To one and all, A little early history for your enjoyment. Bob Francis THE BRITISH INVASION OF KENTUCKY With an Account of the Capture of Ruddell's and Martin's Stations, June, 1780 By J. Winston Coleman, Jr., Litt.D. The British Invasion of Kentucky During the summer of 1779, as the slowly-moving American Revolution was dragging along into its fifth year, the cause of the British arms was beginning to look desperate and the red-coated soldiery of King George III had gained but few foot-holds in the revolted colonies. To bolster their war effort, the British high command adopted an overall strategy which, among other things, called for an all-out campaign against the American frontier settlements in the West. Added to the British failure in their struggle against the colonies was Spain's intervention in the war with England. In June of this year (1779), His Most Catholic Majesty allied his government with that of France and the United States, at the same time declaring war against the much harassed George III. The Spanish Dons were eager to recover property formerly seized by the predatory British, and especially to retake the rich lands of the Mississippi Valley. The Spaniards would, as the War Office assumed, quickly launch campaigns against the English posts on the Gulf. Another cause for British alarm was the rapid influx of "rebel" settlers into the Kentucky region, or the "County of Kentucky"-a vast area beyond the Alleghenies which the state of Virginia had erected by an act of her Legislature nearly three years before. A new and improved Virginia land act of 1779 provided far better pre-emption rights for settlers and more secure land tenure than had previously existed. During the fall, winter and spring of 1779-1780, an unprecedented flow of immigrants came to Kentucky, "with a view of exploring the country, so as to enable them to locate their warrants to the greatest advantage," [1] before the land office (at Wilson's Station, near Harrodsburg) was scheduled to open on May 1st, 1780. This large transmontane immigration from the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia caused undue apprehension among the British officers and greatly accelerated their war activity. In May, 1780, Major Arent S. De Peyster, Lieutenant-Governor of Canada and commander of the British forces at Detroit, wrote to General Frederick Haldiman, Governor-General of Canada, at Montreal, giving information on the alarming conditions in the Western Country: "The Delawares and Shawnese are . . . daily bringing in scalps & prisoners . . . those unhappy people being part of the one thousand families who to shun the oppression of Congress are on their way to possess the country of Kentuck[y]. where if they are allowed quietly to settle, they will soon become formidable both to the Indians & to the Posts."[2] and ten days later, he wrote to Lieut. Col. Mason Bolton, Deputy Indian Agent, at Montreal, telling of the rapidity with which the settlers were gaining foot-holds in the territory beyond the Allegheny Mountains. "They report that the Rebels . . . have now surrounded the Indian hunting ground of Kentuck[y], having erected small Forts at about two days journey from each other." Major De Peyster added, in closing, that this was "the finest country for new settlers in America, but it happens unfortunately for them to be the Indians best hunting ground, which they will never give up, and in fact, it is our interest not to let the Virginians, Marylanders & Pennsylvanians get possession there, lest in a short while they become formidable to this [Detroit] Post."[3] Thus, by reason of the foregoing circumstances, the British authorities in Canada and Detroit, headquarters for the Northwest, began lavishing large sums of money and presents on the Indians in order to satisfy their evergrowing demands and prepare them to assist in carrying out another part of the comprehensive plan for the conquest of the West. The Indians, in turn, seeing their favorite hunting grounds being taken over by the white settlers, turned to the British for help and Major De Peyster set about retaining their good will on an ambitious scale, as some of his bills for "Indian goods" show. One account for 12,185 pounds included: "750 lb. vermilion [paint] 750 pounds 8000 lbs. powder 2000 pounds 14,975 ball, lead & shot 1123 pounds 476 doz. scalping knives 428 pounds 188 tomahawks 119 pounds"[4] And in another account, labeled "Goods suitable for the Indian trade", there is listed a large quantity of vermilion paint, "New Pinsilvania rifles" and "scalping knives [with] good blades & solid handles."[5] Armed with these formidable presents and inspired by rewards of others, the Indians stepped up their scalp-hunting trips to Kentucky. All along the lonely trails, scores of hapless men, women and children were ambushed, murdered and scalped.[6] Their fiendish work done, the savages with such captives as they saw fit to take, would hasten back to Detroit to collect from the British government, money or presents for each scalp or prisoner delivered. Meanwhile, the British grand strategy provided for a series of far-reaching military operations in the West, embracing the whole area from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Their gigantic plan called for the capture of the stations in Illinois and Indiana, including Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes, as well as the settlements at the falls of the Ohio; moreover, it contemplated the taking of Fort Pitt (on the Ohio) and Fort Cumberland (on the Potomac); and, furthermore, it involved seizure of the Spanish strongholds along the Mississippi, the principals of which were St. Louis and New Orleans. However, the prosecution of this ambitious project could not match the boldness of the plan, and it broke down in almost every part. The only successful campaign in 1780 was under the direction of Captain Henry Bird,[7] of His Majesty's 8th Regiment of Foot. And even this enterprise, as executed, was not contemplated in the original planning since the object of the campaign was to attack and capture George Rogers Clark's fort (Tort Nelson) at the falls of the Ohio, after which it was confidently expected that all Kentucky could be swept clear of settlers. Bird, who had served a number of years in the British army, came to Detroit from Niagara in 1778, and, on May 11th of that year, was promoted to the rank of captain.