Cherokee Invasion of Holston

The Cherokees join the British at the beginning of the Revolution; prepare to invade the frontiers of North Carolina and Virginia; Nancy Ward gives timely warning to the settlers; battle of Long Island Flats and siege of Fort Watauga. 1776.

The close of the Cherokee War in 1761 was followed in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, by which France ceded the whole of the western country to England. The French, entertaining little desire for the lands of the Indians, had aroused their jealousy by pointing out the encroachments of the English, who, they asserted, intended to dispossess them of the whole country. To allay this feeling, King George III issued his famous proclamation of October 7, 1763. This was an epoch-making document, and may be fairly called the Magna Carta of the North American Indians. It was the first instrument to assign them territorial limits, and to guarantee their right to the hunting grounds set apart to them. It defines the Indian boundary to be the watershed dividing the waters of the Atlanta from those flowing to the westward; and makes the first distinct general prohibition against British subjects purchasing lands from the Indians, or settling within their hunting grounds.⁵¹

To enforce obedience to this proclamation, and preserve friendly relations with the Indians of the South, Captain John Stuart, as we have seen, was appointed superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern district. Born in Scotland about the year 1700, he immigrated to America in 1733, received a subordinate command in the British service, and distinguished himself at the siege of Fort Loudon. Upright and faithful dealings with the Cherokees made him a general favorite with them, and gave him an unbounded influence as superintendent of Indian affairs.⁵²

The year 1772 found a handful of adventurous pioneers located on the historic banks of the Watauga River, in East Tennessee. They had settled there under the belief that they were within the territorial limits of Virginia, whose back country had been opened to settlement under the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1768. But a survey made at this time by Colonel Anthony Bledsoe disclosed the fact that they were on the Cherokee hunting ground, beyond the jurisdiction of both Virginia and North Carolina. When this became apparent, Alexander Cameron, Indian agent resident among the Cherokees, ordered them to move off. This was a supreme crisis in the affairs of the settlement. It was finally solved by the friendly Cherokee chiefs expressing the wish that they might be permitted to remain, on condition that they would not encroach beyond the land they then had. The Watauga settlers being prohibited by the King's proclamation from purchasing their lands from the Indians, availed themselves of the friendly disposition of their chiefs, and leased them for a term of ten years. Three years later, when Henderson and Company made their famous Transylvania purchase at Sycamore Shoals, the Watauga and Nolichucky settlers followed their example, and bought their lands in fee simple. ⁵³ Their deeds were signed by Oconostota, Attakullakulla, Tennesy Warrior, and Willinawaw.

When the Revolutionary War came, the British government determined to employ the Indians against the southern and western frontiers. The organization of the southern tribes was entrusted to Superintendent Stuart. Their general plan, which was only partially successful, was to land an army in west Florida, march them through the country of the Creeks and Chickasaws, who were each to furnish five hundred warriors; and thence to Chota, the capital of the Cherokee nation. Being reinforced by the Cherokees, they were to invade the whole of the southern frontier, while the attention of the colonies was diverted by formidable naval and military demonstrations on the sea coast. Circular letters outlining the plan, intended for the information of the Tories who were expected to repair to the royal standards, were issued May 9, and reached the Watauga settlement May 18, 1776.⁵⁴

The Cherokees, when the plan was first submitted to them, were not prepared to take sides in the contest. A civil war was unknown to their nation, and they could hardly believe that the British government would make war against a part of its own people. Moreover, they had been at peace with the Americans since their treaty with Governor Bull, had no new complaint against them, and were living heedless, happy lives in their own towns. From the summit of almost any hill in the Tennessee mountains one might have beheld a; vast expanse of green meadows and strawberry fields, the meandering river gliding through them, saluting in its turnings and swellings, green, turfy knolls, embellished with parterres of blooming flowers and ripening fruit. There the young warriors stalked the flocks of wild turkeys strolling through the meads, and chased the herds of deer prancing and bounding over the hills; and there the young maidens gathered the rich, fragrant strawberries, and in a gay and frolicsome humor, chased their companions and stained their lips and cheeks with the red, ripe fruit; or, reclining on the banks of the beautiful mountain stream, their fair forms half concealed in the shadow of the blooming and fragrant bowers of magnolia, azalea, perfumed calycanthus, and sweet yellow jessamine, listlessly toyed in its cool, fleeting waters.⁵⁵

But they had been accustomed to look on King George III as their great father. Attakullakulla and Oconostota, now old and infirm, but still honored and revered, had in their young manhood seen the splendor of his grandfather's court, and witnessed the strength and resources of the British nation; while Judge Friend had only three years before been received at the throne of the great King himself. For more than twelve years Captain Stuart had been the trusted friend and father of the whole tribe, but more especially of Attakullakulla, who had rescued him after the fall of Fort Loudon, and solicited his appointment to the high office he then held. Alexander Cameron, resident agent among the Cherokees, had married an Indian wife, and lived in regal style on an estate called Lochaber, named for the famous seat of the Camerons in the highlands of Invernesshire, Scotland, near the old Indian town of Keowee; had been their earnest champion, possessed their entire confidence, and had a large influence over them. These considerations, together with promises of clothing, booty, and the restoration of their hunting grounds to what may be called their charter limits, enabled the English to win most of the headmen over to their interest.

The campaign was planned with the utmost secrecy. William Bartram, the eminent American naturalist, left Superintendent Stuart at Charleston, April 22, 1776; was with Cameron at Lochaber on the fifteenth of May; later, dined with the chief of Watauga at his mountain home; and towards the end of the month met Attakullakulla on the border of the Overhill settlements. The Watauga chief inquired about Stuart, and Attakullakulla announced that he was then on his way to Charleston to see him, but none of them gave any intimation of the perilous operations that were being planned against the back settlements, though Stuart's circular letter had already reached Watauga.⁵⁶

It was agreed that North Carolina and Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, should be attacked simultaneously; the Over-hill towns were to fall upon the back settlements of North Carolina and Virginia; the Middle towns were to invade the outlying districts of South Carolina; and the Lower towns were to strike the frontiers of Georgia. We are concerned only with the movements of the Overkill towns, which mustered about seven hundred warriors. They were to move in three divisions; one was to march against the Holston settlements, another was to strike Watauga, and the third was to scour Carter's valley. The first division fell to the command of Dragging Canoe (Cheucunsene), of Mialaquo, ⁵⁷ who has been called a savage Napoleon;⁵⁸ the second was entrusted to Abraham (Ooskuah), of Chilhowee, a half-breed chief who had fought with Washington on the frontiers of Virginia;⁵⁹ and the third was under the Raven (Savanukeh), of Chota, who had served in the same campaign, but with little credit, having been detected in undertaking to palm off two white scalps brought from his own country, for trophies of an unsuccessful scout against the French.⁶⁰

