USA > Tennessee > Old tales retold; or, Perils and adventures of Tennessee pioneers > Part 11
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Old Tales Retold.
grease lamp suspended from the wall, she was hurry- ing past when Mrs. Buchanan called to her cheerily : "What in the world are you going to do, Phœbe?"
"To surrender," said Phœbe, over her shoulder without pausing in her flight to the door.
"Never, so long as there is life in this body!" cried Sallie Buchanan, barring the way with her goodly form. "Go back to your room and keep out of the way. We have whipped the Indians. We are all safe now." Looking about her, the fear-stricken creature was forced to realize that this must be so. She saw groups of men and women everywhere about the room laughing and talking about their experiences in the fight, and on every side she heard the joyful words : "They are gone. Every Indian has left, and none of us are hurt !" It was true, though it seemed little short of a miracle, that in the night assault on Buchanan's station eight hundred savages had been repelled by twenty-one men and a few brave women, not one of whom had been wounded; no, not with the slightest scratch. Scarcely had the assailants disappeared when Captain Rains came in sight of the fort with five of his men. Among the number was young Joseph Brown, who at the age of nineteen years had already become a noted border soldier under Rains and Gor- don.
Riding up close to the stockade, Brown, to his aston- ishment, saw lying there the body of the same Chick- amauga chief, Chia-Chatt-Alla, who had taken him captive at Nickajack. He at once, as he afterwards wrote, recognized his "old chum Chatt, who lay dead, pierced with balls shot down into his body while he was blowing the coals to fire the fort."
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Night Assault on Buchanan's Station.
John Davis, another member of Rains's band, testi- fied, on the other hand, that, though he had many wounds, only one bullet had struck Chia-Chatt-Alla after his body had rolled to the ground. Davis averred that, as the ball was fired from above, it had entered the top of the Indian's head and, owing to his crouch- ing position at the time he was killed, pierced his body with six holes.
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XIV.
NICKAJACK, OR PROPHECY FULFILLED.
LONG ago, when there were but few white men set- tlers west of the Alleghanies, Jack, a negro slave in the Watauga country, ran away from his pioneer mas- ter and took to the woods for freedom. Along the paths of the wild he went for a hundred miles or more southward, until he reached the river Kalam- uchee (Tennessee), where it dips down near to Ala- bama at a point about thirty-six miles below Lookout Mountain. By some means he crossed the wide stream to a strip of woods on the other shore, lying between the river and the abrupt end of Sand Moun- tain. The wood was in a region unknown at that time to white men and uninhabited by Indians. Jack, believing himself to be safe here from pursuit, paused in his flight and began to look about for a resting place. In his search he came to the wide, lofty en- trance to a cave at the base of the mountain-an open- ing in the rocks so spacious that the creek which flowed out of it occupied scarcely a fourth of its width. Here was a perfect shelter from wind or rain, a safe place in which to build a fire without danger of being betrayed by ascending smoke. Glad of his good fortune, the negro made his home in the cave. There he slept and cooked and ate in fancied security, not knowing that he was in the evil-famed Te-Calla-See, the cavern to which the Chickamaugas, who then lived
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ENTRANCE TO NICKAJACK CAVE.
Nickajack, or Prophecy Fulfilled.
on Chickamauga Creek above Lookout Mountain, were in the habit of fleeing when hard pressed by enemies ; nor did he dream that it was the secret storehouse to which they brought the plunder they had stolen from other tribes or from the whites. The collection of bad Indians and outcast white men who went under the name of Chickamaugas were counted, even among red men, as bandits and robbers, and Te-Calla-See was known as their den. Here it was that their chief, Dragging Canoe, hiding from John Sevier's horse- men, had lain for months on his buffalo robe in the mouth of the cave, nursing his wounds and sulking over his defeat at Island Flats, refusing to come in after every other Cherokee chief had smoked the peace pipe with the victorious whites. No paleface had ever ventured to the neighborhood of the cave. No In- dians other than the Chickamaugas lingered about it. All else glided swiftly by with muffled paddles on the bosom of Kalamuchee. For the mysterious hole in the ground was more terrifying to the superstitious braves than all the perils of navigation in the narrows of the Tennessee they must pass through on the way between Lookout Mountain and the cave.
