Upon the tenth of October, Cornstalk, a famous Shawnese chief, taking advantage of Dunmore's failure to join the southern wing, led against Lewis's little army encamped at Point Pleasant a thousand picked warriors gathered from all parts of the Northwest. Here, upon the wooded eminence at the junction of the two rivers, was waged from dawn until dusk one of the most bloody and stubborn hand-to-hand battles ever fought between Indians and whites. It is hard to say who displayed the best generalship, Cornstalk or Lewis. The American savage was a splendid fighter; although weak in discipline he could competently plan a battle. The tactics of surprise were his chief resource, and these are legitimate even in civilized warfare; but he could also make a determined contest in the open, and when, as at Point Pleasant, the opposing numbers were nearly equal, the result was often slow of determination. Desperately courageous, pertinacious, with a natural aptitude for war combined with consummate treachery, cruelty, and cunning, it is small wonder that the Indian long offered a formidable barrier to the advance of civilization. In early Virginia, John Smith noticed that in Indian warfare the whites won at the expense of losses far beyond those suffered by the tribesmen; and here at Point Pleasant, while the "Long Knives"[10] gained the day, the number of their dead and wounded was double that of the casualties sustained by Cornstalk's painted band. The victory at Point Pleasant practically closed the war upon the border. Boone had been made a captain in response to a popular petition that the hero of Clinch Valley be thus honored, and was given charge of the three lower forts; but there followed only a few alarms, and upon the twentieth of November he and his brother militiamen of the region received their discharge. The war had cost Virginia £10,000 sterling, many valuable lives had been sacrificed, and an incalculable amount of suffering and privation had been occasioned all along the three hundred and fifty miles of American frontier. But the Shawnese had been humbled, the Cherokees had retired behind the new border line, and a lasting peace appeared to be assured. In the following January Captain Boone, true son of the wilderness, was celebrating his freedom from duties incident to war's alarms by a solitary hunt upon the banks of Kentucky River. FOOTNOTES: [9] Previous to this there had been built in Kentucky many hunters' camps, also a few isolated cabins by "improvers"; but Harrodsburg (at first called "Harrodstown") was the first permanent settlement, thus having nearly a year's start of Boonesborough. June 16, 1774, is the date given by Collins and other chroniclers for the actual settlement by Harrod.