and fifty, as one hundred of
General Lewis's men, including his best marksmen, were absent in the
woods hunting, and knew nothing of the battle until it was all over.
Among the killed were Colonel Charles Lewis, Colonel Field, who had
served in Braddock's war, Captains Buford, Morrow, Murray, Ward,
Cundiff, Wilson, and McClenachan, Lieutenants Allen, Goldsby, and
Dillon. Of the officers present at the battle of Point Pleasant many
became afterwards distinguished men.[586:A]

The loss of the savages was never ascertained; the bodies of
thirty-three slain were found, but many had been thrown into the Ohio
during the engagement. The number of the Indian army was not known
certainly, but it comprised the flower of the northern confederated
tribes, led on by Red Hawk, a Delaware chief; Scoppathus, a Mingo;
Chiyawee, a Wyandot; Logan, a Cayuga; and Ellinipsico, and his father,
Cornstalk, Shawnees. But some say that Logan was not present in the
battle. The Shawnees were a formidable tribe, who had played a prominent
part on many a bloody field. Cornstalk displayed great skill and courage
at Point Pleasant. It is said that on the day before the battle he had
proposed to his people to send messengers to General Lewis to see
whether a treaty of peace could be effected, but his followers rejected
the proposal. During the battle, when one of his warriors evinced a want
of firmness, he slew him with one blow of his tomahawk; and during the
day his sonorous voice was heard amid the din of arms exclaiming, in his
native tongue, "Be strong, be strong."

On the morning after the battle General Lewis buried his dead. They were
interred without the pomp of war, but the cheeks of hardy mountaineers
were bedewed with tears at the fate of their brave comrades. "The dead
bodies of the Indians who fell in battle were left to decay on the
ground where they expired, or to be devoured by birds or beasts of prey.
The mountain eagle, lord of the feathered race, while from his lofty
cairn with piercing eye he surveyed the varied realms around and far
beneath, would not fail to descry the sumptuous feast prepared for his
use. Here he might whet his beak, and feast, and fatten, and exult. Over
these the gaunt wolf, grim tyrant of the forest, might prolong his
midnight revelry and howl their funeral dirge. While far remote in the
deepest gloom of the wilderness, whither they had fled for safety, the
surviving warriors might wail their fate, or chant a