Impact Without Limits

S5 E24: The Western Front

• Dale and Brian Karmie / Adkins Media Co.

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In this episode of Impact Without Limits, Dale and Brian continue their celebration of America’s 250th anniversary by exploring the remarkable life of frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero Daniel Boone. They discuss Boone’s journey into Kentucky, the founding of Boonesboro, and the incredible challenges faced by the settlers living on the Western frontier. From the capture and rescue of his daughter Jemima to Boone’s own captivity and daring escape, his story is filled with courage, perseverance, and larger-than-life moments.

Dale and Brian also dive into the Siege of Boonesboro, where a small group of settlers held their fort against overwhelming odds during the Revolutionary War. They reflect on Boone’s continued service, the sacrifices of his family, and the importance of remembering the people whose courage and sacrifice helped shape the nation. As they continue exploring America’s history, they challenge listeners to learn more about the stories behind the freedoms Americans enjoy today and to recognize God’s providence throughout the nation’s history.


Episode Highlights: 

  • Daniel Boone enters the frontier.
  • Boonesboro becomes a stronghold.
  • Boone rescues his daughter.
  • The siege of Boonesboro begins.
  • Remembering Boone’s sacrifice.


Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on ForeverLawn:

This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.


SPEAKER_03

One other note on Daniel Boone that he actually served, maybe not like directly beside, but alongside Washington under General Braddock in the French and Indian War when uh they had the the battle near Pittsburgh. Yeah. So I mean he's tied in there multiple times. I wonder if he said yinz. Yinzer. I can see him in Washington having a hey, what is on internet? So why would two guys make comfortable jobs move across the country and start a business in an industry they don't know, a place they don't know, but it'd be successful? We're Dale and Brandon Carnegie. Join us as we share our story and inspire you to become people of impact. Welcome to the Impact Without Limits Podcast.

SPEAKER_02

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Impact Without Limits podcast. I am Dale. The sun is shining brightly. Carmi sitting here with Stevie Wonder over there. Give me a little head nod. Yeah. Alright. So for you in Audio Land, I am wearing my shades, my uh Star-spangled banner shades. I'm gonna take them off right now because it's a little hard to see indoor. Not that I need to see. They match your shirt. Yeah, the shirt and the hat. Oh yeah. Now it is a Forevermond hat, but I do have, if I get the camera back, flag on the side, so it is America.

SPEAKER_03

But um, welcome back. I'm a little more subtly American. I do have the 1776 hat on, and then I got the American polo going. I don't have a camera on me, but oh well. There it is. There's just a little just got the American flag rolling today. Oh don't forget about these. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02

So this is a funny story, guys. I um I I I had these boots, I don't know, I've had these boots for like uh I don't know, two years, and like three or four months ago, they came up missing. And I didn't, you don't really you know how when you lose something, you don't know you actually lost it, and then at some point you're it's like, I think I'm missing a pair of boots. And Lori's like, what do you mean? I said, because I've got I don't know, I've got maybe five or six different pairs of boots. I said, Didn't I have like these Americana boots? And and I I don't know, it's like people are looking at me like I was a little bit crazy. I'm like, I know I had a pair of American boots, and then Colton had a pair of boots that had an American flag on it, but it was red, white, and blue. And it's like I asked Colton, I goes, are those my boots or those yours? He says, No, those are mine. So then I'm starting to question, did I really have boots? It's like in my mind I had these American themed boots, but I knew it wasn't red, white, and blue. I thought it was this little more subtle, and but I couldn't find them like, how do you lose a pair of boots? So finally, last week, well, as podcast world goes, probably you know, four weeks ago, it was the middle of June. I'm just sitting there and I'm like, I know I had boots. And as I'm saying this or thinking this, I get this email from Boot Barn. I love Boot Barn. A little advertisement here, maybe they'd pay us some money, Bethany. You can go out and see. I just love shopping at Boot Barn. I got boots and jeans and shirts and all this cool stuff. I get this email from them, and it said patriotic boots. And I clicked on the link, and there was my boots. And it as soon as I saw them, it's like, those are the boots because I couldn't remember what they looked like. It's a that's my boots. So I take a picture of the screen, I send a note out to my family. Like family, if you remember, I lost my boots like four months ago. Does anybody happen to see them or whatever? And like 10 minutes later, I get a picture of Lori of my boots, and they're in the basket under my locker in my house, probably right where they should have been. I swear I looked there.

SPEAKER_03

I love it.

