Boone: A Biography (39 page)

Boonesborough, 18th July, 1778

Dear Colonel:

Enclosed is my deposition with that of Mr. Hancock, who arrive here yesterday. He informed us of both French and Indians coming against us to the number of near four hundred, whom I expect here in twelve days from this. If men can be sent to us in five or six weeks, it would be of infinite service, as we shall lay up provisions for a siege. We are all in fine spirits, and have good crops growing, and intend to fight hard in order to secure them. I shall refer you to the bearer for particulars of this country.

I am & etc.

Daniel Boone

While he would concede that Boone had indeed saved the salt boilers by his actions in February, William Hancock was often heard to complain about the tribulations he had suffered among the Shawnees as adopted son of the chief Capt. Will Emery. What had irritated him most was Boone’s apparent cheerfulness at Chillicothe. While Hancock and the other prisoners had been depressed and worried, Boone had seemed to enjoy his new position among the Indians. Boone’s cheerful acceptance of his life with Blackfish’s family had offended some. Hancock “
used afterwards to say
that he could not understand how Boone could go whistling about apparently so contented among a parcel of dirty Indians when he (Hancock) was constantly melancholy.”

When the expected force still had not arrived in August, Boone proposed a scouting expedition across the Ohio to find out where the Shawnees were. Richard Callaway angrily opposed the plan, saying it would weaken the defending force at Boonesborough, just when the
Shawnees might attack. Boone argued that besides news about the Shawnees they could capture enough horses and furs at Paint Creek Town on the Scioto River to make the expedition worthwhile.

Boone won the argument and took about thirty men north to the Blue Licks. Perhaps one of his motives was just to
do
something, after waiting and waiting. Certainly he was anxious to quiet the rumors and questions about his loyalty with a demonstration of leadership and decisive action. But it is also likely Boone wanted to let Blackfish and the Shawnees know he had no intention of surrendering Boonesborough and that if they carried out the raid as planned many Indians, as well as whites, would be killed. According to John Mason Peck, “
The object of Boone, in this expedition
, was to alarm the Indians for the safety of their own towns and divert their attention from their premeditated attack on Boonesborough.” It may have been Boone’s concern for saving Indian lives as well as white lives that infuriated Callaway most.

Once the group crossed the Ohio on rafts and entered the Shawnee country, they had a skirmish with a band of warriors who were on their way to join Blackfish’s gathering army. Since his group had been spotted, Boone knew it was time to return at once to Boonesborough. On this raid young Simon Kenton shot two Indians with the same bullet, killing one and wounding the other. Kenton and Alexander Montgomery remained behind in Ohio to spy on the Shawnee towns.

The large Indian force was already south of the Ohio River. Boone and his men recrossed the river and hurried day and night to reach Boonesborough, swinging wide around the Shawnee and British army to avoid detection and confrontation. They arrived back at the fort on September 6 and warned the residents that the Shawnees were camped just to the north, at the Blue Licks.

Between ten and fifteen men had arrived from Harrodsburg and Logan’s Station to reinforce the defenders of Boonesborough. About sixty men were gathered at the fort the next day, September 7, 1778, when Blackfish and his army crossed the Kentucky River at a ford about a half mile downstream. No help had arrived from Col. Arthur
Campbell or the Virginia militia, but much corn had been harvested and stored in cribs inside the fort. A great many cattle and other livestock had been brought into the enclosure. It was a clear warm day, and early in the morning women had gone to the spring for water. Boone and others patrolled the perimeter of the clearing.

Blackfish and his large party, which included the French Canadian Antoine de Quindre and a company of Detroit militia, and about four hundred Shawnees and other Indians, several chiefs, including Moluntha, as well as the Girty brothers, first appeared behind the ridge parallel to the rear of the fort. Boone spotted them in the trees there and hurried back to the stockade, yelling for his nephews Moses and Isaiah, who had been watering the stock, to run back to the fort. The boys had thought the Indians were the militia from Virginia finally coming to their rescue. They dashed back to the fort and the gate was closed.

