Volume 11 , Issue 40

History of Battle of Point Pleasant - The Book

At books.google.com I found this online book concerning History of the Battle of Point Pleasant Fought Between White Men & Indians by Virgil Anson Lewis, A.M. (State Historian and Archivist). This battle was fought between whtie men and indians at the mouth of the great Kanawha River (Now Point Pleasant, West Virginia), Monday, October 10th, 1774, The Chief event of Lord Dunmores War.

The Virginia Frontier in 1774 -- The Indian Nations of the Ohio Wilderness. White settlers West of the Blue Ridge -- For a number of years after the founding of Jamestown the white settlements were confined to the banks of the James River. In time they extended over the Tide-Water Region; and thence into the Piedmont Region even to the base of the Blue Ridge. Chapter V, pg. 40 -- The Battle of Point Pleasant was fought exactly three months from the day that Lord Dunmore left the gubernatorial mansion at Williamsburg; and in that brief time an army numbering more than twenty-seven hundred men had been organized in two divisions, each composed almost exclusively of frontiersmen west of the Blue Ridge and placed in the Ohio Valley.

On Sunday, the ninth of October, the Northern Division or right wing, comprising the Berkeley and the Frederick County Regiments, and the West Augusta Battalion, the whole numbering thirteen hundred men, and commanded by Lord Dunmore in person, lay at Fort Gower, on the Northwest bank of the Ohio, at the mouth of the Hockhocking river, now in Athens county, Ohio.

The Southern Division or left wing, composed of the Augusta and the Botetourt Regiments; and the companies of Shelby, Russell, and Herbert, of the Fincastle Battalion; together with Buford's Bedford county Riflemen, the whole commanded by General Andrew Lewis, lay at Camp Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river. colonel Christian with the companies of Campbell, Crockett and floyd, of the Fincastle Battalion, and Harrod's kentucky Pioneers, together with a number of unorganized men from the counties of Augusta and Culpeper, lay on the north or right bank of the Great Kanawha river, distant about twenty-five miles from its mouth.

Captain Anthony Bledsoe, with his company of Fincastle troops was still at Camp Union, on the Big Levels of Greenbrier. Christian's men were the only ones that moved that day; this was due to his desire to come up with General Lewis before he would cross the Ohio.

At Camp Point Pleasant a communication had been received from Lord Dunmore stating that he should move directly across the country from fort Gower to the Pickaway Plains, and requesting lewis to join him at the latter place. preparations were made to resume the march for this purpose.

Major Ingles said, "After hearing a good sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Terry, (we) went to repose." That evening General Lewis' scouts reported tohim that there was no enemy within fifteen miles of the camp.

But fleet-footed Indian warriors from the peaks of the Alleghenies, and the highlands along the Great Kanawha, had watched the progress of the Southern Division all the way from Camp union to Camp Point Pleasant, and bore tidings of its advance to the Shawnee capital on the Pickaway Plains, where the assembled sachems and chiefs had, in their bark council-house in the valley of the Sciota, resolved upon war against the English Border.

Their message went forth to summon the warriors to arms; this was speedily obeyed and hundreds of them gathered, ready for the fray. It was the plan of Cornstalk to defeat the two wings of the army before they could be united and if Lewis could be beaten and his army destroyed at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, the men composing the Northern Division under Dunmore, could be shot down in the narrow defiles of the valley of the Hockhocking river.

All day long that Sunday -- October ninth -- with silent tread, they approached the Ohio, and late in the evening, halted in the dense forest in the valley of Campaign creek near the site of the present village of Addison, in Gallia county, Ohio, and distant about three miles above the mouth of the Great Kanawha.

Soon after dark the warriors began crossing the Ohio on rafts, seventy-nine of these having been prepared previously. To ferry so many over this wide stream on these clumsy transports, must have required a considerable time. But before morning they were all on the southern bank on the site of "Old Shawane Town" a former home of the Shawnees, near the mouth of Old Town creek and distant about three miles from Camp Point Pleasant; and were ready to proceed to action.

Their route lay down through the bottom lands on the east bank of the Ohio. Here was a heavy growth of timber with a foliage so dense, as in many places to intercept, in a great measure, the light of the moon and the stars. Beneath lay many trunks of fallen trees strewed in different directions and in various stages of decay.

The whole surface of the ground was covered with a luxuriant growth of weeds interspersed with close-set thickets of spice-wood and other undergrowth. A journey through this in the night must have been tedious, tiresome, dark and dreary.

The Indians, however, entered upon it promptly and pursued it until break of day. When, about a mile distant from the camp of the sleeping Virginians, one of those unforeseen incidents occurred which so often totally defeat or greatly mar the best concerted military plans.

this was the discovery by the Virginians of the advancing Indian line, a most fortunate occurrence for the whole army was saved from destruction; because it was the design of the Indians to have attacked them at break of day, and to force al whom they could not kill, into the two rivers. Had that vast barbarian column swept down in the darkness of the morning upon Lewis' army of sleeping virginians, it would have been doomed not only to defeat but to total destruction.

The Beginning of the Battle -- In the gray dawn of the morning twilight, Monday, October 10th, two young men went up along the east bank of the Ohio in quest of deer.

The story goes that Captain John Stuart says, "Two young men were sent out early to hunt for deer, and when up the river (Ohio) two or three miles, they fell on the camp of Indians who fired on them. One was killed; the other escaped the got into camp just before sunrise. He stopped before my tent, and I discovered a number of men collecting around him as I lay in my bed; I jumped up and approached him to know what was the cause of alarm; when I heard him declare that he had seen about five acres of land covered with indians as thick as they could stand one besides the other." -- "Stuart's Memoirs of the Indian Wars and Other Occurrences." pg. 46.

"These were Joseph Hughy, of Shelby's company, and James Mooney, of Russell's. The former was killed by a white renegade, Tavenor Ross, while the latter brought the news to camp." -- Note by Reuben G. Thwaites, in documentary History of Dunmore's War." pg. 272.

Haywood, the Historian of Tennessee, says that those who discovered the Indians, were James Robertson, and Valentine Sevier, sergeants in Captain Evan Shelby's company. He adds, "It fell to the lot of men from East Tennessee to make an unexpected discovery of the enemy and by that means save from destruction the whole army of Provincials, for it was the design of the enemy to have attacked them at day-dawn and then to have forced all they could not kill, into the two rivers." -- "Civil and Political History of Tennessee." pg. 58.

When in the narrowest portion of land between Crooked Creek and the Ohio river, they were discovered by the Indians, who were advancing in solid phalanx toward the camp of the Virginians. They fired upon the hunters, one of whom they killed, and the other ran into camp and gave the alarm. Instantly the drums beat to arms, and the backwoodsmen rolled out of their blankets, started format he ground, looked to their flints and priming, and were ready on the moment.
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