McKee in particular showed himself a fairly good commander of Indians and irregular troops; as did likewise an Englishman named Caldwell, and two French partisans, De Quindre and Lamothe, who were hearty supporters of the British.
The British Begin a War of Extermination.
Hamilton and his subordinates, both red and white, were engaged in what was essentially an effort to exterminate the borderers.

They were not endeavoring merely to defeat the armed bodies of the enemy.

They were explicitly bidden by those in supreme command to push back the frontier, to expel the settlers from the country.

Hamilton himself had been ordered by his immediate official superior to assail the borders of Pennsylvania and Virginia with his savages, to destroy the crops and buildings of the settlers who had advanced beyond the mountains, and to give to his Indian allies,--the Hurons, Shawnees, and other tribes,--all the land of which they thus took possession.

[Footnote: Haldimand MSS.
Haldimand to Hamilton, August 6, 1778.] With such allies as Hamilton had this order was tantamount to proclaiming a war of extermination, waged with appalling and horrible cruelty against the settlers, of all ages and sexes.