Logan's raid was a military expedition in October, 1786 by a Kentucky militia force under General

Benjamin Logan Benjamin Logan (May 1, 1743 – December 11, 1802) was an American pioneer, soldier, and politician from Virginia, then Shelby County, Kentucky. As colonel of the Kentucky County, Virginia militia during the American Revolutionary War, he was s ...

against several

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

settlements along the Little Miami and Mad Rivers in the Ohio Country. The villages were occupied primarily by noncombatants, since most warriors had left to defend the villages of

Chief Little Turtle Little Turtle ( mia, Mihšihkinaahkwa) (1747 July 14, 1812) was a Sagamore (chief) of the Miami people, who became one of the most famous Native American military leaders. Historian Wiley Sword calls him "perhaps the most capable Indian leader ...

from a separate force moving up the

Wabash River The Wabash River ( French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows fro ...

under the command of General

George Rogers Clark George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Ame ...

. Logan seized and burned thirteen villages (full of mostly women and children), destroying the food supplies and killing or capturing many, including the aged Chief

Moluntha Moluntha, also spelled Molunthe, Melonthe, and Malunthy (d. 1786), was a prominent civil chief of the Shawnee people in the 1780s. He was murdered by a Kentucky soldier at the outset of the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795). Moluntha belonged to ...

who was soon murdered by one of Logan's men, reportedly in retaliation for the

Battle of Blue Licks The Battle of Blue Licks, fought on August 19, 1782, was one of the last battles of the American Revolutionary War. The battle occurred ten months after Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, which had effectively ended the war in the east. O ...

in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. Moluntha had recently signed the

Treaty of Fort Finney Fort Finney was a fort built in Oct. 1785 at the mouth of the Great Miami River near the modern city of Cincinnati and named for Major Walter Finney who built the fort. The site was chosen to be midway between Falls of the Ohio and Limestone ( May ...

at the beginning of the year, and had raised an American flag over his lodge. When Logan's force attacked, he had calmly surrendered himself and his family, holding a copy of the treaty as a testament to his peaceful relationship with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Militia Colonel

Hugh McGary Hugh McGary (1744 – 1806) was an Irish-born American military officer and landowner who was the founder of McGary Station in present-day Oregon, Kentucky. Early life Hugh McGary was born in 1744 to John McGary and his wife Sarah in Ireland. The ...

had participated in the Battle of Blue Licks in August 1782, and when the weak resistance offered by the

villagers had ended, he approached the elderly chief and asked if he had been present at the battle. "Moluntha had not been there, but he misunderstood the question and seemed to indicate otherwise. McGary, a hotheaded soldier whose irresponsibility had been a cause of that defeat, angrily felled the old chief with a hatchet and, as he tried to regain his feet, killed him with a second blow and scalped him."John Sugden, ''Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees ''(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000) 75. Logan's raid and the death of their chief angered the Shawnees, who retaliated by further increasing their attacks on the whites, escalating the war.

References

{{reflist

External links

Theodore Roosevelt the Winning of the West .p.171

Accessed July 18, 2007 1786 in the Northwest Territory Battles in Ohio Conflicts in 1786 Kentucky in the Northwest Indian War Logan County, Ohio Northwest Indian War Pre-statehood history of Kentucky Pre-statehood history of Ohio Shawnee history