A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier (20 page)

It is, therefore, Resolved, That Mr. Alexander McKee be required to give his parole, in writing, that he will not transact any business with the Indians in behalf of the Crown or Ministry; that he will not, directly or indirectly, correspond with any of the Crown or Ministerial officers, nor leave the neighbourhood of Fort Pitt, without the consent of the Committee of West-Augusta; and, on his refusal to do so, that he be committed a close prisoner till the General Congress be acquainted, and direct what further is to be done
.
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The parole later troubled Butler who, along with others, could find no real fault with McKee’s behavior. In fact, while he had been no admirer of McKee’s, Butler found the committee’s actions unnecessary. “I must say in justice to Mr. McKee,” reported Butler, “that I have not seen one act that discovered an inimical intention to this country.”
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In April 1776, Congress appointed Girty’s old friend and former employer, George Morgan, to replace Butler in Pittsburgh. Morgan continued to receive rumors of McKee’s loyalist activities but chose not act on them. Meanwhile, Morgan hired Girty immediately upon his arrival in Pittsburgh, sending him to Onondaga, New York, to present the Great Peace Belt of the United Colonies to the Grand Council of the Six Nations and, once more, urge the confederacy to remain neutral. Girty’s mission was a resounding success, as five of the nations agreed to stay out of the war. The sole exception was the Mohawks, who were absent from the meeting, having already concluded a separate alliance with the British.

One would have thought Girty’s reputation among the Americans would now be safe, but that was not to be the case. On August 1, a month after his return from New York, Morgan summarily removed Girty from his post, stating “ill-behavior” as the only reason. Beyond that, there is no record of Girty’s offense. Some historians have conjectured that the dismissal was likely due to Girty’s drunken brawling, but others believe that, given Girty and Morgan’s long association, a more serious matter must have been the cause. One theory is that Girty got wind of Morgan’s work with the land speculators, who were now busily making their plans to carve up the Ohio Country once the war concluded, and that he confronted Morgan about it.
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Although there is no proof, this latter theory makes sense, as Girty would likely have been furious with Morgan, given that he had just spent the last two years assuring his Indian brethren that the Americans had no desire to take their lands.

This April 7, 1776 letter from George Morgan to his brother, written just before his assignment as Indian superintendent at Fort Pitt, provides an example of his land speculation dealings. This particular transaction involves an Indiana land deal Morgan was working on on behalf of General George Washington.
Library of Congress
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Throughout 1777 and into early 1778, as the war with Great Britain raged with full force, McKee continued in virtual house arrest, as Girty tried to regain the good graces of Morgan and the other American officials in Pittsburgh. Simon even recruited men to a militia company, and when he had raised his quota of 150 enlistees, he hoped he would be given their captaincy. However, all he was offered was a lieutenancy, and, far worse, when the company was mustered into service for duty in South Carolina, Girty was ordered to remain behind.
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Soon thereafter, a new American commander, General Edward Hand, arrived in Pittsburgh, and while Girty initially supported Hand in working with the local Indian tribes, he decided to resign his commission in August 1777.
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General Edward Hand, commander of American forces at Fort Pitt.
Pennsylvania Historical Society
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Meanwhile, matters worsened for Alexander McKee. First, in February 1777, the British lieutenant governor at Detroit, Henry Hamilton, proposed to Whitehall that they now actively encourage the remainder of the Six Nations to make war on American forces and settlements along the frontier. Lord George Germain agreed to the strategy, and on March 26, he instructed Sir Guy Carleton to approve Hamilton’s idea for “the making a diversion on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania by parties of Indians conducted by proper leaders.”
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When word of this new threat was revealed in the American settlements, McKee once again became the target of suspicion and scrutiny. Then, in July, the sister of the Shawnee chief Cornstalk, who was known to hate McKee, reported to General Hand that McKee was secretly communicating with Hamilton in Detroit. Hand quickly dismissed her story, believing that the former British agent was fully living within the terms of his parole. Still, despite Hand’s reassurances, most of the people of Pittsburgh believed McKee to be a dangerous loyalist.
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In the early fall, General Hand decided to rehire Girty and send him on a mission to visit his old family, the Seneca, and determine their intentions. In mid-November 1777, Girty arrived at the Seneca village of Connewago, on the Allegheny River. There, he met with the council led by his aging surrogate father, Guyasuta, and made his case that the Seneca should remain neutral. However, he did not get the reception he hoped for, and, in fact, what happened was far beyond anything he might have imagined. Guyasuta informed Girty that he was no longer considered a Seneca and that the council believed him to be an American spy. From other statements made in the council house, it became clear to Girty that his people had decided to make war on the Americans and were most likely already conducting raids along the frontier. Guyasuta told his former son that he would be taken to Fort Niagara the next day, where he would be turned over to British authorities, who would likely hang him. That night, a badly shaken Simon Girty made his escape and returned to Pittsburgh, telling General Hand what he had learned.
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However, even with this success, Hand would not restore Girty’s commission, much less provide a captaincy, which he had promised to Simon in return for his mission to the Seneca. Nevertheless, despite this reversal of fortune, the unhappy Girty continued to provide services to Hand and the Patriot cause.

