GENERAL ANDREW LEWIS, third of Irish John's sons, born in Ireland in 1720, and most noted of the uncles of Samuel
Hardin Lewis, married Elizabeth Givens (Givin) of Augusta county in 1749; they had six children, namely, John,
Thomas, Samuel, Andrew, Anne and William. General Andrew was an infant in Ulster when the elder Lord Campbell (his
father's landlord) died, leaving his estate to the reckless young lord, Sir Mungo, which resulted in so much tragedy
for the family of Lewis in Ireland.
So intimately interwoven with the mighty history of our country are the lives of some of our characters that in
order to get the proper perspective it seems fitting to relate the historic events with which they were associated.
This is especially true in the case of General Andrew Lewis, the outstanding representative of the family now under
consideration.
From John Lewis Peyton's account of General Andrew Lewis, as well as from numerous other data sources, we present
this towering American of Irish lineage, of whom it was said by the Colonial Governor of New York in 1768, when
General Lewis was a commissioner on behalf of Virginia at the treaty of Stanwix (N. Y. ), that "the earth
seemed to tremble under him as he walked."
General Andrew, like his father, Irish John, was of superb figure. "He stood upwards of six feet in stature,
was of uncommon activity and strength, and of a form of exact symmetry. His countenance was stern and invincible,
his deportment reserved and distant. He became familiar with danger and inured to toil and hardship early in life."
Descriptions of Irish John and his son Andrew might be applied with equal exactitude to the early Pike county Lewises,
a picture of one of whom, exemplifying the commanding majesty of this line, will appear with a forthcoming installment.
General Andrew Lewis lived on the Roanoke river, in Botetourt county, Va. He took an active part in the Indian
wars in the Ohio valley, in 1754. He was twice wounded in the battle of Fort Necessity at the Great Meadows, under
General Washington, by whom he was appointed major of his regiment during the French and Indian war.
Lewis was with his brothers, in a company captained by his eldest brother, Samuel, when General Braddock, at the
head of his British regulars, in 1755 marched along the Monongahela in regular array, drums beating and colors
flying, in an expedition against Fort Du Quesne, where now is Pittsburgh. A hundred axemen laboriously hewed a
path through the unbroken wilderness, with the great forests hemming them in on every side. Young Washington, an
aide-de-camp, warned Braddock of the dangers of Indian warfare. Braddock, haughty and conceited, scorned his advice.
Suddenly the Indian war-whoop resounded on every side. The Virginia troops sprang into the forest and fought the
Indians in their own style. The British regulars were cut to pieces. Braddock, mortally wounded, was borne from
the field. Washington, seemingly everywhere present, had two horses shot under him, received four balls through
his clothing. He covered the flight, saved the wreck of the army from pursuit. Three of the Lewis brothers (Andrew,
William and Charles) were wounded in this engagement. Charles was only 19; John, father of Pike county Samuel,
believed to have been with his brothers in this engagement, was in his early twenties.
In 1756, Major Lewis conducted the Sandy Creek expedition against the Indians. In 1758 he was made prisoner by
the French at Grant's Defeat near Fort Duquesne, where he exhibited signal prudence and bravery, saving Major Grant's
Highlanders from being cut to pieces. The Scotchman wrote to General Forbes that Lewis had caused his defeat. The
letter was carried to Montreal and fell into the hands of the French commander, who knew its falsehood and turned
it over to his prisoner, Lewis. Lewis challenged Grant, who refused to fight, whereupon Lewis spat in his face,
or, as one historian records it, "gave him such a token of his estimation as could be received only by a lying
coward."
Lewis in 1774 was a member of the Assembly, and when Patrick Henry's celebrated resolution was carried, he was
on the committee to propose plans of defense, along with Henry Richard, Henry lee, Benjamin Harrison, George Washington,
Edmund Pendleton, Thomas Jefferson and others. Lewis was strongly considered for commander-in- chief of the Continental
Army instead of Washington and was regarded by Washington himself as the foremost military man in America.
In 1774, Lord Dunmore appointed Lewis to command the troops from counties west of the Blue Ridge and the place
of rendezvous was at Camp Union, now Lewisburgh, in Greenbrier county, Virginia (now West Virginia). On September
11, 1774, Lewis, with 1,100 men, marched through the wilderness, piloted by Captain Arbuckle. Flour, ammunition
and equipage were transported by packhorse. After a 160-mile march Lewis and his troops emerged at Point Pleasant,
on the Ohio river, at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, where he was to have joined forces with Lord Dunmore, the
Virginia governor. Lord Dunmore, however, was not in sight. He was resting easy with his troops at the Indian villages,
now Chillicothe, Ohio. Lewis received orders to join him there. Before Lewis could comply, he was attacked. Scouts
who had crossed the Ohio reported that the woods were full of Indians. In the woods in Lewis's front, they had
erected a barricade. Now they came swarming forward, firing from every point of vantage.
