A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier

by Robert N. Thompson

  This April 7, 1776 letter from George Morgan to his brother, written just before his assignment as Indian superintendent at Fort Pitt, provides an example of his land speculation dealings. This particular transaction involves an Indiana land deal Morgan was working on on behalf of General George Washington. Library of Congress.

  Throughout 1777 and into early 1778, as the war with Great Britain raged with full force, McKee continued in virtual house arrest, as Girty tried to regain the good graces of Morgan and the other American officials in Pittsburgh. Simon even recruited men to a militia company, and when he had raised his quota of 150 enlistees, he hoped he would be given their captaincy. However, all he was offered was a lieutenancy, and, far worse, when the company was mustered into service for duty in South Carolina, Girty was ordered to remain behind.232 Soon thereafter, a new American commander, General Edward Hand, arrived in Pittsburgh, and while Girty initially supported Hand in working with the local Indian tribes, he decided to resign his commission in August 1777.233

  General Edward Hand, commander of American forces at Fort Pitt. Pennsylvania Historical Society.

  Meanwhile, matters worsened for Alexander McKee. First, in February 1777, the British lieutenant governor at Detroit, Henry Hamilton, proposed to Whitehall that they now actively encourage the remainder of the Six Nations to make war on American forces and settlements along the frontier. Lord George Germain agreed to the strategy, and on March 26, he instructed Sir Guy Carleton to approve Hamilton’s idea for “the making a diversion on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania by parties of Indians conducted by proper leaders.”234 When word of this new threat was revealed in the American settlements, McKee once again became the target of suspicion and scrutiny. Then, in July, the sister of the Shawnee chief Cornstalk, who was known to hate McKee, reported to General Hand that McKee was secretly communicating with Hamilton in Detroit. Hand quickly dismissed her story, believing that the former British agent was fully living within the terms of his parole. Still, despite Hand’s reassurances, most of the people of Pittsburgh believed McKee to be a dangerous loyalist.235

  In the early fall, General Hand decided to rehire Girty and send him on a mission to visit his old family, the Seneca, and determine their intentions. In mid-November 1777, Girty arrived at the Seneca village of Connewago, on the Allegheny River. There, he met with the council led by his aging surrogate father, Guyasuta, and made his case that the Seneca should remain neutral. However, he did not get the reception he hoped for, and, in fact, what happened was far beyond anything he might have imagined. Guyasuta informed Girty that he was no longer considered a Seneca and that the council believed him to be an American spy. From other statements made in the council house, it became clear to Girty that his people had decided to make war on the Americans and were most likely already conducting raids along the frontier. Guyasuta told his former son that he would be taken to Fort Niagara the next day, where he would be turned over to British authorities, who would likely hang him. That night, a badly shaken Simon Girty made his escape and returned to Pittsburgh, telling General Hand what he had learned.236 However, even with this success, Hand would not restore Girty’s commission, much less provide a captaincy, which he had promised to Simon in return for his mission to the Seneca. Nevertheless, despite this reversal of fortune, the unhappy Girty continued to provide services to Hand and the Patriot cause.

  In late 1777 and early 1778, General Hand searched for a way to strike at the British and their new Indian allies in Ohio. Intelligence reports indicated the British had established a depot for the Indians near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, just over eighty miles from Pittsburgh, and Hand figured that, with the Indians scattered in their winter encampments, the depot might be virtually undefended. However, Hand did not have the manpower required to mount the raid, so he wrote a letter requesting reinforcements to Colonel William Crawford, a close friend of George Washington, a land speculator and a man who knew Girty from Dunmore’s War. In his letter, Hand advised Crawford that he expected to find “a magazine of arms and provisions, sent from Detroit, and fifteen batteaux [sic] lie there. You may guess the rest.”237 Crawford responded that he would be on the march shortly, and Hand replied, this time extolling not only the patriotism of Crawford’s men but also offering the potential incentive for material gain:

  Colonel William Crawford, American officer, associate of George Washington and comrade of Simon Girty during Dunmore’s War. Ohio Historical Society.

  It may be necessary to assure them that every thing they are able to bring away shall be sold at public vendue [sic] for the sole benefit of the captors, and the money equally distributed tho’ [sic] I am certain that a sense of the service they will render to their country will operate more strongly than the expectation of gain. I, therefore, expect that you will use your influence on this occasion, and bring all the volunteers you can raise to Fort Pitt by the 15th of this month.238

  Crawford, whose name later become indelibly tied to that of Simon Girty, mustered five hundred men, and on February 8, 1778, Hand, Crawford and their militia left Pittsburgh for the Cuyahoga, with Girty serving as an interpreter. The weather proved simply awful, a nasty mixture of cold rain and light snow that flooded every river and stream in the column’s path. To make matters worse, General Hand had hired another man, William Brady, to act as guide, despite the fact that Girty knew these woods far better. It quickly became clear that Brady did not know the best route to the Cuyahoga, and between the weather and Brady’s incompetence, it took Hand days to go just a few miles.239

  One morning, as the column camped near the Beaver River, Girty accompanied Brady into the nearby woods to look for the guide’s horse, which had wandered away during the night. They found the horse after a few hours and were heading back to camp when they heard the sounds of gunfire. Hurrying forward and anticipating that a skirmish had occurred with the enemy, they quickly located the source of the shooting. Some of Hand’s other scouts had led the general and his soldiers to the site of an old Indian village, which Hand did not bother reconnoitering in advance. Rather, he just assumed this was a populated, hostile village and sent his men in, shooting and ransacking the longhouses. However, instead of several hundred villagers and warriors, all they found were an elderly Indian man, two women and some children, hunkered down for a cold winter.