The day naturally came when, in one of their ex- cursions to the cavern, the Chickamaugas found the runaway negro in their hiding place. From that day the cave was known as Te-Calla-See no more. In memory of the intruder it was called by the Indians, in broken English, Nicka-Jack Cave. What more the savages did to poor negro Jack than give his name to their den, neither history nor folklore tells.
For some years the region continued to be shunned by all save the Chickamaugas, who came in time to use
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it for a shelter while they waited to waylay parties of white immigrants who began about the year 1773 to travel by water to the southern country around Natch- ez, Miss. So often were these parties wrecked and robbed by the bandits of the Narrows that Virginia and North Carolina finally sent an army under Colonels Evan Shelby and John Montgomery, who destroyed every Chickamauga village around Lookout Mountain and killed many of the braves. The remaining war- riors, with their families, fled to the great cave, where they lived until they could build near it the town of Nickajack, on the river bank, and four other villages, including Tuskigagee (Running Water), a few miles higher up the stream. One of the first acts of the Chickamaugas after building these villages, called the lower towns, was to fire on John Donelson's com- pany of pioneers who were "intending, by God's per- mission, to go to the French Salt Spring" on the Cum- berland (the future site of Nashville). And later they followed the immigrants to their new homes, often going across country to fall on them unexpect- edly, and then retreat so rapidly to their den that pur- suit by the pioneer soldiers was hopeless, and capture of the savages almost impossible.
These were the same bad Indians who made the assault on Buchanan's Station. It was they who cap- tured Colonel Brown's boat, killed him and his three sons, and held the rest of his family captives.
Where all these things happened sixty-five railway trains now pass daily over the old site of Nickajack. The woods at the foot of the mountain have long since given place to level fields with farmhouses here and there on the broad plain. Everything seems changed
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Nickajack, or Prophecy Fulfilled.
except the cavern. From car windows on the N., C., and St. L. Railway travelers who pass Shell Mound, a station in Marion County, Tenn., will notice the river almost lapping the car wheels on one side of the tracks; and on the other, nearly a mile distant, may plainly see an opening fifteen feet high and ninety feet wide gaping as of old under the head of Sand Mountain. It is Nickajack Cave. The way from the station to the cavern is through a long lane which di- vides the fields that lie between it and the river. The approach is favorable to illusions. With the back turned on all that pertains to the present, and facing the open mouth of Nickajack, you fall under the spell of the past. If the hour is toward evening when the shadows come down to meet you from the mountain, you may be startled once or twice, in walking up the lane, by the consciousness of a colossal human figure sitting at ease in the entrance of the cave. You stop to look, and it is gone. A few yards forward, and, out of the corner of the eye, it is again seen. A full gaze proves that no one is there. Another advance, and a quick side glance catches the figure, seeming now to sit bolt upright as if at the approach of footsteps. A careful examination follows, upon which the black, woolly head of the apparition is seen to be a deep, round hole in the left-hand wall of the entrance-noth- ing more; the folds of the gray blanket around the massive shoulders are but projections of jutting stone, and the lengthy limbs are, plainly, only two layers of granite. With an effort, the influence of the past is shaken off to make way for practical thoughts. Yet, after all, as you retrace your steps to the railway, the irregular outline of the rocks, seen at various angles
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of distance, over the shoulder, is mightily suggestive of Negro Jack taking a breath of free air in the mouth of Te-Calla-See.
The Cumberland settlers had suffered long and grievously before Gen. James Robertson determined that it was his duty to drive the Chickamaugas from their haunts at Nickajack and Running Water. No less than five hundred of the pioneers had been killed by them, and many were held as slaves in captivity. Thousands of dollars' worth of horses and other prop- erty had been stolen, fields had been laid waste, and houses burned. It has been justly claimed that in proportion to population "no part of the west, no part of the world suffered more, and none resisted more bravely than the frontiers of Tennessee."
In the autumn of 1794 General Robertson received news that still another Indian raid was to be expected. He considered this to be a fit time to attack the sav- ages in their own towns, where they felt as safe as the panther in his lair, boasting that Chucky Jack (John Sevier) himself would never be able to reach them.
