Fortunately, Major Smith and
his small party discovered this formidable body before they were
themselves observed. But instead of endeavoring to make good their
retreat from an enemy so superior in numbers, and mounted upon horses,
they fired upon them and killed two of their number. An assault so
unexpected alarmed the Indians; and without any effort to ascertain the
number of their assailants, they commenced a precipitate retreat. If
these rash adventurers had stopped here, they might have escaped
unmolested. But, flushed with this partial success, they rushed upon the
retreating foe, and repeated their fire. The savages, restored to
self-possession, halted in their turn, deliberated a moment, and turned
upon the assailants. Major Smith, perceiving the imprudence of having
thus put the enemy at bay, and the certainty of the destruction of his
little force, if the Indians should perceive its weakness, ordered a
retreat in time; and being considerably in advance of the foe, succeeded
in effecting it without loss. By a rapid march during the night, in the
course of the next morning they reached Boonesborough in safety.
Scarcely an hour after the last of their number had entered the fort, a
body of six hundred Indians, in three divisions of two hundred each,
appeared with standards and much show of warlike array, and took their
station opposite the fort. The whole was commanded by a Frenchman named
Duquesne. They immediately sent a flag requesting the surrender of the
place, in the name of the king of Great Britain.
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