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Page 34
The settlers had been so long at peace with the Cherokees that they had
been lulled into a false security; but, the savage having once tasted
blood, they knew his appetite would "grow by what it fed on," and they
prepared for a deadly struggle with an enemy of more than twenty times
their number. The fort at Watauga was at once put into a state of
efficient defence, smaller forts were erected in the centre of every
scattered settlement, and a larger one was built on the frontier, near
the confluence of the north and south forks of the Holston River, to
protect the more remote settlements. This last was called Fort Patrick
Henry, in honor of the patriotic governor of Virginia. The one at
Watauga received the name of Fort Lee.
All the able-bodied males sixteen years of age and over were enrolled,
put under competent officers, and drilled for the coming struggle. But
the winter passed without any further act of hostility on the part of
the disaffected Cherokees. The older chiefs, true to their pledges to
Robertson, still held back, and were able to restrain the younger
braves, who thirsted for the conflict from a passion for the excitement
and glory they could find only in battle.
Nancy Ward was in the secrets of the Cherokee leaders, and every word
uttered in their councils she faithfully repeated to the trader Isaac
Thomas, who conveyed the intelligence personally or by trusty messengers
to Sevier and Robertson at Watauga. Thus the settlers were enabled to
circumvent the machinations of Cameron until a more powerful enemy
appeared among the Cherokees in the spring of 1776. This was John
Stuart, British superintendent of Southern Indian affairs, a man of
great address and ability, and universally known and beloved among all
the Southwestern tribes. Fifteen years before, his life had been saved
at the Fort Loudon massacre by Atta-Culla-Culla, and a friendship had
then been contracted between them which now secured the influence of the
half-king in plunging the Cherokees into hostilities with the settlers.
The plan of operations had been concerted between Stuart and the
British commander-in-chief, General Gage. It was for a universal rising
among the Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Shawnees, who were to
invade the frontiers of Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas, while
simultaneously a large military and naval force under Sir Peter Parker
descended upon the Southern seaboard and captured Charleston. It was
also intended to enlist the co-operation of such inhabitants of the back
settlements as were known to be favorable to the British. Thus the
feeble colonists were to be not only encircled by a cordon of fire, but
a conflagration was to be lighted which should consume every patriot's
dwelling. It was an able but pitiless and bloodthirsty plan, for it
would let loose upon the settler every savage atrocity and make his
worst foes those of his own household. If successful, it would have
strangled in fire and blood the spirit of independence in the Southern
colonies.
That it did not succeed seems to us, who know the means employed to
thwart it, little short of a miracle. Those means were the four hundred
and forty-five raw militia under Moultrie, who, behind a pile of
palmetto logs, on the 28th of June, 1776, repulsed Sir Peter Parker in
his attack on Sullivan's Island in the harbor of Charleston, South
Carolina, and the two hundred and ten "over-mountain men," under Sevier,
Robertson, and Isaac Shelby, who beat back, on the 20th and 21st of
July, the Cherokee invasion of the western frontier.
As early as the 30th of May, Sevier and Robertson were apprised by their
faithful friend Nancy Ward of the intended attack, and at once they sent
messengers to Colonel Preston, of the Virginia Committee of Safety, for
an additional supply of powder and lead and a reinforcement of such men
as could be spared from home-service. One hundred pounds of powder and
twice as much lead, and one hundred militiamen, were despatched in
answer to the summons. The powder and lead were distributed among the
stations, and the hundred men were sent to strengthen the garrison of
Fort Patrick Henry, the most exposed position on the frontier. The
entire force of the settlers was now two hundred and ten, forty of whom
were at Watauga under Sevier and Robertson, the remainder at and near
Fort Patrick Henry under no less than six militia captains, no one of
whom was bound to obey the command of any of the others. This
many-headed authority would doubtless have worked disastrously to the
loosely-jointed force had there not been in it as a volunteer a young
man of twenty-five who in the moment of supreme danger seized the
absolute command and rallied the men to victory. His name was Isaac
Shelby, and this was the first act in a long career in the whole of
which "he deserved well of his country."
Thus, from the 30th of May till the 11th of July the settlers slept with
their rifles in their hands, expecting every night to hear the Indian
war-whoop, and every day to receive some messenger from Nancy Ward with
tidings that the warriors were on the march for the settlements. At last
the messengers came,--four of them at once,--as we may see from the
following letter, in which Sevier announces their arrival to the
Committee of Safety of Fincastle County, Virginia:
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