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Chronicles of border warfare

Note 2 — CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE (continued 2)

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The attacks on the Roanoke settlement, mentioned by Withers, occurred in June and July, 1755 (not the spring of 1757, as he states); that on Greenbrier, in September following; and the expedition against the Shawnees did not take place in 1757, but in February and March, 1756. Diaries and other documents in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s library prove this. Dr. Draper estimated that Lewis’s force was about 263 whites and 130 Cherokees––418 in all. The several companies were officered by Peter Hogg, John Smith, William Preston, Archibald Alexander, Robert Breckenridge, Obadiah Woodson, John Montgomery, and one Dunlap. Two of Dr. Thomas Walker’s companions in his Kentucky exploration of 1750, were in the expedition––Henry Lawless and Colby Chew. Governor Dinwiddie had stipulated in his note to Washington, in December, 1755, that either Col. Adam Stephen or Maj. Andrew Lewis was to command. Washington having selected the latter, dispatched him from Winchester about the middle of January, 1756, with orders to hurry on the expedition. To the mismanagement of the guides is attributed much of the blame for its failure. The interesting Journals of Capt. William Preston and Lieut. Thomas Norton are in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society.––R. G. T.

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