USA > Tennessee > The civil and political history of the state of Tennessee from its earliest settlement up to the year 1796 : including the boundaries of the state > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
232
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
and came over to the north side. Forty men with fire-arms were put into the canoe. The hole which they had stopped with their shirts now opened, and the canoe began to sink. The swimmers carried her to the north bank. In these operations some noise had been made, and the troops were obliged to remain on the north side till daylight. They got a piece of bark of the lynn- tree and covered the hole in the canoe, and screwed in nails upon it. They sent forty or fifty men in the canoe to take pos- session of the bank on the other side. They did so, The re- mainder of the troops went over, swimming and swimming their horses. Having crossed the river, they hung up their clothes to dry. A rain came up and forced them into the cabins. Aft- er some time the clouds cleared away, and they saw a plain path leading from the river out into the barrens in a western direc- tion. They took this path and followed it briskly, and at the distance of five and a half miles they came to corn-fields; thence going a mile or two farther they came to a large creek called the Coldwater, toward which the lands had descended two or three hundred yards. They passed it instantly by a path wide enough for a horse to go up the bank. On the other side, to which they had then passed, were a number of cabins and low grounds which descended to the river about three hundred yards below. The people of the town ran down. to the boats in the river, and were pursued by such of the troops as had crossed. Capt. Rains, with Benjamin Castleman, William Loggins, William Steele, and Martin Duncan, went down the creek on the right side to the river. The retreating Indians, as they ran down on the oth- er side and had their attention drawn to those who pursued them on the same side, crossed over and came to the spot where Rains and his men were, who fired upon them as they looked back without perceiving the snare into which they had fallen. Three of them dropped down dead. The troops killed three French traders and a white woman who had gotten into a boat and would not surrender, but mixed with the Indians and seemed determined to partake of their fate, whatever it might be. They wounded and took the principal trader and owner of the goods and five or six other Frenchmen who lived there as traders and had in the town stores of tafia, sugar, coffee, cloths, blankets, Indian wares of all sorts, boxes full of salt, shot, Indian paints, knives, powder, tomahawks, tobacco, and other articles
1
-
.
233
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
suitable to Indian commerce. The troops killed many of the In- dians who had gotten into the boats, and gave them so hot and deadly a fire from the bank of the river that they were forced to jump into the water and were fired upon whilst in it until, as they afterward learned from the Chickasaws, twenty-six of the Creeks were killed in the river. The troops burned up all the cabins in the town, and killed all the fowls and hogs which they found in a pen. But before this, they collected all the boats to one place from the river into a creek opposite the town, where a party was placed over them. The creek there was twenty or more yards wide and as deep as the saddle-skirts of a rider crossing on horseback. Next morning they gave a horse to each of the Indian guides, giving them the second choice; also as many blankets and other cloths as they could pack, a gun apiece, and dispatched them to their homes. The name of one of these Chickasaws was Toka. The troops lay near the town all night on the side of the creek opposite to it; and the next day, after burying the white men and woman, they loaded three or four boats with the prisoners, consisting of five or six French- men and a child, and with the goods taken in the town, and put- ting on board the boats to navigate them Jonathan Denton, Benjamin Drake, John Eskridge, and Moses Eskridge, they were sent down the river, whilst the troops marched down by land, looking for some convenient place to cross over to the north side, whither the boats were to come and assist them in crossing. At the same time that the boats started down the riv- er the troops began their march by land; but not being ac- quainted with the winding of the river, the course they took car- ried them farther from it than they intended, into the piney woods, where they encamped. The next day they went to the river, where they saw at a distance several persons on the islands of the river, who proved to be their own boatmen, but neither knew the other till some of the boatmen came from the island to the troops on the bank. The troops then moved down the river a few miles, and came to a place just above the point of an isl- and, where the descent to the river was easy and convenient for embarkation, and where the bank on the opposite side afforded a safe landing. Here, with the assistance of the boats, they crossed not very far from what is now Colbert's Ferry, and they encamped all together on the north side of the river. There
1
234
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
they found that they had not lost a single man, and that not one man was wounded. After remaining there all night, the next morning they gave to the French prisoners all their trunks and all their wearing apparel, and made a division of the sugar and coffee amongst the troops and the Frenchmen and the Indian squaw, giving to each of them an equal share. They gave to the Frenchmen and squaw a canoe, bid them farewell, and they went up the river. The dry goods were ordered under the care of the same boatmen to Nashville. Sailing upon the river some days, they met other French boats laden with goods, and with French traders on board, who, being greatly rejoiced to meet their countrymen returning home, as they supposed the Cum- berland boatmen to be, fired off their guns. The latter going down the river with their guns charged, came alongside of the French boats, boarded them, and captured the boats and crews, and conducted them to a place a few miles below Nashville. There the captors gave them a canoe and dismissed them with permission to go down the river, which they did. The goods taken at Coldwater were brought to Eaton's Station and sold, and the proceeds were divided amongst the troops. They re- turned to Col. Robertson's on the nineteenth day after the com- mencement of the expedition at his house. After crossing the Tennessee on their returning march, they came nearly a north course till they struck the path that led to the Chickasaw old crossing on Duck River, where they crossed in going. out; thence they returned on the same trace they had followed in their march to the south.
