smallpox, the treaty had not yet been ratified by Congress. United States officials never pursued it, and the Native American state was dropped. Years later George Morgan, a colonial diplomat to the Lenape and Shawnee during the American Revolution, wrote to Congress that White Eyes had been murdered by American militia in Michigan. Many Lenape at Coshocton eventually joined the war against the Americans, in part because of American raids against even their friendly bands. In response, Colonel Daniel Brodhead led an expedition out of Fort Pitt and on April 19, 1781 destroyed Coshocton. Surviving residents fled to the north. Colonel Brodhead convinced the militia to leave the Lenape at the Moravian mission villages unmolested since they were peaceful and neutral. Brodhead's having to restrain the militia from attacking the Moravian villages was a reflection of the brutal nature of frontier warfare. Violence had escalated on both sides. Relations between regular Continental Army officers from the east (e.g., Brodhead) and western militia were frequently strained. The tensions were worsened by the American government's policy of recruiting some Native American tribes as allies in the war. Western militiamen, many of whom had lost friends and family in Native American raids against settlers' encroachment, blamed all indigenous people for the acts of some and did not distinguish between friendly and hostile tribes or bands. Removal and massacre In September 1781 British-allied Native Americans, primarily Wyandot and Lenape, forced the Christian Native Americans and missionaries from the Moravian villages. They took them northwest toward Lake Erie to a new village called Captive Town on the Sandusky River. The British took the Moravian Christian missionaries David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder under guard back to Fort Detroit, where they tried the two men on charges of treason: the British had suspected them of providing military intelligence to the American garrison at Fort Pitt. The missionaries were acquitted during the trial. The Moravian Christian Indians at Captive Town were going hungry because of insufficient rations. In February 1782, more than 150 were allowed to return to their old Moravian villages (such as Gnadenhutten, Salem and Shoenbrunn) to harvest the crops and collect stored food they had been forced to leave behind. The frontier war was still raging. On 4 March 1782, the Pennsylvania raiding party of 160 Pennsylvania militiamen led by Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson marched toward the Tuscarawas Valley and on the morning of March