The western theater of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was the area of conflict west of the Appalachian Mountains, the region which became the Old Northwest of the United States as well as what would become the states of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, and Tennessee. The western war was fought between Indigenous peoples with their British allies in Detroit, and American settlers south and east of the Ohio River, and also the Spanish as allies of the latter.
Background At the conclusion of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), Great Britain won uncontested influence over the region between its Atlantic Coast colonies and the Mississippi River. The Ohio River marked a tenuous border between the Thirteen Colonies and the Native American groups of the Ohio Country. The Proclamation of 1763 forbade white colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains in order to prevent conflict between Native Americans and white settlers newly acquired territory after the French defeat. White settlers and land speculators in Britain and the American colonists objected to this restriction, since many had fought against the French and their indigenous allies to gain access to that land. British officials negotiated two treaties with Native Americans in 1768, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the Treaty of Hard Labour, opened land for white settlement south of the Ohio River. Thereafter, tensions between British officials and colonists over western land policy diminished.
Tensions grew in the Ohio Valley. The Grand Ohio Company was built on speculation in Native American lands, and Great Britain granted tracts of Native land to veterans of the French and Indian War to pay debts. But in 1772, Great Britain redeployed many of its western forces to the East Coast due to the increasing tensions with the colonists, removing a deterrent to illegal white squatters. In 1774, Great Britain determined that these land grants could not be given to colonial veterans, meaning that colonial veterans who had invested heavily in land speculation (such as George Washington) would lose their investment. That same year, the Quebec Act placed the lands between the Ohio River and Great Lakes under the jurisdiction of Quebec. That Spring, a group of settlers led by Daniel Greathouse committed the Yellow Creek massacre, in which thirteen Native women and children were killed, including the wife and pregnant sister of Tachnechdorus, who had been friendly to settlers until that time. In a particularly brutal act, Koonay, the sister of Tachnechdorus, was strung up by the wrists while her unborn baby was impaled. Tachnechdorus took revenge for the atrocity. He was supported by the Shawnee, who had still not been paid for their lands. Still other Shawnee fled the Scioto River valley, avoiding the anticipated war with the white settlers who suddenly surrounded them.
Most of the Native Americans who lived and hunted in the Ohio Valley, Shawnees, Mingos, Lenape, and Wyandots, had not been consulted in the 1768 treaties. Angry with the Iroquois for selling their lands to the British, Shawnees began to organize a confederacy of western Native peoples with the intention of preventing the loss of their lands.Dowd, Spirited Resistance, pp. 42–43. British and Iroquois officials worked to diplomatically isolate the Shawnees from other Native nations, however, and so when Dunmore's War broke out in 1774, Shawnees faced the Virginia militia with few allies. After Virginia's victory in the war, the Shawnees were compelled to accept the Ohio River boundary. Shawnee and Mingo leaders who did not agree with these terms renewed the struggle soon after the American Revolutionary War began in 1775.
1775 to 1776: Neutrality and small raids Initially, both the British and the Continental Congress sought to keep Native Americans in the west out of the war. At Fort Pitt in October 1775, American and Native American leaders reaffirmed the boundary established by Dunmore's War the previous year. Without British support, indigenous leaders such as Chief Blackfish (Shawnee) and Pluggy (Mingo) raided into what is now Kentucky, hoping to drive out the white settlers. Governor Patrick Henry of Virginia wanted to retaliate by attacking Pluggy's Town in the Ohio Country, but he canceled the expedition for fear that the militia would be unable to distinguish between neutral and hostile Native Americans, and thus make enemies of the neutral Lenape (also Delaware) and Shawnees. Nevertheless, Shawnees and Lenape became increasingly divided over whether or not to take part in the war. While leaders such as White Eyes (Lenape) and Cornstalk (Shawnee) urged neutrality, Buckongahelas (Lenape) and Blue Jacket (Shawnee) decided to fight against the Americans.
In Kentucky, isolated white settlers and hunters became the frequent target of attacks by Native Americans defending their territory, compelling many white settlers to return to the East. By late spring of 1776, fewer than 200 colonists remained in Kentucky, primarily at the fortified settlements of Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and Logan's Station.Faragher, Daniel Boone, p. 130. In December 1776, Pluggy was killed in an attack on McClellan's Station,Kenton, Simon Kenton, p. 80. McClellan's name is sometimes spelled McClelland. which was located on the site of presentday Georgetown, Kentucky.Rice, Frontier Kentucky, p. 71.
1776: Opening battle of the war
The Battle of Island Flats, at Eaton's station, was the opening battle of the American War of Independence in the west. The battle was fought in July 1776—shortly after the United States had declared its independence from Britain. It pitted the American Patriot militia and a small force of regulars, against the British-allied Cherokee warriors, who launched a three-pronged attack against the frontier inhabitants in the Overmountain region of the Washington District. On July 20, 1776, they started their campaign against the settlers at the lowlands across from Long Island on the Holston. The frontiersmen had been warned ahead of time by messengers sent from the Cherokee diplomat, Nancy Ward.
