In 1754, Colonel George Washington ordered the Virginia regiment to build a line of forts from the Potomac River to North Carolina along the Appalachian Mountains to protect settlers during the French and Indian War. More fortifications built in the 1770s through 1790s extended to the Ohio River, and this network of more than 140 forts in Virginia helped the United States gain control of the Ohio River Valley in 1794. At Point Pleasant, a succession of four forts was built. After the October 10, 1774 battle of Point Pleasant, the first was a stockade to protect the wounded. The second, a small palisaded rectangle with blockhouses at two corners and cabins inside, was created after 1774 by Captain William Russell's Fincastle Company and named Ft. Blair; it was abandoned in June 1775 and later destroyed. In 1776, at the request of the Continental Congress, Captain Matthew Arbuckle's Virginia soldiers built Fort Randolph, a large fort with a stockade, blockhouses, and additional buildings, garrisoned by at least 100 men and named for Peyton Randolph. Principal Chief Cornstalk was murdered there in 1777. After that killing, the Shawnees declared war on the Virginians, and in May 1778 they tried to draw soldiers out of the fort, but Captain William McKee and his men stayed inside. When called on to surrender, McKee sent back his refusal through the Grenadier Squaw, Cornstalk's sister, who still sought peace. The Shawnees attacked but failed to drive out the Virginians, then killed nearby cattle and moved up the Kanawha River in search of more vulnerable targets. Fort Randolph held during the siege, but the United States did not establish control of the area for 16 more years. The fort was abandoned in 1779 and soon burned by American Indians. A fourth fort, built by Colonel Thomas Lewis as early as 1780, lasted until at least 1792.