USA > Tennessee > The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Its Settlement, as the. > Part 25
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256
RETURN TO MARION'S CAMP ..
would soon be in with their tomahawks upon them. The. officer then inquired of Shelby whether they had any artil- lery .. To which he replied, "we have guns that will blow you to atoms in a minute.". Upon which the British officer said, "I suppose I must surrender," and immediately threw open the gate, which Mayhem saw and advanced up quickly with the detachment. It was not until this moment, that another strong British post was seen, five or six hundred yards east of the one which had surrendered. It had been built to coves a landing on Cooper River. It was a strong brick house, erected at a very early period, and known.to have been calculated for defence as well as comfort. This had been enclosed by a strong abbatis, and being on the route from Charleston to Monk's Corner, had been used by the enemy as a stage for their troops and convoys, in passing from post to post. . It was sufficiently capacious to cover a party of considerable magnitude, and was - unassailable by cavalry, the only force from which sudden incursions could be apprehended." The garrison consisted of about one hundred soldiers and forty or -fifty dragoons These immediately marched out as if intending a charge upon the riflemen. These, however, stood firm and prepared to meet them. A party of the horsemen were ordered to dismount, and approaching the abbatis, appear and act as infantry, while the residue of that corps, headed by the cavalry, ad- vanced boldly into the field and demanded a surrender. The idea of resistance was abandoned, and the place surrendered at discretion. One hundred and fifty prisoners were taken, all of whom were able to have fought from the windows of the large brick building and from the abbatis. Three hun- dred stand of arms were also captured, besides many stores of great value. Ninety of the prisoners were carried off on horseback behind the mounted men-the officers and such of the garrison as were unable to march to Marion's camp, sixty miles off, were paroled. The house, with its contents and the abbatis, were consumed.
General Stewart, who commanded the enemy's main army, eight or ten miles above, made great efforts to intercept the
* Johnson.
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257
SHELBY ATTENDS AT SALEM.
Americans and rescue their prisoners. But they arrived at Marion's camp about three o'clock the morning following. Before sunrise, it was announced in camp that the whole British army was in the old field, three miles off, at. the outer end of the causeway, which led into the camp. Sevier and Shelby were immediately ordered out, with their regiments, to attack the enemy if he approached the swamp, and to retreat at their own discretion. But, receiving information that Marion was reinforced with a large body of riflemen from the West, the enemy retreated, in great disorder, nearly to the gates of Charleston .*
About the 28th of November, Col. Shelby obtained leave of absence from the army, for the purpose of attending the approaching session of the Legislature of North-Carolina, of which he was a member. It met early in December, at Salem, nearly four hundred miles from the then seat of war. He had remained in camp to the last minute that would per- mit his arrival at the seat of government at the commence- ment of the session. Laying down the sword, and relin- quishing the duties of a commander, he left the camp of Marion to enter another field of service and assume the functions of a legislator.
Col. Sevier remained with the mountain men. Little more remained to be done to bring the war to a close.
"John's and James's Island, with the city of Charleston and the Neck, were now the only footholds left to the British of all their con- quests in South-Carolina. A detachment of mounted infantry had been. left at Monk's Corner to watch the motions of the enemy, who, by means of Cooper River, had free access, in their boats and gallies, to that neighbourhood. To destroy this detachment, in the absence of Marion, a force of three hundred and fifty men were transported, by water, from Charleston. The unexpected return of Marion enabled him, partly, to defeat their enterprise. His force did not equal that which was arrayed against him, but he, nevertheless, resolved upon attacking it. In order to detain the enemy, he despatched Colonels Richardson and Seviert and a part of Mayhem's horse, with orders to throw themselves in front of the British and engage them until he should come up with the main body. The order was gallantly executed. The British advance was
. The details of this campaign of the riflemen to South-Carolina, are taken from Shelby's Narrative, now before me. They are also found in Haywood. t This was probably Col Valentine Sevier. There is reason to believe that Col. John Sevier was, at this time, on the frontier or in the Cherokee nation.
