102 Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.
war for independence would have been
greatly at variance with
the desires of the American people.
[Authorities for the above article are:
John J. Jacob's Biography of
Michael Cresap; Olden Time-Monthly
historical paper printed by Nevin
B. Craig at Pittsburg, 1847; Statement
of George Rogers Clark; Wash-
ington-Crawford
Correspondence-Butterfield; Doddridge's Notes; Nar-
rative of Capt. John Stewart;
Pennsylvania Archives; McKiernan's Bor-
der History.-W. H. H.]
OHIO'S PART IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
BY E. O. RANDALL.
[This article was the substance of a
speech made by the author at the
banquet of the Ohio Sons and Daughters
of the American Revolu-
tion, at the Hollenden Hotel, Cleveland,
February 22, 1902.-
Editor.]
It has been said that Belgium is the
battleground of Europe.
Ohio may then be called the Belgium of
America. It is the
great battlefield of the United States.
For the Ohio Valley,
of which Ohio may be regarded as the
center, was the arena in
the contest of centuries between the
Latin and the Saxon races
for the American stakes. The French,
through their discoveries
up the St. Lawrence, along the great
lakes to the sources of
the Mississippi, and thence down that
great river course to
the Gulf of Mexico, claimed the
tributaries of those waterways,
including the territory east of the
Mississippi and south of the
chain of lakes, except that strip
settled by the English colonies
along the Atlantic coast, and reaching
back to the Allegheny
mountains. The English, by their right
of discovery and settle-
ment and through their royal charters
and patents, claimed the
extension of their rights west from the
Atlantic to the Mississippi
and even on beyond to the
"unknown" sea.
It was at Logstown, some twenty miles
below the site of
Pittsburg, 1753, when the first great
conference was held between
the three rival races. The Indian, the
native savage, represented
by Half King, chief of the Iroquois; St.
Pierre, representing
the French, and he whose name we
celebrate tonight, George
Ohio's Part in the American
Revolution. 103
Washington, representing the English.
The French claimed the
territory, as we have seen, by the right of discovery and
partial
settlement; the English by right of
extension of their undisputed
colonies; the Indian by the original
title of primeval occupa-
tion. There was no alternative but war,
and Braddock's defeat
a few years later was the opening event
of that series of his-
toric campaigns known as the French and
Indian war, lasting
seven years, until 1763. That war was
decided in that dramatic
encounter on the heights of Abraham at
Quebec, in which the in-
vincible Wolf led the British and the
intrepid Montcalm the
French. Both leaders died upon the field
of battle, but its gauge
was to the Saxon; and by the treaty of
Paris which followed,
France yielded to England all the
territory she protested had
been her possessions in the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys east
and south. The territory west of the
Mississippi was ceded to
Spain, thereafter known as the Louisiana
territory, and given
to Spain in lieu of her Florida and
Mexican Gulf domain, which
Spain in turn ceded to England. And now
the English flag
waved over Ohio soil, where before for a
century and a half
the French flag had floated. The
colonies had fought the French
war with the understanding that they
were to be, in case of
victory, its beneficiaries and be permitted to occupy the Ohio
Valley as a rich and valuable extension
to their Atlantic coast
lodgments. Our forefathers, even our
revolutionary sires, were
expansionists. But the war over, and
Britain triumphant, she
seized the territory west of the
Alleghenies in the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys as the exclusive
dominion of the crown. She
made it an Indian reservation, forbade
the colonists to settle
thereon, even forbidding pioneers of the
east and south to make
settlements except under licenses and
restrictions so great and
excessive as to amount almost to a
prohibition.
This was the situation until the year
1774, when the pro-
mulgation of the Quebec act, practically
renewing and enforcing
the exclusive policy of the crown,
aroused the indignation of
the colonists to such a degree that they
began to protest, and it
was one of the chief causes of the
declaration of independence.
