Affair at Captina Creek

With the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States not only gained independence from the British Empire but also secured control of a sizable territory west of the Allegheny Mountains. Native Americans of the Ohio River Valley refused to accept claims of the fledgling nation and militantly resisted white settlements in their homelands. Constant border strife turned into open war in the spring of 1791. The Shawnee, emboldened by their defeat of General Josiah Harmar the previous autumn, crossed the Ohio River and struck the settlement of Ohio County (West) Virginia and Washington County, Pennsylvania. Affair at Captina Creek describes in stirring detail a little-known incident of this turbulent time on the American Frontier. Following the massacre of several young girls in Washington County, a company of frontier rangers was dispatched from Ryerson's Station to nearby Baker's Fort with the intention of retaliation. Baker's Fort stood on the Ohio River in what is now Marshall County, West Virginia. As the rangers tracked the warriors down Captina's winding path, little did they know that they were walking into an ambush from which many would not return. Enoch has researched and reconstructed the events using original documents and information gained during his travels through the region. Personal testimonies of those who survived the Battle of Captina Creek have been combined with second-hand accounts of other settlers, contemporary newspaper articles, excerpts from the biography of General Duncan McArthur and the Lyman Draper Manuscripts. Photographs, illustrations, detailed maps, and a full name index add to the value of this work.