g Indians hunting buffalo. When
within six miles of the Point, they found a plowshare, some
surveying-instruments, a shirt, a light blue coat and a human under
jaw-bone.

Shelby Cousin said the dead man was Thomas Hoog, who with two or three of
his men were reported killed by the Indians in the preceding April while
making improvements. Cousin insisted his death had been due to wild
animals or an accident, after which the animals had dragged his remains
into the woods. He argued that an Indian would never have left the coat or
the instruments.

We passed the seventh and eighth of the month in making the camp sanitary
and in building a shelter for the supplies yet to arrive down the river.
Preparations also went ahead for moving the army across the Ohio. Most of
the scouts were sent out to hunt up lost beeves, while a sergeant and
squad were despatched with canoes to the Elk after flour.

Three men came in from the Elk and reported that Colonel Christian was
camped there with two hundred and twenty men, that he had only sixteen
kettles, and was fearing his men would be ill from eating too much roast
meat "without broth." On the eighth there arrived more letters from
Governor Dunmore, in which His Lordship expressed his surprise and
annoyance because of our failure to appear at the Hockhocking.

This time Colonel Lewis was quite open in expressing his disgust at the
governor's lack of strategy. The Kanawha was the gate to Augusta,
Botetourt and Fincastle Counties. To leave it and move up-river would
leave the way open for the red army to stream into Virginia and work its
savagery while the colonials were cooped up on the Ohio or hunting Indian
wigwams in the wilderness.

In the package was a letter to our colonel from Colonel Adam Stephens,
second in command to His Excellency, which was given wide publicity.
Colonel Stephens reported very disagreeable news from Boston. It was to
the effect that General Gage had fired on the people at Cambridge. Later
we learned that while some gun-powder and two cannon had been seized by
His Majesty's troops there had been no massacre of the provincials. But
while the rumor remained uncontradicted it caused high excitement and
great rage.

On the evening of the ninth Cousin and I were ordered out to scout up the
river beyond Old Town Creek. Our camp was near the junction of the Kanawha
and the Ohio, almost at the tip of the Point. About a fourth of a mile to
the east is Crooked Cre