Background
The Proclamation of 1763 issued by King George III’s Privy Council to prevent white settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains proved ineffective in halting westward colonial expansion, as many settlers simply moved west anyway. A series of treaties between the Crown and Native nations extended Virginia’s western boundary well into present-day Kentucky and West Virginia. These treaties included the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) with the Six Nation Iroquois confederacy, or Haudenosaunee; the Treaty of Hard Labor (1768) and the Treaty of Lochaber (1770) with the Cherokee; and a subsequent 1771 survey. As white settlers’ westward migration increased, so did violent encounters with the Shawnee and other tribes who had long hunted in the area and did not recognize the authority of the Six Nations to cede the territory to the British Crown.
At the same time, Virginia and Pennsylvania both claimed the strategically located Forks of the Ohio region where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers join to form the Ohio River at Pittsburgh. On January 1, 1774, John Connolly, acting on orders from Virginia governor Dunmore, proclaimed that the Pittsburgh region was part of Virginia’s Augusta County and set out to raise a militia and organize a local court. Pennsylvania had organized the same territory as Westmoreland County in 1773.
There was an increase in Shawnee raiding parties on the western Virginia frontier beginning in 1772 and extending into 1774. By early 1774, Alexander McKee, Britain’s deputy Indian supervisor at Pittsburgh, notified his superior, Sir William Johnson, the Crown’s superintendent for Indian affairs in the Northern region, that Shawnee raiders were striking settlements below Fort Pitt in Augusta, Botetourt, and Fincastle counties. An open letter to Dunmore and the General Assembly that appeared in Rind’s Virginia Gazette on March 24 reflected the increased likelihood of a frontier conflict. The writer, identified only as “a Virginian,” warned that Shawnee warriors had “greedily embraced all opportunities of manifesting their inimical affections toward us,” which “conspire to render a war at this time necessary, ney inevitable.”
Dunmore’s War
With warnings circulating of Shawnee warriors preparing for battle and the House of Burgesses refusing to raise taxes to pay for a regular military force, Dunmore issued a proclamation the next day that called the county militias to prepare to repel an invasion. Connolly, now the captain-commandant of the Augusta County militia in the Pittsburgh area, warned his subordinates that “the Shawanese were ill disposed,” and told them to “hold themselves in readiness to repel any insults.” Following this, on March 30, brothers Daniel and Jacob Greathouse and their followers massacred thirteen peaceful Mingo Indians at Baker’s Bottom, a trading post across the Ohio River from their hunting camp at the mouth of Yellow Creek. To avenge his relatives killed in the ambush, Tah-Gah-Jute, a leading warrior whites knew as Logan, led forty warriors on raids against backcountry settlements. Shawnee warriors, already looking for a fight, also took the warpath. The raiders destroyed farms, murdered and scalped settlers, and took captives, spreading alarm throughout the backcountry.
In response, Dunmore recommended the construction of new forts for the defense of the backcountry at Point Pleasant, at the confluence of the Great Kanawha and Ohio rivers, and Fort Fincastle on the Ohio near the mouth of Wheeling Creek. Militia units were intended to defend the frontier communities by serving in the garrisons of several forts and conducting patrols to detect and intercept raiding parties. In late July, however, Major Angus McDonald led 400 Frederick, Berkely, and Hampshire County militiamen across the Ohio River. They fought several skirmishes and raided the Shawnee villages at the multi-tribal town of Wakatomika on the Muskingum River but left those of the peaceful Lenape nearby unmolested and returned to Fort Fincastle. Although a tactical success, the expedition had no strategic impact and failed to deter further raids.
To bring the conflict to an end, Dunmore planned to converge on Chillicothe, the principal Shawnee town on the Scioto River, with two divisions of militia for a decisive blow, to, he told Colonel Andrew Lewis, “Breake the Confederacy & render their plans abortive.” On July 24 he ordered Lewis, the county lieutenant of Botetourt County, to form the Southern Division with 1,000 men from Augusta, Botetourt, and Fincastle Counties. Additional volunteers, including from Bedford and Culpeper counties, brought the number of Lewis’ troops to 1,300 before they marched. Colonel William Preston, the influential backcountry surveyor who was county lieutenant of Fincastle County, remained behind to command the defense of the three frontier counties. Colonel Adam Stephen, county lieutenant of Berkeley County, was to raise the Northern Division of 1,200 men from Berkley, Frederick, Hampshire, and Dunmore counties and the district of Augusta around Pittsburgh. Dunmore would serve as commander-in-chief and accompany Stephen’s division.
Dunmore’s troops, except for a detachment of 500 men under Major William Crawford that marched from Redstone to Fort Fincastle with the packhorses and cattle, marched to Pittsburgh during the last week of August as Alexander McKee attempted to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict. The Shawnee commander Hokoleskwa (Cornstalk), indicated he would negotiate peace with Governor Dunmore at the mouth of Hockhocking Creek.
As the 700 men of the Northern Wing united with Crawford’s contingent at Wheeling on September 30, prospects for peace dimmed with news of new raids against communities along the Monongahela River. The troops marched to Hockhocking Creek and built a fortified magazine they named Fort Gower. When negotiations between the governor and Cornstalk failed, Koquethaqechton, the Delaware chief known as White Eyes, and Lenape scouts moved ahead into Shawnee territory to scout for the Virginia forces as the army prepared to march.