The Earl of Dunmore was royal governor
of Virginia. Virginia
claimed her strip of this reservation to
the Mississippi, includ-
104 Ohio Arch. and His.
Society Publications.
ing what would now be the southern half
of Ohio. He resolved
to take up arms against the domination
of the crown.* It was
the first overt defiance of the Quebec
promulgation. True,
Ohio was then occupied mostly by Indians
who were the
subsidized allies of the English and who
were fighting equally
with England for the exclusion of the
colonies from this
territory that they (the Indians) might
preserve their hunt-
ing grounds and homes. Governor Dunmore
raised an army
of 3,000 and separated it into two
divisions of 1,500 each,
one of which divisions he took with him
to Pittsburg, and
there on flatboats floated down the Ohio
to the mouth of
the Hockhocking river, where he built a
stockade called
Fort Gower. He then proceeded to the
interior of the state
and encamped below the present site of
Chillicothe. The other
division of these Virginia frontiersmen
was under the com-
mand of General Andrew Lewis. He marched
to the mouth
of the Kanawha river intending to cross
the Ohio, but before
doing so was met at Point Pleasant by
the famous Indian chief,
Cornstalk, accompanied by other famous
chiefs, including Te-
cumseh's father, with some 2,000 braves.
A most desperate and
determined battle was fought in which
the Indians were signally
defeated.
That battle was an unique event in
border warfare. It was
solely an American victory. The whites
under Lewis were not
British soldiers, not even were they
organized colonial militia.
They were "minute men"
from the river banks and hillsides
of Virginia's interior. They were
backwoodsmen in buckskin
and homespun, settlers cradled and
reared in the privations and
hardships of pioneer life. The enemy was
the cruel red man
uncommanded and unattended by British or
French allies. There
[*It is not suggested, much less
claimed, that Dunmore took up
rebellious arms against his government
in favor of the independence of
the Virginia colony or the other
colonies. His expedition, however, was
in violation of the British provincial
dictation and in behalf of the exten-
sion of Virginian dominion into excluded
territory. That his purpose was
a double-faced one, namely to arouse the
red men against the colonists
and thus intimidate the latter is not
here referred to. For that view of
Dunmore's War see the excellent article
by Mr. Hunter in another part
of this publication.-E. 0. R.]
Ohio's Part in the American
Revolution. 105
were in that opposing force only chosen
Indian braves officered
by skilled and crafty chiefs
That was the first battle of the
revolution, fought on October
10, 1774,
six months before the shot was fired at Lexington that
"echoed around the world." It
was the first blow for American
freedom, struck on the banks of the
Ohio, by Virginia frontiers-
men. Lewis and his troops proceeded to
join Dunmore when
a treaty with the Indians was secured
and the entire army began
their march home by way of Hockhocking.
On arriving at
Fort Gower this Virginia army for the
first time received the
news of the assembling of the First
Continental Congress at
Philadelphia and the officers of the
army held a meeting and
passed a resolution to the effect, after
complimenting the suc-
cess of their general, that they
professed allegiance to the king
and crown, but added that "their
devotion would only last while
the king deigned to reign over a free
people, for their love of
liberty for America outweighed all other
considerations, and they
would exert every power for its defense
when called forth by the
voice of their countrymen." This was the first
declaration of in-
dependence, declared by Virginia
volunteers at the mouth of
the Hockhocking on that soil that was
subsequently to be con-
secrated as the great state of Ohio.
The war of the revolution was now on. It
waged gloriously
and courageously along the New England
coast, but no less po-
tently and mercilessly in the Ohio
Valley and along the streams
and hillsides of (to be) Ohio
commonwealth.
