Lord Dunmores War or Dunmores War / John Murray 4th Earl of Dunmore Over the last 400 years, the name “Kanawha” has been variously associated with an Indian tribe, a river in West Virginia, and a pre-Revolutionary War battle, not to mention the names of several towns, counties, US Navy warships, locomotives, yachts, and insurance companies. At the beginning of the American Civil War it was even an early name for the state of West Virginia, which separated itself from Virginia over the issue of secession. The word Kanawha is widely recognized to be of Native American origin, but the exact meaning is a matter of dispute. An internet search for the English translation of Kanawha yielded at least four different versions of the word’s meaning, all of which are contradictory. One source states that Kanawha is a Shawnee word meaning “new water,” while another claims it is a Catawba word meaning “friendly brother.” Another popular translation is “place of white stone.” The earliest recorded use of the term in colonial America was as the name of a Native American tribe. This tribe, a branch of the Algonquin family, was closely related to the Nanticokes and Delawares who resided in what are now the states of Delaware and Maryland. During the seventeenth century, the name of this tribe was variously recorded by early English settlers as “Conoys,” “Conoise,” “Canawese,” “Cohnawas,” “Canaways,” and ultimately, “Kanawhas.” By the early eighteenth century some of the Kanawhas had migrated to the southwest and settled along the large river in West Virginia that today bears their name. The Kanawha River is an interesting river for a variety of reasons, and it played an important role in the early settlement of southwest Virginia and the Ohio River region. Arising in the Allegheny Mountains along the border between the modern states of Virginia and West Virginia, the Kanawha River is the largest river in West Virginia and a major tributary of the Ohio River. It is formed by the confluence of a number of smaller rivers, including the New River in Virginia and the Gauley and Elk Rivers in West Virginia, and is remarkable for the fact that it flows from southeast to northwest, one of very few rivers in the United States that does so. It enters the Ohio River near the town of Point Pleasant in Mason County, West Virginia. Although the Kanawha River received its name from the Kanawha tribe, the Kanawha Indians were not the major players in this region during the years of the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. The dominant tribe in the area at that time was the Shawnee, and it was their interaction with the early settlers of the region. Following the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, the British government placed a ban on any further settlement west of the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains. The Native Americans who lived in this area, especially the Ohio River valley and the present states of West Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky, expected the British government to restrict the flow of settlers pushing ever westward through the mountain passes. The British government proved unable to do this, and during the years following the French and Indian War clashes between frontier settlers and Native Americans became increasingly frequent and bloody. By early 1774 the tension between the Indians and colonial settlers along the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia had brought matters to the brink of all-out warfare. The Indians along the western frontier of Virginia, in particular the powerful and warlike Shawnee, launched a number of raids against white setters who were encroaching on their lands. These settlers, in turn, retaliated by attacking Indian villages and committing a number of atrocities against the natives, which caused the Shawnee to finally declare war. On June 10, 1774, Virginia’s royal governor John Murray, better known as Lord Dunmore, called out the militia of western Virginia to put down the Indian revolt; this campaign became popularly known as “Dunmore’s War.” Dunmore established his headquarters at Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg) and began raising militia from the northern Virginia counties, while ordering Colonel Andrew Lewis to mobilize the militia from the southwestern counties. Dunmore’s plan was to march his men down the Ohio River from Fort Pitt while Lewis marched up the Kanawha River; they would join forces where the Kanawha entered the Ohio and then launch their campaign against the Indian towns on the Scioto River. While Dunmore and Lewis were raising their troops, the Shawnee chief Cornstalk began mobilizing his own confederation of Shawnee, Miami, Wyandot (Huron), and Ottawa Indians to attack Lewis before he could rendezvous with Dunmore. During that same month of June 1774, a Virginia militia officer named Captain Daniel Cresap traveled to South Carolina and recruited 120 Catawba warriors to help put down the Shawnee, who were ancient enemies of the Catawba. Cresap returned to Virginia with the Catawbas and sixteen white men. While crossing the Allegheny Mountains, the party was attacked by hostile Indians and seven of the white militiamen were killed. The Catawbas pursued the hostiles and caught up with them; there was a skirmish and the Catawbas captured two of the enemy warriors. Shortly after this engagement the Catawbas