The Indian War
All met in companies with their wives and children, and set about
building little fortifications, to defend themselves from such barbarian
and inhuman enemies, whom they concluded would be let loose upon them at
pleasure.
--The Reverend Hugh McAden: Diary, July, 1755.
Long before the actual outbreak of hostilities powerful forces were
gradually converging to produce a clash between the aggressive colonials
and the crafty Indians. As the settlers pressed farther westward into
the domain of the red men, arrogantly grazing their stock over the
cherished hunting-grounds of the Cherokees, the savages, who were
already well disposed toward the French, began to manifest a deep
indignation against the British colonists because of this callous
encroachment upon their territory. During the sporadic forays by
scattered bands of Northern Indians upon the Catawbas and other tribes
friendly to the pioneers the isolated settlements at the back part of
the Carolinas suffered rude and sanguinary onslaughts. In the summer of
1753 a party of northern Indians warring in the French interest made
their appearance in Rowan County, which had just been organized, and
committed various depredations upon the scattered settlements. To repel
these attacks a band of the Catawbas sallied forth, encountered a
detached party of the enemy, and slew five of their number. Among the
spoils, significantly enough, were silver crucifixes, beads,
looking-glasses, tomahawks and other implements of war, all of French
manufacture. [34]
Intense rivalry for the good will of the near-by southern tribes existed
between Virginia and South Carolina. In strong remonstrance against the
alleged attempt of Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia to alienate the
Cherokees, Catawbas, Muscogees, and Chickasaws from South Carolina and
to attach them to Virginia, Governor Glen of South Carolina made pungent
observations to Dinwiddie: "South Carolina is a weak frontier colony,
and in case of invasion by the French would be their first object of
attack. We have not much to fear, however, while we retain the affection
of the Indians around us; but should we forfeit that by any
mismanagement on our part, or by the superior address of the French, we
are in a miserable situation. The Cherokees alone have several thousand
gunmen well acquainted with every inch of the province ... their country
is the key to Carolina." By a treaty concluded at Saluda (November 24,
1753), Glen promised to build the Cherokees a fort near the lower towns,
for the protection of themselves and their allies; and the Cherokees on
their part agreed to become the subjects of the King of Great Britain
and hold their lands under him. [35] This fort, erected this same year
on the headwaters of the Savannah, within gunshot distance of the
important Indian town of Keowee, was named Fort Prince George. "It is a
square," says the founder of the fort (Governor Glen to the Board of
Trade, August 26, 1754), "with regular Bastions and four Ravelins it is
near Two hundred foot from Salient Angle to Salient Angle and is made of
Earth taken out of the Ditch, secured with fachines and well rammed with
a banquet on the Inside for the men to stand upon when they fire over,
the Ravelins are made of Posts of Lightwood which is very durable, they
are ten foot in length sharp pointed three foot and a half in the
ground." [36] The dire need for such a fort in the back country was
tragically illustrated by the sudden onslaught upon the "House of John
Gutry & James Anshers" in York County by a party of sixty French Indians
(December 16, 1754), who brutally murdered sixteen of the twenty-one
persons present, and carried off as captives the remaining five. [37]
At the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754 North Carolina
voted twelve thousand pounds for the raising of troops and several
thousand pounds additional for the construction of forts--a sum
considerably larger than that voted by Virginia. A regiment of two
hundred and fifty men was placed under the command of Colonel James
Innes of the Cape Fear section; and the ablest officer under him was the
young Irishman from the same section, Lieutenant Hugh Waddell. On June
3, 1754, Dinwiddie appointed Innes, his close friend, commander-in-chief
of all the forces against the French; and immediately after the disaster
at Great Meadows (July, 1754), Innes took command. Within two months the
supplies for the North Carolina troops were exhausted; and as Virginia
then failed to furnish additional supplies, Colonel Innes had no
recourse but to disband his troops and permit them to return home.
Appointed governor of Fort Cumberland by General Braddock, he was in
command there while Braddock advanced on his disastrous march.