Lewis arrived in Point Pleasant with 800 men of the Southern Division on October 6 and established a fortified camp. The Botetourt line and two Fincastle companies spread their tents along the Ohio River, while the Augusta County line camped along the Kanawha. Colonel William Christian was moving toward Point Pleasant with an additional 300 to 400 Fincastle County men and additional packhorses and cattle.
Cornstalk and the other Native leaders assembled a force of approximately 800 warriors, not counting war parties raiding in the backcountry. Scouts had kept him informed of the locations and activities of both Virginia divisions. He knew that when united, Dunmore’s army would outnumber his men three-to-one. He planned to destroy or cripple Lewis’s force at Point Pleasant with a surprise attack, then return to defend Chillicothe against Stephen’s Northern Division. He believed that by inflicting heavy casualties, he could demoralize the militia and convince Dunmore’s army to retreat.
Cornstalk’s forces arrived on the Ohio, crossed the river undetected on rafts, and assembled at the abandoned village whites called Old Shawnee Town—only two miles from the Virginians’ camp—on October 9. Cornstalk planned to advance before dawn, eliminate the enemy pickets, and assault the camp with a surprise attack while the Virginians slept. Cornstalk would then lead his men to intercept Dunmore’s division as it advanced along Hockhocking Creek.
Early on the morning of October 10, four men from the Fincastle companies were out hunting deer near Old Town Creek when they discovered a party of Cornstalk’s warriors. They killed one of the hunters, but the others ran back to alert the camp. The drummers beat “To Arms” and “Alarm” as the men retrieved their weapons and the field officers met with Lewis. Lewis ordered his two subordinate colonels, William Fleming and his brother Charles Lewis, to detach 150 men from their respective lines and determine the size of the enemy force. Both columns were ambushed within minutes of one another. Charles Lewis was mortally wounded and died a few hours later, and Fleming was seriously wounded, though he remained on the field until “effectually disabled.”
Cornstalk’s forces enjoyed numerical superiority and tactical advantage in the opening stage of the battle and fought with great bravery. They “Disputed the Ground with the Greatest Obstinacy,” and forced the Virginians to retreat about 200 yards.
With both colonels down, the four surviving captains took over. Colonel Lewis sent 200 reinforcements under Colonel John Field at seven that morning. Under his leadership, they closed the line, halted the retreat, and repulsed another attack by nine o’clock. The firefight continued for four hours until the Virginians wrested the initiative and counter-attacked. Captain Evan Shelby led the advance. Lewis averted disaster when he sent 120 men to prevent warriors from using the bed of Crooked Creek to infiltrate behind Shelby’s line. When the tide of the battle turned, Cornstalk’s forces retreated to “an advantageous piece of ground” to make a “resolute stand.” Virginia officers deemed it “imprudent” to assault. The Indian warriors removed their “dead, dying & wounded” to their rafts, recrossed the Ohio River, and retreated toward Chillicothe. The Virginians had “full possession of the field of Battle” at dusk.
Of 800 men present, Virginia suffered 75 killed and 140 wounded in what Fleming described as “a hard-fought Battle” that lasted from sunrise to sunset. Native casualties are unknown, but Virginians expressed grudging respect for their opponents. According to Christian, “the Enemy behaved with inconceivable Bravery,” while Fleming wrote, “Never did Indians … behave bolder, … fully convinced they would beat us.”
The day after the battle, the Northern Division advanced from Fort Gower against light opposition. Dunmore sent Colonel Lewis orders “to march soon to the [Shawnee] Towns & Join him on the way.” Lewis’s report of the battle reached the governor on October 14, and the following day his troops crossed the Ohio River after they completed a fortified camp, hospital, and forward supply magazine at Point Pleasant that became known as Fort Blair.
After several days, Stephen’s division arrived at Pickaway Plains, near the principal Shawnee towns. There they erected Camp Charlotte, a secure base from which to send out raids. Dunmore’s Delaware scouts informed him that Cornstalk had approximately 700 warriors plus their families at Chillicothe. The Shawnee leaders had to either abandon their towns and retreat or attack 1,100 entrenched militiamen, whose numbers would double when Lewis’s contingent arrived. Cornstalk convinced them that seeking peace terms offered the best outcome. He sent Pennsylvania traders Matthew Elliott and John Gibson—the widower of Logan’s murdered sister—with a flag of truce to arrange the meeting and function as interpreters.
The Treaty of Camp Charlotte
On October 19, the Shawnee leader accepted the “Terms of our Reconciliation” that Dunmore offered. The Shawnees and their allies first had to repatriate all captives and return all horses and other property taken in their raids. They had to recognize all cessions of land on the south bank of the Ohio River and the river as the boundary with Virginia, as determined by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. Dunmore demanded no cessions of land on the north bank. The Indians agreed to neither hunt on the Virginia side of the Ohio, “nor molest any boats passing on it.” Finally, they submitted to the regulations that governed trade with Virginia and its people as “dictated by the King’s Instructions.” The Treaty of Camp Charlotte represented an armistice until Shawnee headmen and colonial officials negotiated the permanent treaty at Pittsburgh in the spring. In the meantime, six Shawnee chiefs—or sons of chiefs—would travel to Williamsburg as “hostages” as a pledge of security, or good faith, which Dunmore reciprocated with the promise of “protection and good treatment” by his government and the people of Virginia.
Despite Dunmore’s efforts, the ownership of the disputed territory around the Forks of the Ohio would not be negotiated until after the end of the Revolutionary War, when Pittsburgh and the surrounding area officially became part of Pennsylvania.
