OHIO IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

E. O. RANDALL.

Napoleon said "History is a fable agreed upon" and Lord Brougham once exclaimed "Teach me anything but history, for that is always false." The correct history of the American Revolution has not yet been written. When it is justly and fully set forth the Northwest Territory and especially that portion now, and for a century known as Ohio, will be accorded. its due prominence and influence in the glorious struggle that resulted in the independence of the United States. Ohio was the arena for activities and achievements that history has not yet sufficiently appreciated. True there were no colonies west of the Alleghanies. But some of the colonies through their charters and grants, with much justice, claimed the country between the Great Lakes and the "Beautiful River." Moreover, the valleys and river ways of the later Buckeye state had settlers who in no insignificant degree bore the brunt of the war for independence. The bitter struggle between the Gaul and the Saxon for supremacy in the western world ended in the tragic and dramatic victory of the invincible Wolfe over the intrepid Montcalm on the Heights of Abraham. The result of the French and Indian War was that the flag of St. George and the Dragon floated over the Northwest Territory, where for a century and a half had waived the banner bearing the Lillies of the Bourbons. The new world passed into the possession of the Saxon. The courage and endurance the colonists had displayed in the French

E. O. RANDALL.

and Indian War had both delighted and dismayed the mother country. Delighted her, because the colonies contributed materially to the defeat of France. Dismayed her, because the lusty strength of the colonies, revealed in that war, portended danger should their spirit of independence be awakened. The American colonies fought the French and Indian War in the hope and faith that in the case of victory, they were to be its beneficiaries and come into possession of the Ohio Valley as a coveted extension of their Atlantic coast lodgments. But the war over, and Britain triumphant, she seized the "promised land" west of the Alleghanies as the exclusive dominion of the Crown. It was to be administered as part of the Province of Quebec. As a pretext to protect the Indians and secure their allegiance, she forbade the westward-bound pioneers to settle therein. This arbitrary and short-sighted policy of preclusion culminated in the promulgation of the Quebec Act by Parliament (May, 1774). That act drew forth one of the most brilliant and invective declarations of the Earl of Chatham on the floor of Parliament in which he denounced it as "cruel, oppressive and odious" and calculated to "lose his Majesty the hearts of all Americans.” And it did. It was one of the causes that stirred the colonists to open protest and later became one of their complaints inserted in the Declaration of Independence.

The Dunmore War was the direct and immediate result of the Quebec Act. The events of that war are familiar to students of western history. The motives of that war have seldom been clearly set forth or properly interpreted. Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, resolved to take up arms, not, it is true, for the independence of Virginia or the Americans, but nevertheless against the selfish domination of the Crown in its attempt to deprive Virginia of her claims to the southern half of Ohio, It was the first overt defiance of Britain's opposition as exerted in the Quebec Act. True, Ohio was then occupied mainly by Indians, but they were the subsidized and faithful allies of Britain, for whom and with whom they were eager to fight to defend the territory reserved for their hunting grounds and homes. We well know it is maintained that Dunmore had also the purpose in view of leading the Virginians and Pennsyl

vanians into the horrors of savage warfare, that it might intimidate the Americans and cause them to pause in their pursuit of liberty. Dunmore would thus strike a double blow; one for the restricted rights of his colony and one for the continued supremacy of his Majesty's government. View it as you choose, the Dunmore War was the prelude, the opening occasion of the American Revolution. The dramatic battle of that war was fought at the mouth of the Kanawha on the Virginia banks of the Ohio, by General Lewis and fifteen hundred Virginia backwoodsmen against Cornstalk, chief of the Shawanees, and the federation of the Ohio Indian tribes with an equal number of chosen braves. The battle, fought October 10, 1774, was, from the nature of the circumstances, the first battle of the Revolution. The Indians were the suborned subjects, the hired Hessians of the British. The troops under Lewis were not British regulars, nor militia, but the forest volunteer colonial heroes in homespun and buckskin. They contended for rights denied them; that of settlement north of the Ohio. The savages were vanquished and Lewis crossed the Ohio and joined Dunmore's division at his camp just northeast of the historic town of Chillicothe. Peace was made with the Indians. The blow of that battle was twofold. It struck the arbitrary power of Britain, while it staggered his ally, the Indian. Again it gave courage to the American colonist that he could cope with savage foes. But the conspicuous significance of that war was the incident at Fort Gower at the mouth of the Hocking River, where the army encamped on its return home. There on November 5 was held an historic meeting of the Virginia officers. The welcome message was brought them of the patriotic action taken by the Continental Congress then in session at Philadelphia, and these Virginia officers resolved "That we will bear the most faithful allegiance to His Majesty, King George the Third, whilst His Majesty delights to reign over a brave and free people; that we will, at the expense of life, and everything dear and valuable, exert ourselves in support of his crown, and the dignity of the British Empire. But as the love of liberty and attachment of the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that we