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258
GOVERNOR RUTLEDGE CONVENES THE LEGISLATURE
charged and driven near St. Thomas's Muster House, by Captain Smi of Mayhem's cavalry, and their leader, Captain Campbell, with seve others, fell in the flight."*
In the meantime, clections were held and Governor RI ledge convened the legislature of the state at Jacksonb rough, a small village about thirty-five miles from Charle ton. This event, which once more restored the forms civil government to South-Carolina, after an interregnum nearly two years, took place in January, 1782.t It was m however, till December 14th that Charleston was evacuate But that interim furnished little opportunity for milita adventure or achievement. The emergency that had call the pioneers of Tennessee from their mountain recesses, ha ceased to exist, as soon as the common enemy was driven 1 the environs of Charleston, and civil government establishe in South-Carolina. This being accomplished, the rifleme returned to their distant homes and were disbanded. The felt a proud consciousness of having performed a patrioti duty, and of having rendered the country some service They had rendezvoused at the western base of the Apala chian Range-they had ascended its summit, and, precipi tating themselves upon the plains below, had pursued th enemy to the coast of the Atlantic. They had suffered fron the mountain snow storm and the miasmata of the lov grounds of the Santee and Edisto. Toils and marches and watches, by night and by day, were cheerfully endured, and wherever the enemy could be found, his post assaulted o his abbatis stormed, the back woodsman was there, ready, with his spirited charger, his war whoop and his rifle, to execute the purpose of his mission.
A large number of negroes and a vast amount of other property, were taken from Georgia and South-Carolina, and carried away. But to the honour of the troops under Seviel and Shelby, no such captives or property came with them inte the country of their residence ; their integrity was as little impeached as their valour .; They came home enriched by ne spoils, stained with no dishonour ; enriched only by an im perishable fame, an undying renown and an unquestionable
"Simms. + Idem. # Hay wood.
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259
GOOD NAME OF THE RIFLEMEN.
claim to the admiration and gratitude of their countrymen and of posterity. This has been accorded to them by a con- sent almost unanimous. The authorities of the states in whose service they were employed, conceded it to them. The offi- oers who commanded them, asserted it for them. The com- mander-in-chief of the southern department, attests its validi- ty by inviting them to a second campaign under his standard. The very impatience of Gen. Greene at their delay in reach- ing his camp at the hour of a perilous conflict, vouches for the value he placed upon their conduct and courage ; and the regret expressed by that officer at the retirement of Shelby, is itself an admission that he considered the co-operation of that leader and his regiment, as an essential element in his further success. In the expression of that regret no censure is even implied. Though the conduct of the riflemen from their rendezvous at Watauga to their return to the frontier, has generally received unqualified eulogy and approbation, by one historian a single part of it has been censured and a term of reproach used, which shall not stain these pages, by an idle and profane and distasteful repetition of it. The wri- ter holds the memory of these patriot heroes in too grateful veneration, not to repel an imputation upon their high-souled honour, the constancy of their patriotism, and the majesty and steadfastness of their public virtue. The imputation belongs not to Tennessee ; it contradicts all her past history ; it does violence to her very instincts ;- she repudiates, disclaims and disavows it.
The substance of the censure alluded to is, that Shelby and his men returned home before the object of the campaign was accomplished. An injustice, no doubt unintentional, has been thus inflicted. These pages already contain an ample vindi- cation of the mountain men from the imputation. Rude, some of them may have been,-illiterate, many of them doubtless were ; but nothing unpatriotic, nothing unmilitary, nothing unsoldiery, can be imputed to them or their gallant leader. An honest fame belonged to them through life. Let not their graves be desecrated by a posthumous reproach.
Commenting upon the return of the mountain men from
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260
CIVIL GOVERNMENT RESTORED.
their campaign under Marion, on the Santee, the historian from whom we quote, says :
" This ... was, with some probability, attributed to the departure of their colonel, Shelby, who had obtained leave of absence. Something, too, has been said of the service not being sufficiently active for their habits = but reasons such as these, furnish a poor apology for soldiers who, in the cause of their country's liberty, should be well pleased to encounter any sort of service which it may be the policy of their commander to impose- Marion had endeavoured to find them sufficient employment. He had approached and defied the enemy, but could neither tempt nor provoke him to leave his encampment. With numbers decidedly inferior, the brave partizan was chagrined to find it impossible to bring his enemy into the field."*
And so it continued to be afterwards. The enemy never did again enter into the field. Small foraging parties and plundering detachments occasionally presented themselves. But this was not the entertainment to which the mountain men had been invited. Something worthier of their mettle had brought them from their homes. Enterprise, adventure, heroism, was their sentiment-achievement their purpose. Nothing less than to intercept Lord Cornwallis and to cap- ture his army, was at first the object of their expedition. A "poor apology," this disappointment, produced by the sur- render at Yorktown,-but yet involving in it nothing little or inglorious.
