The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 131 



was waged in the ages of bronze and of iron. All 

 the merciful humanity that even war has gained 

 during the last two thousand years is lost. It is 

 a warfare where no pity is shown to non-comba 

 tants, where the weak are harried without ruth, and 

 the vanquished maltreated with merciless ferocity. 

 A sad and evil feature of such warfare is that the 

 whites, the representatives of civilization, speedily 

 sink almost to the level of their barbarous foes, 

 in point of hideous brutality. The armies are 

 neither led by trained officers nor made up of reg 

 ular troops they are composed of armed settlers, 

 fierce and wayward men, whose ungovernable pas 

 sions are unrestrained by discipline, who have 

 many grievous wrongs to redress, and who -look 

 on their enemies with a mixture of contempt and 

 loathing, of dread and intense hatred. When the 

 clash comes between these men and their sombre 

 foes, too often there follow deeds of enormous, 

 of incredible, of indescribable horror. It is im 

 possible to dwell without a shudder on the mon 

 strous woe and misery of such a contest. 



The men of Kentucky and of the infant North 

 west would have found their struggle with the 

 Indians dangerous enough in itself; but there was 

 an added element of menace in the fact that back 

 of the Indians stood the British. It was for this 

 reason that the frontiersmen grew to regard as 

 essential to their well-being the possession of the 

 lake posts; so that it became with them a prime 

 object to wrest from the British, whether by force 



