Boone: A Biography (48 page)

Boone knew an ambush was one of the Indians’ favorite tactics, and all the signs pointed to an ambush. The militia arrived at the Licking River, near the Blue Licks, early on Monday morning, August 19. One version of events is that Todd and Trigg called a meeting of the officers and Boone warned them that an ambush was likely. He pointed to the terrain across the river, where the stream made a long, looping bend, roughly in the shape of a sock. Much of the rising ground inside the loop had been licked and trampled bare over the centuries. But farther up the hill, on the higher ground, three ravines dropped off the height going down to the river. On the right a razor-backed ridge ran above the trail, giving a commanding view of the approach uphill. The ravines and ridge were perfect hiding places for the Indians as they watched the Kentuckians advance over the bare, sloping ground. When the Kentucky militia arrived,
they saw some Indians hurrying
across the river, the spies who had been monitoring their approach.

Some accounts say the officers held a conference, while several Indians strolled out in plain view far up the hill, smoking their pipes. Boone pointed out that they were decoys, hoping to suggest that there were just a few unsuspecting Indians in the woods across the hill, and that the large force was already far away, near the Ohio River. Boone had hunted and camped at the Blue Licks many times. It was here he had surrendered the salt boilers to Blackfish and the Shawnees. It was near here that he had rescued his daughter Jemima and the two Callaway girls. “
They wish to seduce a pursuing enemy
into an ambush,” Boone argued. Boone’s experience and his argument and the evidence he presented seemed to persuade Colonels Todd and Trigg to wait for Logan’s larger force. “
I caution you against crossing the river
at any
rate, before spies have reconnoitered the ground,” Boone added. It was at this point that McGary, still smarting from Todd’s humiliating suggestion at Bryan’s Station, asserted there was no reason for delay.

For the sake of argument the officers began to discuss the choice of tactics, if they did decide to attack immediately. Boone suggested that if they made a move now they should divide their men and let half cross the river at a ford upstream. Then the two groups could attack the Indians from different sides, weakening the effects of an ambush. Boone’s plan might have been adopted and executed by a better organized and better trained force. Neal O. Hammon writes, “
Another account by Boone’s grandson was
that Boone suggested that they only reconnoiter in the rear of [British officer] Caldwell.” This would have been excellent advice, to gather intelligence about the size and position of the enemy before rushing ahead. But militias rarely used complex strategies or even flanking movements. They either fired from the cover of trees or rushed straight ahead into a battle.
Two men volunteered to ride
along the river looking for Indians, but they came back after a few minutes reporting they had seen none.

“
By Godly,” McGary shouted
, “why not fight them then?” And then he turned to Boone and said he had never known Daniel to be a coward before. “No man has ever dared to call me a coward,” Boone shot back. Tears came into Boone’s eyes he was so surprised and hurt by the accusation. His integrity and long experience with Indians seemed to count for little in the face of such anger. Boone, the man of caution, who tried to avoid bloodshed, calm in emergencies, was swept aside in an instant of fury. In Nathan Boone’s account, “‘
I can go as far [in an Indian fight] as any man
,’” Boone shouted back, “and took his place in front of the advancing soldiers, as did the other officers.”
Nathan’s wife, Olive, told Draper
that Boone felt McGary was angry because it was Boone who had suggested they wait for Logan’s larger force.

As tempers flared, McGary, still mounted on his horse, yelled, “
Them that ain’t cowards follow me
, and I’ll show where the yellow dogs are.” The men that McGary had brought from Harrodsburg followed
him, and then others followed also. An evil chemistry seemed to be at work. None of the men wanted to be seen by their fellow soldiers as cowards. Once a few went, the others had to go. The colonels watching them follow the excited major were helpless to stop the process set in motion. As most of the men rode their horses into the river, Todd and Trigg and Boone rode with them. It was the worst mistake of Boone’s life. Some who knew him in later years said he never forgave himself for losing his temper at the Blue Licks that morning. Had he kept calm, as was his habit, he might have prevented the debacle. That he let himself be provoked by the unstable McGary showed a weakness in his leadership and in his character.

