The Winning of the West Volume II Part 12

Kentucky during her earliest and most trying years received comparatively little help from sorely beset Virginia; but the backwoodsmen of the upper Tennessee valley--on both sides of the boundary--did her real and lasting service.

In 1778 the militia were disbanded, as the settlements were very little harried; but as soon as the vigilance of the whites was relaxed the depredations and ma.s.sacres began again, and soon became worse than ever.

Robertson had been made superintendent of Indian affairs for North Carolina; and he had taken up his abode among the Cherokees at the town of Chota in the latter half of the year 1777. He succeeded in keeping them comparatively quiet and peaceable during 1778, and until his departure, which took place the following year, when he went to found the settlements on the c.u.mberland River.

But the Chickamaugas refused to make peace, and in their frequent and hara.s.sing forays they were from time to time joined by parties of young braves from all the Cherokee towns that were beyond the reach of Robertson's influence--that is, by all save those in the neighborhood of Chota. The Chickasaws and Choctaws likewise gave active support to the king's cause; the former scouted along the Ohio, the latter sent bands of young warriors to aid the Creeks and Cherokees in their raids against the settlements. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter of Rainsford and Tait to Hamilton. April 9, 1779.]

The British agents among the southern Indians had received the letters Hamilton sent them after he took Vincennes; in these they were urged at once to send out parties against the frontier, and to make ready for a grand stroke in the spring. In response the chief agent, who was the Scotch captain Cameron, a noted royalist leader, wrote to his official superior that the instant he heard of any movement of the northwestern Indians he would see that it was backed up, for the Creeks were eager for war, and the Cherokees likewise were ardently attached to the British cause; as a proof of the devotion of the latter, he added: "They keep continually killing and scalping in Virginia, North Carolina, and the frontier of Georgia, although the rebels are daily threatening to send in armies from all quarters and extirpate the whole tribe."

[Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Series B., Vol. 117, p. 131. Letter of Alexander Cameron, July 15, 1779.] It would certainly be impossible to desire better proof than that thus furnished by this royal officer, both of the ferocity of the British policy towards the frontiersmen, and of the treachery of the Indians, who so richly deserved the fate that afterwards befell them.

While waiting for the signal from Hamilton, Cameron organized two Indian expeditions against the frontier, to aid the movements of the British army that had already conquered Georgia. A great body of Creeks, accompanied by the British commissaries and most of the white traders (who were, of course, tories), set out in March to join the king's forces at Savannah; but when they reached the frontier they scattered out to plunder and ravage. A body of Americans fell on one of their parties and crushed it; whereupon the rest returned home in a fright, save about seventy, who went on and joined the British. At the same time three hundred Chickamaugas, likewise led by the resident British commissaries, started out against the Carolina frontier. But Robertson, at Chota, received news of the march, and promptly sent warning to the Holston settlements [Footnote: _Do_. "A rebel commissioner in Chote being informed of their movements here sent express into Holston river."

This "rebel commissioner" was in all probability Robertson.]; and the Holston men, both of Virginia and North Carolina, decided immediately to send an expedition against the homes of the war party. This would not only at once recall them from the frontier, but would give them a salutary lesson.

