crossed the paths by which our troops had gone out; these paths are nearly east and west, but I went due north all that afternoon with a view to avoid the enemy.

In the evening I began to be very faint, and no wonder; I had been six days prisoner; the last two days of which I had eat nothing, and but very little the first three or four; there were wild gooseberries in abundance in the woods, but being unripe, required mastication, which at that time I was not able to perform on account of a blow received from an Indian on the jaw with the back of a tomahawk. There was a weed that grew plentifully in that place, the juice of which I knew to be grateful and nourishing; I gathered a bundle of the same, took up my lodging under a large spreading beach tree and having sucked plentifully of the juice, went to sleep. Next day, I made a due east course which I generally kept the rest of my journey. I often imagined my gun was only wood bound, and tried every method I could devise to unscrew the lock but never could effect it, having no knife nor anything fitting for the purpose; I had now the satisfaction to find my jaw began to mend, and in four or five days could chew any vegetable proper for nourishment, but finding my gun only a useless burden, left her in the wilderness. I had no apparatus for making fire to sleep by, so that I could get but little rest for the gnats and musketoes; there are likewise a great many swamps in the beach ridge, which occasioned me very often to lie wet; this ridge, through which I traveled, is about twenty miles broad, the ground in general very level and rich, free from shrubs and brush; there are, however, very few springs, yet wells might easily be dug in all parts of the ridge; the timber on it is very lofty, but it is no easy matter to make a straight course through

the same, the moss growing as high upon the South side of the trees as on the North. There are a great many white oaks, ash and hickory trees that grow among the beach timber; there are likewise some places on the ridge, perhaps for three or four continued miles where there is little or no beach, and in such spots, black, white oak, ash, and hickory abound. Sugar trees grow there also to a very great bulk-the soil is remarkably good, the ground a little ascending and descending with some small rivulets and a few springs. When I got out of the beach ridge and nearer the river Muskingum, the lands were more broken but equally rich with those before mentioned, and abounding with brooks and springs of water; there are also several small creeks that empty into that river, the bed of which is more than a mile wide in many places; the woods consist of white and black oak, walnut, hickory and sugar trees in the greatest abundance. In all parts of the country through which I came the game was very plenty, that is to say, deer, turkies and pheasants; I likewise saw a great many vestiges of bears and some elks.

I crossed the river Muskingum about three or four miles below Fort Laurence, and crossing all paths aimed for the Ohio river. All this time my food was gooseberries, young nettles, the juice of herbs, a few service berries, and some May apples, likewise two young blackbirds and a turripine, which I devoured raw. When my food sat heavy on my stomach, I used to eat a little wild ginger which put all to rights.

I came upon Ohio river about five miles below fort M'Intosh, in the evening of the 21st day after I had made my escape, and on the 22d about seven o'clock in the morning, being the 4th day of July, arrived safe, though very much fatigued, at the fort.

A SHORT MEMOIR

OF

COLONEL CRAWFORD.

OLONEL Crawford, was about 50 years of age, had

been an old warrior against the savages. He distinguished himself early as a volunteer in the last war, and was taken notice of by colonel (now general) Washington, who procured for him the commission of ensign. As a partisan he showed himself very active, and was greatly successful: He took several Indian towns, and did great service in scouting, patrolling and defending the frontiers. At the commencement of this war he raised a regiment in the back country by his own exertions: He had the commission of colonel in the continental army, and acted bravely on several occasions in the years 1776, 1777, and at other times. He held his commission at the time he took command of the militia in the aforesaid expedition against the Indians; most probably he had it with him when he was taken: He was a man of good judgment, singular good nature, and great humanity, and remarkable for his hospitality, few strangers coming to the western country, and not spending some days at the crossings of the Yochaghany river where he lived; no man therefore could be more regretted.

THE

NARRATIVE OF JOHN SLOVER.

H

AVING in the last war been a prisoner amongst the

Indians many years, and so being well acquainted with the country west of the Ohio, I was employed as a guide in the expedition under col. William Crawford against the Indian towns on or near the river Sandusky. It will be unnecessary for me to relate what is so well known, the circumstances and unfortunate event of that expedition; it will be sufficient to observe, that having on Tuesday the fourth of June, fought the enemy near Sandusky, we lay that night in our camp, and the next day fired on each other at the distance of three hundred yards, doing little or no execution. In the evening of that day it was proposed by colonel Crawford, as I have since been informed, to draw off with order; but at the moment of our retreat the Indians (who had probably perceived that we were about to retire) firing alarm guns our men broke and rode off in confusion, treading down those who were on foot, and leaving the wounded men who supplicated to be taken with them.

I was with some others on the rear of our troops feeding our horses in the glade, when our men began to break: The main body of our people had passed by me a considerable distance before I was ready to set out. I overtook them before they crossed the glade, and was advanced almost in front. The company in which I was had separated from me, and had endeavoured to pass

B

a morass, for coming up I found their horses had stuck fast in the morass, and endeavouring to pass, mine also in a short time stuck fast. I ought to have said, the company of five or six men with which I had been immediately connected, and who were some distance to the right of the main body, had separated from me, &c. I tried a long time to disengage my horse, until I could hear the enemy just behind me, and on each side, but in vain. Here then I was obliged to leave him. The morass was so unstable that I was to the middle in it, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I got across it, but which having at length done, I came up with the six men who had left their horses in the same manner I had done; two of these, my companions, having lost their guns.

We travelled that night, making our course towards Detroit, with a view to shun the enemy, who we conceived to have taken the paths by which the main body of our people had retreated. Just before day we got into a second deep morass, and were under the necessity of detaining until it was light to see our way through it. The whole of this day we travelled towards the Shawanese towns, with a view of throwing ourselves still farther out of the search of the enemy. About ten o'clock this day we sat down to eat a little, having tasted nothing from Tuesday, the day of our engagement, until this time which was on Thursday, and now the only thing we had to eat was a scrap of pork to each. We had sat down by a warrior's path which we had not suspected, when eight or nine warriors appeared. Running off hastily we left our baggage and provision, but were not discovered by the party; for skulking some time in the grass and bushes, we returned to the place and recovered