At this time there lived in Chota a famous Indian woman named Nancy Ward. She held the office of Beloved Woman, which not only gave her the right to speak in council, but conferred such great power that she might, by the wave of a swan's wing, deliver a prisoner condemned by the council, though already tied to the stake.⁶¹ She was of queenly and commanding presence and manners, and her house was furnished in a style suitable to her high dignity. Her father is said to have been a British officer, and her mother a sister of Attakullakulla.⁶² Her daughter, Betsy, was the Indian wife of General Joseph Martin. She had a son, Little Fellow, and a brother, Long Fellow (Tuskegetchee), who were influential chiefs.⁶³ The latter boasted that he commanded seven towns, while thirteen others listened to his talks; and though he had once loved war and lived at Chickamauga, at the request of his nephew, General Martin, he had moved to Chestua, midway between Chota and Chickamauga, where he stood like a wall between bad people and his brothers, the Virginians.⁶⁴ Like her distinguished uncle, Nancy Ward was a consistent advocate of peace, and constant in her good offices to both races. She gave timely warning and assistance to the traders when the young warriors dug up the hatchet in 1781;⁶⁵ and delivered condemned prisoners from the stake, as we shall see. When Campbell's army was straitened for provisions, she had cattle driven in and furnished them with beef.⁶⁶ She was a successful cattle raiser, and is said to have been the first to introduce that industry among the Cherokees,⁶⁷ who, though they had numerous breeds of horses and hogs, were entirely without cattle and sheep, as late as 1762.⁶⁸ Afterwards she interceded with the victorious Americans for her unhappy people. ⁶⁹ She intervened with conspicuous success in private disputes between the frontiersmen and the Indians.⁷⁰ Haywood has justly called her another Pocahontas.

When Nancy Ward found that her people had fallen in with the plans of Stuart and Cameron, she communicated the intelligence to a trader named Isaac Thomas, and provided him with the means of setting out as an express to warn the back settlers of their danger. Thomas was a man of character and a true American, who has left distinguished descendants in the state of Louisiana. Accompanied by a man named William Faulen, he lost no time in conveying the alarming intelligence to the people on the Watauga and Holston. His services were afterwards recognized and rewarded by the state of Virginia.

The information conveyed by Thomas produced great consternation on the border. Couriers were dispatched in every direction. They had not had an Indian war since the settlement was begun, some seven years before. There was not a fort or blockhouse from Wolf Hills westward. But preparations for defense now became nervously active; the people rushed together in every neighborhood and hurriedly constructed forts and stockades. For our purpose it is necessary to mention only Eaton's Station and Fort Watauga.

Eaton's Station was six miles from the Long Island of Holston, on the road leading to Wolf Hills. It had been built in advance of the settlement, and was garrisoned by a small body of men, who fortified it on the alarm of the approaching Indians. Here five small companies, aggregating one hundred and seventy men, raised in the Holston settlements, and commanded by their senior captain, James Thompson, collected for the purpose of opposing Dragging Canoe, who was understood to be advancing with his detachment of the Indian forces.

July 19, 1776, Captain Thompson's scouts came in and reported a great number of Indians making for the settlements. A council of war determined that it would be best to move forward and meet them, engaging them wherever found, as they might otherwise pass the fort, break into small parties, and massacre the women and children in its rear. On the 20th they marched about six miles to the low, marshy ground, called the Flats that lay along the north bank of the Holston, opposite the Long Island. There the scouts encountered and repulsed a small party of Indians. The ground being unfavorable for pursuit, a council of officers determined that it would be best to retire to the fort; but before they had gone more than a mile, they were attacked in the rear by a force not inferior to their own. The Indians engaged them in the open, and fought with great fury, making vigorous but ineffectual efforts to surround them. The battle lasted only a few minutes, when the Indians retired, leaving thirteen dead on the field, besides the dead and wounded they were able to carry off. None of the whites were killed, and only four of them were seriously wounded.⁷¹

The next day, July 21, at sunrise the Indians under Abraham assaulted Fort Watauga, on the Watauga River. This fort was defended by 'Captain James Robertson and Lieutenant John Sevier, with a garrison of forty men. The Indians were repulsed with considerable loss, which could not be definitely ascertained. It was here that Lieutenant Sevier received to his arms, as she fled from the Indians, Miss Catherine Sherrill, who subsequently became his wife, and is affectionately known as Bonny Kate.⁷² The investment continued with more or less rigor for twenty days, when the Indians finally withdrew.⁷³

The party led by the Raven struck across the country to Carter's Valley, but finding the inhabitants shut up in forts, and being intimidated by news of the defeat of Dragging Canoe, and the repulse of Abraham, abandoned the enterprise and returned to their towns.⁷⁴

A  fourth division, or more probably, the first division, after its defeat at Long Island Flats, divided into small parties and swept up the valley of the Clinch from the remotest settlement to the Seven Mile Ford, in Virginia. One of these parties made a sudden descent on the Wolf Hills settlement, and attacked the Reverend Charles Cummings, a militant Presbyterian preacher, noted for his habit of riding to his appointments with his rifle on his shoulder, which he deposited on the pulpit before commencing the services of the day. He had four companions with him at the time, and was on the way to his field. At the first fire William Creswell, one of the heroes of Long Island Flats, was killed, and two others were wounded. But with his remaining companion, and the trusty rifle, which he carried to the field as well as to the pulpit, he held his own with the Indians until relieved by the men from the fort.⁷⁵

Upon the whole, the Indian invasion was a failure, owing to the timely warning of Nancy Ward, and the concentration of the inhabitants in forts built in consequence of the information she conveyed. If the well-guarded secret of the Indian campaign had not been disclosed, and they had been permitted to steal upon the defenseless backwoodsmen, who, in fancied security, had remained scattered over the extensive frontiers, every soul of them would probably have been swept from the borders of Tennessee. As it was, only slight injury was inflicted on the whites; two or three were killed, a few more wounded, and two were taken prisoners. On the other hand, its consequences were fatal to the Indians. The whites having felt their strength no longer feared them; and the Over-hill towns, which had never yet been invaded, were soon to feel their avenging arm.