With this intention a body of pioneer soldiers was sent by Robertson to invade the heart of their country. They were led by Joseph Brown, who alone knew the way, by secret paths, to the spot where he had suffered in captivity. At dusk one day in September, 1794, the white army reached a point on the Tennessee River called "The Great Crossing," three miles below where Nickajack lay on the opposite shore, near Run- ning Water. As soon as night came on the soldiers began, under cover of darkness, to construct rafts of cane and driftwood lashed together with rushes, upon
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Nickajack, or Prophecy Fulfilled.
which to cross the swollen stream that spread itself three or four miles between them and their enemies. In the meantime, the officers were laying plans for the attack, based on information furnished by young Brown, and finally adopted the suggestion of Andrew Jackson, a youthful military genius in the ranks, who proposed that they cross at break of day, make a wide circuit of the village, climb the mountain behind it, and descend unexpectedly on the inhabitants of the two towns.
Day had not yet dawned when some of the men began to move. Too impatient to await their turn to embark on the frail boats, they forded the stream on horseback. Joseph Brown, though he had a wounded arm, swam his horse to the other side in company with William Trousdale, John Gordon, and others, and there awaited the arrival of the rest of the army, two hundred and sixty-five men all told.
The daring brothers, William and Gideon Pillow, had been detailed to carry over a raft laden with guns, shot bags, and clothing. Then it was that Wil- liam Pillow performed the feat of swimming in front of the raft and towing it by a rope held between his teeth, while his brother, Gideon, and a comrade pushed it, swimming behind.
When all had crossed, the soldiers fell into ranks as quietly as possible, and were led by Brown far around to the rear of Nickajack up into the mountains, from whence, in two divisions, under Colonels Whit- ley and Montgomery, they descended on the villages in such a way as to surround them before the sleeping inhabitants awoke. The soldiers had crept through corn patches and thickets quite close to the wigwams,
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and when their first shot was fired the Indians, leap- ing from their beds of skins, dashed past them through the thickest of the corn in a run toward the river, where they hoped to escape in their canoes. But at the land- ing place they were cut off by the whites, and on the exact spot where Colonel Brown's crew had been killed they were nearly all shot. Scarcely an Indian brave was left alive either in Nickajack or Running Water when the fight was over. The towns of the bad Indians were completely destroyed. The Breath and nearly every one of his warriors were put to death, and the squaws, with their children, were placed in a wigwam as prisoners under guard. Huddled there together, weeping and moaning, the women sud- denly beheld a sight that made them tremble with re- doubled fears. In the doorway, looking attentively at them, stood a white man whom they recognized as the boy, now grown up, who had been so cruelly treated by them in the past. As if they had seen an avenging ghost, they shrank back from the man's fixed gaze. The fat old squaw who had tried so hard to have him killed cried aloud: "Our time has come to die! It is but just for him to take vengeance on us." The others crouched dumb before his long, silent inspec- tion. It was the good squaw who had taken Brown's little sister Polly for her own who ventured at last to remind Joseph that, after all, his life had been spared. "Then spare the women of our tribe," she pleaded softly, "for it was through a woman's kindness that you were saved."
"Have no fear," was the generous reply; "it is only savages who kill women and children."
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Nickajack, or Prophecy Fulfilled.
"O, that is good news for the wretched," cried the reassured squaw, clapping her hands.
As soon as the women realized that they were safe their tongues were loosed, and they began to question Brown and express their astonishment at the sudden- ness of the attack. "Where did you come from?" asked Polly Mallette, when he had kindly taken her hand; "we never expected to see you again."
"Did your soldiers drop from the clouds?" de- manded others.
"We did not drop from the clouds, nor did we sprout from the ground," answered Joseph Brown quietly, "but you must know that white men are not to be evaded. We go where we please, and we can- not be turned back." In explanation, he said further, "We did not wish to kill the men of your tribe, but they have forced us to do so."
Only one woman among them had not expressed surprise at the return of Joseph Brown. The mother of Cutleotoy remembered that this was exactly what she had expected. Did she not warn the braves from the first that the boy, if allowed to live, would "get away and return some day bringing with him an army of white men, who would destroy them utterly ?" Everything had happened just as she predicted, in strange fulfillment of the squaw's prophecy.
