ampment at Point
Pleasant. The Indians seemed to be fully aware that their only safety
was in the energies of desperation. One of the most bloody battles was
then fought, which ever occurred in Indian warfare. Though the
Virginians with far more potent weapons repelled their assailants, they
paid dearly for their victory. Two hundred and fifteen of the Virginians
fell dead or severely wounded beneath the bullets or arrows of their
foes. The loss which the savages incurred could never be ascertained
with accuracy. It was generally believed that several hundred of their
warriors were struck down on that bloody field.

The whites, accustomed to Indian warfare and skilled in the use of the
rifle, scarcely fired a shot which did not reach its mark. In the
cautious warfare between the tribes, fighting with arrows from behind
trees, the loss of fifteen or twenty warriors was deemed a great
calamity. Now, to find hundreds of their braves weltering in blood, was
awful beyond precedent, and gave them new ideas of the prowess of the
white man. In this conflict the Indians manifested a very considerable
degree of military ability. Having constructed a breastwork of logs,
behind which they could retreat in case of a repulse, they formed in a
long line extending across the point from the Kanawha to the Ohio. Then
they advanced in the impetuous attack through the forest, protected by
logs, and stumps, and trees. Had they succeeded in their assault, there
would have been no possible escape for the Virginian troops. They must
have been annihilated.

The Indians had assembled on that field nearly all the warriors of four
powerful tribes; the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo and Wyandotts. After the
repulse, panic-stricken, they fled through the wilderness, unable to
make any other stand against their foes. Lord Dunmore, with his
triumphant army flushed with victory and maddened by its serious loss,
marched rapidly down the left bank of the Ohio, and then crossed into
the valley of the Scioto to sweep it with flame. We have no account of
the details of this cruel expedition, but the following graphic
description of a similar excursion into the land belonging to the
Cherokees, will give one a vivid idea of the nature of these conflicts.

The celebrated Francis Marion, who was an officer in the campaign, and
an eye-witness of the scenes which he describes, gives the following
narrative of the events which ensued:

"Now commenced a scene of deva