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The ingenuity that it took to build this country was coupled with its share of hardship, many of which came at great expense on battlefields in a cause that each conceived was greater than themselves. Throughout my life, I’ve been taught of those sacrifices, as I was trotted across battlefields, forts, and encampments, so much so I feel the past has become very much a part of my present. In some deep crevice, it seems my life’s journey to stand there, embrace it, secure it, and defend it, regardless of the society that we’ve inherited or its modern views. It’s a hard realization that we can’t actually turn back time, but we can soak in its relics, grow from them, and hear the ghosts whisper in the wind. Theirs are the stories that built America, and when opportunity aligns, like so many of you, I seek those of my own ancestors.
A few years ago, the kids and I were privileged to attend a gathering of the ‘Descendants of Boonesborough’ – the founding families of Kentucky, if you will – where we could reaffirm the brutality of the 18th Century, as men and women pushed westward to settle the Commonwealth. They did so, too, amidst a battle for American freedom. If what Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said is true, and spirits linger, I have long felt they knew I was there. It brings me – and, I hope, they – some bit of comfort that they are not forgotten. Such familiarity grew stronger as I helped my cousin, Alisha, complete her DAR application, exchanging many family tales and much information. The story of Boonesborough and, in consequence, the Battle of Blue Licks, were inevitable. It is, after all, where one of our grandfathers fell.
In my pursuit of him, I headed westward over the Kentucky River and west of Boonesborough itself, where he and his family resided – with Daniel Boone, no less – during the American Revolution and the long 10-day Siege of Boonesborough, when the great frontiersman was court-martialed and tried for British sympathies. Four years later, they were still hanging around when British Loyalists and American Indians ambushed patriots on a hill next to the Licking River, christening the quick but decisive Battle of Blue Licks, a British victory ten months after the surrender at Yorktown.
Though many of the officers, including Boone, warned against engaging, Hugh McGary championed immediate attack, and rode over the hill, ahead of his party, calling back, “Them that ain’t cowards, follow me.” What my grandfather, a Lieutenant in the Virginia Militia thought, I couldn’t say, but he surely could see that his men were largely outnumbered. Even Boone is to have said, “we are slaughtered men.” When the Americans reached the summit, the opposing force opened fire at close range. It took all of five minutes for the men to fall back. The highest ranking officer, John Todd, who would become the great grandfather of Mary Todd Lincoln, was an easy target on horseback and was shot dead. Rushing over the hill in hand to hand combat, McGary realized that the company was surrounded and ordered a retreat. Boone grabbed a riderless horse and ordered his son to mount it. Almost immediately, the younger Boone was fell, shot, along with 72 others, including the grandfather of whom Alisha and I so fondly reminisced.
When support troops arrived two days later, the Americans – mutilated by both the tribes and the August elements – were buried in a mass grave, which one can still visit today, surrounded by such lush green that it’s hard to imagine the slaughter that once engulfed the grounds. I make a point to stop by and tip my hat whenever I’m in the area. The park rangers, always accommodating, sometimes seem surprised to talk with a descendant. It’s a “we don’t get many of you here” discernment. Our world is, after all, changing. It changed then, too. The Battle of Blue Licks was the last battle of the American Revolution. A British victory, but the War for Independence was over. America had won her liberty. As with its maintenance, it had come with great cost.