This is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

This program features historical reenactment that include Native American characters and cultural representations.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting has made every effort to hire Native American performers to portray key historical figures.

However, not all participants appearing in these reenactments are Native American.

Every effort has been made to ensure that all portrayals are handled with accuracy, respect, and cultural sensitivity.

Through the use of Native American consultants.

After the death of Cornstalk, Blackfish now is in firm control of the Shawnee forces, and he's going to use that control to wage war against Daniel Boone and the settlers in Kentucky.

And then, of course, the major raid into Fort Randolph and then the Greenbrier Valley in 1778.

The violence that occurs in 1778 is inspired by a desire for the Ohio Indians to get exact revenge for the murder of Cornstalk.

So once again, it's most often these advocates for peace and negotiation will become the first victims of the violence that is tearing people apart.

So McKee is in the middle of all of this and has to try to find some kind of a balance.

And McKee is really stuck between a rock and a hard place.

After Arbuckle leaves, he's stuck there to deal with the aftermath of Cornstalk's murder, and he's stuck there in the winter of 1777- 78.

This is the same time when Washington and his Continental Army are at Valley Forge, and they're barely surviving.

And the same thing is going on at Fort Randolph.

McKee and his men are there.

There's a smallpox outbreak.

13 of his men die.

They're running low on flour.

They're running low on salt.

They're running low on meat.

They have to take care of all of their own personal belongings.

And you can only imagine what it would be like far out here, away from a lot of the other big battles, away from any big cities.

I imagine that shoes were not always shiny.

I imagine you're not going to have a bunch of clean shaven, military looking personnel.

They have to try and hold things together for these violent retaliatory attacks, for the murder of Cornstalk that they know are coming as soon as the weather gets better.

And McK ee plays a big role in helping the men there at the fort endure through those hard times.

It's not merely about enduring the battles, which of course, the battles are important, but it's about the many hours and many days of simply enduring the monotony of life on a frontier fort out there, isolated, without any immediate help, without any guarantees of a steady supply chain, that you have to be resolute in staying there and, you know, holding out.

And I think McKee plays an important role in that.

Simply staying there at the fort is a big deal, because that was tough to do in that situation.

And McKee meets it about as bravely as you can.

Blackfish is a remarkable warrior in his own right, but he never really has the men and the material necessary to be able to take these fortifications.

The Ohio Indians deploy a classic tactic of Fort Randolph.

What Blackfish decides to do is to employ a popular Native American tactic on the frontier, and that is to try and draw people out of the fort.

What they did is they sent a small force to attack Fort Randolph directly.

Of course, the attack fails.

Some of them are killed.

Their being shot out of the fort.

They know that it's very, very difficult for them to try to take these fortifications, and they can weaken the defenses of these fortifications.

If they can find a way to draw people out of the fort.

To essentially draw the militiamen inside of Fort Randolph, out of Fort Randolph, to chase them.

Moo re and his men are ordered by McKee to go out and track them down.

As they're retreating, go get them and make sure they're not able to come back.

But of course, this is a trap as they go out and get into the woods tracking down Blackfish and his men, they run into a trap and he and all of his men are killed.

As far as McKee is concerned.

He knows now not to let his men go out there and try to chase any groups of Native Americans that pretend to be fleeing.

It's a tactic that works in this one instance, but it's not going to work later on.

May 1778, Blackfish and a contingent of Shawnee, Mingo, Wyandot, Delaware, somewhere in the 200 plus neighborhood of Braves.

They get to the fort.

They once again try to draw people out of the fort for an ambush.

This doesn't work this time around.

McKee isn't going to fall for that again.

And so what McKee eventually decides to do, he decides to send Cornstalk Sister out to parlay with them.

Nonhelema was Cornstalk's sister.

We don't know a lot about her.

She's referred to a handful of times in the historical record as the Grenadier Squaw.

Squaw not a particularly nice term for a Native American woman.

What we do know is that Cornstalk trusted Nonhelema enough to to utilize her as a diplomat in his effort after the Battle of Point Pleasant to try to cement the peace between western Virginians and the Ohio Indians.