The two prisoners mentioned who were taken during the siege of Fort Watauga were Mrs. William Bean, mother of the first white child born in Tennessee, and a boy named Samuel Moore. They were carried to one of the Overhill towns, called Tuskegee, situated just above the mouth of Tellico, on the Little Tennessee River, in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. There they were condemned to be burned at the stake. Mrs. Bean was bound, taken to the top of a mound, and was about to be burned, when Nancy Ward interposed and pronounced her pardon.⁷⁶ Moore was not so fortunate; he was actually tortured to death by burning^.77 The Tassel afterwards asserted, no doubt truthfully, that he was the only white person ever burned by the Indians in Tennessee.⁷⁸

Rise of the Chickamaugas

Colonel Christian marches an army against the Overhill towns, and dictates terms of peace; treaty of Long Island; Dragging Canoe's party refuse to treaty and secede from the old towns; rise of the Chickamaugas. 1776-1782.

The Cherokee invasion of 1776 aroused the neighboring states to extraordinary exertions. They determined to strike the Indians such a blow as would deter them from again listening to the talks of the British. By a concerted movement, four expeditions were speedily organized to enter their country simultaneously, from as many different directions. North Carolina sent twenty-four hundred men under General Griffith Rutherford, who laid waste their country upon the Oconaluftee and Tuckasegee, and on the headwaters of the Little Tennessee and Hiwassee; the South Carolina men, eighteen hundred and sixty strong, carried frightful destruction to their towns and settlements on the Savannah; while two hundred Georgians, under Colonel Samuel Jack, devastated their towns on the head of the Chattahoochee and Tugaloo.

The Virginia forces, including those from the Tennessee settlements, numbered about two thousand men, and were commanded by Colonel William Christian, an officer of great humanity, as well as courage and address. They marched against the Overhill towns, which they took without resistance, the Indians being daunted by their overwhelming numbers. Pursuing the same policy followed by the other commanders, Colonel Christian destroyed many of their towns, but with diplomatic discrimination, he spared those like Chota, which had been disposed to peace, his purpose being to convince the Indians that he warred only with enemies.

The Cherokee country was desolated from the Virginia line to the Chattahoochee. Their loss of life and property was appalling. More than fifty of their towns had been burned, their orchards cut down, their fields wasted, their cattle and horses killed or driven off, and their personal property plundered. Hundreds of their people had been killed, or died of hunger and exposure. Those who escaped were fugitives in the mountains, living on nuts and wild game, or were refugees with Superintendent Stuart, who had fled to Florida.⁷⁹

Under these circumstances the Cherokees were compelled to sue for peace. Two separate treaties were made. The first was concluded with South Carolina and Georgia, at Dewitt's Corner, May 20, 1777, and ceded all their lands in South Carolina and eastward of the Unaka Mountains.⁸⁰ After Colonel Christian had destroyed the Overhill towns, he invited their chiefs to come in and treat for peace. Six or seven of them appeared. The terms imposed upon them were the surrender of all prisoners, and the cession of the disputed territory occupied by the Tennessee settlements, as soon as representatives of the whole tribe could be assembled in the spring.⁸¹ In accordance with this agreement the treaty with Virginia and North Carolina was held at Long Island of Holston, July 20, 1777, and was signed by twenty of their principal chiefs.⁸²

At the conference Colonel Christian regretted the absence of Judge Friend, Dragging Canoe, Lying Fish, and Young Tassel; and Captain James Robertson, who was appointed temporary agent at Chota, was instructed to discover their disposition toward the treaty, and whether there was any danger of a renewal of hostilities by one or more of them.⁸³ These were influential chiefs and their disaffection was ominous to the settlers.

Judge Friend was a picturesque character. The Indians called him Outacite, which means the "Man-killer," on account of his martial exploits, ⁸⁴ while his English name of Judge Friend (corrupted from Judd's Friend) was given him for saving a man named Judd from the fury of his countrymen. ⁸⁵ He fought with Washington against the French and Indians on the frontiers of Virginia; and on his return took a leading part in the war against the Carolinas. He was imprisoned and liberated with Oconostota by Governor Lyttleton, and with him received the surrender of the garrison of Fort Loudon.

After the treaty with Colonel Stephen in November, 1761, Henry Timberlake was sent to the Overhill towns. On his arrival at Tomotley, he was received and entertained by Judge Friend, who gave him a general invitation to his house while he remained in their towns. The following March, Timberlake conducted him, and a large party of Indians, to Williamsburg. A few days before he was to return home, Mr. Harrocks invited him to sup with him at the college, where, among other curiosities, he showed him the picture of His Majesty King George. The chief viewed it long and attentively; then turning to Timberlake, said: "Long have I wished to see the king my father; this is his resemblance, but I am determined to see himself; I am now near the sea, and never will depart from it till I have obtained my desire." He made his wish known to the governor next day, who, though he at first refused, finally consented, and Judge Friend set off for England, accompanied by Timberlake and two Cherokee warriors.⁸⁶

His presence in England created a great furor; thousands of people called to see him, whom he would receive only after going through the elaborate ceremonies of the toilet, which sometimes required as much as four hours. He had his boxes of oil and ochre, his fat and his perfumes, which were quite indispensable to his appearance in public. Among his callers was the poet Goldsmith, who waited three hours before he could gain admittance.⁸⁷ In the course of his visit he presented the chief with a present, who, in the ecstasy of his gratitude, gave him an embrace that left his face well bedaubed with oil and red ochre.⁸⁸ Afterwards he was presented to the king, who received him with great affability, and directed that he and his companions should be entertained at his expense. They carried home with them many presents of such things as they fancied.

Judge Friend had refused to participate in the treaty with Henderson and Company in 1775, as he was now holding aloof from the treaty of Long Island. But being now seventy-five years of age, he was too old to take the field, and though he withdrew from the friendly towns, and joined the new settlement at Chickamauga, the settlers had little reason to fear his active hostility.

The Young Tassel, who, as we shall see, afterwards made a noise in the world under the name of John Watts, was both a good-natured and a diplomatic young fellow, and, while he abandoned the old towns and moved further down the river, he did not then attach himself to the Chickamauga faction. Of Lying Fish we have no information.

But Dragging Canoe (Cheucunsene), the stout-hearted young chief of Mialaquo, or Big Island town, who had commanded the most important division of the Indian forces in their late irruption, and had suffered defeat at the decisive battle of Long Island Flats, still declared he would hold fast to Cameron's talks, and refused to make any sort of terms with the Americans;⁸⁹ and had already been fighting with Captain James Robertson, on the Watauga. He seceded from the Nation's councils; drew off a large number of the most daring and enterprising young warriors of the Overhill towns; was joined by some of the refugees who fled across the mountain before the merciless devastation of Rutherford and Williamson; moved down the Tennessee River to Chickamauga Creek, a few miles above Chattanooga, and founded the notorious band called Chickamaugas.