It will be recollected, too, that the time of their enrolment was for sixty days. More than that period had expired be- fore their return. The southern enemy had been driven from the interior and was retiring within the lines of Charleston and Savannah, from which the commander did not expect to drive him without the co-operation of a naval force. This co-operation was impossible. Civil government, too, was re- instated, and Marion and Mayhem, and other leaders, like Shelby, obtained leave of absence from the camp to assume their legislative functions. Reinforcements, too, from the army at Yorktown, were on their way to the support of Greene. The crisis was safely passed-the tug of the war was over, and the aid of the Western riflemen could be no longer needed in the South. One half of the guns and of the
· Simms.
261
SEVIER DESPATCHES RUSSELL HOME.
men had been withdrawn from the exposed frontier, across the mountain. These were now restored to it where their services were wanted. No further help was afterwards re- quired from abroad. The safety of South-Carolina was left in the keeping of its own citizens. To defame the mountain men for their leaving it, is to insult the native valour of the South, then and afterwards, as it still is, adequate to the · achievement of everything but an impossibility.
The results of the campaigns of seventeen hundred and 1782 { eighty and eighty-one, sensibly affected the measures of the British ministry, and rendered the American war unpopular in Great Britain.
On the nineteenth of April, seventeen hundred and eighty- 1788 three, Peace was proclaimed in the American army, ( by the commander-in-chief, George Washington, pre- cisely eight years from the first day of the effusion of blood at Lexington. For more than that length of time the pioneers of Tennessee had been engaged in incessant war. On the tenth of October, seventeen hundred and seventy-four, their youth- ful heroes, Shelby and Sevier, flushed their maiden swords at the battle of Kenhawa, and with little intermission there- after, were constantly engaged in guarding the settlements or attacking and invading the savage enemy. The gallant and patriotic participation of the mountain men in the revo- lutionary struggle, under the same men, now become leaders, has been just related. To preserve the chain of these trans- actions unbroken, it has been found necessary to depart from the chronological order of events, which has been gene- rally pursued in these annals. To that order we again return.
On the return march of the army from King's Mountain, 1780 { Sevier, apprehending an outbreak from the Cherokees ( in the absence from the frontier of so many men and guns, detached Capt. Russell home, as soon as the riflemen with the prisoners had safely crossed the Catawba. Russell re- turned by a rapid march, and found that Sevier's apprehen- sions were well founded. Two traders, Thomas and Harlin, brought information from the Cherokee towns that a large body of Indians were on the march to assail the frontier.
268
SEVIER-CHEROKEE EXPEDITION.
The men composing Capt. Russell's command continued their organization. Col. Sevier soon after, with his victo- rious companions in arms, reached their homes in good time to repel the savage invaders. Without a day's rest be set on foot another expedition.
SEVIER'S CHEROKEE EXPEDITION.
Whilst the volunteers were being enrolled and equipped in sufficient numbers for the magnitude of the campaign he contemplated, Sevier put himself at the head of about one hundred men, principally of Captain Russell's and Captain Guess's companies, with whom he set out in advance of the other troops. The second night this party camped upon Long Creek. Captain Guess was here sent forward with a small body of men to make discovery. On ascending a slight hill, they found themselves within forty yards of a large In- dian force, before they discovered it. They fired from their horses and retreated to Sevier's camp. The Indians also fired, but without effect. Sevier prepared his command to receive a night attack. Before day, Captain Pruett rein- forced him after a rapid march, with about seventy men. Thus reinforced, Sevier next morning pursued his march, expecting every minute to meet the enemy. When they came to the point at which the spies had met and fired upon the Indians, they found traces of a large body of them. They had, in their hasty retreat, left one warrior who had been killed the evening before by the spies. The pursuit was continued vigorously by the troops, who crossed French Broad at the Big Island and encamped on Boyd's Creek. The next day, early in the morning, the advance guard under the command of Captain Stinson, continued the march, and at the distance of three miles found the encampment of the enemy and their fires still burning. A reinforcement was immediately ordered to the front, and the guard was directed if it came up with the Indians, to fire upon them and retreat, and thus draw them on. Three-quarters of a mile from their camp, the enemy fired upon the advance from an ambuscade. It returned the fire and retreated, and, as had been antici. pated, was pursued by the enemy till it joined the main
283
BATTLE OF BOYD'S CREEK.
