MADISON.

MADISON was formed in 1792, from Culpeper. It is about 23 miles long, and 13 miles wide. It lies at the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge, from which extend several mountains into the western part of the county, some of the smaller of which are very fertile. The tobacco raised on the highlands is of a superior quality: between the mountains are fine valleys of rich bottom land. The county is watered by the Rapid Ann and its branches. Pop. in 1840, whites 3,729, slaves 4,308, free colored 70; total, 8,107.

Madison, the county-seat, is 97 miles NNW. of Richmond. It is situated in the heart of the county, on a high and elevated ridge, and commands a beautiful and picturesque view of the Blue Ridge and the neighboring mountains. It contains 4 mercantile stores, 1 Baptist and 1 Episcopal church, and about 50 dwellings. At the post-offices of Rapid Ann Meeting-House and Leon are a few dwellings; the first contains a Baptist and a Free church.

The late HON. LINN BANKS, of this county, "for 20 successive years was speaker of the House of Delegates, an office for which he was so peculiarly qualified, that he was selected to fill it in all the mutations of party. He retired from the legislature in 1838, and was elected to Congress in that year, to complete the unexpired term of Mr. Patton, who was chosen counsellor. He was re-elected in 1839, and again in 1841. He served in the extra session of 1841, and then agreed with his competitor, to submit their cause to the people of his district. He consequently resigned his seat, which was obtained by his opponent, the majority against him being small. He was found drowned (Feb. 24th, 1842) in a stream which he had to cross in going from Madison Court-House to his residence, a few months after he was thus consigned to private life."

MASON.

MASON was formed in 1804 from Kanawha, and named from the celebrated statesman George Mason. It is about 30 miles long and 22 broad. The Ohio forms its western Great Kanawha passes centrally through it. ken, and much of the soil of a good quality. slaves 808, free colored 46; total, 6,777.

boundary, and the The surface is broPop., whites 5,923,

Buffalo, in the SE. part of the county, on the E. bank of the Kanawha, 21 miles from its mouth, contains a Presbyterian church and about 20 dwellings.

Point Pleasant, the county-seat, is situated at the junction of the Great Kanawha with the Ohio, 370 miles west of Richmond. It contains 1 Episcopalian and 1 Presbyterian church, 3 mercantile stores, 1 steam flour, and 1 steam saw-mill, 2 tanneries, and about 50 dwellings.

There was once an Indian town of the Shawnee tribe at the mouth of Old Town creek, near Point Pleasant, on the land of Thomas Lewis, Esq., the clerk of the county It was deserted by them, it is supposed, about the year 1760. In ploughing there in 1798, about 80 gun-barrels were found. An anvil, a vice, hammers, and other black.

smith's tools have been disinterred. Mr. Lewis, the county clerk, has opened several of the small mounds which abound in this section, and found a gun-barrel, a camp kettle, a butcher knife, tomahawk, a pewter basin, a variety of beads, and human skeletons.

Point Pleasant is on the site of the bloodiest battle ever fought with the Indians in Virginia,-the battle of Point Pleasant-which took place in Dunmore's war, Oct. 10th, 1774.

To illustrate more clearly this desperate action, we present our readers with a plan of the battle-ground, with explana

Road

Crooked

C

Gr. Kanawha

tory references, obtained by us while at Point Pleasant, in the autumn of 1843: a. A small pond and ravine where the action commenced, and where Col. Charles Lewis was mortally wounded. From this place, at right angles to the Ohio, to Crooked creek, both armies, early in the action, were extended through the woods. After a while the Indian line extended further down on the creek. d. Position of the fort built after the battle. All the officers who fell in the battle were buried at or near this spot, in what is now known as the Point Lot. b. The court-house. c. Cornstalk's grave. He was originally buried near the Kanawha; but a few years since his remains were disinterred, and removed to their present resting-place.

OHIO RIVER

Plan of the battle of Point Pleasant.

The subjoined account of this action, is from the work of Withers: The army destined for this expedition was composed of volunteers and militia, chiefly from the counties west of the Blue Ridge, and consisted of two divisions. The northern division, comprehending the troops collected in Frederick, Dunmore, (now Shenandoah,) and the adjacent counties, was to be commanded by Lord Dunmore in person; and the southern, comprising the different companies raised in Botetourt, Augusta, and the adjoining counties cast of the Blue Ridge, was to be led on by Gen. Andrew Lewis. These two divisions, proceeding by different routes, were to form a junction at the mouth of the Big Kanawha, and from thence penetrate the country northwest of the Ohio River, as far as the season would admit of their going, and de. stroy all the Indian towns and villages which they could reach.

