CHAPTER XIII.

Captain Boone tried by court-martial--Honorably acquitted and
promoted--Loses a large sum of money--His losses by lawsuits and
disputes about land--Defeat of Colonel Rogers's party--Colonel
Bowman's expedition to Chillicothe--Arrival near the town--Colonel
Logan attacks the town--Ordered by Colonel Bowman to
retreat--Failure of the expedition--Consequences to Bowman and to
Logan.


Some complaint having been made respecting Captain Boone's surrender of
his party at the Blue Licks, and other parts of his military conduct,
his friends Colonel Richard Callaway and Colonel Benjamin Logan,
exhibited charges against him which occasioned his being tried by
court-martial. This was undoubtedly done with a view to put an end to
the calumny by disproving or explaining the charges. The result of the
trial was an honorable acquittal increased popularity of the Captain
among his fellow citizens, and his promotion to the rank of Major.[39]

While Boone had been a prisoner among the Indians, his wife and family,
supposing him to be dead, had returned to North Carolina. In the autumn
of 1778 he went after them to the house of Mrs. Boone's father on the
Yadkin.

In 1779, a commission having been opened by the Virginia Legislature
to settle Kentucky land claims, Major Boone "laid out the chief of his
little property to procure land warrants, and having raised about twenty