Battle of Blue Licks

Battle of Blue Licks
Part of the American Revolutionary War
Date August 19, 1782 Location Near present Mount Olivet, Kentucky 38°25′42.2682″N 83°59′40.73″W / 38.428407833°N 83.9946472°W / 38.428407833; -83.9946472 (Blue Licks Battlefield)Coordinates: 38°25′42.2682″N 83°59′40.73″W / 38.428407833°N 83.9946472°W / 38.428407833; -83.9946472 (Blue Licks Battlefield) Result Loyalist-Indian victory
Belligerents
Kentucky militia	Great Britain, Loyalist Americans, Native American Indians
Commanders and leaders
John Todd †, Stephen Trigg †, Daniel Boone, Robert Patterson	William Caldwell, Alexander McKee, Simon Girty
Strength
182 militia	300 Indians, 50 rangers
Casualties and losses
72 killed, 11 captured	7 killed 10 wounded.
Blue Licks Battlefield Location within Kentucky

The Battle of Blue Licks, fought on August 19, 1782, was one of the last battles of the American Revolutionary War. The battle occurred ten months after Lord Cornwallis's famous surrender at Yorktown, which had effectively ended the war in the east. On a hill next to the Licking River in what is now Robertson County, Kentucky (but was then in Kentucky County, Virginia), a force of about 50 American and Canadian Loyalists along with 300 American Indians ambushed and routed 182 Kentucky militiamen. It was the last victory for the Loyalists and Natives during the frontier war.

Although the main British army under Lord Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781, virtually ending the war in the east, fighting on the western frontier continued. Aided by the British garrison at Fort Detroit, Indians north of the Ohio River redoubled their efforts to drive the American settlers out of western Virginia (now Kentucky and West Virginia).

In July 1782, a meeting took place at the Shawnee villages near the headwaters of the Mad River in the Ohio Country, with Shawnees, Delawares, Mingos, Wyandots, Miamis, Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Potawatomis in attendance. As a result, 150 British rangers under Captain William Caldwell (of Butler's Rangers) and some 1,100 Indian warriors supervised by Pennsylvania Loyalists Alexander McKee, Simon Girty, and Matthew Elliott set out to attack Wheeling, on the upper Ohio River. This was one of the largest forces sent against American settlements during the war.