About the first of September, the troops placed under the command of Gen. Lewis rendezvoused at Camp Union, (now Lewisburg,) and consisted of two regiments, commanded by Col. William Fleming of Botetourt, and Col. Charles Lewis of Augusta, and containing about four hundred men each. At Camp Union they were joined by an independent volunteer company under Col. John Field of Culpeper, a company from Bedford under Capt. Buford, and two from the Holstein settlement, (now Washington county,) under Capts. Evan Shelby and Harbert. These three latter companies were part of the forces to be led on by Col. Christian, who was likewise to join the two main divisions of the army at Point Pleasant, so soon as the other companies of his regiment could be assembled. The force under Gen. Lewis, having been thus augmented to eleven hundred men, commenced its march for the mouth of Kanawha on the 11th of September, 1774.

From Camp Union to the point proposed for the junction of the northern and southern divisions of the army, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles, the intermediate country was a trackless forest, so rugged and mountainous as to render the progress of the army at once tedious and laborious. Under the guidance of Capt. Matthew Ar buckle, they, however, succeeded in reaching the Ohio River, after a march of nineteen days; and fixed their encampment on the point of land immediately between that river and the Big Kanawha. The provisions and ammunition, transported on pack-horses, . and the beeves in droves, arrived soon after.

46

When the southern division arrived at Point Pleasant, Governor Dunmore, with the forces under his command, had not reached there; and unable to account for his failure to form the preconcerted junction at that place, it was deemed advisable to await that event; as by so doing a better opportunity would be afforded to Col. Christian of coming up with that portion of the army which was then with him. Meanwhile Gen. Lewis, to learn the cause of the delay of the northern division, dispatched runners by land in the direction of Fort Pitt, to obtain tidings of Lord Dunmore, and to communicate them to him immediately. In their absence, however, advices were received from his lordship, that he had determined on proceeding across the country, directly to the Shawnee towns; and ordering Gen. Lewis to cross the river, march forward, and form a junction with him near to them. These advices were received on the 9th of October, and preparations were immediately begun to be made for the transportation of the troops over the Ohio River.

Early on the morning of Monday, the tenth of that month, two soldiers left the camp, and proceeded up the Ohio River, in quest of deer. When they had progressed about two miles, they unexpectedly came in sight of a large number of Indians rising from their encampment, and who, discovering the two hunters, fired upon them and killed one; the other escaped unhurt, and running briskly to the camp, communicated the intelligence, "that he had seen a body of the enemy, covering four acres of ground, as closely as they could stand by the side of each other." The main part of the army was immediately ordered out under Cols. Charles Lewis, and William Fleming; and having formed into two lines, they proceeded about four hundred yards, when they met the Indians, and the action commenced.

At the first onset, Col. Charles Lewis having fallen, and Col. Fleming being wounded, both lines gave way and were retreating briskly towards the camp, when they were met by a reinforcement under Col. Field,† and rallied. The engagement then became general, and was sustained with the most obstinate fury on both sides. The Indians perceiving the "tug of war" had come, and determined on affording the colonial army no chance of escape, if victory should declare for them, formed a line extending across the point, from the Ohio to the Kanawha, and protected in front by logs and fallen timber. In this situation they maintained the contest with unabated vigor, from sunrise till towards the close of evening; bravely and successfully resisting every charge which was made on them; and withstanding the impetuosity of every onset, with the most invin cible firmness, until a fortunate movement on the part of the Virginia troops decided the day.

Some short distance above the entrance of the Kanawha River into the Ohio, there is a stream called Crooked creek, emptying into the former of these, from the northeast, whose banks are tolerably high, and were then covered with a thick and luxuriant growth of weeds. Seeing the impracticability of dislodging the Indians by the most vigorous attack, and sensible of the great danger which must arise to his army, if the contest were not decided before night, Gen. Lewis detached the three companies which were commanded by Capts. Isaac Shelby, George Matthews, and John Stuart, with orders to proceed up the Kanawha River and Crooked creek, under cover of the banks and weeds, till they should pass some distance beyond the enemy; when they were to emerge from their covert, march downward towards the point, and attack the Indians in their rear. The manœuvre thus planned was promptly executed, and gave a decided victory to the colonial army. The Indians finding themselves suddenly and unexpectedly encompassed between two armies, and not doubting but that in their rear was the looked-for reinforcement under Col. Christian, soon gave way, and about sundown commenced a precipitate retreat across the Ohio, to their towns on the Scioto. The victory, indeed, was decisive, and many advantages were obtained by it; but they were not cheaply bought. The Virginia army sustained in this engagement a loss of seventy-five

Few officers were ever more, or more deservedly, endeared to those under their command than Col Charles Lewis. In the many skirmishes which it was his fortune to have with the Indians, he was uncommonly successful; and in the various scenes of life through which he passed, his conduct was invariably marked by the distinguishing characteristics of a mind of no ordinary stamp. His early fall on this bloody field was severely felt during the whole engagement; and to it has been attributed the partial advantages gained by the Indian army near the commencement of the action. When the fatal ball struck him, he fell at the root of a tree; from whence he was carried to his tent, against his wish, by Capt. William Morrow and a Mr. Bailey, of Capt. Paul's company, and died in a few hours after

wards.

