He and three other Indians, among them his son and the chief Redhawk, who had also been at the Kanawha battle, were detained as hostages.

While they were thus confined in the fort a member of a company of rangers was killed by the Indians near by; whereupon his comrades, headed by their captain,[57] rushed in furious anger into the fort to slay the hostages.

Cornstalk heard them rushing in, and knew that his hour had come; with unmoved countenance he exhorted his son not to fear, for it was the will of the Great Spirit that they should die there together; then, as the murderers burst into the room, he quietly rose up to meet them, and fell dead pierced by seven or eight bullets.

His son and his comrades were likewise butchered, and we have no record of any more infamous deed.
Though among the whites, the men who took prominent parts in the struggle never afterwards made any mark, yet it is worth noting that all the aftertime leaders of the west were engaged in some way in Lord Dunmore's war.

Their fates were various.