He fought through two years of the Revolutionary War, and he was
thoroughly fitted to act as a guide for Crawford.
After the battle, or rather the disorderly rout, he was one of those who
was mired in the swamps. He left his horse there, and with a few others
tried to make his way to Detroit. Twice the party escaped capture by
hiding in the grass, as the Indians passed near them, but on the third
morning they were ambushed; two were killed, one ran away, and the
remaining three gave themselves up on the promise of good treatment.
They were taken to Wapatimika, where Simon Kenton was to have been
burned, and they soon proved how far the promises of the savages were to
be trusted.
The Indians knew Slover at once, and they bitterly reproached him with
having come to betray his friends. At the council held to try him,
James Girty urged them to put him to death for his treason. But Slover
strongly defended himself, reminding the Indians that they had freely
given him up, and had no longer any claim upon him. His words had such
weight that the council put off its decision. In the meantime he was
left with an old squaw, who hid him under a bear skin, and scolded off
the messengers who came to bring him before a grand council of Shawnee,
Delaware, Wyandot, Chippewa, and Mingo warriors. But shortly after,
Girty came with forty braves and seized him. Slover was now stripped,
and with his hands tied and his face painted black, he was taken to a
village five miles off, where he was beaten as usual by the people,
and then driven a little farther to another village, where he found
everything made ready to burn him, as Crawford had been burned. He was
tied to the stake, and the fire was lighted; an orator began to kindle
the anger of the savages; but at the last moment a heavy shower of rain
burst over the roofless council house where they had gathered to torture
their captive, put out the fire, and drove them to a sheltered part of
the lodge, where they consoled themselves as best they could by beating
him till midnight, and promising him that he should be burned the next
day. He was then carried to the blockhouse and left bound with two
guards, who entertained themselves, but did not amuse Slover, by talking
over his probable behavior under the torture that awaited him. They fell
asleep, worn out, about daybreak, when Slover made a desperate effort to
free himself, and to his own astonishment, succeeded. He stepped across
his snoring guards out into the open air. No one was astir in the
village, and he ran to hide himself in a cornfield, where he nearly fell
over a sleeping squaw and her papooses. On the other side of the field
he found some horses, and making a halter of the buffalo thong that had
bound him, and that still hung upon his arm, he leaped upon one of them
and dashed through the woods. By ten o’clock in the forenoon he had
reached the Scioto fifty miles away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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