rdship. The next day,
the last rear guard, with the remaining beeves, arrived
from the mouth of the Elk, and while work on the defenses at
the Point was hurried, preparations were made for the march.
By evening of the 17th, Lewis, with 1,150 men in good
condition, had crossed the Ohio and gone into camp on the north
side. Each man had ten days' supply of flour, a half pound of
powder, and a pound and a half of bullets; while to each
company was assigned a pack-horse for the tents. Point
Pleasant was left in command of Col. Fleming,--who had been
severely wounded in the battle,--Captains Dickinson,
Lockridge, Herbert, and Slaughter, and 278 men, few of whom
were fit for service. On the 18th, Lewis, with Captain
Arbuckle as guide, advanced towards the Shawnee towns, eighty
miles distant in a straight line, and probably a hundred and
twenty-five by the circuitous Indian trails. The army marched
about eleven miles a day, frequently seeing hostile parties
but engaging none. Reaching the salt licks near the head of
the south branch of Salt Creek (in the present Lick township,
Jackson county, O.), they descended that valley to the
Scioto, and thence to a prairie on Kinnikinnick (not Kilkenny)
Creek, where was the freshly-deserted Indian village
referred to above, by Withers. This was thirteen miles south of
Chillicothe (now Westfall). Here they were met, early on the
24th, by a messenger from his lordship, ordering them to
halt, as a treaty was nearly concluded at Camp Charlotte. But
Lewis's army had been fired on that morning, and the place was
untenable for a camp in a hostile country, so he concluded to
seek better ground. A few hours later another messenger came,
again peremptorily ordering a halt, as the Shawnees had
practically come to terms. Lewis now concluded to join the
northern division in force, at Camp Charlotte, not liking to
have the two armies separated in the face of a treacherous
enemy; but his guide mistook the trail, and took one leading
directly to the Grenadier Squaw's Town. Lewis camped that
night on the west bank of Congo Creek, two miles above its
mouth, and five and a quarter miles from Chillicothe, with
the Indian town half-way between. The Shawn