A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier (21 page)

Girty and McKee planned their escape along with Matthew Elliot, a friend and business associate of McKee. Girty went to his brothers and told them of his plans. James Girty, who had also been working with American officials up to this point, decided to take a journey with his wife into the Shawnee country, ensuring he was out of the city when Girty and McKee made their escape. Then, James would also join the British cause. On the night of March 28, 1778, McKee, Elliott and Girty, along with McKee’s cousin Robert Surphlitt, McKee’s servant John Higgins and two of McKee’s African slaves, mounted up under the cover of darkness, left Pittsburgh for good and began their journey to Detroit. As it turned out, their timing was impeccable, as General Hand sent a group of armed men to McKee’s house to arrest him a few hours later. Finding the house empty, Hand said he was “mortified.”
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After making a slow trek through the Ohio Country during which they visited with many Indian leaders, McKee and Girty finally arrived in Detroit in early June 1778. Along the way, the news of their defection spread, and there was great excitement among the Indian nations when they learned that two men they considered friends and able leaders had come over to the side of King George III. Meanwhile, back in Pennsylvania and along the frontier, there was a corresponding sense of fear and dread. One man wrote about what he observed, saying, “As we drew nearer to Pittsburgh, the unfavorable account of the elopement of McKee, Elliott, Girty, and others, from the latter place [Pittsburgh] to the Indian country, for the purpose of instigating the Indians to murder [caused great excitement]…Indeed, the gloomy countenances of all men, women, and children, that we passed, bespoke fear—nay, some families even spoke of leaving their farms and moving off.”
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Even General Hand found he was fearful of what McKee and Girty might accomplish as agents of the British. Only two days after the escape, he wrote Colonel Crawford requesting help, saying, “Your assistance may be necessary towards preventing the evils that may arise from the information of these runaways, I beg you may return here as soon as possible.”
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In fact, the defection could not have come at a worse time for Hand and the other Americans along the frontier. Although, the war in the wilderness region had become a seemingly endless series of raids and counter-raids, British leaders feared the Americans might gather sufficient strength to not only penetrate the Ohio Country but also threaten Detroit itself. Such a setback could very well topple the entire British war effort along the frontier. Therefore, Colonel Hamilton and other British officials in Detroit felt they needed to rally their Indian allies and conduct a campaign that would constantly keep the Americans both fearful and off-balance. In this regard, Hamilton saw McKee as the key to his plans, writing the Lord George Germain, “I shall place great dependencies on his knowledge of the Country and of these people employed for its defense.”
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He immediately commissioned McKee as a captain in the British Indian Department and appointed Girty to an interpreter’s post. In the meantime, McKee, Elliott and Girty were accused and convicted of treason
in absentia
in a court in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From this point on, they were considered renegade outlaws and traitors who would be executed without further trial if captured, and the man who brought them in would receive a reward of $800.
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Hamilton and his successor, Major Arent DePeyster, made good use of both Girty and McKee. McKee spent the war years living among the Ohio nations, consulting with village councils, gathering intelligence, arranging for the exchange of captives and constantly conducting diplomacy aimed at maintaining the Crown’s alliance with the Indian nations.
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On occasion, McKee might organize raids against American military and civilian objectives along the frontier, but for the most part, he left that work to Simon Girty, who proved more adept than even McKee might ever have imagined possible.

Girty spent much of his time working with the Wyandot but also organized raids by Shawnee and Mingo warriors that ranged into southern Ohio and northern Kentucky, as well as western Pennsylvania and Virginia. Usually, these involved a few dozen warriors who would burn farmhouses, ambush supply trains and, most importantly, spread fear and panic among American settlers. Militarily, these attacks were nothing compared to the highly organized campaigns being fought east of the Alleghenies, and Congress considered them an irritant. However, for those citizens and leaders on the frontier, these persistent attacks were a matter of great significance, and they clamored loudly for increased military assistance.
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Most of all, however, these attacks also allowed Girty’s reputation to grow well beyond the reality of even his considerable capabilities. Simon’s ability to mount protracted raids all along the frontier gave the impression that he was everywhere at once, capable of suddenly appearing to inflict deadly harm and then disappearing into the dense forest only to appear and strike elsewhere with stunning speed. The Indians he led often scalped, burned and tortured, and while there is no record of his participating in these kinds of activities, he did not appear moved to stop them either. As a result, he gained a perhaps unwarranted reputation for cruelty and barbarism, as well.

