But it was dearly paid for. From the Lakes to the Gulf
redskins rose for vengeance. Villages were wiped out, and
murderous bands swept far into Virginia and Pennsylvania, evading
fortified posts in order to fall with irresistible fury on
unsuspecting traders and settlers.
In midsummer, 1782, news of the cessation of hostilities between
Great Britain and her former seaboard colonies reached the back
country, and the commandant at Detroit made an honest effort to
stop all offensive operations. A messenger failed, however, to
reach a certain Captain Caldwell, operating in the Ohio country,
in time to prevent him from attacking a Kentucky settlement and
bringing on the deadly Battle of Blue Licks, in which the
Americans were defeated with a loss of seventy-one men. George
Rogers Clark forthwith led a retaliatory expedition against the
Miami towns, taking prisoners, recapturing whites, and destroying
British trading establishments; and with this final flare-up the
Revolution came to an end in the Northwest.
The soldier had won the back country for the new nation.
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