Here, in one of the most thrilling days of American history, two forces, such as had never met before in the history
of the world, faced each other. We shall pause to turn the spotlight upon this memorable scene. For here, on this
day, October 10, 1774, fought and bled the ancestors and kinsmen of many of Pike county's early families.
Here, battling side by side with the Lewises, was Daniel Boone, whose family is so intimately connected with Pike
county's pioneer history. Here, with his kinsman, Boone, was Peter Scholl, father of Edward Boone Scholl, the founder
of early Booneville (now Perry), in north Pike county. Scholl later married Daniel Boone's niece, Mary Boone, daughter
of Edward. Scholl was also a kinsman of the Lewises, a grandson of Jacob Scholl and Jane Morgan of Augusta county,
daughter of James Morgan of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, and his unknown wife, believed to have been one of the
"lost" daughters of Councilor John and Elizabeth (Warner) Lewis. Jane and Sarah Morgan (the latter the
mother of Daniel Boone) were sisters. Abraham Scholl, early Griggsville settler and a veteran of the Blue Licks,
was a younger brother of this Peter Scholl who fought with Daniel Boone and the Lewises at the Battle of the Point.
Here, in this mighty grapple of death, were men of Strode and Van Meter blood, ancestors of the Pike county Chenoweths;
and the pioneer Virginia Allens, among them young Zachariah, known in the early Pike county settlement as "Boone"
Allen, he having married Daniel Boone's niece, Dinah Boone, daughter of Jonathan. Zachariah, later in the Revolution,
was away with Marion's men in the Carolinas. Zachariah Allen and his wife, Dinah Boone, both sleep in Pike county
soil, side by side in unmarked graves in the eastern part of the French cemetery at Milton.
In this grim battle we find also another close friend of the Lewises, William Kinkead (Kincaid) of Augusta county
(kinsman of the early Kincaid or Kinkade families in Pike and Scott counties), who later in the war captained a
company in Colonel Sampson Mathews' Virginia regiment and was at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Grappling hand to hand with Lewis and his Virginians in this battle were the greatest warriors and chieftains of
Colonial times. They were the mighty men of the Delawares, Mingos, Cayugas, Wyandots, Shawnees and Cherokees. Their
chieftain leaders included Red Hawk of the Delawares, Scopathus of the Mingos, Chiyawee of the Wyandot, the noted
Logan of the Mingos and Cayugas, the Prophet, Ellinipsico, son of Cornstalk of the Shawnees, Ontacite the Man-Killer,
King of the Cherokees, and Blue Jacket. No such formidable union of savage tribes had ever before assembled on
the American continent.
The mighty Cornstalk, Sachem of the Shawnees and King of the Northern Confederacy, was chief over all. Cornstalk
was one of the most noted men of his day. The historian describes him as "gifted with eloquence, statesmanship,
heroism, beauty of person, and strength of frame." In his movements he was majestic; in his manners easy and
winning. Of his oratory, Colonel Wilson, an officer in Lord Dunmore's army, said: "I have heard the first
orators in Virginia, Patrick Henry and R. H. Lee, but never have I heard one whose power of delivery surpassed
that of Cornstalk."
Opposing Cornstalk was the mighty Lewis, matching the Indian chief in the majesty of his person and movement. Cooke
says of Lewis on this occasion that he was "the idol of the frontier population, the perfect type of borderer
and Indian fighter." Under Lewis's command was the flower of the Virginia borderers of West Augusta.
Lewis's position was well adapted for defense but not for retreat. Behind him was the Kanawha, the "River
of the Woods." On his left was the Ohio and on his right a small stream called "Crooked Run."
The Indians were swarming from the front. The firing was terrific. The sun was scarcely yet risen above the woods.
In a few minutes, many of Lewis's mightiest were laid low. His brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, youngest of Irish
John's sons, fell at the head of his division on the right, mortally wounded. He fell "at the foot of a tree."
His comrades drew back, taking his body with them. Colonel Fleming on the left fell almost at the same time, grievously
wounded. He also was carried from the field.
Now the combat deepened. General Lewis, who had lighted his pipe at the beginning of the action and coolly watched
its progress, charged at the head of his reserves. Men were falling like leaves before the autumn gusts.
"The battle scene was now," says de Hass, "terribly grand. There stood the combatants: terror, rage,
disappointment and despair riveted upon the painted faces of the one, while calm resolution and the unbending will
to do or die, were marked upon the other. Neither party would retreat, neither could advance. The noise of the
firing was tremendous. No single gun could be distinguished - it was one continuous roar. The rifle and tomahawk
now did their work with dreadful certainty. The shouting of the whites, the continued roar of firearms, the war
whoops and dismal yelling of the Indians, were discordant and terrific."
Says Peyton: "It was throughout a terrible scene- the ring of rifles and roar of muskets, the clubbed gun,
the flashing knives - the fight hand-to-hand-the scream for mercy, smothered in the death-groan-the crashing through
the brush-the advance-the retreat-the pursuit, every man for himself, with his enemy in view-the scattering on
every side-the sounds of battle, dying away into a pistol shot here and there through the wood, and a shriek-the
collecting again of the whites, covered with gore and sweat, bearing trophies of the slain, their dripping knives
in one hand, and rifle barrel bent and smeared with brains and hair in the other- no language can adequately describe
it."