After this expedition there was a short respite from savage visitation. Before it commenced a few days, there was not an hour of safety to any settler on the Cumberland waters. The vengeance so long delayed at length had fallen with fatal effect upon those who had so frequently provoked it. At Coldwater Col. Robertson discovered the sources whence the Indians were supplied with the material which enabled them to make inroads upon the new settlements; the means by which and the channels through which they received them, and the practicable mode of cutting them off when necessary, as well as the facility of seiz- ing upon the stores when deposited in villages near the place of disembarkation. The advantages acquired by this expedition were various and important, and by putting the Indians in dan-
. 235
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ger at home greatly diminished the vivacity of their enterprises against the settlers.
When the troops began their march for the Coldwater from Col. Robertson's, David Hay, of Nashville, had the command of a company, and concluded to go by water and carry provisions for the main body, which it was expected might be needed on their arrival at the Tennessee River, and particularly in case of detention in the neighborhood for a longer time than was an- ticipated. Hay and his men went in their boats as far as the mouth of Duck River without interruption. When they got there, the boat commanded by Moses Shelby went into the mouth of Duck River to examine a canoe tied or fastened to the bank. The Indians had concealed themselves in the cane and behind the trees, not more than ten or twelve steps from the ca- noe, and from the boat itself when it came to the canoe. From this thicket the Indians poured an unexpected fire into the boat, shooting John Top and Hugh Roquering through the body. They broke Edward Hogan's arm by a ball shot through it; Jo- siah Renfroe they shot through the head, and killed him on the spot. The boat made haste to get off, but being with her stern up the small river, and several of the crew being wholly disabled, and some of them greatly dismayed by the sudden fire and de- struction which had come upon them, acted in disorder, and with great difficulty got again into the Tennessee, out of the reach of the Indian guns, before they could reload and fire a second time. Otherwise, it is probable that by this rash and unadvised act in going to the cance the whole crew would have become victims to Indian ferocity and stratagem; for, whatever may be said of the Indian character, it is a truth that they excel in invention, readiness, and presence of mind, and in plans to draw in and surprise an enemy. In these qualities it is proba- ble that they are not surpassed by any nation on the earth, either ancient or modern. The boats were so disabled by this mishap that they were under the necessity of returning with the wound- ed men to Nashville, where only proper surgical and medical as- sistance could be obtained. They did so, abandoning the object which they had in view when they set off from the bluff.
