1 68 The Winning of the West 



for any Indian war which did not immediately con- 

 cern themselves. Individual Kentuckians, individ- 

 ual colonels and captains of the Kentucky militia, 

 were always ready to march to the help of the Ten- 

 nesseeans against the Southern Indians; but the 

 highest officials of Kentucky were almost as anxious 

 as the Federal authorities to prevent any war save 

 that with the tribes northwest of the Ohio. One 

 of the Kentucky Senators, Brown, in writing to the 

 Governor, Isaac Shelby, laid particular stress upon 

 the fact that nothing but the most urgent necessity 

 could justify a war with the Southern Indians. 43 

 Shelby himself sympathized with this feeling. He 

 knew what an Indian war was, for he had owed his 

 election largely to his record as an Indian fighter 

 and to the confidence the Kentuckians felt in his 

 power to protect them from their red foes. 44 His 

 correspondence is filled with letters in relation to 

 Indian affairs, requests to authorize the use of spies, 

 requests to establish guards along the Wilderness 

 Road and to garrison block-houses on the frontier; 

 and sometimes there are more pathetic letters, from 

 a husband who had lost a wife, or from an "old, 

 frail woman," who wished to know if the Governor 

 could not by some means get news of her little 

 granddaughter who had been captured in the wil- 

 derness two years before by a party of Indians. 45 



48 Shelby MSS., J. Brown to Isaac Shelby, Philadelphia, 

 June 2, 1793. 



44 Do., M. D. Hardin to Isaac Shelby, April 10, 1792, etc., 

 etc. 



45 Do., Letter of Mary Mitchell to Isaac Shelby, May i, 1793. 