Accordingly the backwoods levies gathered on Clinch River, at the mouth of Big Creek, April 10th, and embarked in pirogues and canoes to descend the Tennessee. There were several hundred of them [Footnote: State Department MSS. No. 51, Vol. II., p. 17, a letter from the British agents among the Creeks to Lord George Germaine, of July 12, 1779. It says, "near 300 rebels"; Haywood, whose accounts are derived from oral tradition, says one thousand. Cameron's letter of July 15th in the Haldimand MSS. says seven hundred. Some of them were Virginians who had been designed for Clark's a.s.sistance in his Illinois campaign, but who were not sent him. Shelby made a very clever stroke, but it had no permanent effect, and it is nonsense to couple it, as has been recently done, with Clark's campaigns.] under the command of Evan Shelby; Isaac Shelby having collected the supplies for the expedition by his individual activity and on his personal credit. The backwoodsmen went down the river so swiftly that they took the Chickamaugas completely by surprise, and the few warriors who were left in the villages fled to the wooded mountains without offering any resistance. Several Indians were killed [Footnote: Cameron in his letter says four, which is probably near the truth. Haywood says forty, which merely represents the backwoods tradition on the subject, and is doubtless a great exaggeration.] and a number of their towns were burnt, together with a great deal of corn; many horses and cattle were recaptured, and among the spoils were large piles of deer hides, owned by a tory trader. The troops then destroyed their canoes and returned home on foot, killing game for their food; and they spread among the settlements many stories of the beauty of the lands through which they had pa.s.sed, so that the pioneers became eager to possess them. The Chickamaugas were alarmed and confounded by this sudden stroke; their great war band returned at once to the burned towns, on being informed by swift runners of the destruction that had befallen them. All thoughts of an immediate expedition against the frontier were given up; peace talks were sent to Evan Shelby [Footnote: State Department MSS. No. 71, Vol. I., p. 255, letter of Evan Shelby, June 4, 1779.]; and throughout the summer the settlements were but little molested.

Yet all the while they were planning further attacks; at the same time that they sent peace talks to Shelby they sent war talks to the Northwestern Indians, inviting them to join in a great combined movement against the Americans. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Series B., Vol. 117, p.

157. A talk from the Cherokees to the envoy from the Wabash and other Indians, July 12, 1779. One paragraph is interesting: "We cannot forget the talk you brought us some years ago into this Nation, which was to take up the hatchet against the Virginians. We heard and listened to it with great attention, and before the time that was appointed to lift it we took it up and struck the Virginians. Our Nation was alone and surrounded by them. They were numerous and their hatchets were sharp; and after we had lost some of our best warriors, we were forced to leave our towns and corn to be burnt by them, and now we live in the gra.s.s as you see us. But we are not yet conquered, and to convince you that we have not thrown away your talk here are 4 strands of whampums we received from you when you came before as a messenger to our Nation."]

When the news of Hamilton's capture was brought it wrought a momentary discouragement; but the efforts of the British agents were unceasing, and by the end of the year most of the southwestern Indians were again ready to take up the hatchet. The rapid successes of the royal armies in the southern States had turned the Creeks into open antagonists of the Americans, and their war parties were sent out in quick succession, the British agents keeping alive the alliance by a continued series of gifts--for the Creeks were a venal, fickle race whose friends.h.i.+p could not otherwise be permanently kept. [Footnote: State Department MSS.

Papers Continental Congress. Intercepted Letters, No. 51. Vol. II.

Letter of British Agents Messrs. Rainsford, Mitch.e.l.l, and Macullagh, of July 12, 1779. "The present unanimity of the Creek Nation is no doubt greatly owing to the rapid successes of His Majesty's forces in the Southern provinces, as they have now no cause to apprehend the least danger from the Rebels ... we have found by experience that without presents the Indians are not to be depended on."]

As for the Cherokees, they had not confined themselves to sending the war belt to the northwestern tribes, while professing friends.h.i.+p for the Americans; they had continued in close communication with the British Indian agents, a.s.suring them that their peace negotiations were only shams, intended to blind the settlers, and that they would be soon ready to take up the hatchet. [Footnote: _Do_., No. 71, Vol. II., p. 189.

Letter of David Tait to Oconostota. "I believe what you say about telling lies to the Virginians to be very right."] This time Cameron himself marched into the Cherokee country with his company of fifty tories, brutal outlaws, accustomed to savage warfare, and ready to take part in the worst Indian outrages. [Footnote: _Do_., No. 51, Vol. II.