† An active, enterprising, and meritorious officer, who had been in service in Braddock's war, and profited by his experience of the Indian mode of fighting. His death checked for a time the ardor of his troops, and spread a gloom over the countenances of those who accompanied him on this campaign.

killed, and one hundred and forty wounded-about one-fifth of the entire number of the troops.

Among the slain were Cols. Lewis and Field; Capts. Buford, Morrow, Wood, Cundiff, Wilson, and Robert McClannahan; and Lieuts. Allen, Goldsby, and Dillon, with some other subalterns. The loss of the enemy could not be ascertained. On the morning after the action, Col. Christian, who had arrived after the battle was ended, marched his men over the battle-ground, and found twenty-one of the Indians lying dead; and twelve others were afterwards discovered, where they had been attempted to be concealed under some old logs and brush.

From the great facility with which the Indians either carry off or conceal their dead, it is always difficult to ascertain the number of their slain; and hence arises, in some measure, the disparity between their known loss and that sustained by their opponents in battle. Other reasons for this disparity are to be found in their peculiar mode of warfare, and in the fact that they rarely continue a contest, when it has to be maintained with the loss of their warriors. It would not be easy otherwise to account for the circumstance, that even when signally vanquished, the list of their slain does not, frequently, appear more than half as great as that of the victors. In this particular instance, many of the dead were certainly thrown into the river.

Nor could the number of the enemy engaged be ever ascertained. Their army is known to have been composed of warriors from the different nations north of the Ohio, and to have comprised the flower of the Shawanee, Delaware, Mingo, Wyandotie, and Cayuga tribes; led on by men whose names were not unknown to fame, and at the head of whom was Cornstalk, sachem of the Shawanees, and king of the northern con. federacy.

This distinguished chief and consummate warrior, proved himself on that day to be justly entitled to the prominent station which he occupied. His plan of alternate retreat and attack was well conceived, and occasioned the principal loss sustained by the whites. If at any time his warriors were believed to waver, his voice could be heard above the din of arms, exclaiming, in his native tongue: "Be strong! be strong!" and when one near him, by trepidation and reluctance to proceed to the charge, evinced a dastardly disposition, fearing the example might have a pernicious influence, with one blow of his tomahawk he severed his skull. It was, perhaps, a solitary instance in which terror predominated. Never did men exhibit a more conclusive evidence of bravery in making a charge, and fortitude in withstanding an onset, than did these undisciplined soldiers of the forest in the field at Point Pleasant. Such, too, was the good conduct of those who composed the army of Virginia on that occasion, and such the noble bravery of many, that high expectations were enterta ned of their future distinction. Nor were those expectations disappointed. In the various scenes through which they subsequently passed, the pledge of after eminence then given was fully redeemed ⚫ and the names of Shelby, Campbell, Matthews, Fleming, Moore, and others, their com patriots in arms on the inemorable tenth of October, 1774, have been inscribed in bril liant characters on the roll of fame.t

Having buried the dead, and made every arrangement which their situation admitted, for the comfort of the wounded, intrenchments were thrown up, and the army commenced its march to form a junction with the northern division, under Lord Dunmore. Proceeding by the way of the Salt Licks, Gen. Lewis pressed forward with astonishing rapidity, (considering that the march was through a trackless desert ;) but before he had gone far, an. express arrived from Dunmore with orders to return immediately to the mouth of the Big Kanawha. Suspecting the integrity of his lordship's motives, and urged by the advice of his officers generally, Gen. Lewis refused to obey

* Such were Redhawk, a Delaware chief-Scoppathus, a Mingo,-Elinipsico, a Shawanee, and son to Cora talk.-Chiyawee, a Wyandotte, and Logan, a Cayuga.

