during the next three or four years a little settlement sprang up
there.

The frontiers of Virginia suffered most from the incursions of
hostile Indians during the fourteen months following May 1, 1755.
In July, the Rev. Hugh McAden records that he preached in
Virginia on a day set apart for fasting and prayer "on account of
the wars and many murders, committed by the savage Indians on the
back inhabitants." On July 30th a large party of Shawano Indians
fell upon the New River settlement and wiped it out of existence.
William Ingles was absent at the time of the raid; and Mrs.
Ingles, who was captured, afterward effected her escape. The
following summer (June 25, 1756), Fort Vaux on the headwaters of
the Roanoke, under the command of Captain John Smith, was
captured by about one hundred French and Indians, who burnt the
fort, killed John Smith junior, John Robinson, John Tracey and
John Ingles, wounded four men, and captured twenty-two men,
women, and children. Among the captured was the famous Mrs. Mary
Ingles, whose husband, John Ingles, was killed; but after being
"carried away into Captivity, amongst whom she was barbarously
treated," according to her own statement, she finally escaped and
returned to Virginia." The frontier continued to be infested by
marauding bands of French and Indians; and Dinwiddie gloomily
confessed to Dobbs (July 22d): "I apprehend that we shall always
be harrass'd with fly'g Parties of these Banditti unless we form
an Expedit'n ag'st them, to attack 'em in y'r Towns." Such an
expedition, known as the Sandy River Expedition, had been sent
out in February to avenge the massacre of the New River settlers;
but the enterprise engaged in by about four hundred Virginians
and Cherokees under Major Andrew Lewis and Captain Richard