Part 2 (1/2)

With commendable energy and expedition Dinwiddie and Dobbs, acting in concert, initiated steps for keeping the engagements conjointly made by the two colonies with the Cherokees and the Catawbas in the spring and summer of 1756. Enlisting sixty men, ”most of them Artificers, with Tools and Provisions,” Major Andrew Lewis proceeded in the late spring to Echota in the Cherokee country. Here during the hot summer months they erected the Virginia Fort on the path from Virginia, upon the northern bank of the Little Tennessee, nearly opposite the Indian town of Echota and about twenty-five miles southwest of Knoxville.” While the fort was in process of construction, the Cherokees were incessantly tampered with by emissaries from the Nuntewees and the Savannahs in the French interest, and from the French themselves at the Alibamu Fort. So effective were these machinations, supported by extravagant promises and doubtless rich bribes, that the Cherokees soon were outspokenly expressing their desire for a French fort at Great Tellico.

Dinwiddie welcomed the departure from America of Governor Glen of South Carolina, who in his opinion had always acted contrary to the king's interest. From the new governor, William Henry Lyttelton, who arrived in Charleston on June 1, 1756, he hoped to secure effective cooperation in dealing with the Cherokees and the Catawbas. This hope was based upon Lyttelton's recognition, as stated in Dinwiddie's words, of the ”Necessity of strict Union between the whole Colonies, with't any of them considering their particular Interest separate from the general Good of the whole.”

After constructing the fort ”with't the least a.s.sistance from South Carolina,” Major Lewis happened by accident upon a grand council being held in Echota in September. At that time he discovered to his great alarm that the machinations of the French had already produced the greatest imaginable change in the sentiment of the Cherokees. Captain Raymond Demere of the Provincials, with two hundred English troops, had arrived to garrison the fort; but the head men of all the Upper Towns were secretly influenced to agree to write a letter to Captain Demere, ordering him to return immediately to Charleston with all the troops under his command. At the grand council, Atta-kulla-kulla, the great Cherokee chieftain, pa.s.sionately declared to the head men, who listened approvingly, that ”as to the few soldiers of Captain Demere that was there, he would take their Guns, and give them to his young men to hunt with and as to their clothes they would soon be worn out and their skins would be tanned, and be of the same colour as theirs, and that they should live among them as slaves.” With impressive dignity Major Lewis rose and earnestly pleaded for the observance of the terms of the treaty solemnly negotiated the preceding March. In response, the crafty and treacherous chieftains desired Lewis to tell the Governor of Virginia that ”they had taken up the Hatchet against all Nations that were Enemies to the English”; but Lewis, an astute student of Indian Psychology, rightly surmised that all their glib professions of friends.h.i.+p and a.s.sistance were ”only to put a gloss on their knavery.” So it proved; for instead of the four hundred warriors promised under the treaty for service in Virginia, the Cherokees sent only seven warriors, accompanied by three women. Al though the Cherokees pet.i.tioned Virginia for a number of men to garrison the Virginia fort, Dinwiddie postponed sending the fifty men provided for by the Virginia a.s.sembly until he could rea.s.sure himself in regard to the ”Behaviour and Intention” of the treacherous Indian allies. This proved to be a prudent decision; for not long after its erection the Virginia fort was destroyed by the Indians.

Whether on account of the dissatisfaction expressed by the Cherokees over the erection of the Virginia fort or because of a recognition of the mistaken policy of garrisoning a work erected by Virginia with troops sent from Charleston, South Carolina immediately proceeded to build another stronghold on the southern bank of the Tennessee at the mouth of Tellico River, some seven miles from the site of the Virginia fort; and here were posted twelve great guns, brought thither at immense labor through the wilderness. To this fort, named Fort Loudoun in honor of Lord Loudoun, then commander-in-chief of all the English forces in America, the Indians allured artisans by donations of land; and during the next three or four years a little settlement sprang up there.

The frontiers of Virginia suffered most from the incursions of hostile Indians during the fourteen months following May 1, 1755.

In July, the Rev. Hugh McAden records that he preached in Virginia on a day set apart for fasting and prayer ”on account of the wars and many murders, committed by the savage Indians on the back inhabitants.” On July 30th a large party of Shawano Indians fell upon the New River settlement and wiped it out of existence.