Following Cherokee chiefs Dragging Canoe (also Tsiyu Gansini), The Raven (also Savanukah), and Oconostota (all three of whom were experienced warriors), but lacking the element of surprise, the Cherokees were quickly routed, took several casualties, and had to withdraw.Store, Lynn; Battle of Island Flats; Discover Kingsport online; retrieved February 2023Cole, William Samuel; History of Tennessee during the Revolutionary War; pp. 174, 238–239, 286; retrieved March 10, 2023 Red Chief Dragging Canoe, who led the attack on Eaton's station, was badly wounded, but survived. The other two battles were fought later in the day: Oconostota at Watauga, and The Raven at Carter's valley. The Raven had some success in driving out the inhabitants of Carter's Valley, as fleeting as it was; but Oconostota's force was also routed.
1777: Escalation
In 1777, the British launched the Saratoga campaign from Canada. In order to provide a strategic diversion for operations in the Northeast, officials in Detroit began recruiting and arming Indian war parties to raid American settlements.Downes, Council Fires, p. 195. Unknown numbers of American settlers in present Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania were killed in these raids. The intensity of the conflict increased after enraged American militiamen murdered Cornstalk, the leading advocate of Shawnee neutrality, in November. Despite the violence, many Ohio Indians still hoped to stay out of the war. This was a difficult task because they were located directly between the British in Detroit and the Americans along the Ohio River.
1778 to 1779: American advances In the early years of the war, the Virginians had attempted to defend their western border with militiamen garrisoning three forts along the Ohio River—Fort Pitt, Fort Henry, and Fort Randolph. Defending such a long border proved to be futile, however, because American Indians simply bypassed the forts during their raids. In 1778, the Americans decided that offensive operations were necessary to secure their western border.
In September 1778, the United States negotiated the Treaty of Fort Pitt and secured Lenape support for an attack on Detroit the following month. The campaign was abandoned after the death of Lenape leader White Eyes.
Problems at Fort Pitt The first American expedition into the Ohio Country was a debacle. In February 1778, General Edward Hand led 500 Pennsylvania militiamen from Fort Pitt on a surprise winter march towards Mingo towns on the Cuyahoga River, where the British stored military supplies which they distributed to Indian raiding parties. Adverse weather conditions prevented the expedition from reaching its objective, however. On the return march, some of Hand's men attacked neutral Lenape Indians, killing one man and a few women and children, including relatives of the Lenape chief Konieschquanoheel (also Captain Pipe). Because only non-combatants had been killed, the expedition became derisively known as the "squaw campaign".Downes, Council Fires, p. 211; Nester, Frontier War, p. 194; Nelson, Man of Distinction, p. 101.
Besides unruly militia, Loyalist sentiment around Pittsburgh also contributed to Hand's problems. In March, three men with close ties to the British and American Indians left Pittsburgh, defecting to the British and Indian side. They were Simon Girty, an interpreter who had guided the "squaw campaign", Matthew Elliot, a local trader, and Alexander McKee, an agent for the British Indian Department.Nester, Frontier War, p. 194. All three would prove to be valuable British operatives in the war. Amid much criticism, and facing a congressional investigation for allowing the men to defect, Hand resigned in May.Nelson, Man of Distinction, pp. 101–02.
Treaty making and fort building Following the escalation of the war in 1777, Americans on the western frontier appealed to the Continental Congress for protection. After an investigation, a Congressional commission recommended in early 1778 that two regiments of the Continental Army be stationed in the West. Furthermore, because a defensive line of forts had little effect on Indian raids into the American settlements, the commissioners called for a fort to be built on the Indian side of the Ohio River, the first in a line of forts which would enable the Americans, it was hoped, to mount an expedition against Detroit.
Hollidays Cove Fort was a Revolutionary War fortification constructed in 1774 by soldiers from Ft. Pitt. It was located in what is now downtown Weirton, West Virginia, along Harmons Creek (named for Harmon Greathouse), about three miles from its mouth on the Ohio River. It was commanded by Colonel Andrew Van Swearingen (1741–1793) and later by his son-in-law, Captain Samuel Brady (1756–1795), the famous leader of Brady's Rangers. In 1779, over 28 militia were garrisoned at Hollidays Cove. Two years earlier in 1777, Colonel Van Swearingen led a dozen soldiers by longboat down the Ohio to help rescue the inhabitants of Fort Henry in Wheeling in a siege by the British and Indian tribes. That mission was memorialized in a WPA-era mural painted on the wall of the Cove Post Office by Charles Shepard Chapman (1879–1962). The mural features Col. John Bilderback, who later gained infamy as the leader of the massacre of the pacifist Indians in Gnadenhutten in 1782.Every Home a Fort, Every Man a Warrior; Michael Edward Nogay (Tri-State Publishing Co.: 2009) .