More has been said of this remarkable chief, and less is known of his personal history, than of any other Indian of his time. One historian says he was killed in the beginning of his career, at the battle of Long Island Flats, in 1776;⁹⁰ another thinks he was killed at the battle of Boyd's Creek, in 1780;⁹¹ while a third says he served with Jackson in the Creek War, and participated in the last great encounter at Horseshoe Bend.⁹² Even a contemporary, well informed on Indian affairs, thinks he died soon after his removal to Chickamauga. ⁹³ All are equally in error; he died in his own town, Running Water, in the spring of 1792. No doubt this want of information is due to the fact that he was always at war with the Americans, dealt with them at arm's length, and in the sixteen years following the first Cherokee invasion, never once met them on the treaty ground.

At this time he was about twenty-four years old; in person large and powerful, with coarse, irregular features. He was the implacable enemy, not of the white man, for he was the devoted and faithful friend of the English, but of the Americans, who were the despoilers of his country. Ambitious of great achievements, he had a mind capable of bold resolutions. He was brave, daring, and magnanimous.⁹⁴ On one occasion he is said to have shot a warrior dead on the spot, for insulting a white woman, though she was the warrior's own prisoner.⁹⁵

Dragging Canoe was the son of Ookoonekah, or WT hite Owl, a prominent Overhill chief, and a signer of the treaty of Holston. He first became conspicuous in the public affairs of his nation at the famous Transylvania treaty at Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga River, in 1775, the only treaty with the Americans he is known to have attended. Haywood has given the outline of a great speech delivered by a Cherokee orator, "said to have been Oconostota," in opposition to this treaty;⁹⁶ but, so far as I have been able to find, Dragging Canoe was the only chief who publicly opposed the cession in open conference. On the second day of the treaty, when Henderson named the boundaries of his proposed purchase, Dragging Canoe became indignant at his pretentious, and withdrew in a passion from the conference. He was immediately followed by the other Indians, and the meeting was broken up for the day.⁹⁷

Afterwards he warned Henderson that it was "bloody ground," and would be "dark" and difficult to settle.⁹⁸ Some have thought this was the origin of the significant appellation "dark and bloody ground."⁹⁹

After the great grant had been agreed to, Henderson asked the Indians to sell him the land between them and his purchase, for a path by which emigrants might reach Kentucky without passing over their hunting ground; hence known as the Path Deed. Dragging Canoe then arose, stamped his foot against the ground imperiously, waved his hand in the direction of Kentucky, and said, "We give you all this."¹⁰⁰ Colonel Charles Robertson, who was present on behalf of the Watauga Association, was alarmed lest this description should be taken to include the lands his Association had leased.¹⁰¹ But it seems clear to me that Dragging Canoe meant only to express his contempt for Carter's Valley as compared to Kentucky; as if he had said: "We give you our great hunting ground; there is no game between Watauga and Cumberland Gap; when you have that you have all." He did not sign the deeds, though he suffered them to be executed by the old chiefs on behalf of the whole nation.

The Chickamauga towns prospered. A general tribal movement to the west, made necessary by the encroachments of the white settlements east of the mountains, had already set in. Refugees from the Savannah towns were building new homes upon the Coosa. Many of those driven out from the headwaters of the Little Tennessee and Hiwassee joined themselves to the Chickamaugas. They held fast to the talks of the English and continued in open hostility to the Americans. Chickamauga became the rallying point for the British interest in the Southwest. Colonel Brown, the successor of Superintendent Stuart, and his deputy, John McDonald, were regularly quartered there.¹⁰² They had also gotten in communication with the British Governor, Henry Hamilton, at Detroit, and promised a contingent of warriors to assist him in the reduction of the northwestern frontiers.

In the summer of 1778, Colonel George Rogers Clark made his famous campaign against Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi River, which being taken and conciliated, Cahokia, near the present East St. Louis, and Vincennes, on the Wabash, also hoisted the American flag, and accepted American commandants appointed by Colonel Clark. News of Clark's success greatly irritated Governor Hamilton, and he determined not only to drive Clark from the Mississippi Valley, but to deliver a blow to the northwestern frontiers that would prevent a repetition of his bold exploits. In October he moved, with a considerable force, against Fort Vincennes, and its garrison, which contained only two Americans, surrendered, December 17, 1778. Instead of pushing on at once and taking Kaskaskia, as he might have done, Governor Hamilton remained at Vincennes, and spent the winter planning a great spring campaign, in which he would first destroy Colonel Clark, and then, turning southward, would sweep through Kentucky, driving back every American settlement west of the Alleghanies.¹⁰³ To accomplish this bold project he expected the assistance of five hundred Cherokees, Chickasaws, and other Indians, who were to rendezvous at the mouth of the Tennessee River. He caused the British agent to collect a supply of stores and goods at Chickamauga to the value of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, for distribution at their meeting.

Before the spring had arrived, however, Colonel Clark, after one of the most arduous and difficult marches on record, retook Fort Vincennes, February 25, 1779, and sent Governor Hamilton a prisoner to Virginia, The spring campaign in the northwest having now failed, the Chickamaugas determined to invade the frontiers on Holston. Warning of their purpose was conveyed to the settlements by Captain James Robertson from the friendly town of Chota, where he was stationed as the first American agent to the Cherokees, and the border counties of Virginia and North Carolina at once raised a force of three hundred and fifty volunteers under Colonel Evan Shelby, of King's Meadows. They were joined by a regiment of one hundred and fifty twelve months men under Colonel John Montgomery, which had just been enlisted for the reinforcement of Colonel Clark, and embarked on the Holston River, April 10, 1779. They descended the river in pirogues and canoes built for the occasion, and took the Indians so completely by surprise that the few warriors not out on the war path, fled to the mountains without making the slightest resistance.

Colonel Shelby, following the now well established and most approved method of Indian warfare, burned the town of Chickamauga and ten villages around it, destroyed twenty thousand bushels of corn, which had probably been collected there to forward the expeditions which were to have been launched at the council they were to hold with Governor Hamilton at the mouth of the Tennessee, and other provisions, and carried off their cattle, horses and peltries, together with the British stores, which sold for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.¹⁰⁴ Their warriors, on learning through runners of the destruction of their towns, abandoned their campaign against the frontiers, and returned to their desolated homes.¹⁰⁵

The temporary tranquility that followed the destruction of the Chickamauga towns gave the patriots of Watauga and Holston an opportunity to win glory for their country and laurels for themselves by their unprecedented victory over the British at the battle of King's Mountain. But their temporary absence from the border likewise afforded the Chickamaugas an opportunity to form a coalition with the Overhill towns for a second general invasion of the frontier settlements.¹⁰⁶ This was frustrated by the promptness with which the border militia took the field and carried the war into the Indian country. Colonel John Sevier, without a day's rest after his return from King's Mountain, was the first in the field, with about three hundred men from Washington County, N. C. On the sixteenth of December, 1780, he fell in with a large party of Indians, and won the brilliant victory of Boyd's Creek the battle in which Gilmore erroneously supposes that Dragging Canoe was killed. He was probably not present, as the Indians engaged were mostly from Chota. Colonel Sevier then retired to the Big Island of French Broad, to await reinforcements.

