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On the 9th Simon Girty arrived in camp bringing a message from Lord Dunmore, which bade Lewis meet him at the Indian towns near the Pickaway plains. Lewis was by no means pleased at the change, but nevertheless prepared to break camp and march next morning. He had with him at this time about eleven hundred men.
Then, full tilt he fairly rammed into the very midst of a party of other Shawnees, who had come out from the village. It was a sickening disappointment. He quit, breathless, and they seized him, put a rope around his neck, this time, and led him to the town. The village was Pickaway or Piqua, just south of present Springfield in west central Ohio, on the road to Wakatomica.
His face was painted black, the death color, and he was twice sentenced to be burned alive, at the Pickaway Plains and at Sandusky. But each time he was saved at the last moment, once through a sudden spasm of mercy on the part of the renegade Girty, his old companion in arms at the time of Lord Dunmore's war, and again by the powerful intercession of the great Mingo chief, Logan.
Her talk was always a red talk and she never addressed me except in Shawnee. From her I learned we were making for Cornstalk's Town, some twenty-five miles above Chillicothe, located on Scippo Creek. Among border men this region was known as the Pickaway Plains. Near our destination was Grenadier Squaw's Town, named after Cornstalk's gigantic sister.
In 1774 Lord Dunmore marched with three thousand Virginians to destroy the Indian towns on the Scioto in Pickaway County. He cannot be said to have led his men, who believed in neither his courage nor his good faith, and who thought that he was more anxious to treat with the savages for the advantage of England in the Revolutionary War, which he knew was coming, than to attack their capital.
Lewis left his sick and wounded in the camp at the Point, protected by a rude breastwork, and with an adequate guard. With the remainder of his forces, over a thousand strong, he crossed the Ohio, and pushed on to the Pickaway plains. When but a few miles from the earl's encampment he was met by a messenger informing him that a treaty of peace was being negotiated with the Indians.
A few days later, General Lewis joined Lord Dunmore who headed the other wing of the army, which had proceeded by the way of Forts Pitt and Gower on the Pickaway plains, in Ohio; and there a treaty was made with the Indians, who assented to every proposition made them.
Invasion of Kentucky by Captain Byrd's party He captures the garrisons at Ruddle's Station and Martin's Fort Colonel Clark's invasion of the Indian country He ravages the Indian towns Adventure of Alexander McConnell Skirmish at Pickaway Result of the expedition Boone goes to the Blue Licks with his brother Attacked by the Indians Boone's brother killed Boone promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel Clark's galley Squire Boone's Station removed to Bear's Creek Attack by the Indians Colonel Floyd's defeat Affair of the McAfees Attack on McAfee's Station repelled Fort Jefferson evacuated Attack on Montgomery Station Rescue by General Logan.
But one skirmish was fought, and that at the Indian village of Pickaway. The loss was the same on both sides, seventeen men being killed in each army. Some writers who have not the slightest objection to war, very gravely express doubts as to whether the expedient of destroying the crops of the Indians was justifiable.
The Shawnees continued even in 1776 to send in to the Americans white prisoners collected from among their outlying bands, in accordance with the terms of the treaty entered into on the Pickaway plains. But the southwestern Indians were not held in check by memories of recent defeat, and they were alarmed by the encroachments of the whites.
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