The nest of bandits was completely broken up. By the destruction of Nickajack and Running Water the white people were rid of their most dangerous enemies. There was never, after this event, any im- portant incursion of savages into the Cumberland settlements.
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XV.
THE SOVEREIGN'S WILL.
THE young State of Tennessee was justly proud of her first two United States Senators, William Cocke and William Blount. Blount was especially admired by the people among whom he lived in the eastern part of the State. Already he and his lovely wife, Mary Grainger, had endeared themselves to the public while he was Governor of the "Territory South- west of the Ohio" before that thinly settled section had inhabitants enough to entitle it to enter the Union as the State of Tennessee. The Governor's life of court- ly elegance had given no offense to the pioneer fam- ilies in the backwoods settlements because both he and his accomplished wife had, with true kindness of heart, always made the roughest countrymen who came to their mansion feel thoroughly at ease by their gra- cious manners. Consequently their rustic neighbors greatly admired them. They were proud to claim familiar acquaintance with the distinguished states- man and his lady. And there was scarcely a man in all the country, however humble he might be, who would not have risked his life for the aristocratic Blount. Being peculiarly the people's pet, it is not surprising that they should take his part against the whole world. I will tell you of an instance in which the people upheld their favorite in defiance of the power of the United States Government.
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The Sovereign's Will.
In the summer of 1797 charges were brought against Blount in the United States Senate on account of a private letter he had written to a friend in which it was claimed he used "seditious and treasonable words." This was the grave charge, but the people at home declared it was false. Blount's innocence was established in their minds as soon as he wrote to them from Washington, saying: "I hope the people on the western waters will see nothing but good in it, for so I intended it, especially for Tennessee."
Public confidence in Blount was such that every voter believed in him at once, and believed in him to the end. Though he was impeached, and finally ex- pelled from the Senate, his standing at home was not hurt in the least. His neighbors were sure that Blount had done no wrong. Believing that he had been un- fairly accused and harshly judged, they welcomed their discredited Senator home with open arms. In Knox- ville he was received with marks of respect that amounted to an ovation.
And this was not all. In the course of a few weeks James Mathers, Sergeant-at-Arms of the Unit- ed States Senate, followed Blount from Washington City to Knoxville. But the purpose of his mission was a secret. It was whispered by the knowing ones that Mathers had come to arrest Senator Blount. Then the wise ones put their heads together and formed a plan; and the result was that the most prominent men of the town began to pay the officer of the United States Senate all sorts of hospitable attentions. According to their concerted scheme, Mathers was dined here and banqueted there. He was feasted and toasted on every hand with the most
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flattering cordiality. Even in the residence of Gov- ernor Blount he was the honored guest. All the while, the officer said nothing about his business. How could he tell those friendly Tennesseeans that he had come among them to carry away by force their most distinguished and best-beloved citizen ?
Mathers was entertained as though he were a pub- lic benefactor, day after day, and still he had not the courage to speak his errand. As the people contin- ued to heap favors upon him, his situation became more and more embarrassing, for the time had come when the arrest could be put off no longer. The Sergeant-at-Arms must do his duty, no matter how unpleasant the task might be. With delicate consid- eration for his host, he concluded to tell Senator Blount privately that he had been sent to conduct him to Washington City, thinking by this means to give his prisoner the chance to go along with him quietly, without attracting public attention. But to Mathers's surprise, Blount was not at all disconcerted by the news that he was to be arrested. The accused states- man looked the officer in the face and remarked that he did not desire nor intend to go to Washington at that time. Not knowing what to say next, the abashed officer withdrew in confusion. There was nothing left for him to do but summon a posse, in accordance with the forms of law, to help him arrest his man. But this attempt failed also. Not a soul answered the
summons. Clearly Mathers could not take his pris- oner single-handed, so he was forced to call on the public at large to help him perform his duty. And again not a man responded to the appeal.
The Sergeant-at-Arms was completely baffled. He
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The Sovereign's Will.
saw that he must go back on the road he had come without delay, though he would go without his pris- oner. The day he started on his long journey a number of his Tennessee hosts (still as polite as Frenchmen) gathered about him on horseback. With every show of courtesy, they escorted him out of Knoxville. After riding several miles on the way with him they stopped and, bowing low to the Ser- geant-at-Arms, bade him a smiling adieu, saying : "We beg to assure you, sir, that William Blount can- not be taken from Tennessee." After mature delib- eration, the United States Senate wisely accepted this declaration as being the will of the sovereign people, and withdrew all charges of treason against Senator William Blount. This goes to prove that there are times when the will of the people who are governed is superior to the government itself.