Lewis at length put an end to the awful combat. Sending a war party through the brush by way of the Crooked Run,
the Indians were thus taken from the rear, while Lewis charged with all the force he could muster in front. The
Indians, demoralized, fell away from their leaders. Above the frightful din, says Cooke, could be heard the voice
of the orator-chief, Cornstalk, shouting to his followers, "Be strong, be strong!" and when one of his
fleeing warriors passed him he buried his tomahawk in the fugitive's brains.
Before the sun had set on that awful day, the mightiest array of Indians ever assembled upon the continent, routed,
had fled to the Ohio, leaving their dead upon the field of battle. The flower of the youth of West Augusta lay
there also. Among the dead were two colonels (one of them Colonel Lewis), seven captains, three lieutenants; seventy-
five whites lay dead and 140 wounded. Out of every five who went into the battle there was one dead or wounded.
But there was one compensation, although dearly bargained. The Indians never again rallied in force against the
border. Lewis and his Virginians that day put an end to the long reign of horror.
Burying his dead and leaving the Indian corpses "to be devoured by birds and beasts of prey," Lewis erected
a small stockade, left a small company to defend it, and set out for Chillicothe on the Scioto to settle his account
with Lord Dunmore, who was suspected of being behind the Indian attack with a view to destroying Lewis and thereby
weakening the colony's resistance to England. Lewis, enroute, received an order from Dunmore to return to Point
Pleasant, but, ignoring the order, he advanced to within a short distance of Dunmore's headquarters, where he was
met by Dunmore, accompanied by an Indian chief. Dunmore demanded of Lewis why he had disobeyed orders. Lewis' reply
is not of record but historians suspect that it was violent. Lewis, it is said, with difficulty restrained his
men from taking Lord Dunmore's life.
Dunmore concluded a peace treaty with the Indians, and it was on this occasion, when he sought Chief Logan's presence
at the signing of the compact, that the noted chief and orator delivered to Dunmore's emissary, Colonel Gibson,
the memorable oration that has come down through the ages, wherein Logan, who had been the white man's friend,
upbraided the whites for an attack upon his home in the spring of 1774, when his wife and children, every member
of his family, nine in number, were brutally murdered, this outrage upon the Virginia border being described as
"the first blood shed in the Revolution." "There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any
living creature," Logan is reputed to have said to the white emissary, closing his address with these words,
"Ho is there to mourn for Logan? Not one."
By a strange but fitting decree of fate, it was left to General Andrew Lewis to drive Lord Dunmore forever from
the shores of America. In 1776, Lord Dunmore fortified himself at Gwynn's Island, where he was attacked by Lewis.
A ball passed through Lord Dunmore's flag-ship. He then fled under a full spread of sail to New York and thence
to England, leaving to Virginians the memory of the worst governor the colony had known. By another decree of fate,
Governor Dunmore was succeeded by Governor Patrick Henry, Virginia's first Republican executive.
Captain John Lewis, General Andrew's oldest son, was an officer under his father in the old French war, was made a prisoner and carried to Quebec, thence to France, and after he was liberated he went to London, procured a commission in the British army, later resigned his commission and returned to Virginia, and there married Patsy Love of Alexandria, after which he settled in the western part of Virginia and was there killed on his plantation by his own Negroes. He left a son, Samuel Lewis, who married a Miss Whitley and they had three children, Andrew, Charles and Elizabeth.
Another son of General Andrew was Colonel Samuel Lewis, an officer in the U. S. Army, who died in Greenbrier county, Virginia, unmarried.
General Andrew's son, Colonel Andrew Lewis, had a son, Thomas Lewis, who was a distinguished lawyer. He fought a duel with rifles at 30 yards with a Mr. McHenry, both being killed. It was the first rifle duel at close quarters in Virginia history. He left no issue.
General Andrew Lewis, forty years in the saddle, becoming ill in health, resigned his commission as Major General in the Continental Army in 1778 and set out for his home. Some say he died enroute; others say he died in 1781, in Bedford county, Virginia, about 22 miles from his place of residence.
Says Lippincott's "Gilmer's Georgians":
"In the beautiful valley of the Roanoke river, then Botetourt, but now
Roanoke county, Virginia, west of where the town of Salem now stands, was the
home of General Andrew Lewis, and there his remains still rest, marked by a
simple marble slab."
Near the capitol of Virginia, at Richmond, stands a bronze figure of General Andrew (accompanying the equestrian statue of Washington), which historians say correctly represents the person appearance of this great American of the Lewis line, clad in his fringed hunting-shirt of the border, his rifle in his hand. He was the first of a mighty soldiery of the Virginia Commonwealth that sprang from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the early settlement who fled from Ulster because of religious persecutions. "For the list that began with Andrew Lewis," says Cooke, "ends with Stonewall Jackson."