284 The Winning of the West 



fight itself, and because of the results that flowed 

 from it, it is worthy of being held in especial re- 

 membrance. 



Lewis left his sick and wounded in the camp at 

 the Point, protected by a rude breastwork, and with 

 an edequate guard. With the remainder of his 

 forces, over a thousand strong, he crossed the Ohio, 

 and pushed on to the Pickaway plains. When but 

 a few miles from the earl's encampment he was met 

 by a messenger informing him that a treaty of peace 

 was being negotiated with the Indians. 44 The back- 

 woodsmen, flushed with success, and angry at their 

 losses, were eager for more bloodshed; and it was 

 only with difficulty that they were restrained, and 

 were finally induced to march homeward, the earl 

 riding down to them and giving his orders in per- 



and was saved by the provincial rangers, was greatly the su- 

 perior in force, and suffered four times the loss he inflicted. 

 In both cases, especially that of Bouquet, the account of the 

 victor must be received with caution where it deals with the 

 force and loss of the vanquished. In the same way Shelby 

 and the other reporters of the Kanawha fight stated that the 

 Indians lost more heavily than the whites. 



44 The stories of how Lewis suspected the earl of treach- 

 ery, and of how the backwoodsmen were so exasperated that 

 they wished to kill the latter, may have some foundation; 

 but are quite as likely to be pure inventions, made up after 

 the Revolutionary war. In De Haas, "The American Pio- 

 neer," etc., can be found all kinds of stories, some even told 

 be members of the Clark and Lewis families, which are 

 meant to criminate Dunmore, but which make such mistakes 

 in chronology placing the Battle of Lexington in the year 

 of the Kanawha fight, asserting that peace was not made till 

 the following spring, etc. that they must be dismissed off- 

 hand as entirely untrustworthy. 