Feelings against Girty ran especially high around Pittsburgh. For his part, Girty did not seem to feel he was doing anything dishonorable, and when he heard about the bounty placed on his head, he sent word to Pittsburgh that he “expected no mercy from the Americans and would give none.”
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However, at the same time, Girty’s notoriety did have some purely military value, as American soldiers and even their commanders grew to fear him. On one occasion, a force of 260 militia besieging a Shawnee town near Chillicothe received a false report that Girty was approaching with one hundred Mingo warriors. Rather than stay and fight, the militia elected to burn a few buildings and beat a hasty retreat, even though they vastly outnumbered Girty and his phantom Mingo army.
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Later, when the American general William Irvine was contemplating a new campaign against the Wyandot on the Sandusky River and British-Indian forces at Detroit, the attack was cancelled because of Girty’s presence. One officer wrote in a letter to a comrade, “The chance is now against General Irvine’s succeeding…and, it is said, [he] set out with only 1,200 men. Simon Girty can outnumber him; and, flushed with so many victories, to his natural boldness, he will be confident.”
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By the war’s end in 1783, both McKee and Girty had performed valuable service on behalf of His Majesty’s government. The Americans not only made no gains on the frontier, but also their hold on what they did control was often shaky, at best, and both McKee and Girty were largely responsible for that success. McKee’s stature within the British Indian Department grew during the war, and he was considered a “capable and energetic officer who displayed uncommon influence among the Crown’s native allies.”
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Further, McKee found the work rewarding in that it allowed him to expand his diplomatic and military efforts to the Northern Lakes tribes, with whom he had little contact before the war. Girty, meanwhile, although likely seen as far less refined than his more educated associate, was considered a man of great influence among the Indians, respected for his leadership and bravery.

However, both Girty and McKee were surprised when, in May 1783, they discovered that the British government had given away all the Indian lands of Ohio and Kentucky to the Americans. Although the Crown’s negotiators had ensured that the Mohawks were provided lands in Canada, they made no such provision for Indians of the Ohio Valley. British leaders ordered Major DePeyster to say nothing of this to Indian leaders, and he dispatched McKee and Girty on missions to tell the Indian nations that the war was over and that they should now end their raids on the Americans. In July, a meeting in Detroit that included the leaders of eleven Indian nations followed these missions. During this conference, the British superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir John Johnson, gave the Indians a rather mixed message. He told them they should all make peace with the Americans, that the British could no longer support them if they chose to make war and that, at the same time, they should be prepared to defend their lands if the Americans invaded. Soon, however, the Indians learned that their British allies had betrayed them, and both Girty and McKee spent much time traveling among the villages conducting diplomacy designed to ensure the Indians would still cooperate with the British.
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As the months passed, Girty became less active, and while he officially remained an interpreter on the British Indian Department staff, he did so only at half pay. A grateful British government gave him land in Canada near Detroit, and he settled down to do some farming, even marrying a twenty-year-old former Indian captive named Catherine Malott.
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However, it was not long before Alexander McKee once again asked for his help, and Girty would spend most of the next six years traveling among the Indians, occasionally stirring up resentment toward the Americans but more often assisting with treaty negotiations and council meetings.

Part of this work also involved the ransoming and exchange of American captives, like Phebe, who were adopted and living with the various nations. This is an area of the Girty legend where, perhaps, he was most vilified and wrongly so. Throughout the American Revolution and the frontier conflicts that followed, both McKee and Girty made substantial efforts on behalf of captives, saving men from torture and death while ensuring the return of women and children to their families. However, in Girty’s case, all the good he might have done was overshadowed by one event, and sadly, the version of what happened in that case was also exaggerated and stretched by Americans of the time to match the Girty of legend and not the real man.