body. This was formed into three divisions : the centre commanded by Col. John Sevier, the right wing by Major Jesse Walton, and the left by Major Jonathan Tipton. Or- ders were given that as soon as the enemy should approach the front, the right wing should wheel to the left, and the left wing to the right, and thus enclose them. In this order were the troops arranged when they met the Indians at the Cedar Spring, who rushed forward after the guard with great rapidity, till checked by the opposition of the main body. Major Walton with the right wing wheeled briskly to the left, and performed the order which he was to execute with precise accuracy. But the left wing moved to the right with less celerity, and when the centre fired upon the In- dians, doing immense execution, the latter retreated through the unoccupied space left open between the extremities of the right and left wings, and running into a swamp, escaped the destruction which otherwise seemed ready to involve them. The victory was decisive. The loss of the enemy amounted to twenty-eight killed on the ground, and very many wounded, who got off without being taken. On the side of Sevier's troops not a man was even wounded. The victorious little army then returned to the Big Island-after- wards called Sevier's Island-and waited there the arrival of reinforcements that promised to follow.
This prompt collection of troops, and rapid expedition of Sevier, saved the frontier from a bloody invasion. Had he been more tardy, the Indians would have reached the settlements, scattered themselves along the extended border, driven them into stations, or perhaps massacred them in their cabins and fields. Their force was understood to be large and to be well armed.
Another narrative of this engagement gives further details : The Indians had formed in a half-moon, and lay concealed in the grass. Had their stratagem not been discovered, their position, and the shape of the ground, would have enabled them to enclose and overcome the horsemen. Lieutenant Lane and John Ward had dismounted for the fight, when Sovier, having noticed the semi-circular position of the In- dians, ordered a halt, with the purpose of engaging the two
264
COMBAT BETWEEN SEVIER AND A "BRAVE."
extremes of the Indian line, and keeping up the action until the other part of his troops could come up. Lane and his comrade, Ward, remounted and fell back upon Sevier with- out being hurt, though fired at by several warriors near them. A brisk fire was, for a short time, kept up by Sevier's party and the nearest Indians. The troops behind, hearing the first fire, had quickened their pace and were coming in sight. James Roddy, with about twenty men, quickly came up, and soon after the main body of the troops. The Indians noticed this reinforcement and closed their lines. Sevier immediately ordered the charge, which would have been still more fatal, but that the pursuit led through a swampy branch, which impeded the progress of the horsemen. In the charge, Sevier was in close pursuit of a warrior, who, finding that he would be overtaken, turned and fired at him. The bullet cut the hair of his temple without doing further injury. Sevier then spurred his horse forward and attempted to kill the Indian with his sword, having emptied his pistols in the first moment of the charge. The warrior parried the licks from the sword with his empty gun. The conflict was becoming doubtful between the two combatants thus en- gaged, when one of the soldiers, rather ungallantly, came up, shot the warrior, and decided the combat in favour of his commander. The horse of Adam Sherrill threw his rider, and, in the fall, some of his ribs were broken. An Indian sprang upon him with his tomahawk drawn. When in the act of striking, a ball from a comrade's rifle brought him to the ground, and Sherrill escaped. After a short pursuit, the Indians dispersed into the adjoining highlands and knolls, where the cavalry could not pursue them. Of the whites not one was killed, and but three seriously wounded.