  The soldiers killed the old man, who managed to get off a single shot before he went down, wounding one of Crawford’s men. In the wild firing that followed, they also killed one of the women and wounded the other by shooting off her finger when she raised her hands in surrender. Luckily, they did not kill any of the children, who all fled into the woods. Hand ordered Girty to interrogate the wounded woman, and from her, Girty learned that General Hand had just attacked a group of neutral Delawares, and worse, the man they killed was the brother of the Delaware’s principle chief, Captain Pipe, and the dead woman was Captain Pipe’s mother. She also revealed that some warriors were at a nearby saltwater spring, so Hand sent a detachment of soldiers off to find them. The men returned without having found the warriors; however, they did successfully kill and scalp a young Indian boy who was innocently hunting in the woods with a bow and arrow.

  With this disaster complete, Hand ordered the column back to Pittsburgh, where he was ridiculed about what became known as the “Squaw Campaign.” Unfortunately, no one attacked the general for his men’s wanton killing of innocent, neutral Delawares, but instead, they criticized him for not finding and killing more Indians. More so, however, this “campaign” seems to have been the event that triggered Simon Girty’s decision to abandon the American cause. The bloodthirsty desire among those engaged in the Patriot cause to slaughter Indians, no matter their position in the war with Great Britain, combined with the intense desire to take those same Indians’ lands after the war and the disdain they demonstrated for him personally, finally moved Girty to change allegiance for good.240

  Girty went to see Alexander McKee, and his o
ld associate told him that he, too, planned to defect. Since late December, McKee had resisted General Hand’s orders to report to York, where McKee was supposed to testify about his activities since the beginning of the war before the Continental Congress’s Board of War. McKee had no intention of doing so, as it was tantamount to a death sentence, no matter what he told the board. Although McKee had likely been quietly supporting the British war effort, he worked hard to appear ambivalent about the war to the public at large. McKee had much to lose if he defected, as he had acquired some considerable wealth and property while developing good business relationships with many leading men in Pennsylvania. However, Hand’s insistence that he turn himself over to Patriot officials finally forced his hand.

  Girty and McKee planned their escape along with Matthew Elliot, a friend and business associate of McKee. Girty went to his brothers and told them of his plans. James Girty, who had also been working with American officials up to this point, decided to take a journey with his wife into the Shawnee country, ensuring he was out of the city when Girty and McKee made their escape. Then, James would also join the British cause. On the night of March 28, 1778, McKee, Elliott and Girty, along with McKee’s cousin Robert Surphlitt, McKee’s servant John Higgins and two of McKee’s African slaves, mounted up under the cover of darkness, left Pittsburgh for good and began their journey to Detroit. As it turned out, their timing was impeccable, as General Hand sent a group of armed men to McKee’s house to arrest him a few hours later. Finding the house empty, Hand said he was “mortified.”241

  After making a slow trek through the Ohio Country during which they visited with many Indian leaders, McKee and Girty finally arrived in Detroit in early June 1778. Along the way, the news of their defection spread, and there was great excitement among the Indian nations when they learned that two men they considered friends and able leaders had come over to the side of King George III. Meanwhile, back in Pennsylvania and along the frontier, there was a corresponding sense of fear and dread. One man wrote about what he observed, saying, “As we drew nearer to Pittsburgh, the unfavorable account of the elopement of McKee, Elliott, Girty, and others, from the latter place [Pittsburgh] to the Indian country, for the purpose of instigating the Indians to murder [caused great excitement]…Indeed, the gloomy countenances of all men, women, and children, that we passed, bespoke fear—nay, some families even spoke of leaving their farms and moving off.”242

  Even General Hand found he was fearful of what McKee and Girty might accomplish as agents of the British. Only two days after the escape, he wrote Colonel Crawford requesting help, saying, “Your assistance may be necessary towards preventing the evils that may arise from the information of these runaways, I beg you may return here as soon as possible.”243

  In fact, the defection could not have come at a worse time for Hand and the other Americans along the frontier. Although, the war in the wilderness region had become a seemingly endless series of raids and counter-raids, British leaders feared the Americans might gather sufficient strength to not only penetrate the Ohio Country but also threaten Detroit itself. Such a setback could very well topple the entire British war effort along the frontier. Therefore, Colonel Hamilton and other British officials in Detroit felt they needed to rally their Indian allies and conduct a campaign that would constantly keep the Americans both fearful and off-balance. In this regard, Hamilton saw McKee as the key to his plans, writing the Lord George Germain, “I shall place great dependencies on his knowledge of the Country and of these people employed for its defense.”244 He immediately commissioned McKee as a captain in the British Indian Department and appointed Girty to an interpreter’s post. In the meantime, McKee, Elliott and Girty were accused and convicted of treason in absentia in a court in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From this point on, they were considered renegade outlaws and traitors who would be executed without further trial if captured, and the man who brought them in would receive a reward of $800.245

