" (See "American Archives," Fourth Series, vol.
II, p. 170.) Similar resolutions were passed by his officers on
the march home from Ohio; at the same time, the officers passed
resolutions in sympathy with the American cause. Yet it was
Andrew Lewis who later drove Dunmore from Virginia. Well might
Dunmore exclaim, "That it should ever come to this!"
The movements of the two armies were being observed by scouts
from the force of red warriors gathered in Ohio under the great
leader of the Shawanoes. Cornstalk purposed to isolate the two
armies of his enemy and to crush them in turn before they could
come together. His first move was to launch an attack on Lewis at
Point Pleasant. In the dark of night, Cornstalk's Indians crossed
the Ohio on rafts, intending to surprise the white man's camp at
dawn. They would have succeeded but for the chance that three or
four of the frontiersmen, who had risen before daybreak to hunt,
came upon the Indians creeping towards the camp. Shots were
exchanged. An Indian and a white man dropped. The firing roused
the camp. Three hundred men in two lines under Charles Lewis and
William Fleming sallied forth expecting to engage the vanguard of
the enemy but encountered almost the whole force of from eight
hundred to a thousand Indians before the rest of the army could
come into action.
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