Col. Robertson, soon after the affair at Coldwater, made a written exposition of the causes and motives which led to it, and directed it to a person of note at the Illinois. He stated in it
-
236
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
that for some years past a trade had been carried on by some Frenchmen from the Wabash with the Indians on the Tennessee. The trade had been formerly managed by a Mr. Veiz, "and while he carried it on the Indians were peaceable toward us; but for two or three years these Indians have been inimical at all seasons, killing our men, women, and children, and stealing our horses." He had sufficient evidence of the fact, also, that these Indians were excited to war against us by the suggestions of these traders, who both advised them to war and gave them goods for carrying it on. The Chickasaws had told him that they had been offered goods by these traders if they would go to war against us; and one John Rogers declared that he had seen a Creek fellow have on a pair of arm-bands, which he (the Creek fellow ) said were given to him by the French traders for going to war against us. "The incursions upon us this spring," said he, "have been more severe than usual, and I determined to distress them." For this purpose he stated that he had taken a part of the militia of Davidson County, followed the tracks of one of their scalping parties, who had just been doing murder here; and, following them to a town on the Tennessee, at the mouth of the Coldwater, destroyed the town and killed, as he supposed, about twenty of the Indians. The scalps of two of our men whom they had lately murdered were in the town. Some of the French imprudently put themselves into the action, and some few of them fell. From that place he sent a party around to the Cumberland River by water. In the Tennessee they found five Frenchmen with two boats, having goods to trade with those very Indians. The commander of the party . took the boats with the men, and brought them around to this river; and gave them their choice, to come up to the settlement and stand trial for what they had done, and thereby to try to re- gain their goods, or else that they might go home at once with- out their goods. They chose the latter. "The taking of these boats," said Col. Robertson, "was without my knowledge or ap- probation. I am now endeavoring to collect the property which was in them." And he desired that the owners be notified that if they could make it appear that they were not guilty of a breach of the laws, and did not intend to furnish our enemies with powder, lead, and other goods for our destruction, on ap- plying here at Nashville they might have their property again.
-
237
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
He declared that if these Indians would be peaceable we should never attempt to deprive them of any trade they could procure; "but while they continue at war, " said he, "any traders who fur- nish them with arms and ammunition will render themselves very insecure."
The pride of the Indians was exceedingly mortified at this fear- less irruption into their country. Soon after their rout and dis- comfiture at Coldwater they collected in small bodies, crossed the Tennessee River to the north side, and commenced an undistin- guishing carnage upon the settlers of all ages and sexes. Capt. Shannon, with a small body of white men, pursued one party of them. The Indians had reached the banks of the Tennessee, and some were eating, while others were making preparations to cross the river. Shannon and his little corps discovered those who were eating, and fired and rushed upon them. Castleman killed one. Another, proving too strong, took Luke Anderson's gun from him; but before he could discharge it William Pillow, since a colonel of Maury County, shot the Indian and recovered the gun. The Indians who were out of the camp were commanded by Big Foot, a leader of determined bravery. Under his command they resolved to attack the whites, believing from the report of the guns which had been fired that they were few in number. The whites were also a daring set, whom the presence of danger could not move. A doubtful conflict ensued; but victory, for some time wavering, at length declared for the whites. They killed the chief of the Indians and five of his followers. The rest raised the yell, and took to the bushes.
Shortly before the last of July, 1787, Mr. Perrault, on his way from Nashville to the Cherokees, met two hundred Creeks, going, as they said, to take satisfaction for three persons whom the North Carolina people killed when they defeated him ( Per- rault ) eighteen miles below Chota. He delivered and expound- ed to them the letter which Col. Robertson had given to him for their nation, and did all in his power to turn them back; but in vain. They persevered in progressing, saying, however, that they would not do much harm this time; but that if the North Carolina people should go in force into their country, or should kill any of their nation after the blow which they meant to give the people of the Cumberland, they might expect a merciless war.
238
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
Maj. Evans had been appointed, with the rank of major, to the command of the battalion ordered to be raised for the pro- tection of Davidson. By the arrival of these troops, who came in successive detachments, and by some emigration from North Carolina and other States, the population having become aug- mented, Col. Robertson was enabled to select and detach a cer- tain portion to act as patrols or spies, as they were then called. It was their business to go through the woods from the frontiers of the settlements, in every direction and to every place where there was an Indian or buffalo trace, and to the crossing-places on the rivers and creeks to look for Indians and their tracks, or the trails they had left in going through the woods. At that time the canes and weeds grew up so spontaneously and luxuri- antly in all parts of the country that two or three men, even without horses, could not pass through without leaving a trace, discernible without any uncertainty, which might be followed without danger of mistake. Among those whom Col. Robertson selected for the performance of this service was Capt. John Rains. He was led to this choice by the entire confidence he had learned by experience to place in his diligence and prowess. He very often selected Capt. Rains, and gave him his orders, which were uniformly, punctually, and promptly executed, and with a degree of bravery which could not be exceeded.