Letter of the three agents. "The Cherokees are now exceedingly well disposed. Mr. Cameron is now among them ... Captain Cameron has his company of Loyal Refugees with him, who are well qualified for the service they are engaged in.... He carried up with him a considerable quant.i.ty of presents and ammunition which are absolutely necessary to engage the Indians to go upon service."] The ensuing Cherokee war was due not to the misdeeds of the settlers--though doubtless a few lawless whites occasionally did wrong to their red neighbors--but to the short-sighted treachery and ferocity of the savages themselves, and especially to the machinations of the tories and British agents. The latter unceasingly incited the Indians to ravage the frontier with torch and scalping knife. They deliberately made the deeds of the torturers and women-killers their own, and this they did with the approbation of the British Government, and to its merited and lasting shame.

Yet by the end of 1779 the inrush of settlers to the Holston regions had been so great that, as with Kentucky, there was never any real danger after this year that the whites would be driven from the land by the red tribes whose hunting-ground it once had been.

CHAPTER IX.

KING'S MOUNTAIN, 1780.

The British in the Southern States.

During the Revolutionary war the men of the west for the most part took no share in the actual campaigning against the British and Hessians.

Their duty was to conquer and hold the wooded wilderness that stretched westward to the Mississippi; and to lay therein the foundations of many future commonwealths. Yet at a crisis in the great struggle for liberty, at one of the darkest hours for the patriot cause, it was given to a band of western men to come to the relief of their brethren of the seaboard and to strike a telling and decisive blow for all America. When the three southern provinces lay crushed and helpless at the feet of Cornwallis, the Holston backwoodsmen suddenly gathered to a.s.sail the triumphant conqueror. Crossing the mountains that divided them from the beaten and despairing people of the tidewater region, they killed the ablest lieutenant of the British commander, and at a single stroke undid all that he had done.

By the end of 1779 the British had reconquered Georgia. In May, 1780, they captured Charleston, speedily reduced all South Carolina to submission, and then marched into the old North State. Cornwallis, much the ablest of the British generals, was in command over a mixed force of British, Hessian, and loyal American regulars, aided by Irish volunteers and bodies of refugees from Florida. In addition, the friends to the king's cause, who were very numerous in the southernmost States, rose at once on the news of the British successes, and thronged to the royal standards; so that a number of regiments of tory militia were soon embodied. McGillivray, the Creek chief, sent bands of his warriors to a.s.sist the British and tories on the frontier, and the Cherokees likewise came to their help. The patriots for the moment abandoned hope, and bowed before their victorious foes.

Cornwallis himself led the main army northward against the American forces. Meanwhile he entrusted to two of his most redoubtable officers the task of scouring the country, raising the loyalists, scattering the patriot troops that were still embodied, and finally crus.h.i.+ng out all remaining opposition. These two men were Tarleton the das.h.i.+ng cavalryman, and Ferguson the rifleman, the skilled partisan leader.

Colonel Ferguson.

Patrick Ferguson, the son of Lord Pitfour, was a Scotch soldier, at this time about thirty-six years old, who had been twenty years in the British army. He had served with distinction against the French in Germany, had quelled a Carib uprising in the West Indies, and in 1777 was given the command of a company of riflemen in the army opposed to Was.h.i.+ngton. [Footnote: "Biographical Sketch or Memoir of Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Ferguson," by Adam Ferguson, LL.D., Edinburgh, 1817, p. 11. The copy was kindly lent me by Mr. Geo. H. Moore of the Lenox Library.] He played a good part at Brandywine and Monmouth.

At the former battle he was wounded by an American sharpshooter, and had an opportunity, of which he forbore taking advantage, to himself shoot an American officer of high rank, who unsuspectingly approached the place where he lay hid; he always insisted that the man he thus spared was no less a person than Was.h.i.+ngton. While suffering from his wound, Sir William Howe disbanded his rifle corps, distributing it among the light companies of the different regiments; and its commander in consequence became an unattached volunteer in the army. But he was too able to be allowed to remain long unemployed. When the British moved to New York he was given the command of several small independent expeditions, and was successful in each case; once, in particular, he surprised and routed Pulaski's legion, committing great havoc with the bayonet, which was always with him a favorite weapon. His energy and valor attracted much attention; and when a British army was sent against Charleston and the South he went along, as a lieutenant-colonel of a recently raised regular regiment, known as the American Volunteers.

