In the Current of the Revolution 139 



Logan did his best to obey the orders, but he could 

 not find a ford, and he marched by degrees nearly 

 three miles up stream, making repeated and vain 

 attempts to cross ; when he finally succeeded the day 

 was almost done, and the fighting was over. 



Meanwhile Clark plunged into the river, and 

 crossed at the head of one of his own two divisions ; 

 the other was delayed for a short time. Both Simon 

 Girty and his brother were in the town, together 

 with several hundred Indian warriors; exactly how 

 many can not be said, but they were certainly fewer 

 in number than the troops composing either wing of 

 Clark's army. 42 They were surprised by Clark's 



42 Haldimand MSS. McKee to De Peyster, Aug. 22, 1780. 

 He was told of the battle by the Indians a couple of days after 

 it took place. He gives the force of the whites correctly as 

 nine hundred and seventy, forty of whom had been left to 

 guard the boats. He says the Indians were surprised, and 

 that most of the warriors fled, so that all the fighting was 

 done by about seventy, with the two Girtys. This was doubt- 

 less not the case ; the beaten party in all these encounters was 

 fond of relating the valorous deeds of some of its members, 

 who invariably state that they would have conquered, had 

 they not been deserted by their associates. McKee reported 

 that the Indians could find no trace of the gun-wheels the 

 gun was carried on a pack-horse, and so he thought that the 

 Kentuckians were forced to leave it behind on their retreat. 

 He put the killed of the Kentuckians at the modest number 

 of forty-eight ; and reported the belief of Girty and the In- 

 dians that "three hundred [of them] would have given 

 [Clark's men] a total rout." A very common feat of the 

 small frontier historian was to put high praise of his own 

 side in the mouth of a foe. Withers, in his "Chronicles of 

 Border Warfare," in speaking of this very action, makes 

 Girty withdraw his three hundred warriors on account of 

 the valor of Clark's men, remarking that it was "useless to 



