Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 8).djvu/196

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
192
MILITARY ROADS

to watch Wayne and attack him if opportunity offered.[1]

Instantly a score of Indian runners were hurrying south and east to Knox and Wayne with the secret code message to prepare for war.[2] The exact date of Wayne's receipt of this message (sent from Niagara, August 23) is not recorded. It was two hours after midnight, September 24, when the express thundered into Petersburg, Kentucky, with an order to General Scott "to take the field with the Mounted Volunteers & to be at Fort Jefferson By the first of October."[3] Hobson's Choice was the scene of intense activity as September drew to a close, and by October 5 all was in readiness for the northward

  1. Deposition of an unknown, but in Wayne's handwriting. Draper MSS., v U, fol. 24.
  2. The following innocent sentence was to signify that war should immediately begin: "Although we did not effect a peace, yet we hope that good may hereafter arise from the mission." Wayne was provided with the commissioners' signatures as a guard against forgery.—American State Papers, vol. iv (Indian Affairs, vol. i). p. 359.
  3. Scott to Governor Shelby of Kentucky, "Petersburg 24th Sept 1793 2 oclock in the morning." Draper MSS., v U, fol. 25.