October 10, 1774 — Point Pleasant

Before the redcoats, before the Declaration, before all the talk of liberty and tea… there was blood on the banks of the Kanawha.

I was there.

Captain Samuel Mason, Virginia Militia, 1774.

We were part of Lord Dunmore’s War, pushing westward into Shawnee hunting lands. The governor wanted to pacify the frontier. The Shawnee had other ideas.

We’d just crossed the Ohio and set camp where the Kanawha spills into it. Looked peaceful—until dawn.

That’s when Cornstalk’s warriors came out of the woods like shadows, screeching death.

The fighting went all day long.

Trees splintered with musket balls. Knives came out when powder ran low.

No quarter. No retreat.

Colonel Andrew Lewis held the line, barely.

We pushed them back, but not before burying nearly 80 of our own. The Shawnee lost more.

Cornstalk pulled back across the river. But the message was clear: this land wouldn’t come easy.

Now some folks don’t call this part of the Revolution.

But I’ll tell you what—it sure as hell felt like one.

We weren’t fighting kings or taxes. We were fighting for survival.

And for a lot of us backcountry boys, that day was the start of something deeper.

A realization that no one from London was coming to help us.

We’d be bleeding and burying our dead on our own terms.

Call it what you want.

To me, Point Pleasant was the warning shot.

The war just hadn’t caught up yet.

— Captain Samuel Mason, Frontier Militia

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