returned to South Carolina. This engagment and other such small battles during the summer of 1774 were the opening volleys of the larger conflict that became known as Dunmore’s War, which culminated in a monumental battle on the Kanawha River in October 1774. As Lord Dunmore languished at Fort Pitt, apparently in no great hurry to push on to the southward, Colonel Lewis and his men advanced up the Kanawha River toward the rendezvous point. On October 10, 1774 the Shawnee confederation under Cornstalk launched a surprise attack on Lewis’s militia at the mouth of the Kanawha River near Point Pleasant. Lewis and Cornstalk both had about 1,000 men under their command, and it was difficult for either side to gain a substantial advantage. However, after a terrific battle lasting most of the day, the Indians eventually withdrew and Lewis’s troops claimed the victory, without any assistance from Dunmore and his army. Hostilities between white settlers and the Indians along the Virginia frontier ended for a time, only to flare up again during the years of the American Revolution, when most of the western tribes allied themselves with the British against the Virginia settlers. It was about 1770 when the Continental Congress made a call for volunteers at the start of the Revolution, the Minute Men of the up-counties came clad in buckskin hunting shirts, and were referred to as the shirtmen, and feared for their deadly aim. When Lord Dunmore, the British governor of Virginia, heard the cry, The shirtmen are coming! he deserted his post at Gwyans Island, and fled to a mon-of-war on the river. Lord Dunmores War or Dunmores War was a 1774 conflict between the Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo American Indian nations. The Governor of Virginia during the conflict was John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore — Lord Dunmore. He asked the Virginia House of Burgesses to declare a state of war with the hostile Indian nations and order up an elite volunteer militia force for the campaign. The conflict resulted from escalating violence between British colonists, who in accordance with previous treaties were exploring and moving into land south of the Ohio River (modern West Virginia, Southwestern Pennsylvania and Kentucky), and American Indians, who held treaty rights to hunt there. As a result of successive attacks by Indian hunting and war bands upon the settlers, war was declared to pacify the hostile Indian war bands. The war ended soon after Virginias victory in the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774. As a result of this victory, the Indians lost the right to hunt in the area and agreed to recognize the Ohio River as the boundary between Indian lands and the British colonies. Although the Indian national chieftains signed the treaty, conflict within the Indian nations soon broke out. Some tribesmen felt the treaty sold out their claims and opposed it, and others believed that another war would mean only further losses of territory to the more powerful British colonists. The Battle of Point Pleasant — known as the Battle of Kanawha in some older accounts — was the only major action of Dunmores War. It was fought on October 10, 1774, primarily between Virginia militia and Indians from the Shawnee and Mingo tribes. Here at the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers, the bloody, day-long Battle of Point Pleasant was fought. On October 10, 1774, Colonel Andrew Lewis 1,000 Virginia militiamen decisively defeated a like number of Indians lead by the Shawnee Chieftain Cornstalk. Considered a landmark in frontier history, some believed the battle to be the first of the American Revolution. This action broke the power of the ancient Americans in the Ohio Valley and quelled a general Indian war on the frontier. Significantly, it also prevented an alliance between the British and Indians, one which could very possibly have caused the Revolution to have a different outcome, altering the entire history of the U.S. In addition, the ensuing peace with the Indians enabled western Virginians to return across the Allegheny Mountains to aid Revolutionary forces. When Lord Dunmore (John Murray) was appointed governor of Virginia in 1771, he was ordered to discourage settlement of the lands beyond the mountains to the west. This action was motivated in part by the British governments desire to pacify the Indians by preventing encroachment on their hunting grounds and partly to preserve a profitable fur trade with the Ohio Valley tribes. The westward migration proved difficult to halt, however, as more and more restless settlers poured over the Alleghenies. The continued invasion aroused the native population. Their anger turned into bloody warfare early in 1774 when a group of settlers murdered the entire family of Logan, a friendly Mingo chief, opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek in Hancock County. Logan was so enraged that he led his tribe on the warpath and took 30 white scalps and prisoners in revenge. Unfortunate clashes between the encroaching pioneers and Indians continued with increasing frequency and savagery. Both whites and red men were guilty of unthinkable atrocities including murder, kidnapping, and infanticide. Lord Dunmore ordered the organization of the border militia. Colonel Andrew Lewis, a veteran of the French and Indian Wars, was appointed commander of the Virginia