Ambush at the Blue Licks

Books by Author, Charles E. Hayes


		“A hard hitting account of a little known last battle during the Revolutionary War that directly affected the settling of frontier America in 1782. Charles Hayes tells it like it is – in the raw language of the day.” H. David Wright

	Novel of Frontier Kentucky Heavy with Primary Source Material The novel, Ambush at the Blue Licks, is a fictional account of Aaron Turner, his pa, and Lige. Other than the fictional characters and their adventures, the novel is filled with primary source based events of Kentucky frontier history as narrated by Aaron Turner. Aaron Turner tells the “tale” in 1815, after returning from the battle of New Orleans. Aaron hates the British and Aaron hates the Indians. While his attitude is not very “politically correct,” it is the attitude of a man who at the age of 16 experienced the siege of Bryan’s Station and the Battle of Blue Licks. (Aaron also alludes to other campaigns which will be dealt with in other novels.)

Aaron begins his narration: “You ask me if I remember Blue Licks. I take it you mean the ambush at Blue Licks. Hell yes, I remember the ambush at Blue Licks. I was there and I remember it like it happened no more than thirty-three years ago. I was there.

I was there and that’s why I’ve got no use for the British till this day. No use for England. No use for the British. They are a bunch of arrogant, sorry worthless asses. We whipped them and got our freedom from their damn king... Andy Jackson and me just whipped them again at N ‘Orleans and by God, we can whip them again.Aaron’s narration is a rambling, non-linear account of the dangers facing Kentucky’s pioneers. He refers to incidents he did not witness but heard about from people who had been there. He gives a good account of George Rogers Clark’s capture of the old northwest and recapture of Fort Sackville. He tells of the McNitt Massacre which happens after the battle of Blue Licks as an example of the need to be vigilant on the Boone Trace.

This novel is rich with Kentucky Frontier history. What it lacks in political correctness, it more than makes up for in capturing the attitude of people whose lives and freedom were placed in daily jeopardy by British attempts to chase all Kentucky settlers back east of the mountains. The novel relates examples of the extreme courage as well as the extreme recklessness that were part and parcel of Kentucky’s frontier settlers.


	This novel is currently available through AMAZON.COM as either a paperback book or on Kindle.

The most difficult aspect of writing this novel was keeping that narrators voice while describing events taken from primary sources. At one point, the novel appeared more as a history term paper than a novel. Future novels dealing with Clark’s invasion of the Shawnee towns of Ohio, the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the Battle of New Orleans are planned.

Charles Hayes