49,
Vol. I., August 6, 1782; No. 149, Vol. II., p. 461; No. 149, Vol. III.,
p. 183. Federal garrisons were occasionally established at, or withdrawn
from, other posts on the upper Ohio besides Fort Pitt; but their
movements had no permanent value, and only require chronicling by the
local, State, or county historians. In 1778 Fort McIntosh was built at
Beaver Creek, on the north bank of the Ohio, and Fort Laurens seventy
miles towards the interior. The latter was soon abandoned; the former
was in Pennsylvania, and a garrison was kept there.] Among many others
the forted village at Wheeling was again attacked. But its most
noteworthy siege occurred during the succeeding summer, when [Footnote:
The commanders at the unmolested forts and the statesmen who stayed at
home only saw those members of the tribes who claimed to be peaceful,
and invariably put the number of warriors on the warpath at far too low
a figure. Madison's estimates, for instance, were very much out of the
way, yet many modern critics follow him.] Simon Girty, with fife and
drum, led a large band of Indians and Detroit rangers against it, only
to be beaten off. The siege was rendered memorable by the heroism of a
girl, who carried powder from the stockade to an outlying log-house,
defended by four men; she escaped unscathed because of her very
boldness, in spite of the fire from so many rifles, and to this day the
mountaineers speak of her deed. [Footnote: See De Haas, 263-281, for the
fullest, and probably most accurate, account of the siege; as already
explained he is the most trustworthy of the border historians. But it is
absolutely impossible to find out the real facts concerning the sieges
of Wheeling; it is not quite certain even whether there were two or
three. The testimony as to whether the heroine of the powder feat was
Betty Zane or Molly Scott is hopelessly conflicting; we do not know
which of the two brothers Girty was in command, nor whether either was
present at the first attack. Much even of De Haas' account is, to put it
mildly, greatly embellished; as for instance his statement about the
cannon (a small French gun, thrown into the Monongahela when Fort Du
Quesne was abandoned, and fished up by a man named Naly, who was in
swimming), which he asserts cut "a wide passage" through the "deep
columns" of the savages. There is no reason to suppose that the Indians
suffered a serious loss. Wheeling was a place of little strategic
importance, an