Troops. By carrying the fight to the Indians, Dunmore, a Tory, hoped to divert Virginians from the trouble brewing with England. In September 1774, Dunmore signed peace treaties with the Delaware and Six Nations of the Iroquois at Pittsburgh. He then started down the Ohio River to give battle to the fierce Shawnee. Under Cornstalk, the Shawnee tribe had allied itself with Logans Mingo to turn the frontier red with Long Knives blood. Meanwhile Lewis army had marched from Fort Union (Lewisburg) to the point of the confluence of the Great Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. He then established camp to await Dunmores arrival from the north. This pincer movement was thwarted when Cornstalk abandoned his Ohio River villages north of Point Pleasant before Dunmores forces arrived. He then attacked Lewis while the white forces were still divided, and they engaged in a bloody battle characterized by the succession of individual hand-to-hand combats. Fought on the point of land known by the Wyandotte Indian phrase tu-endie-wie, or the point between two waters, the battle raged all day. At times Cornstalk and his braves held the upper hand, but eventually the firepower of the backwoodsmen (LONG HUNTERS) proved superior on the then heavily forested battlefield. At the end, 230 Indians were killed or wounded and more than 50 Virginians had lost their lives, including Colonel Charles Lewis, brother of the commanding officer. Dunmores plan was to march into the Ohio Valley and force the Indians to accept Ohio River boundary which had been negotiated with the Iroquois in the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix. The Shawnees, however, had not been consulted in the treaty and many were not willing to surrender their lands south of the Ohio River without a fight. Officials of the British Indian Department, led by Sir William Johnson until his death in July 1774, worked to diplomatically isolate the Shawnees from other Indians. As a result, when the war began, the Shawnees had few allies other than some Mingos. Cornstalk, the Shawnee leader, moved to intercept Lewiss army, hoping to prevent the Virginians from joining forces. Cornstalks forces attacked Lewiss camp where the Kanawha River joins the Ohio River, hoping to trap him along a bluff. The battle lasted for hours and the fighting eventually became hand-to-hand. Cornstalks voice was reportedly heard over the din of the battle, urging his warriors to be strong. Lewis sent several companies along the Kanawha and up a nearby creek to attack the Indians from the rear, which reduced the intensity of the Shawnee offensive. Captain George Mathews was credited with a flanking maneuver that initiated Cornstalks retreat.At nightfall, the Shawnees quietly withdrew back across the Ohio. The Virginians had held their ground, and thus are considered to have won. The Virginians lost about 75 killed and 140 wounded. The Shawnees losses could not be determined, since they carried away their wounded and threw many of the dead into the Ohio River.The next morning, Colonel William Christian, who had arrived shortly after the battle, marched his men over the battlefield. They found twenty-one dead braves in the open, and twelve more were discovered hastily covered with brush and old logs. Among those killed was Pucksinwah, the father of Tecumseh. Besides scalps, the Virginians reportedly captured 40 guns, many tomahawks and some plunder which was later sold at auction. The Battle of Point Pleasant forced Cornstalk to make peace in the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, ceding to Virginia the Shawnee claims to all lands south of the Ohio River (todays states of Kentucky and West Virginia). The Shawnee were also obligated in the Treaty of Camp Charlotte to return all white captives and stop attacking barges of immigrants traveling on the Ohio River. In April 1775, before many of the Virginians had even returned home from Dunmores War, the Battles of Lexington and Concord took place in Massachusetts. The American Revolution had begun and Lord Dunmore led the British war effort in Virginia. By the end of that year, the same militiamen who had fought at Point Pleasant managed to drive Lord Dunmore and the British troops supporting him out of Virginia. Before his expulsion, Dunmore had sought to gain the Indians as British allies, the same Indians the militia had defeated at Point Pleasant. Many Virginians suspected he had collaborated with the Shawnees from the beginning. They claimed Dunmore had intentionally isolated the militia under Andrew Lewis, meaning for the Shawnees to destroy them before the Royal Army troops arrived. Dunmore hoped to eliminate the militia in case a rebellion did break out. On February 21, 1908, the United States Senate passed Bill Number 160 to erect a monument commemorating the Battle of Point Pleasant. It cites Point Pleasant as a battle of the Revolution. The bill failed in the House of Representatives. Nevertheless, the Battle of Point Pleasant is honored as the first engagement of the American Revolution during Battle Days, an annual festival in modern Point Pleasant, now a city in West Virginia. These same men also changed the American Revolutionary War with the Battle of King’s Mountain. On September 25, 1780, Sycamore Shoals served as the staging area for the Overmountain Men, the frontier militia that crossed the mountains to engage and defeat an army of British loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina. Overmountain Men had previously fought at the Siege of Charleston (these included what one historian dubbed the first Tennessee volunteers and the Battle of Musgrove Mill, both in 1780, and participated in two campaigns against the Cherokee, in 1776 and 1780.