On the 22d he was joined by Colonel Arthur Campbell, of Washington County, Va., and Major Joseph Martin, of Sullivan County, N. C., with some four hundred men. The united forces marched, first against the Overhill towns, and then to those on the Hiwassee, where many of the Chickamaugas had taken refuge after the destruction of their towns by Colonels Shelby and Montgomery, but they nowhere encountered any further resistance. They did not penetrate as far south as Chickamauga. After destroying the Indian towns and property in the usual fashion, they began their homeward march on the first day of January, 1781.¹⁰⁷

In the summer of 1781 a treaty of peace was concluded with the Overhill towns, but the Chickamaugas were still inflexible, and instead of suing for peace, were winning over to the war party new allies in the Cherokee towns on the Coosa, and among the neighboring Creeks.¹⁰⁸ They were a constant menace to the peace and safety of the frontiers, and in September, 1782, Colonel Sevier again invaded their country. Passing by the friendly towns on the Little Tennessee, he devastated the Indian settlements from the Hiwassee to the Coosa River, without meeting a foe in the field.¹⁰⁹ This was the third time in three years that their country had been overrun.

These annual incursions which laid waste their country, and destroyed the meager stores provided for their subsistence, became intolerable to the Chickamaugas. They could not have lived they would have died of starvation, if such conditions had continued. The whites hoped it would result in a general peace, but the genius of the indomitable Dragging Canoe found another solution of their difficulties.

The passage of the Tennessee River through the Cumberland Mountain range at Chattanooga is one of the most unique achievements of nature. In its rapid descent it has cut deep through the solid stone, leaving towering cliffs and precipices on either shore, in some places scarcely leaving room for a path between them and the impetuous current of the river. The prospect from Lookout Mountain is almost incredible, reaching, it is said, the territory of seven states. The favorite view is called the Point, a projecting angle of the cliff, almost directly above the river, which affords a commanding "Lookout" from which the mountain received its name. Confined within its narrow banks, the rapidly descending stream rushes with fretful turbulence over immense boulders and masses of rock, creating a succession of cataracts and vortices, making it extremely difficult of navigation. Along its wild and romantic shores are coves and gorges running back into the mountains, forming inaccessible retreats. At a point about thirty-six miles below Chattanooga, Nickajack Cave, an immense cavern, some thirty yards wide, with a maximum height of fifteen feet, opens its main entrance on the river.¹¹⁰

Among these impregnable fastnesses Dragging Canoe found an asylum for his people; here he built the five Lower towns of the Chickamaugas Running Water, Nickajack, and Long Island towns, in Tennessee, and Crow and Lookout Mountain towns, in Alabama and Georgia, respectively. In addition to the security offered by their positions, it gave them the advantage of being near the Indian path, where the hunting and war parties of the Creeks of the south, and the Shawnees of the north, crossed the Tennessee River. Their strength was augmented from the Creeks, Shawnees, and white Tories, until they numbered a thousand warriors, and became the most formidable part of their nation. It has been said that they abandoned Chickamauga Creek on account of witches,¹¹¹ but I agree with Colonel Arthur Campbell,¹¹² that the real cause was the raids of the Watauga and Holston militia.

Chickasaw Invasion of Cumberland

Captain Robertson plants a Colony on Cumberland; voyage of Colonel Donelson from Fort Patrick Henry to the French Salt Lick; the Chickasaws invade the infant settlements; massacre of the refugees from, Renfroe's at Battle Creek; assault on Freeland's Station; restoration of peace, and Chickasaw treaty at Nashville; Piomingo and the Colberts. 1780-1783.

The magnificent country that Henderson and Company bought from the Cherokee Indians in 1775, and which they called Transylvania, included within its boundaries the beautiful valley of the Cumberland in Tennessee. The pioneers of Cumberland, being widely separated from the nearest station then being planted by Henderson and Company in Kentucky, and still more distantly removed from their parent settlements on the Watauga and Nolichucky, had a career unconnected with either of them, and made a history distinct from them both. At the treaty of Sycamore Shoals, Dragging Canoe, afterwards the founder and head chief of the Chickamauga towns, warned Colonel Henderson that the land he was getting was bloody ground, and would be dark and difficult to settle. This prophecy was mercilessly fulfilled, both in Kentucky and on the Cumberland; and the principal agent in working its fulfillment in the latter district was Dragging Canoe himself, though the settlement was surrounded by hostile Indians on every side.

Captain James Robertson, who had been present at the treaty of Sycamore Shoals, believing the Indian title to the land on the Cumberland had been extinguished by the deed to Henderson and Company (as in fact it proved to be, though the purchase did not inure to the benefit of the enterprising promoters, who were, however, liberally compensated for their trouble and expense by the States of North Carolina and Virginia), in 1779 conducted a small party to that region, and grew a crop of corn for the sustenance of the colony he purposed to conduct there the succeeding year. In the fall he returned to Watauga, after having visited Kentucky for the purpose of securing cabin rights, and collected a considerable company who were to form the beginning of his new settlement. The men were to go through with Captain Robertson by land, and the women and children were to follow by water, for which purpose a flotilla of numerous small crafts of every description, from the canoe to the flatboat, was collected at Fort Patrick Henry, on the Holston, and put under the command of Colonel John Donelson. Captain Robertson and his party reached their destination without accident, in a season distinguished as the "cold winter," drove their cattle and horses across the Cumberland on the ice, and arrived at the Bluff on the first day of January, 1780.

