Crawford, William

CRAWFORD, WILLIAM. (1732–1782). Continental officer. Virginia and Pennsylvania. Born in what became Berkeley County, West Virginia, in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley, William Crawford's long association with George Washington started when the latter came to the frontier in 1749 to survey the vast holdings of Lord Fairfax. Washington and Crawford, both surveyors and land speculators, became friends during their exploration of Virginia's western claims. They both volunteered to serve during General Edward Braddock's expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1755, Crawford being commissioned an ensign. He was promoted to captain of the Virginia volunteers, serving under Washington in the 1758 campaign led by General John Forbes.

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

After the Seven Years' War ended, Crawford and Washington continued their land speculation in the western area claimed by Virginia and Pennsylvania. Following brief service in Pontiac's War, Crawford and his slaves built a cabin in 1765 at Stewart's Crossing (near modern Connellsville, Pennsylvania), about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, and cleared nearly 400 acres. Joined by his wife and three children in the spring of 1766, Crawford established himself as an Indian trader, surveyor, and farmer. In 1770 Washington again visited Crawford, and from 13 October to 25 November the two men traveled extensively through the Ohio Valley, claiming prine tracts of land for their families. Washington referred to his lands, which totalled more than 40,000 acres as "the first choice" and "the cream of the country."

In May 1774, during Dunmore's War, Crawford was commissioned captain. On 8 May 1774 he wrote Washington that he was starting for Fort Pitt with 100 men, and on 20 September, having meanwhile been promoted to major and given command of 500 men, he wrote Washington that he was leaving that day from Fort Pitt with the first division of Virginia troops for a rendezvous with Dunmore's second division near the mouth of the Hocking River, where he had previously selected some fine bottom land for Washington. During the operations that followed, Crawford destroyed two of the three Mingo villages near the site of Steubenville. He built Fort Fincastle at Wheeling, rescued several white captives, and took fourteen Indians prisoner.

Crawford took both sides in the boundary dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 1770 he was appointed justice for what then was Cumberland County, Virginia, where his home was located. When Governor John Penn designated this region part of Bedford County, Pennsylvania, on 9 March 1771, Crawford and Arthur St. Clair were among the local leaders who were appointed justices of the peace. Regarding Crawford, St. Clair wrote Governor Penn on 22 July 1774:

Captain Crawford, the president of our court, seems to be the most active Virginia officer in their service. He is now down the river at the head of a number of men, which is his second expedition. How is it possible for a man to serve two colonies in direct antagonism to each other at the same time? (Anderson, citing Washington-Irvine Corresp., p. 114)

THE REVOLUTION AND BEYOND

This border dispute was temporarily put aside with the advent of the Revolution, and Crawford became a prominent member of the Committee of Defense organized at Pittsburgh after a meeting on 16 May 1775. When Crawford offered his services to the Council of Safety in Philadelphia they were not accepted, but Virginia authorities welcomed his offer. He was appointed lieutenant colonel of the Fifth Virginia Regiment in early 1776. He quickly recruited troops, and on 11 October 1776 the Continental Congress appointed him colonel of the Seventh Virginia Regiment, backdating this commission to 14 August 1776.

Colonel Crawford, now in his mid-40s, led his regiment in the battles of Long Island, Trenton, and Princeton. During the Philadelphia campaign, Crawford commanded a detached company of scouts that saw action at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, receiving praise from his fellow officers for his bravery. In November 1777 the Continental Congress asked that Washington send Crawford to serve under General Edward Hand at Pittsburgh as commander of regulars and militia in the Western Department. Crawford visited New York briefly to get instructions from Congress, then returned to the frontier. In the spring of 1778 he built Fort Crawford (so named by General Hand), and in May he took command of the new Virginia regiment that General Lachlan McIntosh had raised. McIntosh succeeded Hand in August 1778, and the next month Crawford's command included the troops at Fort Pitt, the militia raised on the frontier, and those from other parts of Virginia. Crawford was present at Fort Pitt when several Delaware leaders, including Captain Pipe (Hopocan, a Delaware chief), signed a peace treaty with the United States.