The case referred to here is that of Colonel William Crawford, which occurred in June 1782 in the wake of the Gnadenhutten massacre. Crawford, the land speculator friend of Washington and Dunmore’s War associate of Simon Girty, was given a force of 480 men and ordered by Generals Hand and Irvine to penetrate the Ohio Country, where he was to destroy the “Indian town and settlement at Sandusky.” Interestingly, Crawford competed for command of the expedition with the same Colonel Williamson who had perpetrated the atrocities at Gnadenhutten. But in the end, General Irvine preferred Crawford, who was considered the more experienced officer.
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Crawford’s force left Mingo Bottom on May 25 and made slow progress across Ohio. However, their approach was far from stealthy, and Girty and his Indian allies were aware of the column and its intended target. They amassed hundreds of Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee warriors, and on June 4, as Crawford’s men approached the Wyandot town near the Sandusky, the Americans were attacked by this combined force. A running battle ensued that lasted over two days, with disastrous results for the Americans. While they would claim only 50 dead, British sources reported more than 250 Americans dead or captured. However, worst of all for Colonel Crawford, the Delawares captured him as he attempted to lead the shattered remnants of his command away in retreat.
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Two days later, Girty learned that the Delawares had taken a “big captain” prisoner and that they intended to burn him in retaliation for the massacre of their people at Gnadenhutten. Girty assumed they had captured Williamson, but when he arrived at the Delaware village, he discovered that William Crawford was actually the man taken prisoner. At this point, popular legend and more recent histories diverge as to Girty’s role in Crawford’s fate. The old legends are that Girty laughed at Crawford and cheered the Indians on as they brutally tortured him and finally burned him alive at the stake. These stories all insist that Girty did little or nothing to defend his old comrade and prevent his death.
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However, recent historians have provided a version that seems far more credible given Girty’s other attempts to save American captives.

Girty tried to tell the Delaware leaders that Crawford was not Williamson and he should not be punished for Gnadenhutten, but they would not listen. Instead, they told him they would march Crawford to the village of Captain Pipe the next morning, where he would be tried for his crimes. On learning this news, Girty went to see Crawford and explain the situation to him. An American captive, Elizabeth Turner, was present at Girty’s first meeting with Crawford, and she said that after Girty told the horrified Crawford that he would be tried for the Gnadenhutten massacre, Crawford begged Girty to help him and offered to reveal military intelligence information in return for his safety. Girty then proposed an escape plan, but Crawford said he did not have the strength to make the attempt.
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The next day, Crawford was marched to Captain Pipe’s village to stand trial, arriving there to find a large, angry crowd awaiting him. When the trial began, Girty acted as Crawford’s interpreter and spokesman as they listened to the Delaware chiefs angrily blaming Crawford for the massacre of their people. One of these chiefs, Wingenund, later told a missionary of the anger he expressed at Crawford’s trial, saying, “These Indians believed all their teachers had told them, of what was written in the Book, and strove to act according! It was on account of the Great Book you have, that these Indians trusted so much to what you told them! We knew you better than they did! We often warned them to beware of you and your pretended friendship: but they would not believe us! They believed nothing but good of you, and for this they paid with their lives!”
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With Girty’s help, Crawford told the chiefs that he was not involved in what happened at Gnadenhutten and sincerely regretted what had been done there by the American militia under Williamson. The chiefs appeared to listen intently, but then some damning testimony was offered by Captain Pipe’s elderly sister-in-law, a woman named Micheykapeeci. To Crawford’s great misfortune, she was the woman who had survived General Hand’s attack on the abandoned village during the Squaw Campaign, and she had seen Crawford among the American officers that day. Far worse, she accused him of being in command of the men who had killed Captain Pipe’s brother and mother that fateful morning. Hearing this, Captain Pipe immediately condemned Crawford to death by fire.