Page:Annals of Augusta County.djvu/111

 whites and killed twenty-five or thirty of them the day following the surrender, but that the greater number effected their escape. Another account states that all the prisoners, except three, were massacred, and that the Indians made a fence of their bones. Captain Stuart, one of the three, was saved by a friendly Indian. The fort was destroyed.—[Ramsay's Annals of Tennessee.] The South-western boundary of Virginia was not defined at this time, and, until about twenty years afterwards, all the settlements on the Holston, even those now in Tennessee, were supposed to be in Virginia.

The middle of November, 1756, having arrived, Governor Dinwiddie, thinking there was no danger of invasion during the cold season, ordered Major Lewis to recall the men on the frontiers, and to reduce the Augusta companies in service to three. In the meanwhile, however, he was much concerned about the accounts sent in by the officers of militia in Augusta. Colonel Buchanan was instructed to scrutinize the accounts closely, with the assistance of Captain Hogg. These officers were to meet at Vass's fort, where Hogg was stationed. When December 23d came round, the Governor's wrath was particularly directed to Captain Robert Breckenridge, of Augusta, and Major Lewis was peremptorily ordered to "put him out of commission."

Early in January, 1757, Governor Dinwiddie was full of another scheme. This one was instigated apparently by Captain Voss, Vass, or Vance—the Governor writes the name all sorts of ways, but Vaux was probably the correct mode—and encouraged by Colonel Read and others. It seems that a number of persons calling themselves "Associators," proposed to raise two hundred and fifty to three hundred men for an expedition against the Shawnees. They were to choose their own officers, to be provided by the government with provisions, arms and ammunition, to have all the plunder, and to be paid £10 for every scalp or prisoner brought in. The provisions were to be carried to Vass's fort, and from thence on horses to the pass in the mountains, where the horses should be kept under a guard. The whole affair was to be kept as secret as possible, to prevent intelligence of it getting to the enemy. The Governor had the affair "much at heart," and on the 1st of February he wrote: "The expedition is very pleasable." It is observable that he wrote to nobody in Augusta on the subject. On the 5th