The large body of Indians gathered in the meadow where all could see, about three hundred yards away. The Tory militia planted its flags and the Shawnees built an arbor in the peach orchard, as a headquarters for the chiefs, by cutting off the tops of trees and laying brush and tent cloth over poles fixed to the trunks. The people inside the fort waited, and after about half an hour, Pompey, the large black translator, approached the stockade carrying a flag of truce. Four hundred and fifty feet from the wall he called out for Capt. Daniel Boone. Boone answered and Pompey yelled that Chief Blackfish had come to accept the surrender of Boonesborough, as Boone had promised last February. Pompey said he had letters from Governor Hamilton guaranteeing safe conduct to Detroit for all the settlers. Boone and the other leading men conferred and demanded to see the letters. But suddenly a voice was heard calling all the way from the camp in the peach orchard. “Sheltowee, Sheltowee!” Blackfish shouted. Pompey said that Blackfish wanted to talk to Boone, and Boone agreed to go outside the fort and meet the chief sixty yards from the gate. The riflemen from the walls of the stockade would cover him.

Many of those in the fort were surprised at Boone’s willingness to go
out and meet with the war chief. Richard Callaway in particular would remember the ease with which Boone agreed to parley as proof of his complicity with the Shawnees. All watched from the walls as Blackfish and Moluntha and several other chiefs came forward from the peach orchard to speak with Boone.

Blackfish and Boone greeted each other and shook hands as father and son. They sat on a blanket while several young Shawnees held branches over their heads for shade. John Gass, who was just a boy, watched from the walls of the fort with the others. “
Everyone in the fort was then sure
that Boone was gone,” he said later. Others said they feared Boone was going to betray them and surrender to the Shawnees and British.

“My son, what made you leave me?” Blackfish said with tears streaming down his face. Blackfish was at least as good an actor as Boone. “I wanted to see my wife and children,” Boone said. “
If you had only let me know I would have let you
go at any time,” Blackfish answered. Boone knew nothing could be further from the truth.

Chief Moluntha broke into the friendly exchange and asked Boone why he had killed Moluntha’s son on the Ohio. Boone countered that he had not been on the Ohio. “
It was you,” Moluntha said
. “I tracked you here to this place.” Boone had the embarrassment of being caught in a lie. He had certainly been in Ohio, but he hadn’t known that Moluntha’s son had been killed in the raid on Paint Creek Town.

Josiah Collins later told Rev. John Dabney Shane that Blackfish gave Boone an ultimatum. “
Well Boone, I have come to take
your fort. If you will surrender, I will take you all to Chillicothe, and you shall be treated well. If not I will put all the other prisoners to death, & reserve the young squaws for wives.”

Blackfish gave Boone a letter from Hamilton and reminded him of his promise to deliver Boonesborough without a battle, made in the snow in February when he had surrendered the salt boilers at the Lower Blue Licks. Hamilton’s letter offered pardon and safe conduct
for all who surrendered and came to Detroit. The British would replace lost property and give officers equivalent rank in British forces. However, if the Americans did not surrender, they would have to face the Shawnees and there was no more he could do for them. Blackfish then showed Boone a wampum belt, which was the Shawnee letter to Boonesborough. Three trails of beads connected the two ends, red for war, black for death, white for peace. Boone had to choose which path would be taken. Boone replied that there was much he had to think about and talk about with the other officers at Boonesborough. Since he had been gone so long, others had taken his place of command and he could only consult with them about a reply.

Blackfish agreed to wait for an answer but mentioned that his people were hungry. Since the Indians could take what they wanted outside the fort anyway, Boone offered them cattle and corn in the fields, asking that they not waste any. Blackfish presented Boone with seven cured buffalo tongues as a delicacy for “your women.” Treating each other with friendliness and dignity, Sheltowee and Blackfish smoked a pipe together and shook hands, and Boone returned to the fort.

Those inside the stockade suggested that the seven buffalo tongues were poisoned, but Boone assured them that the Shawnees would not attempt such a ploy. When the delicacies were sampled he proved to be right.