[8] William Tatham, Watauga Association clerk and drafter of the Watauga Petition, was present at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. Kings Mountain was the battle which unquestionably turned the tide of the American Revolution in the southern states setting in motion an unbroken string of American victories that led, eventually, to the final British surrender at Yorktown. The battle took place on October 7, 1780, some five months after the British had established themselves in the Carolinas by capturing Charleston. The British plan was to subdue the south by drawing upon what they assumed to be a large loyalist population living in the region. A Major by the name of Patrick Ferguson was ordered to assist in this goal by recruiting and training troops from the area and turning them into a feared fighting force meant to intimidate those on-the-fence concerning their loyalties to come to the British side. He went a bit too far, however. Ferguson issued a proclamation that summer stating that Americans must stop resisting British authority or face destruction with fire and sword. Intended to intimidate, the proclamation had the opposite effect. Settlers to the north on the wild edges of the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia saw this as a direct threat to their homes and way of life. Men for whom the war had little or no interest now turned upon those who would threaten them. This trail recognizes the Overmountain Men, American patriots who fought in the Revolutionary War. In 1780, conscripts from towns in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee converged to march through the Appalachian mountains, fighting battles with the British at Kings Mountain and resulting in an American victory. The Overmountain Men were remembered for walking hundreds of miles from their homes – some marching across the arduous Great Smoky Mountain range. Today’s trail commemorates these routes, ending at Kings Mountain National Military Park in South Carolina. Marching from Sycamore Shoals in northeastern Tennessee, these now-famous Overmountain Men headed south, through the high mountains and into the piedmont, over 200 miles in search of Fergusons force. They covered this 200 miles in little more than 10 days when, On October the 6th, 1780 it was discovered that Ferguson had set up position 30 miles away atop a ridge named Kings Mountain. The American forces numbered around 900 men and made the forced march to the battlefield by late the next morning. What they faced were approximately the same number of Loyalists, under Ferguson, dug in around the crest of the ridge. Though, technically, the Americans were under command of Colonel William Campbell the individual units were more loyal to their own than the whole and so the battle had a somewhat disjointed nature to it. The Americans attackers, though rather uncoordinated in their assaults, had the Loyalists surrounded with no place to go. The steepness of the terrain might at first seem to favor the defenders above but the tactics of the two armies and the nature of the terrain negated that advantage. The ridge itself, though devoid of trees, was an island in a sea of trees...trees that the attackers gladly used to their advantage as sources of cover. The Loyalists above were trained in the traditional British style involving massed volleys and the use of the bayonet. In a forest engagement this style of fighting looses much of its effectiveness, to say the least. Hidden behind fat trees, the expert riflemen from over the mountains, could easily pick off soldiers above outlined against the sky. Inevitably, Fergusons forces fell back, reforming into an ever-tightening circle atop the ridge. Surrender soon followed. Suffering 345 killed and wounded out of a force of 900, the utter defeat of this loyalist army so shook the trust of would-be British sympathizers that civilian aid and volunteerism in the Carolinas all but vanished overnight. General Cornwallis was now on his own in increasingly hostile territory. After Kings Mountain would come Cowpens, after Cowpens would come Guilford Courthouse, after Guilford Courthouse would eventually come Yorktown. Thus, Kings Mountain, as British General Henry Clinton would later state was, the first link in a chain of evils, that resulted in the total loss of America. The Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail is a 330-mile route through the mountains and valleys of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. The Trail follows the route of a patriot militia during the Revolutionary War as they tracked down a British force, finally engaging with and defeating them at the battle of Kings Mountain. Along the path of the trail, the patriot militia added about 2,000 members but they slimmed down to only about 900 of their very best troops when they finally got near the British. They had to act quickly and decisively before the British troops were able to gather any supplies or reinforcements. The Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail ends at Kings Mountain National