  Hamilton and his successor, Major Arent DePeyster, made good use of both Girty and McKee. McKee spent the war years living among the Ohio nations, consulting with village councils, gathering intelligence, arranging for the exchange of captives and constantly conducting diplomacy aimed at maintaining the Crown’s alliance with the Indian nations.246 On occasion, McKee might organize raids against American military and civilian objectives along the frontier, but for the most part, he left that work to Simon Girty, who proved more adept than even McKee might ever have imagined possible.

  Girty spent much of his time working with the Wyandot but also organized raids by Shawnee and Mingo warriors that ranged into southern Ohio and northern Kentucky, as well as western Pennsylvania and Virginia. Usually, these involved a few dozen warriors who would burn farmhouses, ambush supply trains and, most importantly, spread fear and panic among American settlers. Militarily, these attacks were nothing compared to the highly organized campaigns being fought east of the Alleghenies, and Congress considered them an irritant. However, for those citizens and leaders on the frontier, these persistent attacks were a matter of great significance, and they clamored loudly for increased military assistance.247

  Most of all, however, these attacks also allowed Girty’s reputation to grow well beyond the reality of even his considerable capabilities. Simon’s ability to mount protracted raids all along the frontier gave the impression that he was everywhere at once, capable of suddenly appearing to inflict deadly harm and then disappearing into the dense forest only to appear and strike elsewhere with stunning speed. The Indians he led often scalped, burned and tortured, and while there is no record of his participating in these kinds of activities, he did not appear moved to stop them either. As a result, he gained a perhaps unwarranted reputation for cruelty and barbarism, as well.

  Feelings against Girty ran especially high around Pittsburgh. For his part, Girty did not seem to feel he was doing anything dishonorable, and when he heard about the bounty placed on his head, he sent word to Pittsburgh that he “expected no mercy from the Americans and would give none.”248 However, at the same time, Girty’s notoriety did have some purely military value, as American soldiers and even their commanders grew to fear him. On one occasion, a force of 260 militia besieging a Shawnee town near Chillicothe received a false report that Girty was approaching with one hundred Mingo warriors. Rather than stay and fight, the militia elected to burn a few buildings and beat a hasty retreat, even though they vastly outnumbered Girty and his phantom Mingo army.249 Later, when the American general William Irvine was contemplating a new campaign against the Wyandot on the Sandusky River and British-Indian forces at Detroit, the attack was cancelled because of Girty’s presence. One officer wrote in a letter to a comrade, “The chance is now against General Irvine’s succeeding…and, it is said, [he] set out with only 1,200 men. Simon Girty can outnumber him; and, flushed with so many victories, to his natural boldness, he will be confident.”250

  By the war’s end in 1783, both McKee and Girty had performed valuable service on behalf of His Majesty’s government. The Americans not only made no gains on the frontier, but also their hold on what they did control was often shaky, at best, and both McKee and Girty were largely responsible for that success. McKee’s stature within the British Indian Department grew during the war, and he was considered a “capable and energetic officer who displayed uncommon influence among the Crown’s native allies.”251 Further, McKee found the work rewarding in that it allowed him to expand his diplomatic and military efforts to the Northern Lakes tribes, with whom he had little contact before the war. Girty, meanwhile, although likely seen as far less refined than his more educated associate, was considered a man of great influence among the Indians, respected for his leadership and bravery.

  However, both Girty and McKee were surprised when, in May 1783, they discovered that the British government had given away all the Indian lands of Ohio and Kentucky to the Americans. Although the Crown’s negotiators had ensured that the Mohawks were provided l
ands in Canada, they made no such provision for Indians of the Ohio Valley. British leaders ordered Major DePeyster to say nothing of this to Indian leaders, and he dispatched McKee and Girty on missions to tell the Indian nations that the war was over and that they should now end their raids on the Americans. In July, a meeting in Detroit that included the leaders of eleven Indian nations followed these missions. During this conference, the British superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir John Johnson, gave the Indians a rather mixed message. He told them they should all make peace with the Americans, that the British could no longer support them if they chose to make war and that, at the same time, they should be prepared to defend their lands if the Americans invaded. Soon, however, the Indians learned that their British allies had betrayed them, and both Girty and McKee spent much time traveling among the villages conducting diplomacy designed to ensure the Indians would still cooperate with the British.252

  As the months passed, Girty became less active, and while he officially remained an interpreter on the British Indian Department staff, he did so only at half pay. A grateful British government gave him land in Canada near Detroit, and he settled down to do some farming, even marrying a twenty-year-old former Indian captive named Catherine Malott.253 However, it was not long before Alexander McKee once again asked for his help, and Girty would spend most of the next six years traveling among the Indians, occasionally stirring up resentment toward the Americans but more often assisting with treaty negotiations and council meetings.