As the men inside the fort discussed Hamilton’s letter and Blackfish’s demands, Richard Callaway saw both as further evidence of Boone’s treachery. Boone explained again that his actions at Detroit and at the Blue Licks had been a scheme to survive and return to fortify and defend Boonesborough. Boone said that even with the overwhelming army outside, they might be able to negotiate a peace. “
Boon was blamed for this proposal
; but he only meant to shake off responsibility, and in going to make a treaty, he did it w. the intention of detaining till the soldiers came.” Samuel South, who was a boy present at the discussion, later said about half the men wanted to surrender and half
wanted to fight.
Boone asked for a show of hands
or a step forward from those who wanted to surrender. “
I will kill the first man who
proposes surrender,” Richard Callaway snapped. William Smith, who was second in command, advised that they reject the proposal and fight.
Squire Boone added his voice
to the discussion, saying he would fight to the death. The vote when it was taken was unanimous: they would fight. “
Well, well, I’ll die
with the rest,” Boone said.

Throughout his life Boone tried to avoid war by any means possible. But here he had no choice. The Shawnees were outside the fort and the vote had been taken. Still, it made sense to bargain for time before the killing started. Each additional day gave them time to strengthen the defenses and increased the chances that the Virginia militia might arrive with reinforcements. Boone and William Smith were chosen to parley again. Boone called to Pompey from the wall and a meeting was arranged for that afternoon.

As far as we know, Boone wore his hunting clothes to the meeting, but Smith came out dressed in a fine uniform, red tunic and plumed hat. Clothes then, as now, spoke their own language. “
Dress served as a potent symbol
of identity in an exotic world of strangers . . . Visibly stressing the military credentials of their own side, Boone and Smith reported that there were still more commanders within the fort.” They all sat down on a panther skin in front of the fort and Blackfish asked for a reply to Hamilton’s letter. Smith answered with great formality that the offer was indeed generous, but traveling all the way to Detroit would be a great hardship for women and children and old folks.

“
I have brought forty horses
and mares for the old people and women and children to ride,” Blackfish answered. Boone thanked his Shawnee father, but said there were many leaders in the fort who had to be consulted. Blackfish agreed to another day of talks, but Boone later said he saw in the chief’s eyes a hardening as he began to suspect that Sheltowee was just stalling. According to John Gass, “
He saw that the indns were getting angry
.” Boone had promised months before to surrender the fort. So many delays did not bode well. However, Blackfish
agreed to a list of ground rules for the duration of the negotiations. No Indians would come within thirty yards of the fort, and the settlers would not carry arms outside the fort. The Indians could help themselves to the cattle and crops they needed, while women would be free to go to the spring for water. But it was clear to Boone that this was the last delay they could arrange.

Blackfish’s patience and willingness to negotiate and delay have seemed odd to many over the years. We don’t know how much he trusted Boone to keep his word and surrender the fort as promised. What is clear is that he preferred to negotiate, hoping for a surrender, rather than to attack the fort outright. His reward would be greater if he delivered living prisoners to Hamilton in Detroit, rather than killing them in Kentucky and selling only the scalps. And though his army was much greater than the force inside the stockade, an assault on such a fort was by no means a sure thing. In fact, experience proved that without artillery it was almost impossible for an army of rifles and tomahawks and bows and arrows to take a palisaded enclosure with blockhouses at each corner. Though the roofs were not completed, the second stories of the blockhouses jutted out over the walls so riflemen could shoot at anyone attempting to climb or burn the palisades or ram the gates. Blackfish did not know how many men were inside the fort, and given such odds, his patience and willingness to negotiate show what a wise and experienced leader he was.

Since they knew their time was running out, those within the fort stepped up their defensive efforts. Riflemen stood along the walls and walkways showing weapons, and women dressed as men walked back and forth in front of the gate to make the attackers think there was a greater force inside the stockade than the sixty men. Those inside put dressed-up dummies at strategic places to look like additional defenders. Luckily Hamilton had been misinformed about the number of militia who had arrived in Kentucky that summer and had passed along this exaggerated figure to the Shawnees. There was a well in the fort, but it gave little water. Men had begun digging another well in
the enclosure, and women took everything that would hold water to the spring and filled it. Indians watching called out to them, “
Fine squaws, fine squaws!
”