The scattered settlers of the Ohio
Valley had more at stake
than the New England colonists, for the
colonists in New Eng-
land were assured of an English
government, but the destiny of
the Ohio valley might fall-probably
would-into the hands of a
foreign nation, either France or Spain,
the latter of which held
untold territory immediately west of the
Mississippi. It was
the British policy to fight the
colonists at the front through hired
Hessians. It was also the British policy
to attack and harass
the colonists in the rear of the
rebelling states by employing the
tomahawk and the scalping knife of the
Indian. Ohio, immedi-
ately adjacent to the frontier lines of
Pennsylvania and Virginia,
became the scene of constant Indian and
English warfare to the
106 Ohio Arch. and His.
Society Publications.
year 1783. There were many brilliant
campaigns worthy the pen
of the most graphic and imaginative
historian. The expeditions,
for instance, three in number, of George
Rogers Clark, who at the
instigation of Patrick Henry and Thomas
Jefferson, with Ken-
tucky and Virginia troops, proceeded
down the Ohio and then
marched northeast through what was
subsequently Illinois, In-
diana and Ohio, taking the settlements
of Kaskaskia, Vincennes
and Cahokia and destroying the Indian
villages in the interior
of our present state. The years 1780 and 1782 were
memorable
for the most bloody campaigns. The
second daring expedition
of Clark was almost simultaneous with
the historic expeditions
of Crawford from the east toward
Detroit. The last expedition
in 1782 of George Rogers Clark was one
from Kentucky north
into the interior, attacking the Indians
at Piqua, Xenia, Chilli-
cothe and elsewhere with a regiment of a
thousand valiant
frontiersmen. They were a veritable band
of Rough Riders,
and the annals of history present no
deeds more daring, more
brave, more patriotic, more adventurous
than the incidents of that
campaign; it was to the revolution what
Sherman's march to the
sea was to the rebellion. Clark's last
expedition broke the back-
bone of the revolution. It saved the
Northwest to the colonies.
The revolution was over for New England
colonies in 1783,
but not so for the inhabitants of Ohio
Valley. The English
refused to yield possession of many
British posts along the lake
shores and particularly at Erie,
Sandusky, the mouth of the Mau-
mee, at Detroit and other places. It was
the policy of England
to retain those posts and from them send
out incursions with
Indian allies to continue a guerrilla
warfare against the colonial
settlements. The British, especially
their agents in America.
hoped, and indeed expected, the
attempted independence of the
colonies would prove a failure and
dependence come again. The
famous ordinance of 1787 established and
opened up the North-
west Territory and our revolutionary
sires left their New England
homes and sought new abodes in the West.
The Ohio Company
came down the "beautiful
river," as the French called it, in that
second Mayflower in 1788. You easily
recall the warfare that was
then renewed by the British and the Indians to repel the
colonial
settlements in the southern, central and
subsequently in the
Ohio's Part in the American
Revolution. 107
northern portions of our state. There
were the expeditions of
Harmar (1789), his defeat; of St. Clair
(1791), his defeat on the
site of Fort Recovery, in which battle
his loss was 600 killed, and
250 wounded, and some two or three
hundred lost or missing, a
total loss equal to the greatest loss
suffered by the colonists in the
Revolution, the loss of Washington at
the defeat of German-
town. Then followed that brilliant
campaign of Anthony
Wayne in 1794; his marching with 5,000
intrepid soldiers from
Fort Washington north to the Maumee, and
his famous victory
on that August day at Fallen Timbers,
when he signally routed
the Canadian troops with their Indian allies under Little Turtle
and Tecumseh.
That was the real close of the
Revolution, and it ended in
Ohio, on whose soil it had begun twenty
years before at the battle
of Point Pleasant between Cornstalk and
Lewis.
The truth of history is that there was
more of the revolu-
tion on Ohio soil than there was on the
soil of many of the New
England states. It lasted here a score
of years, three times as long
as was suffered by the more pretentious
settlements in the At-
lantic states. For instance, Connecticut
saw no such warfare.
There was no campaign, not even a battle
of note upon the
soil of Connecticut, yet from the
standard histories you would
scarcely imagine that there were any
"doings" of importance in
those famous years west of the Allegheny
mountains. The
history of the United States has not yet
been written. When
it is written, it will be written by a
Western man with the Ohio
valley as his point of view.
Ohio, therefore, it is seen, it a great
factor in the revolution.
She always rises to the emergency. She
cannot even be lost nor
ignored in the days of our revolutionary
sires.