If the war parties, lurking along the banks, came on a boat moored to the shore, or swept thither by wind or current, the crew was at their mercy; and grown bold by success, they sometimes launched small flotillas of canoes and attacked the scows on the water.

In such attacks they were often successful, for they always made the assault with the odds in their favor; though they were sometimes beaten back with heavy loss.
When the war was at its height the boats going down the Ohio preferred to move in brigades.

An army officer has left a description [Footnote: Denny's Military Journal, April 19, 1790.] of one such flotilla, over which he had assumed command.

It contained sixteen flat-boats, then usually called "Kentuck boats," and two keels.

The flat-boats were lashed three together and kept in one line.