Hardly had the redskins disappeared from before McAfee’s than Major McGary arrived with forty men from neighboring stations. They immediately took up the pursuit and came in contact with the enemy before they had covered two miles. McGary’s men, who had been joined by the McAfees and others, made a vigorous attack, before which the savages fled. They were pursued for several miles and completely routed with heavy loss. Aptly has 1782 been termed the “bloody year” of Kentucky’s history. It witnessed the most terrible disasters that ever befell the settlers on “the dark and bloody ground.” We shall come presently to an account of the disastrous Battle of the Blue Licks, but will first describe two affairs that happened in the same year. The annihilation of Captain Laughrey’s expedition was the more serious, though the less interesting of these. Laughrey was coming down the Ohio with a force of one hundred and seven men, designed to reinforce the Kentuckians. At a point near the mouth of the Miami he was attacked by a large body of Indians and his entire party was killed or captured. It is a remarkable fact that when the whites and redskins were pitted against each other in large bodies, the latter were generally victorious. The backwoodsman always gave the best account of himself when alone or when acting with one or two companions. A few men of the stamp of Boone and Kenton could withstand five times their number of savages. Thus it was that the Indians held rather a contemptuous estimate of the whites in general, and had by contrast an exaggerated opinion of the prowess of Boone and a few others. In May Estill’s Station was attacked by a party of Wyandots. After killing one of the settlers and securing a prisoner they slaughtered the cattle in the neighboring fields and retreated. Captain Estill assembled twenty-five men and went in pursuit of the Indians. They had crossed the Licking and entered a narrow valley. He overtook them as they were about to leave it. As soon as the Indians perceived the whites, they halted and took up position under cover to await them. The Wyandots were distinguished for bravery above all the tribes in that part of the country. They were rendered especially formidable adversaries from the fact that they would maintain a stand under heavy loss, which none of the other tribes would do. The Shawnees, Mingos, and other savages with whom the Kentuckians came in contact, invariably retreated upon the loss of a few of their number. This was not the result of cowardice but of calculation. They justly reasoned that their warriors were so few as compared with the whites that a victory might easily be too dearly bought at the expense of ten or twenty of them. The Wyandots, however, would sometimes lose half their number engaged and still continue the fight.