She goes out and she parlays with Blackfish.

Blackfish demands the surrender of the fort.

She tells them that McKee is going to need the night to think things over, and she goes back and talks to him.

Obviously, they're not going to surrender the fort, and Blackfish, of course, believes that the only recourse is to fight.

Blackfish and his men do what they can do.

They try to fire on the fort.

They do a few assaults on it over the course of the week that lay siege to it.

They don't have the means necessary to have a prolonged siege, so they do the next best thing, since they can't break into the defenses of Fort Randolph, since they are don't have cannons and the artillery necessary.

And since he's not willing to, you know, have half of his men killed in head-long charges at the at the fort.

The Kentucky Long Rifle was especially deadly in that sense.

He then kills all the cattle, except for a few that they're going to take with him.

Somewhere around 150 head of cattle that they kill in order to take out their food supplies, and then decides to move past Fort Randolph and go directly into the Greenbrier Valley.

They're going to head to the Greenbrier Valley settlements.

They're less guarded.

The main fort in the Greenbrier Valley is Fort Donnally.

There's others.

But Fort Donnally was nothing compared to Fort Randolph, even though Andrew Donnally, who built Fort Donnally in the Greenbrier Valley, also commissioned Fort Randolph.

Fort Randolph was a bigger fort, a stronger fort.

Now McKee realizes that this is happening, so he wants to find some volunteers to try to go and warn the settlers in the Greenbrier Valley that this is what's happening, that here comes Blackfish with this huge party that's that's headed straight for them.

They send out a couple scouts and they come back and say, we can't get through them.

There's nothing we can do.

So then they ask for a couple more volunteers, which they get.

Hammond was a specialized frontier spy and a scout.

He was an experienced scout, and he had been working along the frontier throughout the entire conflict, trying to track movements of the Native Americans, potential British regulars that might be in the area.

He famously, of course, went along with John Pryor.

John Pryor was another scout, and just like Hammond, he's moving around in the frontier.

And he finds himself, of course, at Fort Randolph in 1778.

And Nonhelema then disguises them as best as they can, like Shawnee warriors, puts makeup on them, puts clothes on them in order so that maybe they can make their way through.

And if they get spotted, perhaps the Shawnee will think that, okay, it's some of their own, and miraculously, they are able to make it through.

They're able to get through, and they're able to make it all the way to Fort Donnally.

They arrive at day or two before, at Fort Donnally to warn the residents of the Greenbrier Valley.

Most of the residents of Greenbrier Valley flee east to Augusta County, Virginia, but those that stay at Fort Donnally now they're prepared.

And then you have the same Ohio Indians that had just failed to assault Fort Randolph.

Now they surround Fort Donnally.

Fort Donnally wasn't as imposing.

And what is as strong as Fort Randolph.

So the Ohio Indians have much more success.

There's a full frontal attack on Fort Donnelly.

The Ohio Indians are in the process of chopping through the door at Fort Donnally about to make entry.

So inside of Fort Donnally happened to be one of the few African American slaves on the western frontier at the time, and a man by the name of Dick Pointer.

He was an enslaved man.

Actually, it was Donnally himself who owned the land.

And the fort is named after who was Dick Pointer's owner.

Dick Pointer is a man of character, a man of intellect.

You know, the stories that I've read indicate a native intelligence, indicate a knowledge of the prevailing political racial dynamics in which he exists.

He's savvy enough to know this is the landscape I exist in, and I've got to learn to work within it.

There's a number of different accounts, but the thing that's undisputed is that Dick Pointer plays a major role in the defense of Fort Donna lly.

Philip Hammond is there as well.

He sees them coming at them, and he's able to shut the doors just in time, and they're able to hold the door for a little bit.

The Native Americans are trying to hack their way through the entrance of the fort.

They're starting to make some real progress.

They do a real clever move.

Pointer gets his gun.

Legend says he has a wall gun, which is basically a mixture between musket and a cannon, and it shoots out like a buckshot.

So you would think like a very, very powerful shotgun in our in our, in our contemporary terms.