will exert every power within us for the defence of American liberty, and for the support of her just rights and privileges; not in any precipitate, riotous and tumultuous manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen."

That was a public, formal, spontaneous declaration of American freedom announced by Virginia colonists on the banks of the Hocking and the Ohio in the future Buckeye state more than a year and a half before the Liberty Bell, in the Quaker city, rang forth the glad tidings of national independence. The American Revolution followed. Of the graphic and potent events of that war in the New England colonies we have naught to do. But the doings in the Ohio Valley, related to the American Revolution, command our intense interest and attention. The puny and plucky rebelling colonies found the western tribes arrayed against them. As England had employed the mercenary Hessians to battle for her at the front in New England, she engaged the merciless redman of the forest to plunder and murder for her in the rear of the colonies, on the western frontier. The Northwest Territory was the great background of the Revolution. The fiendish proposal of the British ministry to secure the scalping knife and the tomahawk in aid of the mother country against her rebellious child, called forth from the elder Pitt another of his immortal bursts of eloquence. But the British power would not abandon its brutal plans. The military posts of the British, on the lakes and the rivers of the Illinois country, were rallying centers for the western savages, who were provisioned, armed and infuriated against the Americans and sent forth on expeditions of massacre and rapine. Deeds of bravery and patriotism were enacted in the Ohio Valley more romantic than the often rehearsed events in the Atlantic colonies. The soil of Ohio was the scene of a large share of the struggle for existence of the new-born republic. The career of the colonists from Lexington and Concord was chiefly a series of victories during the years 1775 and 1776 to the autumn. of 1777, when the clouds grew heavy and the storm gathered in the South. The northern army of Gates had disbanded after the surrender of Burgoyne (October 17). Howe occupied Fhila

delphia and comfortably quartered his army therein. With his soldiers the winter of 1777-78 was a period of exultant gaiety. He only awaited the milder weather of spring that he might dispatch a few regiments to Valley Forge and disperse or destroy the remnant forces of Washington that were well nigh exhausted by the hunger and cold of that terrible winter. The cause of human liberty seemed doomed to inevitable defeat. General Howe held the Americans at bay east of the Alleghanies. The British cause was being strengthened in the northwest. General Hamilton in his headquarters at Detroit, proposed to annihilate any assurance of success the Americans might hope for beyond the Alleghanies. But there was a Washington in the West as well as in the East. He was George Rogers Clark, a huntsman of the trackless forest interior of Kentucky, who with the soul of a patriot, the bravery of an American soldier and the mind of a statesman, hastened on foot, through six hundred miles of wilderness, to Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia. There he obtained audience with Patrick Henry, then governor of Virginia. Clark proposed to strike the vast power of Great Britain in the northwest and save that magnificent territory to American independence. His plans were appreciated and approved, but troops could not be spared him from the Continental army; they were needed to a man in the East. Clark gathered two hundred Virginia and Pennsylvania backwoodsmen and while the sun of spring was melting the snows of Valley Forge and hope and courage were again animating the heart of Washington, Clark set out on that famous expedition for the capture of the interior northwest posts of Great Britain. It was the campaign of the "rough riders" of the Revolution. It was the dash of Sheridan in the Shenandoah. It was Sherman's "march to the sea," through the interior of the enemy's country. That campaign of Clark broke the backbone of British strength in the west. The British posts of Illinois and Indiana were all taken save Detroit. The Northwest was secured and preserved to the United States.

The theater of events now shifted to the very center of Ohio. The Illinois campaign of Clark in 1778-79 was followed by innumerable and important contests in the valleys of the