William Ingles was absent at the time of the raid; and Mrs.

Ingles, who was captured, afterward effected her escape. The following summer (June 25, 1756), Fort Vaux on the headwaters of the Roanoke, under the command of Captain John Smith, was captured by about one hundred French and Indians, who burnt the fort, killed John Smith junior, John Robinson, John Tracey and John Ingles, wounded four men, and captured twenty-two men, women, and children. Among the captured was the famous Mrs. Mary Ingles, whose husband, John Ingles, was killed; but after being ”carried away into Captivity, amongst whom she was barbarously treated,” according to her own statement, she finally escaped and returned to Virginia.” The frontier continued to be infested by marauding bands of French and Indians; and Dinwiddie gloomily confessed to Dobbs (July 22d): ”I apprehend that we shall always be harra.s.s'd with fly'g Parties of these Banditti unless we form an Expedit'n ag'st them, to attack 'em in y'r Towns.” Such an expedition, known as the Sandy River Expedition, had been sent out in February to avenge the ma.s.sacre of the New River settlers; but the enterprise engaged in by about four hundred Virginians and Cherokees under Major Andrew Lewis and Captain Richard Pearis, proved a disastrous failure. Not a single Indian was seen; and the party suffered extraordinary hards.h.i.+ps and narrowly escaped starvation.

In conformity with his treaty obligations with the Catawbas, Governor Dobbs commissioned Captain Hugh Waddell to erect the fort promised the Catawbas at the spot chosen by the commissioners near the mouth of the South Fork of the Catawba River. This fort, for which four thousand pounds had been appropriated, was for the most part completed by midsummer, 1757.

But owing, it appears, both to the machinations of the French and to the intermeddling of the South Carolina traders, who desired to retain the trade of the Catawbas for that province, Oroloswa, the Catawba King Heygler, sent a ”talk” to Governor Lyttelton, requesting that North Carolina desist from the work of construction and that no fort be built except by South Carolina.

Accordingly, Governor Dobbs ordered Captain Waddell to discharge the workmen (August 11, 1757); and every effort was made for many months thereafter to conciliate the Catawbas, erstwhile friends of North Carolina. The Catawba fort erected by North Carolina was never fully completed; and several years later South Carolina, having succeeded in alienating the Catawbas from North Carolina, which colony had given them the best possible treatment, built for them a fort at the mouth of Line Creek on the east bank of the Catawba River.

In the spring and summer of 1758 the long expected Indian allies arrived in Virginia, as many as four hundred by May--Cherokees, Catawbas, Tuscaroras, and Nottaways. But Dinwiddie was wholly unable to use them effectively; and in order to provide amus.e.m.e.nt for them, he directed that they should go ”a scalping” with the whites--”a barbarous method of war,” frankly acknowledged the governor, ”introduced by the French, which we are oblidged to follow in our own defense.” Most of the Indian allies discontentedly returned home before the end of the year, but the remainder waited until the next year, to take part in the campaign against Fort Duquesne. Three North Carolina companies, composed of trained soldiers and hardy frontiersmen, went through this campaign under the command of Major Hugh Waddell, the ”Was.h.i.+ngton of North Carolina.” Long of limb and broad of chest, powerful, lithe, and active, Waddell was an ideal leader for this arduous service, being fertile in expedient and skilful in the employment of Indian tactics. With true provincial pride Governor Dobbs records that Waddell ”had great honor done him, being employed in all reconnoitring parties, and dressed and acted as an Indian; and his sergeant, Rogers, took the only Indian prisoner, who gave Mr. Forbes certain intelligence of the forces in Fort Duquesne, upon which they resolved to proceed.” This apparently trivial incident is remarkable, in that it proved to be the decisive factor in a campaign that was about to be abandoned. The information in regard to the state of the garrison at Fort Duquesne, secured from the Indian, for the capture of whom two leading officers had offered a reward of two hundred and fifty pounds, emboldened Forbes to advance rather than to retire.

Upon reaching the fort (November 25th), he found it abandoned by the enemy. Sergeant Rogers never received the reward promised by General Forbes and the other English officer; but some time afterward he was compensated by a modest sum from the colony of North Carolina.