But when they swing the door open, it kind of catches the natives off the balance because they're not expecting it.

He fires that away.

And the circumference of the buckshot, you know, is, you know, able to, first of all, kill one of the Natives that's at the forefront, but then probably wound a couple of others.

And it's probably the psychological impact of that big gun and that big blast that plays a big role in scaring off the attackers and getting them to back up enough so that they can shut the door again and roll the big barrel of water in front of the entrance.

And obviously, it's going to be the sound of that gun that's going to wake everyone up at the fort to everybody is able to get to their battle stations, and they're able to fight off the Native Americans long enough for a relief effort led by Captain Stewart and Matthew Arbuckle.

In the ensuing firefight, 17 Native Americans are killed, four of the Colonials are killed.

And in fact, the story is I guess he has to bury the natives that that are killed.

So I'm a hero.

I helped save 60 settlers, but yet I'm the guy who's forced to do the burial of the very folks who attacked us.

He's one of the rare African Americans that are featured in one of these frontier fort defenses.

It's not not a very prominent it's not a very common thing to happen.

Needless to say, as far as I know, he's the first named African American He usually pops up in West Virginia history books.

Fort Donnally holds out just as Fort Randolph had their more casualties at Fort Donnally.

And this is the last major offensive that the Native Americans are going to be able to do into the Greenbrier Valley after the defeat at Fort Donna lly, Blackfish is going to retreat back to Kentucky and Fort Randolph gets abandoned.

Of course, it's going to get burned down, but it had served its purpose.

Then that opens the door for the attack on the third prominent fortified settlement, and that would be Wheeling and Fort Henry.

The major main military operations have largely slowed down since the surrender of Yorktown in 1781.

By 1782, in Paris, they're already starting to negotiate the treaty to end this conflict.

But even in that the last few years of the official war here in North America, largely most of the fighting is on these peripheral areas of what's going to be this new United States.

It's not a surprise that this is the area of focus for loyalist troops, even British regulars, but more so the native peoples that are aligned with the British.

Because the concern will be that once this war is over, how much further are white settlers going to try to push into what's Indian country?

And so it's not surprising in 1782, it's a campaign to kind of attack the most recent settlements in eastern Kentucky, obviously in the northern half of western Virginia around Fort Henry.

The second seed of Fort Henry, on September the 11th, 1782.

And there were around 40 British rangers, maybe close to 300 natives.

There was a British officer in command.

The added element in the 1782 siege is this large party of loyalists, mainly Butler's Rangers, from New York.

They had been formed by a man named William Butler.

On the British side, William Caldwell was the leader.

Caldwell has experience fighting on the frontier as well, of course, and he is heavily feared by everybody that lives out there.

That is in the Patriot cause.

But he does mix in with many of the other legendary figures of the time, even finding himself on opposite sides of a battlefield with the likes of Daniel Boone.

Before they arrive.

One of the scouts, John Lynn, who had been influential in Foreman's massacre as well and sees these loyalists and Indian troops coming from the other side of the Ohio River.

And they only have hours basically to warn the area, to tell them, hey, there's this large war party coming.

We need to get everybody into the fort.

Ebenezer Zane, the main patriarch, founding father of Wheeling, so to speak, depending on the source, is going by the title of Colonel Zanes at this point.

He's the principal commander, basically, along with his family.

He was there at the Battle of Point Pleasant.

So they get everybody in the fort, Ebenezer Zane and several of his relatives.

There's a slave, there's a couple other community members they actually set up in his house in the blockhouse, about 40, 50 yards from the entrance of the fort.

Because they had been they had so little time to prepare for this attack, all of the gunpowder and all the ammunition was basically in the blockhouse.

So Zane and others, basically, they want to get everybody in the fort to protect them, but they know that if they're actually going to have to fight a battle, all their equipment is in this block, small blockhouse.

So the engagement starts on September 11th.

It's a multi-pronged attack, firing on the fort.

Obviously, a lot of directed fire on this blockhouse.

The loyalists and native troops are not able to dislodge anyone.

And the whole first day is basically trying to pinpoint what's the weakness of the fort.