[Footnote: Though called volunteers they were simply a regular regiment raised in America instead of England; Ferguson's "Memoir" p. 30, etc., always speaks of them as regulars. The British gave an absurd number of t.i.tles to their various officers; thus Ferguson was a brigadier-general of militia, lieutenant-colonel of volunteers, a major in the army, etc.]

Cornwallis speedily found him to be peculiarly fitted for just such service as was needed; for he possessed rare personal qualities. He was of middle height and slender build, with a quiet, serious face and a singularly winning manner; and withal, he was of literally dauntless courage, of hopeful, eager temper, and remarkably fertile in s.h.i.+fts and expedients. He was particularly fond of night attacks, surprises, and swift, sudden movements generally, and was unwearied in drilling and disciplining his men. Not only was he an able leader, but he was also a finished horseman, and the best marksman with both pistol and rifle in the British army. Being of quick, inventive mind, he constructed a breech-loading rifle, which he used in battle with deadly effect. This invention had been one of the chief causes of his being brought into prominence in the war against America, for the British officers especially dreaded the American sharpshooters. [Footnote: Ferguson's "Memoir," p. 11.] It would be difficult to imagine a better partisan leader, or one more fitted by his feats of prowess and individual skill, to impress the minds of his followers. Moreover, his courtesy stood him in good stead with the people of the country; he was always kind and civil, and would spend hours in talking affairs over with them and pointing out the mischief of rebelling against their lawful sovereign.

He soon became a potent force in winning the doubtful to the British side, and exerted a great influence over the tories; they gathered eagerly to his standard, and he drilled them with patient perseverance.

After the taking of Charleston Ferguson's volunteers and Tarleton's legion, acting separately or together, speedily destroyed the different bodies of patriot soldiers. Their activity and energy was such that the opposing commanders seemed for the time being quite unable to cope with them, and the American detachments were routed and scattered in quick succession. [Footnote: "History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781,"

Lt.-Col. Tarleton, London (1787). See also the "Strictures" thereon, by Roderick Mackenzie, London, same date.] On one of these occasions, the surprise at Monk's Corners, where the American commander, Huger, was slain, Ferguson's troops again had a chance to show their skill in the use of the bayonet.

Tarleton did his work with brutal ruthlessness; his men plundered and ravaged, maltreated prisoners, outraged women, and hung without mercy all who were suspected of turning from the loyalist to the whig side.

His victories were almost always followed by ma.s.sacres; in particular, when he routed with small loss a certain Captain Buford, his soldiers refused to grant quarter, and mercilessly butchered the beaten.

Americans. [Footnote: It is worth while remembering that it was not merely the tories who were guilty of gross crimes; the British regulars, including even some of their officers, often behaved with abhorrent brutality.]

Ferguson, on the contrary, while quite as valiant and successful a commander, showed a generous heart, and treated the inhabitants of the country fairly well. He was especially incensed at any outrage upon women, punis.h.i.+ng the offender with the utmost severity, and as far as possible he spared his conquered foes. Yet even Ferguson's tender mercies must have seemed cruel to the whigs, as may be judged by the following extract from a diary kept by one of his lieutenants [Footnote: Diary of Lt. Anthony Allaire, entry for March 24, 1780.]: "This day Col.