In the month of April the Indians killed Randel Gentry, at the place where Mr. Foster now lives; also, Curtis Williams and Thomas Fletcher and his son, about the mouth of the Harper. Col. Robertson issued orders to Capt. Rains to pursue the doers of that mischief. Capt. Rains immediately raised sixty men and followed them, getting upon their trace and pursuing it, which led them across Mill Creek; thence to Big Harper, where a road now crosses it; thence to the Fishing Ford of Duck River; thence to Elk River, at the mouth of Swan Creek; thence into the barrens and to Flint River. Not being able to overtake them, he turned off the trace and went westwardly till he struck McCutchin's trace. Before coming to Elk River, he saw the tracks of Indians going toward Nashville. At Elk River, where McCutchin's trace crosses, near Latitude Hill, he found the camp which they had left in the morning of the day on which he had come to the Elk. That night he halted six miles from the river, and lay all night at the place, but sent on two or
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE. 239
three men to see that they were at such a distance as not to hear his company while they were talking and cutting wood. They returned and reported that the Indians were not within hearing. Next morning he followed them, and in the afternoon came to the place where they had encamped the preceding night, and where they had cleared the ground of leaves and brush and had danced upon the place cleared. They had made forks all around, and placed small poles in them, on which their guns rested-a circumstance to show that in these perilous times it was considered dangerous and imprudent to be at any distance beyond arms - length from their accouterments and guns. The troops passed by. and, crossing Duck River at the mouths of Globe and Fountain Creeks, encamped at night on the north side of it, about two miles from the river. Next morning they renewed their march, and at the distance of six miles, on the waters of Rutherford Creek, near where Solomon Herring now lives, they came upon the Indians as they lay encamped, and fired upon and dispersed them, killing one man only. The company then continued their march, and came to Nashville the next day.
About a month afterward Capt. Rains received orders from Col. Robertson to raise a troop and go southwardly through the woods from Nashville, and on finding any Indians on the Cher- okee side of the Chickasaw divisional line between the Chick- asaws and Cherokees, to destroy them. Capt. Rains raised sixty men, and took the Chickasaw trace, and crossed Duck River and Swan Creek, still traveling on the Chickasaw path, which was the boundary. Then leaving the path and going south and east up the Tennessee, after two days they came to an Indian trace, which they were able to ascertain had been made by five men and a boy. The troops overtook them in a few miles, and killed four men and took the boy. The fifth man escaped. The troop took their horses, seven in number, their guns, blankets, skins, and whatever else they had, and returned to Nashville with their scalps, as an evidence that they were killed. The mother of the boy was a Chickasaw; the father was a Creek. In behalf of the woman Mountain Leader, a distinguished chief of the Chicka- saws, wrote to Capt. Rains. The Creeks had made captive the son of a Mrs. Naine, who lived on White's Creek, on the north side of the Cumberland. Batterboo, a son of Mountain Leader,
-
240
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
had gone into the Creek Nation, and had stolen and carried away the son of Mrs. Naine; and it was proposed by the chief in his letter to Capt. Rains to give the boy in exchange for the Indian boy. The exchange was agreed to and made. The In- dian boy was well dressed in the style of the white people, and promised to return and see Capt. Rains, which he did a year aft- erward, when he was poorly clad and dressed in the Indian fashion.
In the month of September Capt. Rains was again ordered out by Col. Robertson, and with the same company as before proceeded to Duck River, and crossed at Greene's Lick. This company had been re-enforced at Nashville by Capt. Shannon's company of sixty men. The whole body proceeded together, and, after crossing at Greene's Lick, went on by the Pond Spring, and crossed the Tombigbee near its head; thence toward the Elk in various directions, so as to scour the whole country. The command of the whole was in Capt. Rains. Capt. Shannon, having been ordered to advance in front, had gone over a fresh Indian trace without perceiving it. Rains came to it and pur- sued, and soon came in sight of the Indians. Rains and one of his men ( Beverly Ridley ) pursued one of the Indians, and over- took and killed him. Some of the other soldiers of Rains's com- pany (John Rains, Jr., and Robert Evans) outran and made prisoner a young Indian of the age of nineteen years, and brought him to Nashville, whence by the order of Col. Robertson he was removed to the barrens of Kentucky and placed in the custody of a brother-in-law of Capt. Shannon. He was afterward re- moved to the city of Washington, and at the end of two years came back to Knoxville, and thence to Nashville, and was re- leased from captivity and permitted to go whithersoever he pleased. He returned to the Creek Nation. In the camp of these Indians was found a large quantity of deer-skins, fifteen good Indian horses, and other things. The young Indian man received from the whites the name of Shannon; the other, who was exchanged for Naine, was called John Rains. Divers other companies were sent out by Col. Robertson in this year for the same purposes, and were very alert in discharging the trust committed to them; and though they did not overtake and rout many groups or bands of marauding Indians, nor de- stroy many of them, yet in some instances they did execution of
241
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
that sort; and the intelligence was spread amongst the Indians that the woods through which they had to travel to Nashville were constantly traversed by armed bodies of men, endeavoring to find their trails and to pursue them.
