The second siege of Fort Henry was a three-day engagement during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

that began on September 11, 1782. A force of about 260 Wyandot,

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

Mingo The Mingo people are an Iroquoian group of Native Americans, primarily Seneca and Cayuga, who migrated west from New York to the Ohio Country in the mid-18th century, and their descendants. Some Susquehannock survivors also joined them, a ...

and

Lenape The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. The Lenape's historica ...

attacked Fort Henry, an American fortification at what is now

Wheeling, West Virginia Wheeling is a city in Ohio County, West Virginia, Ohio and Marshall County, West Virginia, Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The county seat of Ohio County, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mo ...

. They were accompanied by 40 soldiers from

Butler's Rangers Butler's Rangers (1777–1784) was a Loyalist provincial military unit of the American Revolutionary War, raised by American loyalist John Butler. Most members of the regiment were Loyalists from upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania. T ...

, a British provincial regiment. The siege was one of the last engagements of the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, the story of the siege became well known to Americans due to the "gunpowder exploit" of

Betty Zane Elizabeth Zane McLaughlin Clark (July 19, 1765 – August 23, 1823) was a woman involved in the American Revolutionary War on the American frontier. She was the daughter of William Andrew Zane and Nancy Ann (née Nolan) Zane, and the sister ...

Background

Built in 1774 during

Lord Dunmore's War Lord Dunmore's War, also known as Dunmore's War, was a brief conflict in the fall of 1774 between the British Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo in the trans-Appalachia region of the colony south of the Ohio River. Broadly, the war incl ...

on a bluff above the Ohio River, Fort Henry protected the settlers who began moving into the area in 1769. By 1782, roughly 25 families were living in the vicinity of the fort, including

Ebenezer Zane Ebenezer Zane (October 7, 1747 – November 19, 1811) was an American pioneer, soldier, politician, road builder and land speculator. Born in the Colony of Virginia (possibly near what became Moorefield, West Virginia), Zane established a se ...

and his brother Silas. The fort's wooden palisade enclosed an area of about half an acre with bastions at each corner. Inside was a magazine, barracks, several cabins, and a well. A swivel gun was mounted on the roof of the barracks. Fort Henry did not have a regular garrison and was usually unoccupied. Most of the available gunpowder was stored in Zane's fortified house about from the fort. During the Revolutionary War, the area was subjected to a number of raids by Native Americans. Before 1782, the most significant was a brief

siege A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...

in September 1777 that saw a few hundred Wyandot, Mingo, Shawnee, and Lenape attempt to storm the fort.

Siege

During the summer of 1782, British Indian Department officials assembled an army of Wyandot, Shawnee, Mingo and Lenape warriors at the Shawnee village of Chillicothe. In August, several hundred of these warriors crossed the Ohio River with Captain William Caldwell's company of

and attacked

Bryan Station Bryan Station (also Bryan's Station, and often misspelled Bryant's Station) was an early fortified settlement in Lexington, Kentucky. It was located on present-day Bryan Station Road, about three miles (5 km) northeast of New Circle Road, ...

. They later defeated a body of Kentucky militia at the

Battle of Blue Licks The Battle of Blue Licks, fought on August 19, 1782, was one of the last battles of the American Revolutionary War. The battle occurred ten months after Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, which had effectively ended the war in the east. O ...

. In September, roughly 260 warriors and 40 Butler's Rangers under the command of Captain Andrew Bradt besieged Fort Henry. John Lynn, an American scout, spotted Bradt's expedition a few hours before it reached Fort Henry. This gave the inhabitants time to flee to the fort and man the walls. Ebenezer Zane elected to remain in his fortified house along with a few family members, friends, and two slaves, while his brother Silas took command of the fort. Silas had fewer than 20 men to defend the fort, while roughly forty women and children sheltered inside. Silas's and Ebenezer's teenage sister, Betty, was among them. Zane reported that when Bradt's force reached Fort Henry on September 11, they “formed their lines round the garrison, paraded British colors, and demanded the fort to be surrendered, which was refused."Zane, Ebenezer
Letter to William Irvine, September 14, 1782
In Butterfield, Wilshire (1873). A Historical Account of the Expedition against Sandusky. Cincinnati, Ohio: Robert Clark & Co. p. 277. Around midnight, the rangers and warriors attempted to storm the fort and set it alight, but were driven back. Two more attempts were made that night, both on the fort and on Zane's blockhouse. Heroism of Miss Elizabeth Zane