Ferguson got the rear guard in order to do his King and country justice, by protecting friends and widows, and destroying rebel property; also to collect live stock for the use of the army. All of which we effect as we go by destroying furniture, breaking windows, etc., taking all their horned cattle, horses, mules, sheep, etc., and their negroes to drive them." When such were the authorized proceedings of troops under even the most merciful of the British commanders, it is easy to guess what deeds were done by uncontrolled bodies of stragglers bent on plunder.

When Ferguson moved into the back country of the two Carolinas still worse outrages followed. In the three southernmost of the thirteen rebellious colonies there was a very large tory party. [Footnote: Gates MSS., _pa.s.sim_, for July-October, 1780. _E.g._, letter of Mr. Ramsey, August 9, 1780, describes how "the Scotch are all lying out," the number of tories in the "Drowning Creek region," their resistance to the levy of cattle, etc. In these colonies, as in the middle colonies, the tory party was very strong.] In consequence the struggle in the Carolinas and Georgia took the form of a ferocious civil war. Each side in turn followed up its successes by a series of hangings and confiscations, while the lawless and violent characters fairly revelled in the confusion. Neither side can be held guiltless of many and grave misdeeds; but for reasons already given the bulk--but by no means the whole--of the criminal and disorderly cla.s.ses espoused the king's cause in the regions where the struggle was fiercest. They murdered, robbed, or drove off the whigs in their hour of triumph; and in turn brought down ferocious reprisals on their own heads and on those of their luckless a.s.sociates.

Moreover Cornwallis and his under-officers tried to cow and overawe the inhabitants by executing some of the men whom they deemed the chief and most criminal leaders of the rebellion, especially such as had sworn allegiance and then again taken up arms; [Footnote: Gates MSS. See Letter from Sumter, August 12th and _pa.s.sim_, for instances of hanging by express command of the British officers.] of course retaliation in kind followed. Ferguson himself hung some men; and though he did his best to spare the country people, there was much plundering and murdering by his militia.

In June he marched to upper South Carolina, moving to and fro, calling out the loyal militia. They responded enthusiastically, and three or four thousand tories were embodied in different bands. Those who came to Ferguson's own standard were divided into companies and regiments, and taught the rudiments of discipline by himself and his subalterns. He soon had a large but fluctuating force under him; in part composed of good men, loyal adherents of the king (these being very frequently recent arrivals from England, or else Scotch highlanders), in part also of cut-throats, horse-thieves, and desperadoes of all kinds who wished for revenge on the whigs and were eager to plunder them. His own regular force was also mainly composed of Americans, although it contained many Englishmen. His chief subordinates were Lieutenant-Colonels De Peyster [Footnote: A relative of the Detroit commander.] and Cruger; the former usually serving under him, the latter commanding at Ninety-Six.

They were both New York loyalists, members of old Knickerbocker families; for in New York many of the gentry and merchants stood by the king.

Ferguson Approaches the Mountains.

Ferguson moved rapidly from place to place, breaking up the bodies of armed whigs; and the latter now and then skirmished fiercely with similar bands of tories, sometimes one side winning sometimes the other.

Having reduced South Carolina to submission the British commander then threatened North Carolina; and Col. McDowell, the commander of the whig militia in that district, sent across the mountains to the Holston men praying that they would come to his help. Though suffering continually from Indian ravages, and momentarily expecting a formidable inroad, they responded n.o.bly to the call. Sevier remained to patrol the border and watch the Cherokees, while Isaac Shelby crossed the mountains with a couple of hundred mounted riflemen, early in July. The mountain men were joined by McDowell, with whom they found also a handful of Georgians and some South Carolinians; who when their States were subdued had fled northward, resolute to fight their oppressors to the last.

The arrival of the mountain men put new life into the dispirited whigs.

On July 30th a mixed force, under Shelby and two or three local militia colonels, captured Thickett's fort, with ninety tories, near the Pacolet. They then camped at the Cherokee ford of Broad River, and sent out parties of mounted men to carry on a guerilla or partisan warfare against detachments, not choosing to face Ferguson's main body. After a while they moved south to Cedar Spring. Here, on the 8th of August, they were set upon by Ferguson's advanced guard, of dragoons and mounted riflemen. These they repulsed, handling the British rather roughly; but, as Ferguson himself came up, they fled, and though he pursued them vigorously he could not overtake them. [Footnote: Shelby's MS.