SPEAKER_02

So they're back, they're on just in time for the semi-quincentennial, and uh just a funny little story. So we're gonna follow up that story of the question. Yes, right? We like asking the audience. Audience. Yes, my Ed McMahon Johnny. Um this is gonna be this is gonna be a multiple choice. Or or a pick, you know, who doesn't belong. So I'm gonna list four names. One of them was a revolutionary character. Um three of them are not. So I want you to tell me who is the revolutionary character. So we're gonna start. Nathaniel Brown, Davy Crockett, Adam Samuels. Not Adam Sandler. No, Adam Samuels, Daniel Boone. So out of those four names, one of them would be considered uh part of the Revolutionary War. I don't know if I'd say founding father, but part of that. Who is it? A, B, C, or D. What was my order? Nathaniel Brown.

SPEAKER_03

Nathaniel Brown, Davy Crockett, Adam Samuels, Adam Samuels, Daniel Boone. And I don't think I would have gotten this three months ago. Maybe I would have. But the answer is Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone. Can't put that in the title.

unknown

Who did you get?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know, but I would have thought that Daniel Brown was a foundation.

SPEAKER_02

What about Adam Samuels? Adam Samuels is, if you didn't catch it, Samuel Adams.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, that is tricky.

SPEAKER_02

Cam Adams was a founding father, but Adam Samuels wasn't. I just switched the name there. Daniel Green became Nathaniel Brown. Nathaniel Brown was not. And Davy Crockett is an American hero, but not from the Revolutionary War era. Right. But Daniel Boone was. Davy Crockett fought at the Alamo.

SPEAKER_03

He was also a representative of Tennessee. Yep, served in Congress. And he was a frontiersman too, similar to Daniel Boone, but Daniel Boone. Here's a question Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett? Who wins? Listen. I'm going with Boone. I'm not getting in that one. That's that's an MMA fight that I don't know. That would be epic. My goodness.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, the answer is they wouldn't fight each other. They'd join forces and beat everybody else.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So two of them could take on a herd of bear.

SPEAKER_02

So do bears travel in herds. They do when they're running from Daniel Boone. So we're going to talk about Daniel Boone. And um again, there's history here. There's a lot of information. We're not experts. A lot of what we're going to talk about was pulled from a show.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I would encourage everyone to watch this. So there's The Men Who Built America, which is a great series. It's a lot of fun. But specifically, they've got The Frontiersman. Yep. And the episode on Daniel Boone. Oh, it's the first episode of that. Yeah. So so good. Just awesome. So to set the stage, we've talked about this in previous episodes, but 1763, King George sets a proclamation that there can be no settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Right. And so the American colonists are like, I think it was to appease the Indians, Native Americans, whatever. Um, but also because he liked to just be in control. He wanted something. And he likes to have his thumb right on top of the colonists. And so the colonists are like, no, that's not happening. And so there's this uh push, and they were allowed to go hunt and trap and trade. They couldn't settle. They couldn't settle. And so Boone was part of those guys who would go hunt and trap and trade and explore. But as the story goes, he gets into a little bit of debt, and there's a judge in Virginia, yep, who says who buys a portion of land there. Judge Richard Henderson. Henderson, yep.

SPEAKER_02

When you say a portion of land, it's like the size of Kentucky. 20 million acres. Can you imagine buying 20 million acres? How do you do that? But and he bought it from an Indian tribe. It was a legitimate purchase. But the problem was there were other Indian tribes that didn't think the one Indian tribe had the right to sell it. Yeah. So it was somewhat of a contested.

SPEAKER_03

It was it was contested. But he's looking for somebody to go settle it. So in exchange for, you know, uh covering some of Dan Ubin's debts or getting him out of debt, he allows him to go be the face of setting up this settlement on this new land in what is present-day Kentucky.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

So Daniel Boone goes out and settles this.

SPEAKER_02

First of all, and and I didn't research to know how exactly true that is. But again, when you talk about thin threads, like Daniel Boone is in a courtroom because of debt that he has and can't pay. There's a possibility of going to debtor's prison. And he's explaining why. And he talks about exploring this frontier and hunting. And this judge, who just happened to have bought 20 million acres, is trying to figure out how to settle it, makes this deal and says, Look, I'll help you clear up your debt if you go settle this land for me.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So one other note on Daniel Boone that he actually served, maybe not like directly beside, but alongside Washington, um, under General Braddock in the French and Indian War. Interesting. When uh they had the the battle near Pittsburgh. Yeah. So I mean he's tied in there multiple times. I wonder if he said yin's yinzer. I could see him in Washington having a yins are doing. All right, so Boone goes out and settles this town called Boonesboro. And it's it's a a town, is it's almost like a giant fort.

SPEAKER_02

Here again. Let's dive into it a little bit. Settle a town. He's in the middle of the wilderness. And what do you take? I think he had 60 people with him. Yep. And they build this fort, right?

