But the West as a whole was benefited by Boone's Road. The part played by this earliest population of Kentucky in the development of the contiguous states--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri--has never been emphasized sufficiently. No Ohio historian has given sufficient attention to the part played by Kentuckians in the conquest of that area of territory. The struggle between the Kentuckians and the Ohio Indians has been outlined. The former fought for and saved to the Union the great territory south of the Ohio; and then left their smoking cabins and threw themselves ever and anon across the Ohio, upon the Indian settlements between that river and the Great Lakes. Where is even the Kentucky historian who has done his state justice in telling the story of Kentucky's conquest of Ohio and Indiana? Of the brilliant operations of Clark in Illinois we know very much, and the part played by the Kentuckians on the Mississippi and Illinois has frequently been made plain. But a singular misconception of the nature of Indian warfare has robbed the heroes of old Kentucky of much honor due them. Judged by ordinary military standards, the numerous invasions of Ohio and Indiana by Kentuckians amounted to little. Such was not the real case, many times. The Indians could ever retreat helter-skelter into the forests, avoiding more than a mere skirmish with the advancing pioneers. But they could not take their crops--and the destruction of one slight maize crop meant more to the invading army than the killing of many savages. The killing of the Indians did nothing but aggravate hostilities and long delay the end of the conflict. On the other hand, slaying redskins became the passion of the whites, and it is probable that many of their expeditions seemed failures if blood was not spilt. But their very presence in the Indian land and the destruction of the grain fields was more to their purpose, could they only have realized it. The Indians were then compelled to live largely on game, and as this grew more scarce each year the simple problem of obtaining subsistence became serious. The hunters were compelled to go further and further into the forest, and the tribes followed them. By doing nothing more than burning the harvest fields and ruining the important springs, the whites were slowly but surely conquering the trans-Ohio country.[26] By such a process one river valley after another was deserted, until, when the first legalized settlement was made in Ohio--at Marietta, in 1788--the Muskingum, Scioto and Miami valleys were practically deserted by redskins. Little as the Indians relished the new settlement at Marietta, they paid practically no attention to it but kept their eyes on the populated valleys of Kentucky, where their enemies of so many years' standing had settled, held their own, and then carried fire and sword northward. In October 1788 Governor Arthur St. Clair wrote the Hon. Mr.