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Shortly after the troubles at Boonsborough, I went to them, and lived peaceably there until this time. The history of my going home, and returning with my family, forms a series of difficulties, an account of which would swell a volume, and being foreign to my purpose, I shall purposely omit them.
On the seventh day of February, as I was hunting, to procure meat for the company, I met with a party of one hundred and two Indians, and two Frenchmen, on their march against Boonsborough, that place being particularly the object of the enemy.
There was Boone with the famous Boonsborough men, the very name of whom was a terror; there was Trigg with men just as good from Harrodsburg; there was Todd, as good as either, with the men from Lexington. More than a fourth of the whole were commissioned officers, and more fearless men never faced an enemy.
The first retail store Kentucky had seen since Henderson's, at Boonsborough, was closed in 1775, was established this year at the Falls; the goods were brought in wagons from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, and thence down the Ohio in flat-boats.
In June a large war party gathered at Chillicothe to march against Boonsborough, and Boon determined to escape at all hazards, so that he might warn his mends. On reaching Boonsborough he at once set about putting the fort in good condition; and being tried by court-martial for the capture at the Blue Licks, he was not only acquitted but was raised to the rank of major.
When once aroused, however, few were so hardy as not to quail before the terrible fury of his anger. He was so honest and unsuspecting that he was very easily cheated by sharpers; and he died a poor man. Once, in a fight outside the stockade at Boonsborough, he saved the life of his leader by shooting an Indian who was on the point of tomahawking him.
A ride of some three hours brought us to Boonsborough, where I roused the unfortunate army-surgeon who had charge of the hospitals, and who was trying to get a little sleep after his fatigues and watchings. He bore this cross very creditably, and helped me to explore all places where my soldier might be lying among the crowds of wounded.
Early in the ensuing year, 1777, the county was accordingly organized; Harrodstown, or Harrodsburg, as it was now beginning to be called, was made the county seat, having by this time supplanted Boonsborough in importance.
The commands of General Jackson, McLaws and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the army at Boonsborough or Hagerstown. Each regiment on the march will habitually carry its axes in the regimental ordnance wagons, for use of the men at their encampments, to procure wood, etc. R. H. CHILTON, Assistant Adjutant General.
It was to the father of Lieutenant-Colonel Wilder Dwight, informing him that his son was grievously wounded in the same battle, and was lying at Boonsborough, a town a few miles this side of Keedysville. This I learned the next morning from the civil and attentive officials at the Central Telegraph-Office.
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