years which led up to Dunmore's campaign, like the savage attack on Wheeling, in September, 1777. Slowly the Indians forgot Lewis's crushing victory at Point Pleasant, and their solemn pledges at Camp Charlotte; and were raiding the feeble Kentucky posts with undiminished relish, or giving the Long Knives plenty of provocation for the barbarities of which the latter are known to have been guilty.
The opening scene of the Revolutionary War in the West was the most important phase of the war in the history of Boone's Wilderness Road; for at the very outset the question was decided once for all whether or not that thin, long, priceless path to Kentucky through the Watauga settlement was to be held or lost. If it could not be held, there was no hope left for the brave men who had gone to found that western empire beyond the Cumberland Mountains. With their line of retreat cut in two by the southern Indians, they were left without hope of succor or success: for the success of their enterprise depended upon the inspiration their advance gave to those behind them. None would come if