A series of unfortunate occurrences, chiefly the fault of the whites, soon resulted in the precipitation of a terrible Indian outbreak. A party of Cherokees, returning home in May, 1758, seized some stray horses on the frontier of Virginia--never dreaming of any wrong, says an old historian, as they saw it frequently done by the whites. The owners of the horses, hastily forming a party, went in pursuit of the Indians and killed twelve or fourteen of the number. The relatives of the slain Indians, greatly incensed, vowed vengeance upon the whites. Nor was the tactless conduct of Forbes calculated to quiet this resentment; for when Atta-kulla-kulla and nine other chieftains deserted in disgust at the treatment accorded them, they were pursued by Forbes's orders, apprehended and disarmed. This rude treatment, coupled with the brutal and wanton murder of some Cherokee hunters a little earlier, by an irresponsible band of Virginians under Captain Robert Wade, still further aggravated the Indians.

Incited by the French, who had fled to the southward after the fall of Fort Duquesne, parties of bloodthirsty young Indians rushed down upon the settlements and left in their path death and desolation along the frontiers of the Carolinas. On the upper branch of the Yadkin and below the South Yadkin near Fort Dobbs twenty-two whites fell in swift succession before the secret onslaughts of the savages from the lower Cherokee towns. Many of the settlers along the Yadkin fled to the Carolina Fort at Bethabara and the stockade at the mill; and the sheriff of Rowan County suffered siege by the Cherokees, in his home, until rescued by a detachment under Brother Loesch from Bethabara.

While many families took refuge in Fort Dobbs, frontiersmen under Captain Morgan Bryan ranged through the mountains to the west of Salisbury and guarded the settlements from the hostile incursions of the savages. So gravely alarmed were the Rowan settlers, compelled by the Indians to desert their planting and crops, that Colonel Harris was despatched post-haste for aid to Cape Fear, arriving there on July 1st. With strenuous energy Captain Waddell, then stationed in the east, rushed two companies of thirty men each to the rescue, sending by water-carriage six swivel guns and ammunition on before him; and these reinforcements brought relief at last to the hara.s.sed Rowan frontiers.” During the remainder of the year, the borders were kept clear by bold and tireless rangers-under the leaders.h.i.+p of expert Indian fighters of the stamp of Grifth Rutherford and Morgan Bryan.

When the Cherokee warriors who had wrought havoc along the North Carolina border in April arrived at their town of Settiquo, they proudly displayed the twenty-two scalps of the slain Rowan settlers. Upon the demand for these scalps by Captain Demere at Fort Loudon and under direction of Atta-kulla-kulla, the Settiquo warriors surrendered eleven of the scalps to Captain Demere who, according to custom in time of peace, buried them. New murders on Pacolet and along the Virginia Path, which occurred shortly afterward, caused gloomy forebodings; and it was plain, says a contemporary gazette, that ”the lower Cherokees were not satisfied with the murder of the Rowan settlers, but intended further mischief”. On October 1st and again on October 31st, Governor Dobbs received urgent requests from Governor Lyttelton, asking that the North Carolina provincials and militia cooperate to bring him a.s.sistance. Although there was no law requiring the troops to march out of the province and the exposed frontiers of North Carolina sorely needed protection, Waddell, now commissioned colonel, a.s.sembled a force of five small companies and marched to the aid of Governor Lyttelton. But early in January, 1760, while on the march, Waddell received a letter from Lyttelton, informing him that the a.s.sistance was not needed and that a treaty of peace had been negotiated with the Cherokees.

CHAPTER VI. Crus.h.i.+ng the Cherokees

Thus ended the Cherokee war, which was among the last humbling strokes given to the expiring power of France in North America.--Hewatt: An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia. 1779.