Autobiography, and the various accounts he wrote of these affairs in his old age (which Haywood and most of the other local American historians follow or amplify), certainly greatly exaggerate the British force and loss, as well as the part Shelby himself played, compared to the Georgia and Carolina leaders. The Americans seemed to have outnumbered Ferguson's advance guard, which was less than two hundred strong, about three to one. Shelby's account of the Musgrove affair is especially erroneous. See p. 120 of L. C. Draper's "King's Mountain and Its Heroes"

(Cincinnati, 1881). Mr. Draper has with infinite industry and research gathered all the published and unpublished accounts and all the traditions concerning the battle; his book is a mine of information on the subject. He is generally quite impartial, but some of his conclusions are certainly bia.s.sed; and the many traditional statements, as well as those made by very old men concerning events that took place fifty or sixty years previously, must be received with extreme caution.

A great many of them should never have been put in the book at all. When they take the shape of anecdotes, telling how the British are overawed by the mere appearance of the Americans on some occasion (as pp. 94, 95, etc.), they must be discarded at once as absolutely worthless, as well as ridiculous. The British and tory accounts, being forced to explain ultimate defeat, are, if possible, even more untrustworthy, when taken solely by themselves, than the American.]

On the 18th of the month the mountain men, a.s.sisted as usual by some parties of local militia, all under their various colonels, performed another feat; one of those swift, sudden strokes so dear to the hearts of these rifle-bearing hors.e.m.e.n. It was of a kind peculiarly suited to their powers; for they were brave and hardy, able to thread their way unerringly through the forests, and fond of surprises; and though they always fought on foot, they moved on horseback, and therefore with great celerity. Their operations should be carefully studied by all who wish to learn the possibilities of mounted riflemen. Yet they were impatient of discipline or of regular service, and they really had no one commander. The different militia officers combined to perform some definite piece of work, but, like their troops, they were incapable of long-continued campaigns; and there were frequent and bitter quarrels between the several commanders, as well as between the bodies of men they led.

It seems certain that the mountaineers were, as a rule, more formidable fighters than the lowland militia, beside or against whom they battled; and they formed the main strength of the attacking party that left the camp at the Cherokee ford before sunset on the 17th. Ferguson's army was encamped southwest of them, at Fair Forest Shoals; they marched round him, and went straight on, leaving him in their rear. Sometimes they rode through open forest, more often they followed the dim wood roads; their horses pacing or cantering steadily through the night. As the day dawned they reached Musgrove's Ford, on the Enoree, having gone forty miles. Here they hoped to find a detachment of tory militia; but it had been joined by a body of provincial regulars, the united force being probably somewhat more numerous than that of the Americans. The latter were discovered by a patrol, and the British after a short delay marched out to attack them. The Americans in the meantime made good use of their axes, felling trees for a breastwork, and when a.s.sailed they beat back and finally completely routed their a.s.sailants. [Footnote: Shelby's account of this action, written in his old age, is completely at fault; he not only exaggerates the British force and loss, but he likewise greatly overestimates the number of the Americans--always a favorite trick of his. Each of the militia colonels of course claimed the chief share of the glory of the day. Haywood, Ramsey, and even Phelan simply follow Shelby. Draper gives all the different accounts; it is quite impossible to reconcile them; but all admit that the British were defeated.