SPEAKER_03

Cutting down trees. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

They're in the middle of a wilderness, you know, days and days away from you know, I don't know how many days travel away from population. They have to cut down the trees, they have to take the wood, right? Create create the wood that they're going to use to make this fort, erect the fort, support it, go inside, dig the well. They have to do all of this. And so Boonesboro is the settlement like really inside the fort. And why? Because what's on out, what's outside the fort? The Shawnee. The Shawnee Indians. So they they they they said they couldn't even really like do a lot to create produce to have gardens and things.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Because that the land, I mean, they they had area inside the fort, I'm sure they were in some, but the majority of the land is outside the walls of the fort. You go out there, you get hawked by the Indians. Which his daughter goes outside the walls.

SPEAKER_03

She gets captured. And she gets captured. And so what does Daniel Boone do? How old? 14 years old. 14 years old. Jemima. Which, by the way, Aunt Jemima pancakes they took away, because that was apparently racist to say Aunt Jemima. Jemima tell Daniel Boone that named his daughter that. And she was white. Jemima didn't name his daughter that Boone named his daughter that. Whatever. But she's a 14-year-old. We don't have to go. 14-year-old named Jemima gets kidnapped by the Shawnee. What do you do? Daniel Boone? You hunt him down.

SPEAKER_02

Chases them down. Tracks them down. So as the story goes, his daughter, because uh I don't know if as a parent, I say this and I mean it. I don't have a favorite child. I don't either. Um the reference we heard said Jama was his favorite son, his favorite son. His favorite daughter.

SPEAKER_03

Which I do think she like would hunt and trap and things alongside.

SPEAKER_02

So he had and maybe not favorite, but she was the one that was by his side and he taught her all this outdoor stuff. So she gets captured by these Indians as taken hostage, being dragged back to their camp, and she has a wherewithal to do things like tear off little pieces of her dress and leave it, break little branches and twigs, leave a signal or a sign that says this is this is the way to find me because she knew her dad would come looking for her.

SPEAKER_03

I you know, I'm not a hunter. I don't know how you track things, but could you imagine trying to track in the middle of the forest? It's crazy. But he does. And he does goes into their camp with just a few men.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, what'd he take? Three or four men with him.

SPEAKER_03

Saves his daughter and gets back without losing anything.

SPEAKER_02

His daughter and the right, and the uh there were either two or two other girls.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

They capture him back from the Indians and return to the fort. I mean, you talk about legendary, you talk about epic, heroic. Oh my goodness. So his legend starts to grow. Yeah, right. I mean, how couldn't it? And he leads this group of people through the wilderness, they develop, they build this fort, his daughter gets captured, and he he goes. That's like it's walking. You're talking about a bear earlier. That's like the bear is in the cave, and you go into the bear cave and you take the food off the bear. The honey insane. The honey is because you know the bear's in there like poo. He's eating the poney, eating the poney. You just take it. So uh just crazy.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but it it grows from there. Yeah, so then you talked about being in this walled fort, wood-walled fort, and they have to preserve their food with salt. This is crazy to me. I learned that a salt lick is a mineral stream that they would then like it's a water source that has a bunch of minerals in it, that they would create salt from, they'd boil it down, right? Yeah, and they said it would take 500 gallons of water to boil down and get 50 pounds of salt.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Right? And so they get this this That's insane. They're going out to make salt and they need like 1,500 pounds of salt.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Yeah, it was 15, they needed 15,000 to get through the winter. And they could do 500 pounds a day if they boiled all that water. So it was gonna take them 30 days. So this group of men out for 30 days just boiling water, getting it down to salt, bagging it. Can you imagine carrying 15,000 pounds of salt back? No. I mean, obviously they they must have built wagons, and maybe they had horses were gonna pull the wagons or whatever. So they're out in the wilderness for 30 days. And what happens? They get kidnapped. The Shawnee coming. Who was the leader of the Shawnee? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_03

Blackfish.

SPEAKER_02

Blackfish.

SPEAKER_03

That sounds like trouble. Blackfish. Chief Blackfish captures them, takes them prisoner. And so they had this thing where the the British had put a bounty on any settlers that the Indians would turn over, they'd pay them for it. 100 bucks a person, which is a lot of money back then.