Governor Lyttelton's treaty of ”peace”, negotiated with the Cherokees at the close of 1759, was worse than a crime: it was a cra.s.s and hideous blunder. His domineering att.i.tude and tyrannical treatment of these Indians had aroused the bitterest animosity. Yet he did not realize that it was no longer safe to trust their word. No sooner did the governor withdraw his army from the borders than the cunning Cherokees, whose pa.s.sions had been inflamed by what may fairly be called the treacherous conduct of Lyttelton, rushed down with merciless ferocity upon the innocent and defenseless families on the frontier. On February 1, 1760, while a large party (including the family of Patrick Calhoun), numbering in all about one hundred and fifty persons, were removing from the Long Cane settlement to Augusta, they were suddenly attacked by a hundred mounted Cherokees, who slaughtered about fifty of them. After the ma.s.sacre, many of the children were found helplessly wandering in the woods. One man alone carried to Augusta no less than nine of the pitiful innocents, some horribly mutilated with the tomahawk, others scalped, and all yet alive.

Atrocities defying description continued to be committed, and many people were slain. The Cherokees, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Si-lou-ee, or the Young Warrior of Estatoe, the Round O, Tiftoe, and others, were baffled in their persistent efforts to capture Fort Prince George. On February 16th the crafty Oconostota appeared before the fort and under the pretext of desiring some White man to accompany him on a visit to the governor on urgent business, lured the commander, Lieutenant Coytomore, and two attendants to a conference outside the gates. At a preconceived signal a volley of shots rang out; the two attendants were wounded, and Lieutenant Coytomore, riddled with bullets, fell dead. Enraged by this act of treachery, the garrison put to death the Indian hostages within. During the abortive attack upon the fort, Oconostota, unaware of the murder of the hostages, was heard shouting above the din of battle: ”Fight strong, and you shall be relieved.”

Now began the dark days along the Rowan border, which were so sorely to test human endurance. Many refugees fortified themselves in the different stockades; and Colonel Hugh Waddell with his redoubtable frontier company of Indian-fighters awaited the onslaught of the savages, who were reported to have pa.s.sed through the mountain defiles and to be approaching along the foot-hills. The story of the investment of Fort Dobbs and the splendidly daring sortie of Waddell and Bailey is best told in Waddell's report to Governor Dobbs (February 29, 1760):

”For several Days I observed a small party of Indians were constantly about the fort, I sent out several parties after them to no purpose, the Evening before last between 8 & 9 o'clock I found by the Dogs making an uncommon Noise there must be a party nigh a Spring which we sometimes use. As my Garrison is but small, and I was apprehensive it might be a scheme to draw out the Garrison, I took our Capt. Bailie who with myself and party made up ten: We had not marched 300 yds. from the fort when we were attacked by at least 60 or 70 Indians. I had given my party Orders not to fire until I gave the word, which they punctually observed: We rec'd the Indians' fire: When I perceived they had almost all fired, I ordered my party to fire which We did not further than 12 steps each loaded with a Bullet and 7 Buck Shot, they had nothing to cover them as they were advancing either to tomahawk us or make us Prisoners: They found the fire very hot from so small a Number which a good deal confused them: I then ordered my party to retreat, as I found the Instant our skirmish began another party had attacked the fort, upon our reinforcing the garrison the Indians were soon repulsed with I am sure a considerable Loss, from what I myself saw as well as those I can confide in they cou'd not have less than 10 or 12 killed and wounded; The next Morning we found a great deal of Blood and one dead whom I suppose they cou'd not find in the night. On my side I had 2 Men wounded one of whom I am afraid will die as he is scalped, the other is in way of Recovery, and one boy killed near the fort whom they durst not advance to scalp. I expected they would have paid me another visit last night, as they attack all Fortifications by Night, but find they did not like their Reception.”

Alarmed by Waddell's ”offensive-defensive,” the Indians abandoned the siege. Robert Campbell, Waddell's ranger, who was scalped in this engagement, subsequently recovered from his wounds and was recompensed by the colony with the sum of twenty pounds.

In addition to the frontier militia, four independent companies were now placed under Waddell's command. Companies of volunteers scoured the woods in search of the lurking Indian foe. These rangers, who were clad in hunting-s.h.i.+rts and buckskin leggings, and who employed Indian tactics in fighting, were captained by such hardy leaders as the veteran Morgan Bryan, the intrepid Griffith Ruthe ford, the German partisan, Martin Phifer (Pfeiffer), and Anthony Hampton, the father of General Wade Hampton. They visited periodically a chain of ”forest castles”

erected by the settlers--extending all the way from Fort Dobbs and the Moravian fortifications in the Wachau to Samuel Stalnaker's stockade on the Middle Fork of the Holston in Virginia. About the middle of March, thirty volunteer Rowan County rangers encountered a band of forty Cherokees, who fortified themselves in a deserted house near the Catawba River.

