the Logan tragedy been made a fierce enemy of the whites, and was
now the leader of a thousand picked warriors, gathered from all parts
of the Northwest. On the 10th of October, from dawn until dusk, was
here waged in a gloomy forest one of the most bloody and
stubborn hand-to-hand battles ever fought between Indians and
whites--especially notable, too, because for the first time the rivals
were about equal in number. The combatants stood behind trees,
in Indian fashion, and it is hard to say who displayed the best
generalship, Cornstalk or Lewis.[B] When the pall of night covered the
hideous contest, the whites had lost one-fifth of their number, while
the savages had sustained but half as many casualties. Cornstalk's
followers had had enough, however, and withdrew before daylight,
leaving the field to the Americans.

A few days later, General Lewis joined Lord Dunmore--who headed the
other wing of the army, which had proceeded by the way of Forts Pitt
and Gower--on the Pickaway plains, in Ohio; and there a treaty was
made with the Indians, who assented to every proposition made them.
They surrendered all claim to lands south of the Ohio River, returned
their white prisoners and stolen horses, and gave hostages for future
good behavior.

Here at Point Pleasant, a year later, Fort Randolph was built, and
garrisoned by a hundred men; for, despite the treaty, the Indians were
still troublesome. For a long time, Pittsburg, Redstone, and Randolph
were the only garrisoned forts on the frontier. The Point Pleasant of
to-day is a dull, sleepy town of twenty-five hundred inhabitants, with
that unkempt air and preponderance of lounging negroes, so common to
small Southern communities. The bottom is rolling, fringed with
large hills, and on the Ohio side drops suddenly for fifty feet to
a shelving beach of gravel and clay. Crooked Creek, in whose narrow,
winding valley some of the severest fighting was had, empties into
the Kanawha a half-mile up the stream, at the back of the town. It was
painful to meet several men of intelligence, who had long been engaged
in trade here, to whom the Battle of Point Pleasant was a shadowy
event, whose date they could not fix, nor whose importance understand;
it seemed to be little more a part of their lives, than an obscure
contest between Matabeles and whites, in far-off Africa. It is time
that our Western and Southern folk were awakened to an appreciation of
the fact that they have a histor