Meanwhile, Crawford had an important part in the establishment of Forts McIntosh and Laurens, and he commanded Fort Crawford. George Rogers Clark invited him to take part in his western operations of 1778, but Crawford did not feel he could leave his other duties and declined. When Forts Laurens and McIntosh were abandoned in August 1779, the Indians pushed their raids deeper into the white settlements of the Ohio country. Crawford led a number of small punitive expeditions in retaliation. In 1779 he also took part in Colonel Daniel Brodhead's expedition. The next year he visited Congress and succeeded in getting badly needed increases in appropriations for further western operations.

Crawford had long advocated an offensive against the Sandusky region, but it was not until 1782 that renewed Loyalist and Indian actions stirred the settlers and Congress into organizing such an expedition. Now 50 years old and the veteran of many battles with the Indians, Colonel Crawford quickly volunteered to serve, accepting command of a group of volunteers.

When the assembled U.S. forces met on the Ohio, Crawford was elected to command the expedition. Crawford's force of 468 men found only deserted villages as they moved through Indian country. Running short of supplies, Crawford had already decided to turn back when the Indians attacked. In what is known as Crawford's Defeat, 4-5 June 1782, the Americans were roundly defeated and retreated in a disorganized fashion under cover of night. Crawford and the expedition's surgeon, Dr. John Knight, became separated, eventually joining up with a few other stragglers. On 7 June the party was surprised by a body of Delawares. Crawford, for some reason, ordered his party not to fire. The others escaped, but Crawford and Knight were captured and taken about half a mile to the Indian camp, where they found John McKinley, formerly an officer of the 13th Virginia Regiment, and eight other prisoners. On 10 June the captives and their 17 guards started marching toward the town of the Wyandot chief Dunquat (also known as the Half-King), on the Upper Sandusky, 33 miles away. On the morning of 11 June, Captain William Caldwell, who had commanded in the action of 4-5 June, reached Half King's Town with the Delaware chiefs, Captain Pipe and Wingenund. The Christian Delawares of Gnadenhutten had been the victims of a brutal massacre at the hands of the Pennsylvania militia under Colonel David Williamson in March 1782. Many Delawares demanded retribution. Captain Pipe, who knew Crawford well, personally painted the prisoners black as a sign of his condemnation. On their way to the Delaware village on the Tymochtee Creek, the Indians killed all the prisoners except Crawford and Knight.

CRAWFORD'S DEATH

Crawford was tortured to death on 11 June 1782. Dr. Knight later published an eyewitness account of the torture. According to Dr. Knight, Crawford was stripped and the two prisoners were beaten with sticks and fists. The colonel's hands were bound behind him and a rope was run from his wrists to the foot of a post, leaving enough slack for him to circle the post once or twice and return. Dr. Knight was bound and held a few yards away. Captain Pipe then made an inflammatory speech, referring to the Gnadenhutten massacre, after which the Indians fired at least 70 charges of powder into the naked prisoner's body. They then closed in on him and apparently cut off his ears, since Knight saw blood running down both sides of Crawford's head after the Indians cleared away. Three or four Indians at a time then ringed the post and prodded the captive with the burning ends of hickory poles, forcing him to move back and forth at the end of his rope. Indian women scooped up live coals and threw them in Crawford's path until the post was ringed with embers and bits of burning wood. At this point Crawford begged to be shot but was refused. Knight estimated that this phase of the torture lasted almost two hours before the victim fell face down in the embers. According to Knight, Crawford was then scalped, and the trophy was held to the doctor's face with the shout "Here is your great captain."

Knight either escaped or was allowed to escape a few days later. He wandered for three weeks before stumbling into Fort Pitt on 4 July. His story of Crawford's torture quickly became famous through the United States, arousing outrage and further hatred of the Indians.

SEE ALSO Crawford's Defeat; Fort Laurens, Ohio; Fort McIntosh, Georgia; Western Operations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, James H. Ohio Archeological and Historical Publications 6 (1898): 14.

Butterfield, Consul Willshire. An Historical Account of the Expedition against Sandusky under Colonel William Crawford in 1782. Cincinnati, Ohio: R. Clark and Company, 1873.

Eckert, Allen. The Frontiersmen: a Narrative. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967.

Knight, John. Narrative of a Late Expedition Against the Indians. New York: Garland, 1978.

                          revised by Michael Bellesiles