CHAPTER 5

 The Revolutionary War

 Colonies Fight for Independence

      By the late 1770s, many Americans were tired of being ruled by the British. The colonies began fighting to be free of England. Many men in western Virginia joined the army to fight the British. We call this struggle the "Revolutionary War" or the "War for Independence." Not many young men were left to guard the settlements.

 Settlers Battle British and Indians

      The British gave guns and bullets to the Native Americans. They wanted them to attack the settlers. In 1777, only two years after signing the peace treaty, the Shawnee, Mingo, and Wyandot (WHY-an-dot) tribes attacked the settlers who remained in western Virginia. The year 1777 became known as the "bloody year of the three sevens."

      Chief Cornstalk had become a peacemaker between the tribes and the white settlers. He came to the fort at Point Pleasant to warn the settlers that he could no longer keep the Shawnee from attacking them. He and his son were taken prisoner and held in the fort. When Native Americans killed two white men near the fort, angry soldiers killed Cornstalk and his son. Five white men were charged with the murders. They were set free when no one would testify against them.  

Fort Henry in 1777, located at what is now the city of Wheeling

      Raids and battles continued. On August 31, 1777, Native Americans attacked

Fort Henry on Wheeling Creek. The fort held out for three days but almost half its men were killed. Native Americans attacked settlements and smaller forts along the Greenbrier, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers.

      In September 1782, Fort Henry was attacked again. Ammunition inside the fort was almost gone. According to legend, a 16-year-old girl named Betty Zane saved the fort by running for gunpowder as bullets whizzed around her. This second battle of Fort Henry was the last big battle against the Native Americans in western Virginia. 

Settlers Win, Become a Free Nation

      East of the mountains, the British surrendered to the Americans led by George Washington in October 1782 at the Battle of Yorktown. The Revolutionary War was over. The settlers were no longer English colonists. They were Americans. A peace treaty was signed between England and the United States. England gave up claim to the land south of Canada and east of the Mississippi River.

            After the war, thousands of settlers came over the mountains. In 1794, President George Washington sent 3,000 soldiers to make the land west of the mountains safe from attacks by Native Americans. Led by General Anthony Wayne, they defeated the Native Americans in Ohio at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The Shawnee left their burned villages and moved farther west. The land which was to become West Virginia was now open to white settlers.

End of Chapter 5

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