[8] Later, he assisted in the laying out of a fort on the elevated ground in the rear of the village where the present-day streets of Fort and Shelby intersect. For the next year or so, Captain Bird was stationed at Sandusky, charged with the duty of stirring up Indian war-parties to raid the Ohio frontier and other settlements. In the spring of 1780 he was ordered to lead an expedition against the exposed Kentucky settlements on the American frontier, as a part of the overall British strategy for the conquest of the straggling colonists. It is apparent that the British knew that the secret plans of their Kentucky invasion had spread throughout the Western Country, as evidenced by one of Captain Bird's letters to his superior officer, Major De Peyster. On May 21st, 1780 he wrote: "Col. [George Rogers] Clarke is advised of our coming, tho' ignorant of our numbers and artillery. There are ten or fifteen forts near each other, houses put in the form of a square. I keep the little gun [three pounder] for quick transportation from one [place] to the other ... Col. Clarke says he will wait for us, instead of going to the Mississippi. His numbers do not exceed two hundred. His provisions & ammunition [are] short . . . "[9] On May 25th, 1780, Captain Bird left Detroit with an army of 150 whites and one hundred lake Indians. From the accounts of Macomb, Edgar & Macomb,[10] fiscal agents to the British Government at Detroit, one may read the names and rates of pay of the Detroit volunteers who joined Bird's army of invasion. These were chiefly Frenchmen, since Detroit was still a French settlement "overlaid with a thin veneer of British officialdom." Captain Louis J. Chabert and Lieutenant Jonathan Schieffelin headed the list of the militia muster, with four sergeants and three corporals. Of the 150 white men in the expedition, only thirty appear to have been volunteers; the rest were "ordered out," proving that so far as the French settlers were concerned, they had but little desire to fight the Americans. Bird's motley force left Detroit by water; descended the Detroit River in sailing vessels, bateaux and birch canoes; paddled across Lake Erie to the mouth of the Maumee; rowed up that river to the portage; transported to the Great Miami and dropped down that stream to the Ohio. Bird had considerable trouble in bringing the artillery up shallow rivers in canoes and then portaging the guns over wilderness roads, with so few pack-horses that they had to make several trips back and forth over the portage. Reaching the mouth of the Miami early in June, the main body camped there to await the arrival of certain chiefs from Chillicothe. By this time the expedition had gathered a large body of Indians from the various nations-Ottawas, Hurons, Shawnees, Chippewas, Delawares and Mingoes. It was unusual in that it carried along two field-pieces, a threepounder and a six-pounder, with a detachment of bombardiers from the Royal Regiment of Artillery to fire them. With such equipment, the British believed the small Kentucky stockades could be smashed with solid shot and the whole thing quickly ended with tomahawk and scalping knife. Numbered among the white men in this British expedition were several renegade Americans, already notorious on the American frontier: Simon Girty (the "white savage") and his two brothers, George and Thomas; Matthew Elliott and Captain Alexander McKee,[11] renowned like the Girtys for their skill in handling the Indians and exciting them to war against the Americans; also Jacques Duperon Baby, an influential French citizen of Detroit, Philip le Due, Duncan Graham and several others employed by the British Indian department. Captain Bird's rendezvous at the mouth of the Miami continued for some days; the Indian allies first were late in arriving and then mutinous. In fact, the British themselves were worried over Bird's personal safety at their hands, and General Haldimand, Commander-in-Chief in Canada, expressed concern over "the fickleness of the Indians and their aversion to controul." Captain McKee, a trusted agent of the British and second in command, caught up with Bird's war party on May 31st. Next day a band of 300 warriors joined him and on June 5th there was to be a general rendezvous of all the tribes, from a number of different places on the Ohio River. On June 3rd, Bird was still delayed at the mouth of the Miami River waiting for the Chillicothe chiefs, though in the meantime a third band of warriors had brought his force of red men up to about seven hundred. He now received information that General Clark with most of his effective fighting force had recently left Fort Nelson, at the falls of the Ohio, and gone down the Mississippi River several miles below the mouth of the Ohio, to erect a fort (Fort Jefferson) at the Iron Banks.[12] Both Captains Bird and McKee were therefore eager to press on to the falls, hoping to capture it before Clark's return. The former wrote his superior officer in Detroit that it would be "possible for us to get to the Falls by the 10th of the month [June], certain[ly] by the 14th, the Indians have their full spirits, the ammunition & every thing plenty, and in the state we could wish it. After taking the Falls," continued Bird, "the country on our return, will be submissive & in a manner subdued, but if we attack the nearer forts first, the ammunition is wasted, or expended, and our People far from fresh."[13] A week later, on June 9th, 1780, Bird's army reached the banks of the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of the Licking and went into camp on the present site of Cincinnati. Here again trouble developed between the British officers and their Indian allies. The braves were not convinced that the powerful "Chief" of the "Long Knives" would not be at the falls to greet them and therefore took refuge in delay. A series of powwows and council fires lasted for two or three days. Clark's wide reputation as an Indian fighter seems to have thrown a great scare into the Indians, who now flatly refused to descend the Ohio River to the falls (Fort Nelson), the site of Louisville. Instead, they insisted on ascending the Licking River and attacking the interior settlements of Kentucky, or "the forts on Licking creek," which promised less fighting and more booty than the prospect held out at Fort Nelson. Then too, the chiefs gave as their reason for their opposition to the falls venture that it would leave their own villages on the Ohio "naked & defenseless" in the neighborhood of these forts. Pointing to the fact that several Kentucky stockades lay on Licking River, they contended that settlers from these forts might attack their Ohio villages with success should Bird and his men move down the Ohio. Though warmly pleading the falls venture, neither Bird nor McKee could shake the braves' determination not to attack it. Apparently helpless to do otherwise and thoroughly disgusted, Bird reluctantly consented to the Indian plan of operations. -- Bob Francis 1920A Butner St. Ft. Eustis, VA 23604 Visit My Home Page: http://www.shawhan.com