In late 1777 and early 1778, General Hand searched for a way to strike at the British and their new Indian allies in Ohio. Intelligence reports indicated the British had established a depot for the Indians near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, just over eighty miles from Pittsburgh, and Hand figured that, with the Indians scattered in their winter encampments, the depot might be virtually undefended. However, Hand did not have the manpower required to mount the raid, so he wrote a letter requesting reinforcements to Colonel William Crawford, a close friend of George Washington, a land speculator and a man who knew Girty from Dunmore’s War. In his letter, Hand advised Crawford that he expected to find “a magazine of arms and provisions, sent from Detroit, and fifteen batteaux [
sic
] lie there. You may guess the rest.”
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Crawford responded that he would be on the march shortly, and Hand replied, this time extolling not only the patriotism of Crawford’s men but also offering the potential incentive for material gain:

Colonel William Crawford, American officer, associate of George Washington and comrade of Simon Girty during Dunmore’s War.
Ohio Historical Society
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It may be necessary to assure them that every thing they are able to bring away shall be sold at public vendue
[sic]
for the sole benefit of the captors, and the money equally distributed tho’
[sic]
I am certain that a sense of the service they will render to their country will operate more strongly than the expectation of gain. I, therefore, expect that you will use your influence on this occasion, and bring all the volunteers you can raise to Fort Pitt by the 15
^th
of this month
.
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Crawford, whose name later become indelibly tied to that of Simon Girty, mustered five hundred men, and on February 8, 1778, Hand, Crawford and their militia left Pittsburgh for the Cuyahoga, with Girty serving as an interpreter. The weather proved simply awful, a nasty mixture of cold rain and light snow that flooded every river and stream in the column’s path. To make matters worse, General Hand had hired another man, William Brady, to act as guide, despite the fact that Girty knew these woods far better. It quickly became clear that Brady did not know the best route to the Cuyahoga, and between the weather and Brady’s incompetence, it took Hand days to go just a few miles.
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One morning, as the column camped near the Beaver River, Girty accompanied Brady into the nearby woods to look for the guide’s horse, which had wandered away during the night. They found the horse after a few hours and were heading back to camp when they heard the sounds of gunfire. Hurrying forward and anticipating that a skirmish had occurred with the enemy, they quickly located the source of the shooting. Some of Hand’s other scouts had led the general and his soldiers to the site of an old Indian village, which Hand did not bother reconnoitering in advance. Rather, he just assumed this was a populated, hostile village and sent his men in, shooting and ransacking the longhouses. However, instead of several hundred villagers and warriors, all they found were an elderly Indian man, two women and some children, hunkered down for a cold winter.

The soldiers killed the old man, who managed to get off a single shot before he went down, wounding one of Crawford’s men. In the wild firing that followed, they also killed one of the women and wounded the other by shooting off her finger when she raised her hands in surrender. Luckily, they did not kill any of the children, who all fled into the woods. Hand ordered Girty to interrogate the wounded woman, and from her, Girty learned that General Hand had just attacked a group of neutral Delawares, and worse, the man they killed was the brother of the Delaware’s principle chief, Captain Pipe, and the dead woman was Captain Pipe’s mother. She also revealed that some warriors were at a nearby saltwater spring, so Hand sent a detachment of soldiers off to find them. The men returned without having found the warriors; however, they did successfully kill and scalp a young Indian boy who was innocently hunting in the woods with a bow and arrow.

With this disaster complete, Hand ordered the column back to Pittsburgh, where he was ridiculed about what became known as the “Squaw Campaign.” Unfortunately, no one attacked the general for his men’s wanton killing of innocent, neutral Delawares, but instead, they criticized him for not finding and killing more Indians. More so, however, this “campaign” seems to have been the event that triggered Simon Girty’s decision to abandon the American cause. The bloodthirsty desire among those engaged in the Patriot cause to slaughter Indians, no matter their position in the war with Great Britain, combined with the intense desire to take those same Indians’ lands after the war and the disdain they demonstrated for him personally, finally moved Girty to change allegiance for good.
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Girty went to see Alexander McKee, and his old associate told him that he, too, planned to defect. Since late December, McKee had resisted General Hand’s orders to report to York, where McKee was supposed to testify about his activities since the beginning of the war before the Continental Congress’s Board of War. McKee had no intention of doing so, as it was tantamount to a death sentence, no matter what he told the board. Although McKee had likely been quietly supporting the British war effort, he worked hard to appear ambivalent about the war to the public at large. McKee had much to lose if he defected, as he had acquired some considerable wealth and property while developing good business relationships with many leading men in Pennsylvania. However, Hand’s insistence that he turn himself over to Patriot officials finally forced his hand.