I have used the word "British"; but though there were some Englishmen and Scotchmen among the tories and provincials, they were mainly loyalist Americans.] However, the victory was of little effect, for just as it was won word was brought to Shelby that the day before Cornwallis had met Gates at Camden, and had not only defeated but practically destroyed the American army; and on the very day of the fight on the Enoree, Tarleton surprised Sumter, and scattered his forces to the four winds. The panic among the whigs was tremendous, and the mountaineers shared it. They knew that Ferguson, angered at the loss of his detachment, would soon be in hot pursuit, and there was no time for delay. The local militia made off in various directions; while Shelby and his men pushed straight for the mountains, crossed them, and returned each man to his own home. Ferguson speedily stamped out the few remaining sparks of rebellion in South Carolina, and crossing the boundary into the North State he there repeated the process. On September 12th he caught McDowell and the only remaining body of militia at Cane Creek, of the Catawba, and beat them thoroughly, [Footnote: Draper apparently endorses the absurd tradition that makes this a whig victory instead of a defeat. It seems certain (see Draper), contrary to the statements of the Tennessee historians, that Sevier had no part in these preliminary operations.] the survivors, including their commander, fleeing over the mountains to take refuge with the Holston men. Except for an occasional small guerilla party there was not a single organized body of American troops left south of Gates' broken and dispirited army.

All the southern lands lay at the feet of the conquerors. The British leaders, overbearing and arrogant, held almost unchecked sway throughout the Carolinas and Georgia; and looking northward they made ready for the conquest of Virginia. [Footnote: The northern portion of North Carolina was still in possession of the remainder of Gates' army, but they could have been brushed aside without an effort.] Their right flank was covered by the waters of the ocean, their left by the high mountain barrier-chains, beyond which stretched the interminable forest; and they had as little thought of danger from one side as from the other.

The Mountaineers Gather to the Attack.

Suddenly and without warning, the wilderness sent forth a swarm of stalwart and hardy riflemen, of whose very existence the British had hitherto been ignorant. [Footnote: "A numerous army now appeared on the frontier drawn from Nolachucky and other settlements beyond the mountains, whose very names had been unknown to us." Lord Rawdon's letter of October 24, 1780. Clarke of Georgia had plundered a convoy of presents intended for the Indians, at Augusta, and the British wrongly supposed this to be likewise the aim of the mountaineers.] Riders spurring in hot haste brought word to the king's commanders that the backwater men had come over the mountains. The Indian fighters of the frontier, leaving unguarded their homes on the western waters, had crossed by wooded and precipitous defiles, and were pouring down to the help of their brethren of the plains.

Ferguson had pushed his victories to the foot of the Smoky and the Yellow mountains. Here he learned, perhaps for the first time, that there were a few small settlements beyond the high ranges he saw in his front; and he heard that some of these backwoods mountaineers had already borne arms against him, and were now harboring men who had fled from before his advance. By a prisoner whom he had taken he at once sent them warning to cease their hostilities, and threatened that if they did not desist he would march across the mountains, hang their leaders, put their fighting men to the sword, and waste their settlements with fire.

He had been joined by refugee tories from the Watauga, who could have piloted him thither; and perhaps he intended to make his threats good.

It seems more likely that he paid little heed to the mountaineers, scorning their power to do him hurt; though he did not regard them with the haughty and ignorant disdain usually felt for such irregulars by the British army officers.

When the Holston men learned that Ferguson had come to the other side of the mountains, and threatened their chiefs with the halter and their homes with the torch, a flame of pa.s.sionate anger was kindled in all their hearts. They did not wait for his attack; they sallied from their strongholds to meet him. Their crops were garnered, their young men were ready for the march; and though the Otari war bands lowered like thunder-clouds on their southern border, they determined to leave only enough men to keep the savages at bay for the moment, and with the rest to overwhelm Ferguson before he could retreat out of their reach.

Hitherto the war with the British had been something afar off; now it had come to their thresholds and their spirits rose to the danger.

Shelby was the first to hear the news. He at once rode down to Sevier's home on the Nolichucky; for they were the two county lieutenants, [Footnote: Shelby was regularly commissioned as county lieutenant.