Is there a way to charge the blockhouse during the evening?

There are several attempts to try to set the blockhouse on fire.

Try to set the fort on fire.

And those aren't those aren't successful as well.

Inside Fort Henry during the second siege on Fort Henry is Betty Zane.

According to legend, she's 16.

Some people claim she's a few years older than that.

The argument being that she gives is that if a woman runs out of the fort, even though it's not a long distance, it is about 40-50 yards to get to the blockhouse.

She figures that if a woman runs out the the moralist troops, the native words, they're going to stop shooting because they're not going to want to shoot a defense woman.

They open the fort, she runs out some accounts, say she actually trips and falls after a short distance, gets up and runs into the blockhouse.

While she's in the blockhouse, Zane gives her a tablecloth because he has to get enough gunpowder, gets this big tablecloth, kind of wraps it around her waist, and they fill about a kegs worth of gunpowder, which is a pretty heavy amount of gunpowder.

They tie it up so she doesn't lose the gunpowder.

By the time she comes back out of the blockhouse to make the 40 or 50 yards back, obviously carrying this large bundle with a tablecloth around her, the Warriors know what she's trying to do, and so they begin shooting at her bullets, arrows whiz by and she's miraculously not hit.

Now, part of the reason is it's a short, relatively short distance.

Still harrowing and dangerous.

But getting this gunpowder back to the fort gives them enough ammunition to where they can outlast another day or so of siege.

And by September 13th, the loyalist troops, mainly under Butler's Rangers contingent, and the Warriors, decide they're not going to be able to dislodge and take Fort Henry and they vacate the area.

And of course, becomes a big part of frontier lore.

How much of it is accurate?

How much of it is myth?

We don't know.

It is kind of, though, emblematic that women had to go beyond what is thought of as being traditional gender roles.

Their husbands died or their fathers died and they they pick up the gun, they pick up the weapon.

Women on the frontier.

And whenever the men were away, they had to deal with isolation.

They had to deal with the dangers of being in a war zone, in a place where Native Americans, British or loyalist, may come along, attack your family.

You had to learn how to shoot.

You had to learn how to defend yourselves.

You had to take on the responsibility of the crop.

And you had this isolation because you're out in these very, very scarcely populated areas where there's no one else there.

So it's a psychological toll.

It's a physical toll, and it's the danger of war that was always ever present.

The Betty Zane myth is another example of an archetype that was created after the American Revolution.

They called him Republican mothers.

She just represents the kind of ideal American woman in the sense that she was feminine and she served her motherly duties.

But when things got tough, she stepped up.

And she was a patriot at heart.

I mean, that's what the story of Betty Zane is about.

And that's what a lot of the women that get featured in the American Revolutionary sort of saga.

That's where they fit.

They fit that sort of archetype.

In West Virginia, we have the saying mountaineers are always free.

You look at the collection of men that are a point Pleasant.

This isn't a one and done battle for them.

This is going to be a crusade for them throughout the duration of the conflict, everybody from Lewis to Arbuckle to Stewart and McKee and many of the other individuals, they're going to be the ones there that are manning the forts that are protecting the settlers, some of whom are even going to march off and pay and play roles in significant battles like Brandywine and Saratoga and Kings Mountain.

So their commitment to the Revolution is thorough.

They are going to be there for the duration.

They're going to be there for the harsh winters, the bloody summers and everything in between.

The end of the war in western frontier areas, whether it's New York, the Carolinas, Virginia or Pennsylvania leaves a lot of tensions unresolved.

And within about ten years or so, you start seeing the emergence of a different cultural understanding that there is an Eastern Virginia and there's a western Virginia.

It's not to say that separation was going to happen in the American Revolution, because that's obviously something happens in the Civil War.

Was still not yet the land of the free home of the brave.

You know that we've still got work to do, that all people can experience justice.

I think it's critical to pay attention to your own roots, your own area.

West Virginians, even today, are known as being very patriotic people.

It's nice to know that from the very beginning, before even the Declaration of Independence happens, that the people of the Western county, we are willing to fight and lay everything on the line for our own liberties.

This has been a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.