Note 330 — Chapter XXII · 1763. DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS.
Reading edition
“To Col. Francis Lee, or, in his Absence, to the next Commanding Officer in Loudoun County.” (Penn. Gaz. No. 1805).
“I examined the Express that brought this Letter from Winchester to Loudoun County, and he informed me that he was employed as an Express from Fort Cumberland to Winchester, which Place he left the 4th Instant, and that passing from the Fort to Winchester, he saw lying on the Road a Woman, who had been just scalped, and was then in the Agonies of Death, with her Brains hanging over her Skull; his Companions made a Proposal to knock her on the Head, to put an End to her Agony, but this Express apprehending the Indians were near at Hand, and not thinking it safe to lose any Time, rode off, and left the poor Woman in the Situation they found her.”
The circumstances referred to in the text are mentioned in several pamphlets of the day, on the authority of James Smith, a prominent leader of the rangers.