But the charge against Cresap appears to have
been unfounded. Logan's family being on a visit to a family of the name
of Great-house, were murdered by them and their associates, under
circumstances of extraordinary cowardice and brutality. The mistake is
one into which Logan might, in view of some recent transactions that had
happened under the command of Captain Cresap, naturally fall, and which
does not at all impair the force of his speech. Mr. Jefferson meeting
with a copy of it at Governor Dunmore's, in Williamsburg, transcribed it
in his pocket-book, and afterwards immortalized it in his "Notes on
Virginia." He gave implicit confidence to its authenticity. Doddridge is
of the same opinion. Jacob, in his Life of Cresap,[592:A] insinuates
that the speech was a counterfeit, and declares that Cresap was as
humane as brave, and had no participation in the massacre. General
George Rogers Clarke, who was well acquainted with Logan and Cresap
both, vouches for the substantial truth of Mr. Jefferson's story of
Logan. Devoting himself to the work of revenge, he, with others,
butchered men, women, and children; knives, tomahawks, and axes were
left in the breasts which had been cleft asunder; females were stripped,
and outraged, too horrible to mention; brains of infants beaten out and
the dead bodies left a prey to the beasts of the forest. The family of a
settler on the north fork of the Holston was massacred, and a war-club
was left in the house, and attached to it the following note, which had
been previously, at Logan's dictation, written for him by one Robinson,
a prisoner:--

"CAPTAIN CRESAP:

"What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white
people killed my kin at Conestoga a great while ago, and I
thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow
Creek, and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill
too; and I have been three times to war since; but the Indians
are not angry--only myself.

"CAPTAIN JOHN LOGAN.

"July 21st, 1774."

Thirty scalps it was known that he took in these murderous raids, but
he joined not in open battle.

Simon Kenton, a native of Fauquier County, a voyager of the woods, was
employed by Dunmore as a spy (together with Simon Girty) during this
campaign, in the course of which he traversed the country around Fort
Pitt, and a large part of the present State of Ohio. His