Colonel Donelson kept a charming diary of his voyage, to which we are indebted for the history of this daring and perilous adventure.¹¹³ In the spring of 1779, Colonels Shelby and Montgomery had destroyed the Chickamauga towns. Taken completely by surprise, their warriors swarmed like a nest of hornets, and finally settled again amid the ashes of their old homes at the mouth of Chickamauga Creek, still unconquered, and thirsting for vengeance. Under the temporary quiet produced by this invasion, Colonel Donelson sailed from Fort Patrick Henry on December 22, 1779. He reached Chickamauga March 7, 1780, and found the upper town evacuated. The next day he came to a village that was inhabited, and would have suffered serious damage but for the warning of a half-breed called Archy Coody. Proceeding down the river, he soon came to a third town; here young Payne, on board Captain John Blackmore's boat, was killed by Indians concealed on the shore. Thomas Stuart and his family, to the number of twenty-eight souls, had embarked with the company, but smallpox having broken out among them, by agreement they kept in the rear of the other boats, being notified each night, by the sound of a horn, when they should go into encampment. The Indians discovering Stuart's helpless situation as he passed this town, intercepted his boats and killed or captured his entire party, whose cries were distinctly heard by some of the boats in advance. More than two years afterwards William Springston, a trader, brought a son of Mr. Stuart, a little fellow about ten years of age, to Long Island and delivered him to Colonel Martin, the Indian agent.¹¹⁴ He is the only one of the party who is known to have been spared.

Among the boats in Colonel Donelson's flotilla was that of Jonathan Jennings, containing himself and wife, a daughter, Mrs. Ephraim Peyton, whose husband had gone through by land with Captain Robertson, a son nearly grown, and another young man, besides a Negro man and woman. While on the way from Chickamauga to Lookout Mountain, Mrs. Peyton was delivered of a child, in consequence of which her father's boat fell slightly behind the others. The next day the flotilla passed through the dangerous narrows, where the river cuts through the mountain. The Indians, who had followed them down the south bank of the river, now lined the bluffs overlooking them, from which they kept up a constant fire upon their boats. All went well, however, until John Cotton's canoe capsized and lost its cargo. The company, pitying his distress, landed on the north bank of the river and undertook to assist him in the recovery of his goods, when, to their astonishment, the Indians opened fire from the cliffs above them. They retreated to their boats and immediately moved off, the Indians continuing to fire until they were out of range. Four of the party were slightly wounded, among them Miss Nancy Gower, daughter of Abel Gower, Sr. The crew of her father's boat being thrown into disorder, she took the helm and steered the boat, exposed to the fire of the enemy. While engaged in this work an Indian bullet pierced the upper part of her thigh, but she uttered no cry or word of complaint, and it was only after the danger was over that her mother discovered she was wounded by the blood flowing through her clothing. She recovered from her wound, and subsequently married Anderson Lucas.¹¹⁵

As Colonel Donelson moved out into the placid waters beyond the narrows, he saw Jennings' boat run on a rock that projected from the northern shore immediately at the "whirl," but being unable to render him any assistance, he continued his course and left them to their fate. The Indians were at once attracted by this accident, and centered their fire on Jennings' boat, piercing it in numberless places, and sending many bullets through the clothing of the party, especially those of Mrs. Jennings. Jennings ordered all his goods to be thrown overboard to lighten his boat, while he returned the fire of the Indians. Before they had completed their work, the two boys and the Negro man became panic-stricken and deserted the boat. Jennings now had no other support than that of his heroic wife and a Negro woman, Mrs. Peyton and her infant being both a care and an impediment. After they had finished unloading the boat, Mrs. Jennings jumped into the water and shoved it off. When the boat was loosened from the rock it started so suddenly that Mrs. Jennings came near being left in the river, a victim of her own intrepidity. Mrs. Peyton's child was killed in the hurry and confusion consequent on such a disaster; and she was herself frequently exposed to wet and cold, but neither health nor courage failed her. Two days later at four o'clock in the morning, while Colonel Donelson's company were gathered around their camp fires, they heard from up the river the pathetic cry, "Help poor Jennings!" His family was in a most wretched condition, but they were taken up and distributed among the other boats, and so continued their journey.

Donelson's flotilla was not again molested by the Indians until they reached the Mussel Shoals, where a predatory band of Cherokees and Creeks had formed a settlement. They had selected the place, apparently, as a strategic point from which they could fall upon such parties of immigrants as might, unhappily, be stranded in the dangerous rapids of the shoals; though they subsequently traded with French adventurers from the Illinois, and robbed American immigrants on the Cumberland. At the upper end of the shoals the boats were fired upon, without injury; two days later, a short distance below them, they were less fortunate. Some boats coming too near the shore were fired upon and five of their people were wounded, but not dangerously. That night they camped near the mouth of a creek. Having kindled fires, they prepared for rest, and one Negro had actually gone to sleep, when the incessant barking of the dogs so alarmed the company that they beat a hasty retreat to their boats, fell down the river about a mile, and camped on the opposite shore. Next morning a canoe which had been sent over to the first camp, found the Negro, who had been overlooked in the hurried retreat, still asleep by the fire.

These were the last Indians encountered on their voyage. Having descended the Tennessee to its mouth, they rowed laboriously up the Ohio and Cumberland. On the 12th of April, 1780, they came to a little river running in on the north side, called Red River, up which Moses Renfroe and his company intended to settle. Here they took their leave of Colonel Donelson, and, ascending Red River to the mouth of Person's Creek, near the present village of Port Royal, they landed and commenced the settlement known as Renfroe's, or Red River Station, about forty miles northwest of Nashville. Donelson and the main company continued on to the Big Salt Lick, where they arrived April 24, 1780.

The immigrants settled in numerous stations scattered along the valley of the Cumberland. The central and most important of these was the Bluff, at Nashville; then came Eaton's, on the east side of the river, near Lock A; Freeland's, in north Nashville; Mansker's, at Goodlettsville; Asher's, near Gallatin; Donelson's, at Clover Bottom, on Stone's River; Union, about six miles above Nashville; and Renfroe's, which has already been mentioned. There were probably not above one hundred men in all the settlement at this time; there were less than two hundred in the year 1783. Colonel Donelson's experience proved that they were threatened by hostile bands of Indians on at least two sides: The Chickamaugas, on the east, who wished to exterminate the whites; and the marauding Cherokees and Creeks of the Mussel Shoals, on the south, who desired to plunder them. They had already been disturbed by the Delawares, of the north, a party of whom camped on a branch of Mill Creek, since called Indian Creek, in January, 1780; and in July or August of that year killed poor Jonathan Jennings.¹¹⁶ But they came in contact with the settlers by accident, and did them comparatively small damage.

