In the Current of the Revolution 293 



came into the garrison at Point Pleasant to explain 

 that, while he was anxious to keep at peace, his tribe 

 were bent on going to war; and he frankly added 

 that of course if they did so he should have to join 

 them. He and three other Indians, among them 

 his son and the chief Redhawk, who had also been 

 at the Kanawha battle, were detained as hostages. 

 While they were thus confined in the fort a member 

 of a company of rangers was killed by the Indians 

 near by; whereupon his comrades, headed by their 

 captain, 57 rushed in furious anger into the fort to 

 slay the hostages. Cornstalk heard them rushing 

 in, and knew that his hour had come ; with unmoved 

 countenance he exhorted his son not to fear, for it 

 was the will of the Great Spirit that they should die 

 there together ; then, as the murderers burst into the 

 room, he quietly rose up to meet them, and fell dead 

 pierced by seven or eight bullets. His son and his 

 comrades were likewise butchered, and we have no 

 record of any more infamous deeds. 



Though among the whites, the men who took 

 prominent parts in the struggle never afterward 

 made any mark, yet it is worth noting that all the 

 aftertime leaders of the West were engaged in some 

 way in Lord Dunmore's war. Their fates were 

 various. Boone led the vanguard of the white ad- 

 vance across the mountains, wandered his life long 

 through the wilderness, and ended his days, in ex- 



57 John Hall ; it is worth while preserving the name of the 

 ringleader in so brutal and cowardly a butchery. See Stew- 

 art's Narrative. 