This battle of Boyd's Creek has always been considered 1780 { as one of the best fought battles in the border war of Tennessee. Major Tipton was severely wounded. Besides the officers and men already mentioned as having participated in it, there were Capt. Landon Carter, James Sevier, the son, and Abraham Sevier, the brother, of John Sevier, Thomas Gist, Abel Pearson, James Hubbard, Major Benj. Sharp, Captain Saml. Handly, Col. Jacob Brown, Jere-
265
COLONEL ARTHUR CAMPBELL'S REINFORCEMENT.
miah Jack, Esq., Nathan Gaun, Isaac Taylor and George Doherty.
Sevier remained but a few days at his encampment on French Broad, till he was joined by Colonel Arthur Camp- bell, with his regiment from Virginia, and Major Martin, with his troops from Sullivan county. The army consisted of seven hundred mounted men. They crossed Little Ten- nessee, three miles below Chota, since the residence of Da- vid Russell. The main body of the Indians, having notice of their approach, lay in wait for them at the principal ford, a mile below Chota. The imposing array of the cavalry, and the fact of their crossing at the lower ford, so discon- certed the Indians, that no attack was made by them, nor any attempt made to hinder the crossing. Ascending the opposite bank, the horsemen saw a large party of Indians on a neighbouring eminence, watching their movements. These, on the approach of the troops, retreated hastily, and escaped. They then pushed up to Chota. A detachment of sixty men, under command of Robert Campbell, immediately set off to reduce Chilhowee, eight miles above, on the same river. It was found deserted. They burned it. The In- dians were seen on the opposite shore, but beyond the reach of their rifles. They returned, without loss, to the army. Every town between Tennessee and Hiwassee was reduced. to ashes, the Indians flying before the troops. Near to Hi- wassee, after it was burned, an Indian warrior was surprised and captured. By him a message was sent to the Cherokees, proposing terms of peace. But one white man was killed on this expedition-Captain Elliott, of Sullivan. He was buried in an Indian hut at Tellico, which was burned over his grave, to prevent the Indians from finding and vio- lating it.
At Tellico, the army was met by Watts and Noon Day, who proposed terms of peace, which were accepted as to the villages contiguous. Tellico was then a small town of thirty or forty houses, built on forks and poles and covered with bark. They did not destroy it. Watts and Noon Day accompanied and piloted the army. The Indians made no hostile demonstration till the army had crossed Hiwassee,
268
HIWASSEE EVACUATED.
when it became necessary to place out sentinels around their camps. Hiwassee town was found evacuated, and the troops saw but a single Indian warrior, who was placed upon the summit of an adjoining ridge, there to beat a drum and give other signals to the Indians secreted in hearing of him. The spies stole upon and shot him. The troops then continued their march southwardly till they came near the Chicka- mauga or Look Out Towns, when they encamped and next day marched into the towns. The warriors had deserted them. The only persons found there were a Captain Rogers, four negroes, and some Indian women and children. These were taken prisoners. The warriors were dispirited by the vigorous defence of Sevier at the commencement of the campaign, and never ventured again to meet him, but se- creted themselves in the fastnesses around Chickamauga. The troops killed all the cattle and hogs which could be found ; burnt many of the towns and villages, and spread over the face of the country a general devastation, from which the Indians could not recover for several years."
The march was continued so low down Coosa as to reach the region of the long-leafed pine and cypress swamps. Here they began an indiscriminate destruction of towns, houses, grain and stock. The Indians fled precipitately. A few of. them were killed and captured. In one of the villages a well dressed white man was found, with papers in his pos- session showing that he was a British agent. Attempting to escape, he was shot and left unburied. The army here turned to the left, scouted among the hills, and turned their faces homeward, killing and capturing several Indians, and devastating their country. Returning as far as Chota, the commanders here held a council with a large body of the Cherokees, which lasted two days. Hanging Maw made a free exchange of prisoners, whom he had brought with him to the council. Among others, Jane and - Ireland, who had been captured on Roane's Creek, were exchanged. They were nearly naked, and other ways looked like Indians. They had been well treated, though closely watched during their captivity. They were frantic with joy at their restoration.
· Haywood.
267
NEGOTIATION AT CHOTA.
. A peace was agreed upon, and the army crossing near the mouth of Nine Mile, returned home. They found that set- tlers had followed the route pursued by the army as low as French Broad, and at every spring had begun to erect their cabins. -
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