The famous scout and hunter, John Perkins, a.s.sisted by one of his bolder companions, crept up to the house and flung lighted torches upon the roof. One of the Indians, as the smoke became suffocating and the flames burned hotter, exclaimed: ”Better for one to die bravely than for all to perish miserably in the flames,” and darting forth, dashed rapidly hither and thither, in order to draw as many shots as possible. This act of superb self-sacrifice was successful; and while the rifles of the whites, who riddled the brave Indian with b.a.l.l.s, were empty, the other savages made a wild dash for liberty. Seven fell thus under the deadly rain of bullets; but many escaped. Ten of the Indians, all told, lost their scalps, for which the volunteer rangers were subsequently paid one hundred pounds by the colony of North Carolina.

Beaten back from Fort Dobbs, sorely defeated along the Catawba, hotly pursued by the rangers, the Cherokees continued to lurk in the shadows of the dense forests, and at every opportunity to fall suddenly upon way faring settlers and isolated cabins remote from any stronghold. On March 8th William Fish, his son, and Thompson, a companion, were riding along the ”trace,” in search of provisions for a group of families fortified on the Yadkin, when a flight of arrows hurtled from the cane-brake, and Fish and his son fell dead. Although pierced with two arrows, one in the hip and one clean through his body, Thompson escaped upon his fleet horse; and after a night of ghastly suffering finally reached the Carolina Fort at Bethabara. The good Dr. Bonn, by skilfully extracting the barbed shafts from his body, saved Thompson's life. The pious Moravians rejoiced over the recovery of the brave messenger, whose sensational arrival gave them timely warning of the close proximity of the Indians. While feeding their cattle, settlers were shot from ambush by the lurking foe; and on March 11th, a family barricaded within a burning house, which they were defending with desperate courage, were rescued in the nick of time by the militia. No episode from Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales surpa.s.ses in melancholy interest Harry Hicks's heroic defense of his little fort on Bean Island Creek. Surrounded by the Indians, Hicks and his family took refuge within the small outer palisade around his humble home. Fighting desperately against terrific odds, he was finally driven from his yard into his log cabin, which he continued to defend with dauntless courage. With every shot he tried to send a redskin to the happy hunting-grounds; and it was only after his powder was exhausted that he fell, fighting to the last, beneath the deadly tomahawk. So impressed were the Indians by his bravery that they spared the life of his wife and his little son; and these were afterward rescued by Waddell when he marched to the Cherokee towns in 1761.

The kindly Moravians had always entertained with generous hospitality the roving bands of Cherokees, who accordingly held them in much esteem and spoke of Bethabara as ”the Dutch Fort, where there are good people and much bread.” But now, in these dread days, the truth of their daily text was brought forcibly home to the Moravians: ”Neither Nehemiah nor his brethren put off their clothes, but prayed as they watched.” With Bible in one hand and rifle in the other, the inhabitant of Wachovia sternly marched to religious wors.h.i.+p. No Puritan of bleak New England ever showed more resolute courage or greater will to defend the hard-won outpost of civilization than did the pious Moravian of the Wachau. At the new settlement of Bethania on Easter Day, more than four hundred souls, including sixty rangers, listened devoutly to the eloquent sermon of Bishop Spangenberg concerning the way of salvation--the while their arms, stacked without the Gemein Haus, were guarded by the watchful sentinel. On March 14th the watchmen at Bethania with well-aimed shots repelled the Indians, whose hideous yells of baffled rage sounded down the wind like ”the howling of a hundred wolves”. Religion was no protection against the savages; for three ministers journeying to the present site of Salem were set upon by the red men--one escaping, another suffering capture, and the third, a Baptist, losing his life. A little later word came to Fort Dobbs that John Long and Robert Gillespie of Salisbury had been shot from ambush and scalped--Long having been pierced with eight bullets and Gillespie with seven.