278 The Winning of the West 



flints and priming, and were ready on the moment. 

 The general, thinking he had only a scouting party 

 to deal with, ordered out Col. Charles Lewis and 

 Col. Fleming, each with one hundred and fifty men. 

 Fleming had the left, and marched up the bank of 

 the Ohio, while Lewis, on the right, kept some 

 little distance inland. They went about half a 

 mile. 28 Then, just before sunrise, while it was 

 still dusk, the men in camp, eagerly listening, heard 

 the reports of three guns, immediately succeeded 

 by a clash like a peal of thin thunder, as hundreds 

 of rifles rang out together. It was evident that the 

 attack was serious and Col. Field was at once de- 

 spatched to the front with two hundred men. 29 



He came only just in time. At the first fire both 

 of the scouts in front of the white line had been 

 killed. The attack fell first, and with especial fury, 

 on the division of Charles Lewis, who himself was 

 mortally wounded at the very outset; he had not 

 taken a tree, 30 but was in an open piece of ground, 

 cheering his men on, when he was shot. He stayed 

 with them until the line was formed, and then 

 walked back to camp unassisted, giving his gun to a 

 man who was near him. His men, who were drawn 

 up on the high ground skirting Crooked Run, 31 



28 Do., p. 1017. Letter from Stanton, Virginia, Nov. 4, 

 1774, says ^ of a mile; Shelby says % of a. mile. 



29 Do., Letter of Nov. i7th. 



30 The frontier expression for covering one's self behind a 

 tree-trunk. 



31 A small stream running into the Kanawha near its 

 mouth. De Haas, p. 151. 



