OGLETHORPE COUNTY. 457 



Capt. Shelby, (afterwards Governor of Kentucky,) and Capt. 

 Stewart were ordered by General Lewis, the officer in com- 

 mand, to proceed up the Kenawha river and Crooked creek, 

 under cover of the bank and bushes, and attack the Indians in 

 the rear, and they were driven across the Ohio. 



Soon after the commencement of the revolutionary war, 

 George Matthews received substantial proof of the high esti- 

 mation in which he was held by his countrymen for the ser- 

 vice he had rendered Virginia by the defence of the frontiers 

 against the savages. In 1775 he was elected Colonel of the 

 9th regiment of the Virginia troops on the Continental estab- 

 lishment. For nearly two years Col. Matthews and his regi- 

 ment were stationed on the eastern shore of Virginia. In 

 1777 he was ordered with his command to join the army un- 

 der Gen. Washington. Our great chief knew well the value 

 of Col. Matthews' services, his own experience being acquired 

 on the frontiers of Virginia. As soon, therefore, as the con- 

 test of the Revolution assumed the shape of a war in earnest, 

 Washington ordered Col. Matthews to join him. He did so, 

 and took part in the battle of Brandywine. At the battle of 

 Germantown, Col. Matthews and his regiment attacked suc- 

 cessfully the British troops opposed to him, pushed on to the 

 middle of the town, and captured a regiment of the enemy. 

 After this, in a skirmish, he was knocked down by the enemy, 

 and received a very severe wound with a bayonet. He was 

 confined on board the British prison-ship in the harbour of 

 New- York, where he endured the most severe sufferings. Mr. 

 Jefferson, then Governor of Virginia, in a letter to Colonel 

 Matthews, says, " We know that the ardent spirit and hatred 

 of tyranny which brought you into your present situation, will 

 enable you to bear up against it, with the firmness which has 

 distinguished you as a soldier, and look forward with plea- 

 sure to the day when events shall take place against which the 

 wounded spirit of your enemies will find no comfort, even 

 from reflections on the most refined of the cruelties with which 

 they have glutted themselves." Col. Matthews was not ex- 

 changed until the termination of the war, when he joined the 

 army under Gen. Greene, as commander of the 3d Virginia 

 regiment. Whilst in the South he purchased a tract of land 