SPEAKER_02

And and so so let's let's dive into this. What why why are the Brits doing that? Because this the time frame this is happening, we didn't set that. No, we didn't. This is like 1775.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that I think when he gets captured, we might be in December. It might have been 77. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it was 77. But when when he first ventured out, I think it was 75. Yep, I and as they're building the fort, the declaration gets signed, they get news, the declaration is signed. Um, he gets captured, so now it's 76 or 77. But the British were using the Indians to like attack the Western Front, which was Kentucky, the Ohio Valley, all of that, to unsettle the the colonists. Like, you're up here battling in Boston and Philadelphia and the the Northeast, and all of a sudden you've got people getting captured and taken down on the Western Front. So actually, really smart to the British. That kind of makes me mad.

SPEAKER_03

Well, a lot of things the British did make me mad. So after Blackfish and the Shawnee capture them, they have them run the gauntlet. Yeah. Which I remember in football practice we used to run the gauntlet.

SPEAKER_02

We did, it all makes sense. Yeah, and it does, right? The the Indians lined up on either side and you had to run through them, and they're like hitting you, punching you. Club clubs and hatchets, and they said a lot of people running the hatchet, or running the gauntlet didn't make it, didn't make it. Not didn't make it through the gauntlet, they did it, didn't live. And Daniel Boone makes it through and kind of like gains the respect of black fish, and they actually kind of become friends. Yeah. And we left something out earlier. Okay. When Daniel Boone first goes to the wilderness, his son is captured and tortured and killed by Indians. Before Jemima got abducted, he had a son that was killed by the Indians. So now he you know, you would think he could have just this terrible animosity and hatred towards him. He killed a son, kidnap the daughter, capture him. But he actually develops a little bit of a relationship with Blackfish.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I read one article that said Blackfish adopted him almost as a son, named him the Big Turtle, which I think is humorous. I don't know why, but names him the Big Turtle, and and he spends months living with these Indians, right?

SPEAKER_02

And yeah, I because I think they said it was three, maybe three months, four months. He was with the Indians before they transported him to Fort Detroit up in Michigan, which was a major um English fort or base. Yep. And that's where the Indians get the bounty for the uh the Americans because they had they had a group of them. I don't know how many were there.

SPEAKER_03

But the British say, hey, we don't just want the men. What we want you to do is take these men and go back and take that Boonsboro. We want Boonsboro. So now you've got the guy who knows the details, use him as information to go and so they're and and like they wanted him to they wanted Daniel Boone under the captivity of the Indians and the English to negotiate the surrender of the turnover of Boonesboro. Right.

SPEAKER_02

So they start heading back from Detroit back to Kentucky, which is I don't know, 300 miles, yeah, something like that. And along the way, Daniel Boone, he's he hurt, I mean, he knows what's going on. He's like, Yeah, we're not gonna do this. He escapes. He escapes from this group of Indians traveling down to uh to take over Boonesboro, and he ends up traveling 150 miles on foot, outrunning the Indians and trying to hide his trail so he's being careful, he's walking in circles doing all this stuff, and while he's evading them and hiding his trail, he still travels 150 miles. I think they said in four days. It's crazy. I mean, absolutely astounding what this man did, and gets back to the fort before the Indians to warn them that he's this is coming.

SPEAKER_03

He's been gone four months at this time. His wife and kids actually went back to Virginia thinking he was dead. But his daughter, Jemima, probably 16 at the time, stayed there waiting for him because she was convinced her dad would come back. Hey, he didn't give up on her, she didn't give up on her. Oh my goodness. And then he tells the people, hey, get ready. We gotta make gunpowder. By the way, did you see how they made gunpowder? They take sulfur, something else, and bat dung, and they mix it together and they went.

SPEAKER_02

I had I had no idea how you made gunpowder. Apparently, bat dung. There you go. Hey, later today.

SPEAKER_03

I learned about assault lick and bat dung gunpowder, all in the same. So much to learn. But anyway, so they they get all these things. They're they're making uh uh shot for their their guns, ammunition, melting down leads.

SPEAKER_02

And things.

SPEAKER_03

And they they just there's 60 of them, or they might be down to 40 at this point. And they say, hey, we're gonna hold up against the Indians. And Chief Blackfish and the Shawnee come. And at first, Boone goes out and they try and negotiate. And I saw some things that Boone was probably stalling, trying to drag this out as much as he could, because they had sent for Virginia militia. Yes, they had requested Virginia. And they were waiting for the militia to come back. But at some point the fighting breaks out. And so you've got these settlers set up inside this fort. He must have built a pretty good fort. Oh my goodness. Think about that. It's crazy. So yes.

SPEAKER_02

Didn't they say it was 450?

SPEAKER_03

450. Seven to one or something. Yeah, it must have been 60 people there. It was like seven to one war Indian warriors versus men, women, and probably a few teenagers.