By dawn of the second day of the siege the fort's supply of gunpowder was growing low. Betty Zane volunteered to retrieve a supply of gunpowder from her brother's house. She argued that the enemy would be less inclined to shoot a woman and that none of the men defending the fort could be spared. At about noon the gate of Fort Henry was opened and Betty ran the 70 yards to the blockhouse. While she was taunted by the Indigenous warriors, she was not fired upon and reached her brother's house safely. On the return trip, some of the warriors realized what she was carrying and opened fire, however, she escaped injury. Most sources record that Betty carried the gunpowder bundled in a tablecloth or apron. Bradt made another assault on the fort that evening but was again driven back. Bradt withdrew his forces the following morning. According to Ebenezer Zane's report, only one person was wounded among those who sheltered in the fort. A number of implausible claims have been made about the siege. In ''History of the Early Settlement And Indian Wars of Western Virginia'', published in 1851, Wills De Haas recorded that a group of Indigenous warriors attempted to make a cannon from a tree trunk. The makeshift cannon exploded killing several of them. An earlier version of this story appears in Alexander Scott Withers's ''Chronicles of Border Warfare''. Historian Eric Sterner has suggested that the episode has a "whiff of frontier legend about it." De Hass also erroneously credited

Simon Girty Simon Girty (14 November 1741 – 18 February 1818) was an interpreter with the British Indian Department during the American Revolutionary War and Northwest Indian War. As a child he and his brothers James and George were captured and adopted b ...

, the "white savage," with organizing and leading the attack on Fort Henry. Simon Girty was not present at the siege, however, his brother James was with Bradt as an interpreter.

Legacy

Several poets have written about Betty Zane. John S. Adams wrote a poem called "Elizabeth Zane" that was first published in 1880 in St. Nicholas, a children's magazine and later included in the 1911 anthology ''Poems on Ohio''. Poet and politician Thomas Dunn English, who feuded with

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

, wrote "Betty Zane," a long narrative poem in iambic rhyming couplets that was included in his 1879 anthology ''American Ballads''. and later in his 1885 anthology, ''The Boy's Book of Battle Lyrics''. In 1923, a monument to Betty Zane was erected across the river from Wheeling in Martin's Ferry, her home following her marriage. Martin's Ferry has hosted an annual Betty Zane Days festival since at least 1994. A subdivision, community center and road northwest of Wheeling, West Virginia is also named after her. Betty Zane's great-grandnephew, the prolific American author

Zane Grey Pearl Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939) was an American author and dentist. He is known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts; he idealized the American frontier ...

, wrote his first novel about her, titled ''Betty Zane''. The novel was published in 1903 and republished in 1974 as ''The Last Ranger''. When Grey could not find a publisher for the book, he used his wife's money to pay for its printing. Grey later named his daughter Betty Zane after his famous aunt.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fort Henry 1782, Siege of 1782 in the United States Fort Henry (1782) Battles involving Native American people Fort Henry (1782) /a> Conflicts in 1782 Conflicts in 1782">/a> Conflicts in 1782 Sieges involving Great Britain Sieges involving the United States">Sieges involving Great Britain">Conflicts in 1782">/a> Conflicts in 1782 Sieges involving Great Britain Sieges involving the United States Sieges of the American Revolutionary War Wheeling, West Virginia Attacks on military installations in the United States