undertaken to punish them, and
without any definite idea of attacking the remnant of the Moravians who
were settled among them. On the other hand, the militia included in
their ranks most of those who had taken part in the murderous expedition
of two months before; this fact, and their general character, made it
certain that the peaceable and inoffensive Indians would, if
encountered, be slaughtered as pitilessly as their hostile brethren.

How little the militia volunteers disapproved of the Moravian massacre
was shown when, as was the custom, they met to choose a leader. There
were two competitors for the place, Williamson, who commanded at the
massacre, being one; and he was beaten by only five votes. His
successful opponent, Colonel William Crawford, was a fairly good
officer, a just and upright man, but with no special fitness for such a
task as that he had undertaken. Nor were the troops he led of very good
stuff [Footnote: A minute and exhaustive account of Crawford's campaign
is given by Mr. C. W. Butterfield in his "Expedition against Sandusky."
(Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1873). Mr. Butterfield shows
conclusively that the accepted accounts are wholly inaccurate, being
derived from