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XVI.
A TYPICAL PIONEER LIFE.
IT was early in the nineteenth century. The town of Nashville numbered full five hundred inhabitants. Several long, straight streets crossed the space be- tween the cedar-covered "knob" and the bluffs on the Cumberland, where formerly buffalo paths had wound through thick canebrakes. No less than four or five storehouses bordered the main street, and on other streets were a number of comfortable dwell- ings, a few of them being frame or brick, one or two of which were distinguished by glass windows. The stone house of Captain John Gordon, the frontier soldier, who was the first postmaster of the place, and the hewn cedar log cabin of Timothy De Mon- breun, the earliest of hunters and traders on the Cumberland, were fast becoming old landmarks. A fine log courthouse, a tavern, and a market house adorned the square not far from the old fort which had fallen into decay since the Nickajack expedition had put an end to Indian alarms. By this time, also, there were several churches in Nashville, in which the Revs. James McCready and Jeremiah Lambert held fervid religious revivals, arousing sinners, and, as it was said, "driving the people distracted" with their stirring sermons. Here too was the Davidson Academy, where children were called to "books" by the learned Rev. Thomas Craighead. It was the same
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A Typical Pioneer Life. .
school which James Robertson had induced the Leg- islature of North Carolina to charter in 1785, in an- swer to the petition of the boys and girls of the Cum- berland country. The people in those days no longer had to go about altogether on horseback. Wagons and occasional carriages were to be seen upon the streets, and where not long since only Indian canoes had shot through the current of the Warioto a ferry- boat now plied the stream, which the whites had named the Cumberland, for the convenience of all who might wish to cross the river.
In those earnest times each citizen felt himself to be the guardian of the public good, and on a certain day it chanced that nearly every man in town was at a meeting presided over by Gen. James Robertson, in which matters of importance to all were being dis- cussed. The streets were deserted, and the ferryboat lay idle, tied up on the Nashville side of the river, the negro ferryman having taken advantage of his mas- ter's absence to leave his post, when a handsome young horseman, dressed in military fashion, rode down to the opposite, eastern shore, and hallooed loudly. No answer came. Again the soldier called "Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! there," impatient to be set across. Dead silence followed the shout. The ferryboat, tugging at its chain, as it swayed on the heavy swells of a spring freshet, was the only moving object to be seen beyond the restless current. There was appar- ently not a man within hail of Gideon Pillow, the rider who had traveled far to bring momentous dis- patches touching the public safety to General Rob- ertson. With still an effort to attract attention, the messenger shouted through his hands as through a
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Old Tales Retold.
trumpet, a few words telling the urgent nature of his errand, but was only answered by the echo of his own voice. Young Pillow began to think that if he crossed at all he must venture to swim the swollen Cumber- land as he had once dared the Tennessee when he won distinction at Nickajack.
While he hesitated, looking doubtfully beyond the rolling waters, he saw on the other side a girl, young and slenderly formed, running along a path descend- ing from the bluff to the landing place. He could scarcely believe that one so unfitted for the task would attempt to row the ferryboat across the rushing river until the girl had actually unfastened the chain, leaped on board the unwieldy craft, and pushed out into mid-stream. He watched her in amazement as she battled with the volume of water that surged against the upper side of the boat and noted with pleased sur- prise the strength of sinew in the rounded arms, though the slight figure bent low as to an unaccustomed task. As she neared the bank he discovered beauty in the maiden not noticeable at a distance. He was smitten with the light in her eyes, and his heart was caught in the meshes of her bright brown hair, that fell in wonderful braids below the hem of her frock. Yet, much as he admired her charms of face and form, the soldier was even more captivated by the courage she had displayed. A brave soul himself, he could appreciate the spirit which had animated Annic Payne in steering the boat to his assistance. And when in answer to his questions she had simply said, "I was glad to come, sir. In helping you to serve General Robertson I do but help you serve your coun-
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