The battle occurred ten months after Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, which had effectively ended the war in the east.

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 the western frontier of Kentucky County, Virginia.

As a result, 150 men from the Loyalist Butler's Rangers unit under the command of Captain William Caldwell and approximately 1,100 Indian warriors led by British Indian Department officials Alexander McKee, Simon Girty, and Matthew Elliott set out to attack Wheeling, on the upper Ohio River.

The expedition was called off, however, when scouts reported that a force under George Rogers Clark, whom the Indians feared more than any other commander, was about to invade the Ohio Country from Kentucky.

They meant to surprise and destroy the settlement of Bryan Station, but the settlers discovered them and took shelter within their stockade.

Caldwell and McKee's force laid siege to Bryan Station on August 15, killing all of the settlers' livestock and destroying their crops, but withdrew after two days when they learned that Kentucky militiamen were on the way.

Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Trigg and Major Hugh McGary led the Lincoln County contingent.

Boone advised waiting for Logan, who was only a day away, but others urged immediate action, pointing out that the enemy force had a 40-mile (60 km) lead on them.

Boone felt compelled to go along,[4] so the Kentuckians set out on horseback over an old buffalo trail before making camp at sunset.

[1] Although he had not taken part in the battle, George Rogers Clark, as senior commander, was widely condemned in Kentucky for allowing the Loyalist-Indian force to cross the river and court disaster at Blue Licks.

The Kentuckians destroyed five unoccupied Shawnee villages on the Great Miami River in the last major offensive of the American Revolution.

The site includes a granite obelisk, burial grounds, The Worthington Lodge, Hidden Waters Restaurant, a gift shop and a museum.