↑ The following gentlemen, with others of high reputation in private life, were officers in the battle at Point Pleasant. Gen. Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky, and afterwards secretary of war, Gen. William Campbell, and Col. John Campbell, heroes of King's Mountain and Long Island; Gen. Evan Shelby, one of the most favored citizens of Tennessee, often honored with the confidence of that state; Col. William Fleming, an active governor of Virginia during the revolutionary war; Gen. Andrew Moore, of Rockbridge, the only man ever elected by Virginia from the country west of the Blue Ridge, to the senate of the United States; Col. John Stuart, of Greenbrier; Gen. Tate, of Washington county, Virginia; Col. William McKee, of Lincoln county, Kentucky; Col. John Steele, since a governor of the Mississippi Territory; Col. Charles Cameron, of Bath; Gen. Bizaleel Wells, of Ohio; and Gen. George Matthews, a distinguished officer in the war of the revolution, the hero of Brandywine, Germantown, and of Guilford, a governor of Georgia, and a senator from that state in the Congress of the United States. The salvation of the American army at Germantown is ascribed, in Johnstone's life of Gen. Greene, to the bravery and good conduct of two regiments, one of which was commanded by Gen., then Col. Matthews.

these orders, and continued to advance till he was met (at Kilkenny Creek, and in sight of an Indian village, which its inhabitants had just fired and deserted) by the governor, (accompanied by White Eyes,) who informed him that he was negotiating a treaty of peace, which would supersede the necessity of the further movement of the southern division, and repeating the order for its retreat.

The army under Gen. Lewis had endured many privations and suffered many hardships. They had encountered a savage enemy in great force, and purchased a victory with the blood of their friends. When arrived near to the goal of their anxious wishes, and with nothing to prevent the accomplishment of the object of the campaign, they received those orders with evident chagrin, and did not obey them without murmuring. Having, at his own request, been introduced severally to the officers of that division, complimenting them for their gallantry and good conduct in the late engagement, and assuring them of his high esteem, Lord Dunmore returned to his camp; and Gen. Lewis commenced his retreat.

This battle (says Col. Stuart, in his historical memoir) was, in fact, the beginning of the revolutionary war, that obtained for our country the liberty and independence enjoyed by the United States-and a good presage of future success; for it is well known that the Indians were influenced by the British to commence the war to terrify and confound the people, before they commenced hostilities themselves the following year at Lexing ton. It was thought by British politicians, that to excite an "Indian war would prevent a combination of the colonies for opposing parliamentary measures to tax the Americans." The blood, therefore, spilt upon this memorable battle, will long be remembered by the good people of Virginia and the United States with gratitude.

The brave and noble Shawanee chief, Cornstalk, was atrociously murdered at Point Pleasant, in the summer of 1777. The governor of Virginia offered a reward for the apprehension of the murderers, but without effect. Point Pleasant, which was first settled in 1774, did not flourish for many years. It had no church, the state of society was bad, and it was the popular superstition that the place was cursed for this fiend-like act. The particulars here detailed of this event, are from the modest, unostentatious memoir of Col. John Stuart:

In the year 1777, the Indians, being urged by British agents, became very troublesome to frontier settlements, manifesting much appearance of hostilities, when the Cornstalk warrior, with the Redhawk, paid a visit to the garrison at Point Pleasant. He made no secret of the disposition of the Indians; declaring that, on his own part, he was opposed to joining in the war on the side of the British, but that all the nation, except himself and his own tribe, were determined to engage in it; and that, of course, he and his tribe would have to run with the stream, (as he expressed it.) On this Captain Arbuckle thought proper to detain him, the Redhawk, and another fellow, as hostages, to prevent the nation from joining the British.

In the course of that summer our government had ordered an army to be raised, of volunteers, to serve under the command of General Hand; who was to have collected a number of troops at Fort Pitt, with them to descend the river to Point Pleasant, there to meet a reinforcement of volunteers expected to be raised in Augusta and Botetourt counties, and then proceed to the Shawanee towns and chastise them so as to compel them to a neutrality. Hand did not succeed in the collection of troops at Fort Pitt; and but three or four companies were raised in Augusta and Botetourt, which were under the command of Colonel George Skillern, who ordered me to use my endeavors to raise all the volunteers I could get in Greenbrier, for that service. The people had begun to see the difficulties attendant on a state of war and long campaigns carried through wildernesses, and but a few were willing to engage in such service. But as the settlements which we covered, though less exposed to the depredations of the Indians, had showed their willingness to aid in the proposed plan to chastise the Indians, and had raised three companies, I was very desirous of doing all I could to promote the business and aid the service. I used the utmost endeavors, and proposed to the militia officers to volunteer ourselves, which would be an encouragement to others, and by such means to raise all the men who could be got. The chief of the officers in Greenbrier agreed to the proposal, and we cast lots who should command the company. The lot fell on An