of the forts, and the people returned to their several homes, and
respective occupations. But aggression was only suspended for a time.
In October, two Indians appeared near the house of Conrad Richards,
and finding in the yard a little girl at play, with an infant in her
arms, they scalped her and rushed to the door. For some time they
endeavored to force it open; but it was so securely fastened within,
that Richards was at liberty to use his gun for its defence. A
fortunate aim wounded one of the assailants severely, and the other
retreated, helping off his companion. The girl who had been scalped in
the yard, as soon as she observed the Indians going away, ran, with
the infant still in her arms and uninjured, and entered the house--a
spectacle of most heart-rending wretchedness.

Soon after, David Edwards, returning from Winchester with salt, was
shot near the Valley river, tomahawked and scalped; in which situation
he lay for some time before he was discovered. He was the last person
who fell a victim to savage vengeance, in North Western Virginia in
the year 1778.

The repeated irruptions of the Indians during the summer of the
year;[6] and the frequent murders and great devastation committed by
them, induced Government to undertake two expeditions into the Indian
country. One thousand men were placed under the command of General
McIntosh, some time in the fall, and he received orders to proceed
forthwith against the Sandusky towns. Between two and three hundred
soldiers were likewise placed under Colonel Clarke, to operate against
the Canadian settlements in Illinois. It was well known that the
Governor of those settlements was an indefatigable agent of British
cruelty, stimulating the savages to aggression, and paying them well
for scalps, torn alike from the heads of the aged matron and the
helpless infant.[7] [186] The settlements in Kentucky, were constantly
the theatre of outrage and murder; and to preserve these from entire
destruction, it was necessary that a blow should be aimed, at the
hives from which the savages swarmed, and if possible, that those
holds, into which they would retire to reap the rewards of their
cruelties and receive the price of blood, should be utterly broken up.
The success of those two expeditions could not fail to check savage
encroachments, and give quiet and security to the frontier; and
although the armies destined to achieve it, were not altogether
adequate to the service r