Some of the first raised soldiers of Evans's battalion came to Cumberland with Capt. Hadley, and were placed at different stations in such proportions as emergences required, the most numerous guards being at the places most exposed. The sol- diers for the greater part of the ensuing two years remained in the country, and made an addition to the population and secu- rity of the inhabitants. One of these was Valentine Sevier, who will be mentioned in a subsequent chapter. But notwithstand- ing all these precautionary measures, such was the eagerness of the Indians for blood and plunder that they frequently found means of insinuating themselves into the settlement, and killed the inhabitants. In this year (1787 ) they killed Samuel Buchan- on, the brother of John Buchanon. They came upon him in the field where he was plowing, and fired upon him. He ran, and twelve Indians pursued him in the form of a half moon. When he came to the bluff of the creek, he jumped down a steep bank into the creek, where they overtook him and killed and scalped him. Scouts from Bledsoe's Lick to the Caney Fork and the waters that flowed into it were also sent out, under the orders of Col. Winchester, who acted by the directions of Col. Robertson. They frequently fell upon Indian trails and met Indian parties in the woods, with a great variety of fortune-sometimes disas- trous and sometimes successful. But the result produced was a conviction in the minds of the Indians that the frontiers were so vigilantly guarded by brave men, experienced in Indian fight- ing, as to make the acquisition of any thing in the settlements by their irruptions to be no otherwise attempted than at the im- minent risk of wounds, death, or captivity. Those they were equally averse from as other people, notwithstanding their pas- sion for war and for the occurrence of the difficulties connected with it, which it was their glory to evade or conquer by dexter- ous management and the adoption of well-chosen expedients. Under these impressions it is not to be doubted that they did far less mischief than otherwise they would have done.
On the 11th of December, in the year 1787, at Tarborough, in North Carolina, the representatives of the counties of Davidson
16
242
HAYWOOD'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
and Sumner, in the General Assembly then sitting at that place, made to that Assembly a solemn and written statement of the sufferings of their constituents, in the formation of which they were assisted by William Blount, Esq., afterward the Gov- ernor of the territory south-west of the river Ohio. They stated that the inhabitants of the western country were greatly dis- tressed by a constant war that was carried on against them by parties of. the Creeks and Cherokees and some of the western Indians; that some of their horses were daily carried off secretly or by force, and that their own lives were in danger whenever they lost sight of a station or stockade; that in the course of that year thirty-three of their fellow-citizens had been killed by those Indians, a list of whose names they annexed, and as many more had been wounded; that by original letters or talks from the Chickasaw nation, which they had submitted to the inspection of the Assembly, it appeared that they were jealous or uneasy lest encroachments should be made on their hunting- grounds, and that unless some assurances were given them that their lands should not be located, there was reason to apprehend that they shortly would be as hostile as the Creeks and Chero- kees; that these counties had been settled at great expense and personal danger to the memorialists and their constituents, and that by such settlement the adjacent lands had greatly increased in value, by which means the public had been enabled to sink a considerable part of the domestic debt. They and their constit. uents, they said, had cheerfully endured the almost unconquer- able difficulties in settling the western country, in full confi- dence that they should be enabled to send their produce to market through the rivers which water the country; but they now have the mortification not only to be excluded from that channel of commerce by a foreign nation, but the Indians were rendered more hostile through the influence of that very nation, probably with a view to drive them from the country, as they claimed the whole of the soil. The memorialists called upon the humanity and justice of the State to prevent any further massa- cres and depredations of themselves and their constituents, and claimed from the Legislature that protection of life and proper- ty which is due to every citizen; and they recommended, as the safest and most convenient means of relief, the adoption of the resolves of Congress, of the 26th of October last. This relief,
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.