Other historians have argued that the conference of officers by the river never occurred. It was never mentioned in available records by any officers who were there but was first described by Humphrey Marshall in his 1824
History of Kentucky
. According to Neal O. Hammon, the small Kentucky army
may have paused only to cross
the river single file at a narrow ford. Colonel Todd’s first mistake was to place his men in a position where retreat would be so difficult. His second was to advance his men across a wide, open space toward an enemy concealed by trees and brush on higher ground.

All accounts agree that once across the river the militia was divided into three companies: Trigg led to the right, Harlin and McGary commanded the Lincoln County men in the middle, and Boone led his men from Fayette County on the left. The company included a number of his relatives, cousins, and nephews, as well as his son Israel. According to Levi Todd’s letter to his brother Robert, written August 26, 1782, one week after the battle, all the men in the militia rode their horses across the river. Still mounted they crossed almost three-quarters of a mile of open ground sloping upward inside the loop of the river. “
We rode up within 60 yards, dismounted
, gave and sustained a heavy and general Fire.” Apparently the Kentuckians did not get off their horses until they were within shooting range of the Indians hidden in the ravines and timber on the ridge.

Once on foot the three companies stretched out across the terrain in a long line, holding their rifles ready and advancing toward the brush and scattered trees. About two dozen men, led by Major Harlin, did not dismount but rushed forward ahead of the middle company, perhaps to probe the enemy’s positions. Those riders took the first fire, and all but two were killed.

It is a peculiar fact that in most battles each participant remembers events in a different way. The reason is that in the heat of action each sees his part of the field and never has the leisure to survey the whole. Frightened, excited, disoriented, a soldier may have a particular impression that is often a distortion. The Battle of the Blue Licks was no exception. Every man who was there and survived told a somewhat different version of events. The battle, once it began, unfolded quick as the flash and crash of lightning followed by thunder and was over so soon many were not sure exactly what had happened.

Almost all versions agree that Boone’s company advanced farthest up the hill into the woods along the first ravine, firing as they moved forward. According to Levi Todd they covered nearly a hundred yards of ground after dismounting. Later, when Boone studied the battle, he decided that the Indians had pulled back in front of him and his men to draw them into the trap of a ravine. It is possible Girty or Caldwell and the Indians had targeted Boone in particular, perhaps hoping to take him prisoner. As Boone led his men on foot up the flank of the hill, an Indian rose from behind a stump and Boone raised his gun. Boone was carrying a special fowling piece that he had loaded with extra powder and several bullets as well as buckshot, appropriate for fighting at close range. Before he pulled the trigger he said to the gun, “
You be there!
” as though giving an order, and after the blast the Indian fell dead. He later told his son Nathan that “
he was only positive
of having killed this one” Indian in his long life. Boone and his company pushed ahead, firing and reloading, and the Indians retreated in front of them. It appeared to Boone’s men from Fayette County that they were winning the battle.

The advantage the Kentucky settlers usually had over the Indians was their long rifles. Indians were more often armed with British muskets, which were far from accurate. Under the right conditions Kentuckians could kill Indians while out of range of all but the luckiest musket fire. But at the Blue Licks the militia advanced so close to the enemy in the brush and trees, they lost that superiority. A musket could be reloaded quicker than a rifle, and the Indians had tomahawks and war clubs, while the Kentuckians lacked bayonets and swords that could have been effective in close, hand-to-hand fighting. It appears almost certain the Indian forces fell back before Boone’s company, hoping to draw them farther into the woods and cut off their retreat.