To complete the circle of their enemies, an event happened this year that brought upon the young colony a dangerous invasion from the Indians of the west. The Chickasaws, who lived upon the east bank of the Mississippi, about the present city of Memphis, were the undisputed proprietors of all the lands lying between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers. As early as June, 1778, Governor Jefferson had instructed Colonel George Rogers Clark to establish a military post near the mouth of the Ohio. Just at that time, however, he was engaged in his marvelous campaign in the Northwest, which resulted in the capture of Governor Hamilton at Vincennes, February 25, 1779. In March Colonel Clark reached the conclusion that the only method of maintaining American authority in the Illinois, was to evacuate their present posts, and center their whole force at, or near, the mouth of the Ohio; which would still be ineffective unless a considerable number of families could be settled around the fort, for the purpose of drawing reinforcements and victualing the garrison.¹¹⁷ Soon afterwards he took two hundred men from the Falls of the Ohio, and proceeding down the river, built Fort Jefferson, and established a settlement at the Iron Banks, about five miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and within the hunting grounds of the Chickasaw Indians.¹¹⁸ As soon as the Chickasaws learned that this fort had been erected, and a number of families settled about it, without their consent, they took up arms to defend their hunting ground.¹¹⁹ They not only laid siege to Fort Jefferson, and destroyed the settlement around it, but they invaded the frontiers of Kentucky, and even penetrated as far as the infant settlements on the Cumberland.

Renfroe's Station, as we have seen, was the most western station on the Cumberland, being some forty miles northwest of the Bluff. In June or July, 1780, a party of Chickasaws killed Nathan Turpin and another man at Renfroe's, which so alarmed the stationers that they resolved to abandon the settlement, and take refuge at Freeland's; and, that they might not be impeded in their flight, they concealed some of the least portable of their property about the station before they departed. Isaac Renfroe left some iron, which afterwards became the subject of litigation before the Committee of Cumberland, and enough of it was awarded to David Rounsevall to satisfy his debt of £31, 12s., and costs.¹²⁰ This is mentioned to show how much they valued the few supplies they were able to bring with them to the settlement. Having traveled as far as they could through the forests and canebrakes, over a very broken country, they halted for the night. Most of the party continued their journey the next day, and reached their destination in safety; the others, finding they had been thus far unmolested, reproached themselves for having left their property in their hasty flight, and, upon consultation, determined to return to the abandoned station for it. They immediately retraced their steps, cautiously approached their deserted cabins, and by daybreak had collected up their property and resumed their march.' On the way they picked up their families, and at night all camped together about two miles north of Sycamore Creek, beside a branch since called Battle Creek. Next morning Joseph Renfroe went to the spring for water. While he was stooping to drink the Indians fired upon him from ambush, killing him instantly. They then rushed upon the camp and massacred the whole party eleven or twelve persons with the exception of Mrs. Jones, who made her escape. By following the trail of the first party this lone and frightened woman made her way to Eaton's Station. Her clothing was torn into shreds as she hurried through the bushes and cane for a distance of nearly twenty miles. The stationers promptly visited the scene of slaughter, and buried the dead; but the Indians had made off with the horses and such other property as they cared for, and destroyed what they did not take. The ground was white with the feathers of the beds they had ripped up to get the ticks.¹²¹

After this massacre by the Chickasaws, and similar ravages by the Chickamaugas, presently to be noticed, all the stations on the Cumberland were abandoned except the Bluff, Eaton's and Freeland's. At this juncture Colonel Robertson found it necessary to make a journey to Kentucky for the threefold purpose of concerting measures for the defense of the Cumberland; finding means to conciliate the Chickasaws, and procuring a supply of ammunition for the stationers. He returned to the Bluff on the 11th day of January, 1781.¹²²

The same day a small party of Indians had appeared in the neighborhood. While David Hood was passing from Freeland's to the Bluff, they fired upon him from ambush near the Sulphur Spring. He was pierced by three balls, and seeing no means of escape, fell upon his face and simulated death. The Indians rushed on him, and one of them, twisting his fingers in his hair, began to scalp him. His knife being very dull the scalp did not yield readily; he took a new hold, and sawed away until he could pull it off. Hood stood this painful operation without a groan or other sign of life. After scalping him, he stamped upon him to dislocate his neck, and left him for dead. He lay perfectly quiet until the Indians disappeared, when he cautiously peeped out and found himself quite alone. He then arose, weak and bloody from his many wounds, and slowly wended his way towards the Bluff. When he reached the top of the bank he was amazed to find the whole party of Indians in front of him, grinning and laughing at his bloody figure and bewildering predicament. He turned and trotted back as fast as his waning strength would carry him, when they again fired upon him, wounding him slightly in two places. They did not pursue him, but his strength failed, and he crept into the brushwood, and fainted from loss of blood. He lay in this condition until the men from the fort who had heard the firing, found him, brought him in, and laid him in an outhouse, thinking him dead or in a dying condition.¹²³ That night the Chickasaws assaulted Freeland's Station, the old swivel at the Bluff sounded the tocsin of alarm, its men marched to the relief of their friends, and poor Hood was, for the time, forgotten in his outhouse.

Colonel Robertson had reached the Bluff in the evening, and learning that his family was at Freeland's, he proceeded to that station, where he joined them late in the night. His wife had that day borne him a son, the first male child born in the city of Nashville. That child was the eminent Dr. Felix Robertson, long an intelligent and influential citizen of Tennessee. After Colonel Robertson had exchanged greetings with his family, and satisfied the eager questions of his friends, all retired for the night. About the hour of midnight the alert ear of Colonel Robertson heard a movement at the gate that aroused his suspicion. He raised himself up, seized his rifle, and gave the alarm, "Indians!"

A large party of Chickasaws, having found means to unfasten the gate, were now entering the stockade. In an instant every man in the fort eleven in number was in motion. Major Robert Lucas, who occupied a house that was untenable because the cracks between the logs had not yet been chinked and daubed, rushed out into the open, and was shot down, mortally wounded. A Negro man of Colonel Robertson's, who was in the house with Major Lucas, was also killed. These were the only fatalities, though the death of Major Lucas alone was a serious loss to the colony. He had been a leading pioneer on the Watauga, as he was on the Cumberland. He was a party to the treaty of Sycamore Shoals, and in connection with Colonel John Carter, had received from the Cherokees a deed to a part of Carter's Valley. On his removal to Cumberland, he was elected major in the first military organization of the district.

Hundreds of shots had been fired into the houses; and so great was the uproar from the firing, and the whooping and yelling of the Indians, that the stationers at Eaton's and the Bluffs were aroused, and the sound of the small cannon at the latter place gave notice that relief was at hand. The Indians then withdrew. They had lost one killed, whose body was found, and the traces of blood indicated that others had been wounded.¹²⁴

Early next morning Colonel Robertson returned to the Bluff, and with his fatherly oversight of his people, went out to see Hood, who was still in the outhouse. Finding him alive, he inquired how he was. "Not dead yet," he replied, "and I believe I would get well if I had half a chance." Colonel Robertson told him he should have a whole chance; and proceeded himself to dress his wounds. His treatment of the scalp wound was curious. On the Holston he had seen many persons who had been scalped, and there learned from a traveling French surgeon how to treat them. He took a pegging awl and perforated thickly the whole naked space. This was done that granulation might spring up through the awl holes, and gradually spreading, unite and form a covering to the denuded skull before it should die and exfoliate, and thus expose the brain. This operation became so common that there were persons in every station who could perform it.¹²⁵ In 1796 there were some twenty persons still living on the Cumberland who had lost their scalps.¹²⁶ Hood recovered and lived to a ripe old age.

