After the war, he married and engaged in agricultural pursuits on land left to him by his father, but he returned to active military service in 1775 as the American Revolution began to grow in intensity.
Furloughed at the end of the Philadelphia campaign, Scott returned to active service in March 1779 and was ordered to South Carolina to assist General Benjamin Lincoln in the southern theater.
Scott's division cooperated with "Mad" Anthony Wayne's Legion of the United States for the rest of the Northwest Indian War, including their decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.
A fall on the icy steps of the governor's mansion early in his term confined Scott to crutches for the rest of his life, and left him heavily reliant on Bledsoe, whom he appointed Secretary of State.
[8] In April 1757, David Bell was relieved of his command as part of a general downsizing of Washington's regiment, and Scott was assigned to Captain Robert McKenzie at Fort Pearsall.
[10] The expedition was a success, and Virginia Governor Francis Fauquier ordered the force disbanded in February 1762; Scott had left the army at some unknown date prior to that.
[21] During the subsequent Battle of the Assunpink Creek on January 2, 1777, the 5th Virginia helped slow the advance of a combined force of British light infantry and Hessian mercenaries toward Trenton.
[29] Washington spent much of mid-1777 trying to anticipate and counter the moves of British General William Howe, and the lull in the fighting allowed Scott time to file a protest with Congress regarding how his seniority and rank had been calculated.
[48] Soon after Washington's orders were delivered, a British raiding party under George Collier and Edward Mathew arrived in Virginia to capture or destroy supplies that might otherwise be sent southward to aid the reinforcements going to South Carolina.
[49] When it became clear to both the legislature and Washington that Collier and Mathew intended only to raid supplies, not to invade, they concluded that the local militia would be able to sufficiently protect Virginia's interests and that Scott should continue to recruit men to reinforce the south.
[60] On his return to Virginia, Scott employed Edward Carrington, former quartermaster general of the Southern Army, to set his financial affairs in order in preparation for a move to Kentucky.
[21] In June 1787, Shawnee warriors killed and scalped his son, Samuel, while he was crossing the Ohio River in a canoe; the elder Scott watched helplessly from the riverbank.
[70] In April 1790, Scott raised a contingent of volunteers from Bourbon and Fayette counties to join Josiah Harmar in a raid against the Western Confederacy along the Scioto River in what would become the U.S. state of Ohio.
[83] As Scott's men reached an open prairie near the Wea settlement of Ouiatenon on June 1, they were discovered by an enemy scout and hurried to attack the villages before the residents could react.
[86] On June 24, 1791, Arthur St. Clair encouraged the Board of War to organize a second expedition into the Wabash region and to remove their outposts along the Ohio River to free up manpower and finances as a prelude to his larger invasion.
[89] Scott questioned the wisdom of removing the outposts and convinced his fellow members of the Board of War to retain one at Big Bone Lick and one guarding an ironworks at the mouth of the Kentucky River.
[88][89] His instincts later proved to be right; a month later, Indian raiders tried to deny the frontier settlers access to salt by capturing Big Bone Lick, but they were repelled by the militia stationed at the outpost there.
[89] In July, Scott gave permission to Bourbon County resident John Edwards to lead 300 men against a band of Indians suspected of stealing horses on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River.
[92] His intent was for the men to construct some protective works the next day, but before sunrise, a combined group of Miami and Canadians attacked the party, routing them and capturing part of their artillery and most of their supplies.
[105] Still resentful and distrustful of federal officers and aware that Wayne would not launch a major offensive so close to winter, the men were not enthusiastic about the mission, which many of them considered trivial.
[119] In 1803, Secretary of War Henry Dearborn appointed Scott and Governor James Garrard to evaluate sites in Kentucky on which to construct a replacement for Fort Washington.
[123] As tensions between the U.S. and Great Britain escalated in the wake of the June 22, 1807, ChesapeakeāLeopard affair, Scott applied to Governor Christopher Greenup to raise a mounted militia unit in anticipation of an outbreak of hostilities.
[125] His opponents claimed that since he was no longer a member of the Senate, he was not qualified to act as lieutenant governor; additionally, they charged that he was sympathetic to the hated Federalist Party, even though he self-identified as a Democratic-Republican.
[129] To counter Scott's hero image, Clay supporters pointed to his service with George Rogers Clark in a 1782 expedition against the Shawnee, but the impact of this line of campaigning was minimal.
[134] Later that winter, Scott was injured when he slipped on the icy steps of the governor's mansion; the injury left him confined to crutches for the rest of his life and rendered him even more dependent on Bledsoe to perform many of his official functions.
[135] The General Assembly routinely ignored his calls for reform but did pass a measure he advocated that allowed debtors a one-year stay on collection of their debts if they provided both bond and security.
[137] Scott frequently clashed with the legislature, including once when the Senate refused to confirm the appointment of Dr. Walter Brashear as lieutenant colonel commandant of the state militia's second regiment.
[139] Scott also vetoed the revocation of a pension granted to recently retired Kentucky Court of Appeals justice George Muter, because he felt it undermined citizens' confidence in the promises of their government.
"[133] When Bledsoe asked what was wrong with the speech, he reportedly replied, "Why, damn it to hell, why don't you put a good solemn prayer at the end of it, and talk about Providence, and the protection of Heaven, and all that?
[147] In anticipation of a federal call for volunteers, Scott published messages in the state's newspapers in February and April 1812 whipping up support for the impending war effort.