Riding his horse near the middle of the line, Col. John Todd was hit in the left chest and fell soon after the battle started. The early loss of their leader likely shook the confidence of the advancing men. The fire from the brush was so intense and the scream of bullets so sickening, McGary’s line began to crumble. Men fired at the Indians and tried to reload in the smoke and confusion. Powder horns and bullet pouches dropped in the weeds and were lost. Bullets seemed to come from every direction, and so many fell that the rest panicked and started to back away, trying to recall where they had left their horses. Indians suddenly rushed at them swinging tomahawks, painted in the colors of war, red and black, their faces black as fiends from a nightmare. Indians sprang from every bush and bank of weeds, every briar patch and tangle of honeysuckle vines, and came tearing down the slope screaming at the limit of their breath and slashing with tomahawks and war clubs. For once the Long Knives did not have their long knives. The men from Lincoln County had nothing to swing but their empty rifles, and many had their heads bashed in with tomahawks as they turned to dash for their horses. Warriors advanced, shooting from rocks and stumps, ditches and buffalo wallows.

Those in the center of the field who looked to the right would have seen that things had gone even worse on that flank. Leading his men up the slope toward the woods at the top of the hill, Colonel Trigg had
ignored the steep ridge on his right, jutting between his company and the river. Assuming the Indians were hiding straight ahead, Trigg and his company were astounded when a thundering fire broke out from the sumac bushes and shrubs on the razor-backed ridge. It is possible more than half the Indian forces were concealed on that ridge, for the firing was so heavy from that direction that most of Trigg’s men, and Trigg himself, were killed in minutes. No other company took such extreme losses so quickly.

No sooner had the Indians, hidden in the brush along the ridge, delivered their deadly fire than they sprang out swinging tomahawks and clubs, killing survivors of the first fire, taking scalps and prisoners for later torture. But it was not just scalps and prisoners the Indians were after, for just down the slope stood as many as 180 horses, already saddled and bridled. Blankets and provisions, extra lead and powder, as well as booty such as knives and pistols, were tied to the saddles or hidden in the saddlebags.

Many of the horses brought into Kentucky by settlers were small breeds from Virginia and North Carolina, ancestors of the quarter horse. They were tough and quick and dependable. Few trophies of war were more valuable than captured horses. Luckily for the panicked and stumbling Kentuckians, many braves were more intent on seizing horses than taking scalps. Scores of Indians poured out of the thickets to grab the mounts. Swinging their rifles as clubs, some of the militia tried to resist, but they were outnumbered and overwhelmed. Those who were able began to run toward the river.

In the confusion of the firing, the screams and war whoops, smoke and smell of blood, the horses panicked too and ran back and forth and down the long slope toward the river. Indians pursued in a general stampede of horses, militia, and wounded toward the ford across the river.

Seeing they were cut off on the right and behind them, the men with McGary in the middle ran to the left to get behind Boone’s company. Boone, with his son Israel, nephews Samuel, Squire, and Thomas
Boone, Abraham, Peter, and Joseph Scholl, and other family members and friends, was still moving forward, firing and reloading, as Indians withdrew before them toward the hilltop and the second ravine. Boone’s calm authority kept his men organized and concentrating on the advance. They were not even aware of what had happened on their right and behind them. Boone’s authority as a leader was never demonstrated more clearly.

Boone and his men were astonished when McGary rode up behind them and yelled, “Boone, why are you not retreating?” It was only then that Boone looked across the slope and saw that Trigg and Todd and the two other companies had been swept away. The field behind them was a pandemonium of men scrambling to catch and mount horses, Indians clubbing and scalping, wounded men trying to reach the river, others attempting to wade or swim across. Indians on horses rode around tomahawking and trampling men, cutting them off at the water’s edge. Indians and white men wrestled in the river, thrashing and screaming. It appeared that most of the senior officers except Boone and McGary and Levi Todd had been killed.

Realizing that he had no choice, and that his company had been drawn dangerously forward, far beyond any safe retreat, Boone shouted to his men to run to the left into the trees. Farther down the ridge the Licking River entered a gorge. If they could reach the river in that direction they might be able to swim across to the safety of the woods on the south bank. Some would later say the battle lasted only five minutes, but other accounts would describe the action as occurring in about fifteen minutes. In any case, it all happened very quickly. Men who could catch a horse, any horse, mounted and rode for their lives. Those who could not find a horse ran toward the river, dodging Indians, hoping to dodge bullets, tomahawks, scalping knives. “
We . . . were obliged to retreat
,” was Boone’s cool understatement to Filson a year later.