Footnotes:
51. The State vs. James Foreman, Nashville, 1836, pp. 23-4. Opinion by Chief Justice Catron. See also the Laws of the United States, Resolutions of Congress under the Confederation, Treaties, Proclamations, and other Documents having Operation and Respect to the Public Lands, etc., Washington, 1817, p. 28, where the proclamation may be found in full.
52. Mooney's Myths of the Cherokee, p. 203.
53. Garrett and Goodpasture's History of Tennessee, pp. 34-6.
54. Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, pp. 147-8, 161.
55. Bartram's Travels, pp. 354-5.
56. Bartram's Travels, pp. 362-4.
57. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, p. 435.
58. Phelan's History of Tennessee, p. 43.
59. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 4, p. 342.
60. Sparks' Writings of Washington, Vol. 2, p. 284.
61. Timberlake's Memoirs, p. 71.
62. Mooney's Myths of the Cherokee, pp. 203-4.
63. General Joseph Martin and the War of the Revolution in the West. By Prof. Stephen B. Weeks, p. 423; Publications of the Southern History Association, Vol. 4, p. 458.
64. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 4, p. 307. '
65. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, p. 458.
66. Weeks' General Joseph Martin, p. 431.
67. Mooney's Myths of the Cherokee, p. 213, citing Nuttal's Travels, p. 130.
68. Timberlake's Memoirs, p. 47.
69. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, p. 435.
70. Ramsey, p. 273.
71. Haywood's History of Tennessee, p. Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 154, where the official report of the battle may be found; Phelan's History of Tennessee, p. 43.
72. Putnam's History of Middle Tennessee, p.
73. Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, pp. 156-7.
74. Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 159.
75. Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 160.
76. Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 157.
77. Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 158.
78. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 4, p. 306.
79. Mooney's Myths of the Cherokee, p. 51.
80. The Cherokee Nation of Indians, by Charles C. Royce, Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 150.
81. Myths of the Cherokee, p. 51.
82. The whole treaty, and a report of the proceedings during the negotiations, may be found in the appendix to Haywood's Civil and Political History of Tennessee (2nd Ed.), pp. 501-14.
83. Haywood's History of Tennessee, pp. 506, 512.
84. Miller's History of Great Britain, p. 35.
85. Timberlake's Memoirs, p. 72.
86. Timberlake's Memoirs, p. 112.
87. Goldsmith's Animated Nature (Phil., 1823), Vol. 1, pp. 351-2.
88. Irving's Life of Goldsmith, Ch. 13.
89. Ramsey, pp. 172-3.
90. Phelan's History of Tennessee, p. 43.
91. Gilmore's Rear Guard of the Revolution, p. 281.
92. Handbook of American Indians, North of Mexico. Edited by Frederick Webb Hodge, pp. 399-400.
93. Colonel William Martin, in the Publications of the Southern History Association, Vol. 4, pp. 454-6.
94. Weeks' Joseph Martin, p. 462; William Martin, in the Publications of the Southern History Association, Vol. 4, p. 454. Both of these accounts are on the authority of William Martin, but they cannot be wholly reconciled.
95. Publications of the Southern History Association, Vol. 4, p. 455.
96. Civil and Political History of Tennessee, pp. 58-9.
97. Deposition of James Robertson, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, p. 286; Deposition of Charles Robertson, same, p. 291.
98. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, p. 283.
99. Smith's History of Kentucky, p. 52.
100. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, pp. 284, 292.
101. Deposition of Charles Robertson, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, p. 292.
102. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 3, p. 271; American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. 1, pp. 327, 532.
103. Colonel Clark to the Governor of Virginia, Jefferson's Correspondence. By Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Vol. 1, p. 451; Thwaite's How George Rogers Clark Won the Northwest, pp. 41-2.
104. Jefferson's Correspondence, Vol. 1, p. 163.
105. Ramsey, pp. 186-8; Mooney, p. 55.
106. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 3, p. 271.
107. Arthur Campbell's Report, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, pp. 135-7; Ramsey, pp. 261-8; James Sevier, American Historical Magazine, Vol. 6, pp. 41-2.
108. Ramsey, p. 271.
109. Ramsey, pp. 272-3; American Historical Magazine, Vol. 6, p. 43.
110. Ramsey, pp. 183-4.
111. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. 1, p. 431.
112. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 3, p. 271.
113. Journal of a Voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good boat Adventure, from Fort Patrick Henry, on the Holston River, to the French Salt Springs on the Cumberland River, kept by John Donelson. The original manuscript is preserved in the archives of the Tennessee Historical Society. It is published in full in Putnam's History of Middle Tennessee, p. 69, and in Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 197.
114. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 3, p. 243.
115. Haywood's History of Tennessee, p. 102.
116. Haywood, p. 125.
117. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 1, pp. 338-9.
118. Collin's History of Kentucky, p. 39.
119. Calendar of Virginia State Papers, Vol. 3, p. 284.
120. American Historical Magazine, Vol. 7, p. 135.
121. Putnam's History of Middle Tennessee, pp. 109-110; Haywood's History of Tennessee, p. 127; Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, pp. 448-9.
122. Dr. Felix Robertson, Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Vol. 8 (1855), quoted in Eve's Remarkable Surgical Cases; give this date as January 15th, but Dr. Robertson, who associated the date with that of his own birth, is more probably correct. Haywood and our other historians following him, give this date January 15th, but Dr. Robertson, who associated the date with that of his own birth, is more probably correct.
123. Dr. Felix Robertson, Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Vol. 8 (1855); John Rains, Southwestern Monthly, Vol. 2, p. 266; Putnam's History of Middle Tennessee, pp. 156-8; Haywood, pp. 133-4; Ramsey, pp. 455-6.
124. Putnam's History of Middle Tennessee, pp. 223-4; Haywood, p. 131; Ramsey, p. 451.
125. Dr. Felix Robertson, Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Vol. 8 (1855).
126. American Historical Magazine, Vol. 2, p. 26.

 AHGP Tennessee

Source: Tennessee Historical Society, Volume IV, Indian Wars and Warriors of the Old Southwest, 1730-1807, Nashville, 1918.