Such deeds as these urged on the inevitable war, for which the Indians now openly prepared. Even the mighty Mingo chief, Logan, who had ever extended the hand of friendship to the white man, now appeared with uplifted tomahawk to avenge the unprovoked murder of his friends. Some eight hundred warriors were soon assembled, thirsting to avenge these recent murders, and eager to establish their right to the disputed territory. Logan, Elenipsico, Red Eagle, and Puckeshinwau were to lead the Indians, with Cornstalk, 'the mighty sachem of the Shawnee, and king of the northern confederacy,' in supreme command. So it happened that in 1774, when the eastern colonies were on the verge of revolution, the west was in the throes of an Indian war. When Lord Dunmore learned that the Shawnees had declared war, he at once proceeded to raise in Virginia an army of fifteen hundred men; and he instructed General Andrew Lewis to go to Kentucky and recruit among the borderers there an army of the same numerical strength, and march to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, where the two armies would meet. Meanwhile Dunmore advanced to Fort Pitt; but here he changed his plan, marched to the Scioto, and entrenched his force not far from the Indian town of Old Chillicothe. [Footnote: On Paint Creek, near the present city of Chillicothe, Ohio.] The 9th of October found Lewis with his troops encamped at Point Pleasant, where the Great Kanawha pours its waters into the Ohio, when a messenger arrived with new orders directing him to cross the Ohio and join Dunmore on the Scioto for an advance against the Indian towns to the north. Next morning the camp was astir at daybreak, and the soldiers were busily preparing for their intended march, when a scout returned with news that, about a mile away, a large body of Indians lay in ambush. These were Cornstalk's warriors, who had arrived at the Great Kanawha the night before. Advised by active scouts of every movement of the enemy, Cornstalk's Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes, and Ioways had crossed the Ohio on the 9th and had lain all night ambushed in the wet woods, impatiently awaiting the dawn. Shortly after sunrise they perceived the Americans advancing to the attack in two detachments, one at some distance from the Ohio, the other along its bank. Presently Cornstalk gave the signal to attack both bodies simultaneously, and the piercing war-cry resounded through the forest as the Indians rushed upon the advancing foe. In the first furious onset the Americans were beaten back, several of them being killed and an officer fatally wounded. Cornstalk's commanding voice rose high above the clash of arms, cheering on his followers; but the Americans, reinforced from their camp, and fighting desperately, finally drove the Indians from the field. Tecumseh's father, Puckeshinwau, and others among the ablest warriors, had fallen in the early onrush.