SPEAKER_02

Certainly Jemima was there. I don't know if there were others. And this they they they attacked, right? The siege comes and and uh and they repel them day one. And then and a lot of Indians died, and then day two they come again and they get repelled again. And then the Indians start saying, We gotta try a different approach. And they would like they tried tunneling at one point. Yeah, they would just try surprise attacks. Right? And and try and get up and and ram the wall or knock down the wall, but they would they they it was like hit and run tactics. They they would fake this way and come from that way and just just try and find some way to get into the fort. And they continued to turn them away for ten days. And they're stuck inside the fort, right? Yeah. So they look you gotta go to the bathroom in ten days. Somebody probably had to go to the bathroom. Right? It's all inside there the waste of the food, of everything, right? They couldn't get more new food. They're running low on ammo, they're running low on supplies, it's looking grim, but but they're still hanging on in hopes that the militia comes.

SPEAKER_03

Yep.

SPEAKER_02

And as it was depicted in the show, and I did, I was looking to read it.

SPEAKER_03

I think this is accurate.

SPEAKER_02

Is it accurate? Yeah. So day 10, the Indians are like, all right, we're gonna take a different approach. And they they start using fiery arrows, and they light the arrows and they shoot them into the fort, and they catch the fort on fire. They're trying to burn it down, either force them out, or the fort catches fire, the walls burn, and they can go in. Providentially, what happens?

SPEAKER_03

It rains. And at this point, Chief Blackfish is just like, I give up. Like, there is something different going on here.

SPEAKER_02

And they they had a they had a scout report that the militia was on the way, yep, and their fire attack was thwarted, and that's like we can't do this. So, yeah, the Shawnee and Blackfish turn and go back, and Daniel Boone is just. I mean, that's a major battle on the Western front of the Revolutionary War. It's crazy. And the the the psychological impact, if you lose that, if you lose that town, and the fear that begins to creep in from that side into the the the colonies, you know, maybe they have to divert troops, and they did, right? They send a militia out, just the the just the whole strategy and everything there, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_03

Now, the slightly sad side of the story is that when the Virginia militia comes out, they want to go burn down these Indian villages, and Boone doesn't want to be a part of that. He actually gets court-martialed and questioned for is he potentially a traitor, and he wasn't, obviously, and he was cleared of that, but he leaves Boonesboro because he kind of falls out of grace. And his daughter settlers there, never to return. So it's named after him, and he's not even there anymore. He's back in Virginia and doing other things, but but he then joins the colonial army and um continues to fight.

SPEAKER_02

And again, tragically, he's involved. I can't remember which battle it was. Do you remember?

SPEAKER_03

I don't.

SPEAKER_02

Anyway, it's 1782. It was in Kentucky. I can't remember the name of the battle. And the war, if if you guys have been following us, 780, 1782, where are we at? The war's over.

unknown

Right?

SPEAKER_02

Yorktown had already happened, the tide had turned, it was just a matter of time. The official treaty was signed. The battle of blue licks, that's it. Thank you, Bethany. The Battle of Blue Licks. The the um Treaty of Paris was going to be signed in in '83. And I I heard uh it read somewhere it said this was the last battle of the Revolutionary War. And they lost, and his son was killed in the battle. It's like, oh my goodness. And I it I don't mean it to sound wrong because everything's important, but it was an inconsequential battle. The war was over, the war was already won. And uh that's just crazy. But Daniel Boone was was larger than life. And I I don't know if people today, if you even know the young kids even know who Daniel Boone was. When I was a kid, we had songs about Daniel Boone, we read about him, he's singing the songs, and and he was a larger-than-life character. I think we even had an old TV show that about Daniel Boone that we used to watch black and white TV. But through all that, I don't think I really, like you said earlier, I don't think I realized that he was uh an integral part of the revolution in his own way.

SPEAKER_03

He goes on, eventually serves in the Virginia House of Delegates. I mean, uh just a just an amazing story. Um, but these are the stories that like lead to the the greatness of America and the respect for what other people have sacrificed for us to have what we have. And these are the stories, man, we have to remember them. We have to appreciate what others did, were willing to do and gave for us to have the freedoms that we have.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so no disrespect for Nathaniel Brown or Adam Samuels. Samuels. But Daniel Boone, he was a revolutionary hero. Great. So we we we at the beginning said something about Sons of Liberty. We didn't get there, so that'll maybe be a different episode. But um, we continue to celebrate America, we celebrate celebrate God's providence over this nation, and we challenge you to um well learn more about it.

SPEAKER_03

Have a great week. God bless.

SPEAKER_00

This is the Fred Crony reminding you that faith looks up, hope looks ahead, and love looks all around to see whom it can help. Good day.