War Of Independence

War Of Independence. During the War of Independence, Kentucky was only a western district of the Common Wealth of Virginia. In 1780 Virginia called up 82 men from the three counties that were to become the Commonwealth of Kentucky. These men served in the Continental Army. Kentuckians however, had been serving the struggling nation as citizen soldiers since the settlements of 1774., The Native Indians deeply opposed the intrusion into their hunting and sacred grounds by the advancing settlements. Armed with British weapons and aided by British military strategy, they reportedly organized successful attacks against the early settlers in Kentucky. These skirmishes and raids made Kentucky the western front of the War of Independence., Military service obligated every frontier settler, every man, woman, and child, without regard to age, was impressed into the defense of the stockade forts and blockhouse stations that served as outposts of the westward movement., In Kentucky, the War of Independence became an exchange of raids between the Kentuckians and the Indians north of the Ohio River. Neither the Kentuckians nor the Indians were capable of decisive defeat of the other. The Kentuckians won the crucial Vincennes Campaign in 1778, but were defeated regularly by the Indians at Ruddles and Martin's Stations, Bluelicks and a host of other places., Many notable veteran heroes of the War of Independence were laid to rest on the state mound of the Frankfort Cemetery. These include John Adair, Christopher Greenup, Charles Scott, and George Madison, back of whom served as Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky following the grant of statehood for Kentucky in 1782., Other Kentucky notables buried in this cemetery are frontier explorers Daniel and Rebecca Boone and the Reverend John Ganc, chaplain to General George Washington in the War of Independence.