Military Park, site of the patriot victory on October 7, 1780. The Overmountain Victory trail was an important part of the Revolutionary War. This was the route taken by Mountain militias to Kings Mountain SC to defeat British Major Ferguson in 1780. The Battle at Kings Mountain was the pivotal battle in the Revolutionary War. In the fall of 1780, upcountry patriots from Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina formed a militia to drive the British from the southern colonies. The trail marks their 14-day trek across the Appalachians to the Piedmont region of the Carolinas. There they defeated British troops at the Battle of Kings Mountain, setting in motion events that led to the British surrender at Yorktown and the end of the Revolutionary War. The Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail follows the route of assembly of the American Patriot army which decisively defeated an American Loyalist army at the battle of Kings Mountain, South Carolina, in the dark days of the fall of 1780. In the summer of 1780, the Southern American colonies - and hopes of independence - seemed at the mercy of an invading British army. Believing the Southern colonies mostly loyal, the Royal army planned to conquer the South and recruit Loyalist militia (local volunteer soldiers) to help British regulars and British Provincial troops defeat the Continental Army and the local Patriot militia. When Charleston, South Carolina, surrendered May 12th, 1780, the British captured most of the Continental troops in the South. Additional large losses occurred later in the summer with Patriot defeats at Waxhaws, South Carolina, May 29th, and Camden, South Carolina, August 16th. Only Patriot militia remained to oppose a British move through North Carolina into Virginia. Victory for Royal troops and an end to talk of independence seemed near. Lord Charles Cornwallis, the British commander, appointed Major Patrick Ferguson as Inspector of Militia for South Carolina to defeat the local militia and to recruit Loyalists. Fergusons opposition included men from South Carolinas backwoods under Thomas Sumter, North Carolinians commanded by Charles McDowell, and Over mountain men from todays Tennessee under Isaac Shelby. Moving into North Carolina, Ferguson attempted to intimidate the western settlers, threatening to march into the mountains and lay waste the country with fire and sword if they did not lay down their arms and pledge allegiance to the King. The response was a furious army formed on the western frontier. Growing in numbers as they marched east, some 1,100 men gave chase to Ferguson, surrounding his army at Kings Mountain, South Carolina, and killing or capturing Fergusons entire command. . . . That Turn of the Tide of Success --Thomas Jefferson Fergusons defeat was a stunning blow to British fortunes. The strength of the Patriot militia was affirmed. The hoped for Loyalist support didnt materialize. Cornwallis was forced to pull back from North Carolina, giving the Continental Army time to bring fresh regulars and new commanders south. On January 17,1781, Daniel Morgan, using Continentals and militia, defeated Colonel Banastre Tarletons British army at Cowpens, South Carolina. That winter saw a running campaign between Cornwallis and the armies of Morgan and Nathanael Greene. Try as Cornwallis might, the Americans always seemed to cross the river to safety before Cornwallis could cut them off. At Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, on March 15th, Greene finally turned to face Cornwallis. Greenes army was driven from the battlefield, but Cornwallis suffered severe losses which he could not replace. Cornwallis pulled back to recuperate, finally moving his army north into Virginia without subduing North Carolina. In the fall of 1781, George Washington rushed his army south to join French reinforcements. When French warships fortuitously gained control of the Chesapeake Bay, Cornwallis was besieged and forced to surrender on October 19,1781, just over a year after Kings Mountain. Kings Mountain was the beginning of the successful end to the Revolution, assuring independence for the United States of America. Men without formal training or recognized social standing - Ferguson called them mongrels - took hold of their destinies, just like the men who began the American War for Independence on April 19,1775, at Lexington and Concord. They relied upon their individual initiative, skills with the rifle, and courage to ensure the success of their cause. American Revolution, Captain Triggs Company, 9/13/1777 Zachariah Skaggs Henry Skaggs (son of Aaron) American Revolution, Battle of Kings Mountain John Skeggs (Skaggs wounded) Pennsylvania Militia (Flying Camp), 6/12/1776 - 12/1/1776 William Skaggs Dunmores War (commenced 10/10/1774 at Point Pleasant) General Andrew Lewis Army (Battle of Point Pleasant) Reuben Skaggs Zachariah Skaggs Captain James Roberts Company Charles Skaggs, Sergeant Aaron Skaggs John Skaggs John Skaggs ( two Johns here) Captain Joseph Cloyds Company Charles Skaggs Richard Skaggs Captain William Leftwichs Company Thomas Skaggs Sergeant Henry Skaggs detachment (12 men, total) Henry Skaggs, Sergeant Aaron Skaggs Richard Skaggs Moses Skaggs Nine or more of the above were from Fincastle County, Virginia
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 00:02:34 +0000
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