The First White Man of the West: Life and Exploits of Col. Dan'l. Boone, the First Settler of Kentucky;; Interspersed with Incidents in the Early Annals of the Country.Flint, Timothy
History
The First White Man of the West: Life and Exploits of Col. Dan'l. Boone, the First Settler of Kentucky;; Interspersed with Incidents in the Early Annals of the Country.
but weakened by the loss of blood, and the agony of his wounds, he
fainted, and Logan taking him up in his arms, bore him towards the
fort. A shower of bullets was discharged upon them, many of which struck
the palisades close to his head, as he brought the wounded man safe
within the gate, and deposited him in the care of his family.
The station, at this juncture, was destitute of both powder and ball;
and there was no chance of supply nearer than Holston. All intercourse
between station and station was cut off. Without ammunition the station
could not be defended against the Indians. The question was, how to
obviate this pressing emergency, and obtain a supply? Captain Logan
selected two trusty companions, left the fort by night, evaded the
besieging Indians, reached the woods, and with his companions made his
way in safety to Holston, procured the necessary supply of ammunition,
packed it under their care on horseback, giving them directions how to
proceed. He then left them, and traversing the forests by a shorter
route on foot, he reached the fort in safety, in ten days from his
departure. The Indians still kept up the siege with unabated
perseverance. The hopes of the diminished garrison had given way to
despair. The return of Logan inspired them with renewed confidence.
Uniting the best attributes of a woodsman and a soldier to uncommon
local acquaintance with the country, his instinctive sagacity prescribed
to him, on this journey, the necessity of deserting the beaten path,
where, he was aware, he should be intercepted by the savages. Avoiding,
from the same calculation, the passage of the Cumberland Gap, he
explored a track in which man, or at least the white man, had never
trodden before. We may add, it has never been trodden since. Through
cane-brakes and tangled thickets, over cliffs and precipices, and
pathless mountains, he made his solitary way. Following his directions
implicitly, his companions, who carried the ammunition, also reached the
fort, and it was saved.
His rencounters with the Indians, and his hairbreadth escapes make no
inconsiderable figure in the subsequent annals of Kentucky. The year
after the siege of his fort, on a hunting excursion, he discovered an
Indian camp, at Big Flat Spring, two miles from his station. Returning
immediately he raised a party, with which he attacked the camp, from
which the Indians fled with precipitation, without much loss on their
part, and none on his. A short time after he was attacked at the same
place, by another party of Indians. His arm was broken by their fire,
and he was otherwise slightly wounded in the breast. They even seized
the mane of his horse, and he escaped them from their extreme eagerness
to take him alive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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