1774 Virginia

October 10, 1774- At the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers, the point of land known by the Wyandotte Indians as "tu-endie-wie," or "the point between two waters," the bloody, day-long Battle of Point Pleasant was fought.
Colonel Andrew Lewis led his force of 1,100 Virginia militiamen into the Little Kanawha valley. The presence of such a large British force in native lands convinced Shawnee Cheiftain Cornstalk that he should form a large war party.
Cornstalk attacked Lewis and they engaged in a bloody battle characterized by the succession of individual hand-to-hand combats. At times Cornstalk and his braves held the upper hand, but eventually the firepower of the backwoodsmen proved superior on the then heavily forested battlefield. At the end, 230 Indians were killed or wounded and more than 50 Virginians had lost their lives, including Colonel Charles Lewis, brother of the commanding officer.
The Shawnee were forced northward to the villages across the Ohio River.

The Shawnee, Mingo and Delaware later signed the Treaty of Camp Charlotte (near present-day Chillicothe, Ohio), in which they pledged to allow free navigation on the Ohio River, to return all captives and release their claims to the lands south and east of the Ohio (the first time that the actual residents of the area had made such an agreement).
Considered a landmark in frontier history, some believed the battle to be the first of the American Revolution. This action broke the power of the ancient Americans in the Ohio Valley and quelled a general Indian war on the frontier. Significantly, it also prevented an alliance between the British and Indians, one which could very possibly have caused the Revolution to have a different outcome, altering the entire history of the U.S. In addition, the ensuing peace with the Indians enabled western Virginians to return across the Allegheny Mountains to aid Revolutionary forces.