it. In March a party of twenty-five Wyandots came into the settlements,
passed Boonsborough, and killed and scalped a girl within sight of
Estill's Station. The men from the latter, also to the number of
twenty-five, hastily gathered under Captain Estill, and after two days'
hot pursuit overtook the Wyandots. A fair stand-up fight followed, the
better marksmanship of the whites being offset, as so often before, by
the superiority their foes showed in sheltering themselves. At last
victory declared for the Indians. Estill had despatched a lieutenant and
seven men to get round the Wyandots and assail them in the rear; but
either the lieutenant's heart or his judgment failed him, he took too
long, and meanwhile the Wyandots closed in on the others, killing nine,
including Estill, and wounding four, who, with their unhurt comrades,
escaped. It is said that the Wyandots themselves suffered heavily.
[Footnote: Of course not as much as their foes. The backwoodsmen (like
the regular officers of both the British and American armies in similar
cases, as at Grant's and St. Clair's defeats) were fond of consoling
themselves for their defeats by snatching at any wild tale of the losses
of the victors. In the present instance it is even possible that the
loss of the Wyandots was very light instead of very heavy.]

These various ravages and skirmishes were but the prelude to a far more
serious attack. In July the British captains Caldwell and McKee came
down from Detroit with a party of rangers, and gathered together a great
army of over a thousand Indians [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter from
Capt. Caldwell, August 26, 1782; and letter of Captain McKee, August 28,
1782. These two letters are very important, as they give for the first
time the British and Indian accounts of the battle of the Blue Licks; I
print them in the Appendix.]--the largest body of either red men or
white that was ever mustered west of the Alleghanies during the
Revolution. They meant to strike at Wheeling; but while on their march
thither were suddenly alarmed by the rumor that Clark intended to attack
the Shawnee towns. [Footnote: This rumor was caused by Clark's gunboat,
which, as will be hereafter mentioned, had been sent up to the mouth of
the Licking; some Shawnees saw it, and thought Clark was preparing for
an inroad.] They at once countermarched, but on reaching the threatened
towns found that the alarm had been groundless. Most of the savages,
with chara