The lesson of Braddock's defeat (July 9, 1755) was memorable in the
history of the Old Southwest. Well might Braddock exclaim with his last
breath: "Who would have thought it? ... We shall know better how to deal
with them another time." Led on by the reckless and fiery Beaujeu,
wearing an Indian gorget about his neck, the savages from the protection
of trees and rough defenses, a prepared ambuscade, poured a galling fire
into the compact divisions of the English, whose scarlet coats furnished
ideal targets. The obstinacy of the British commanders in refusing to
permit their troops to fight Indian fashion was suicidal; for as Herman
Alrichs wrote Governor Morris of Pennsylvania (July 22, 1755): "... the
French and Indians had cast an Intrenchment across the road before our
Army which they Discovered not Untill the [y] came Close up to it, from
thence and both sides of the road the enemy kept a constant fireing on
them, our Army being so confused, they could not fight, and they would
not be admitted by the Genl or Sir John St. Clair, to break thro' their
Ranks and Take behind trees." [38] Daniel Boone, who went from North
Carolina as a wagoner in the company commanded by Edward Brice Dobbs,
was on the battle-field; but Dobbs's company at the time was scouting in
the woods. When the fierce attack fell upon the baggage train, Boone
succeeded in effecting his escape only by cutting the traces of his team
and fleeing on one of the horses. To his dying day Boone continued to
censure Braddock's conduct, and reprehended especially his fatal neglect
to employ strong flank-guards and a sufficient number of Provincial
scouts thoroughly acquainted with the wilderness and all the wiles and
strategies of savage warfare.
For a number of months following Braddock's defeat there was a great
rush of the frightened people southward. In a letter to Dinwiddie,
Washington expresses the apprehension that Augusta, Frederick, and
Hampshire County will soon be depopulated, as the whole back country is
in motion toward the southern colonies. During this same summer Governor
Arthur Dobbs of North Carolina made a tour of exploration through the
western part of the colony, seeking a site for a fort to guard the
frontier. [39] The frontier company of fifty men which was to garrison
the projected fort was placed under the command of Hugh Waddell, now
promoted to the rank of captain, though only twenty-one years old. In
addition to Waddell's company, armed patrols were required for the
protection of the Rowan County frontier; and during the summer Indian
alarms were frequent at the Moravian village of Bethabara, whose
inhabitants had heard with distress on March 31st of the slaughter of
eleven Moravians on the Mahoni and of the ruin of Gnadenhütten. Many of
the settlers in the outlying districts of Rowan fled for safety to the
refuge of the little village; and frequently every available house,
every place of temporary abode was filled with panic-stricken refugees.
So persistent were the depredations of the Indians and so alarmed were
the scattered Rowan settlers by the news of the murders and the
destruction of Vaux's Fort in Virginia (June 25, 1756) that at a
conference on July 5th the Moravians "decided to protect our houses with
palisades, and make them safe before the enemy should invade our tract
or attack us, for if the people were all going to retreat we would be
the last left on the frontier and the first point of attack." By July
23d, they had constructed a strong defense for their settlement,
afterward called the "Dutch Fort" by the Indians. The principal
structure was a stockade, triangular in plan, some three hundred feet on
a side, enclosing the principal buildings of the settlement; and the
gateway was guarded by an observation tower. The other defense was a
stockade embracing eight houses at the mill some distance away, around
which a small settlement had sprung up. [40]
During the same year the fort planned by Dobbs was erected upon the site
he had chosen--between Third and Fourth creeks; and the commissioners
Richard Caswell and Francis Brown, sent out to inspect the fort, made
the following picturesque report to the Assembly (December 21, 1756):
That they had likewise viewed the State of Fort Dobbs, and found it to
be a good and Substantial Building of the Dimentions following (that is
to say) The Oblong Square fifty three feet by forty, the opposite Angles
Twenty four feet and Twenty-Two In Height Twenty four and a half feet as
by the Plan annexed Appears, The Thickness of the Walls which are made
of Oak Logs regularly Diminished from sixteen Inches to Six, it contains
three floors and there may be discharged from each floor at one and the
same time about one hundred Musketts the same is beautifully scituated
in the fork of Fourth Creek a Branch of the Yadkin River. And that they
also found under Command of Capt Hugh Waddel Forty six Effective men
Officers and Soldiers ... the said Officers and Soldiers Appearing well
and in good Spirits. [41]
As to the erection of a fort on the Tennessee, promised the Cherokees by
South Carolina, difficulties between the governor of that province and
of Virginia in regard to matters of policy and the proportionate share
of expenses made effective coöperation between the two colonies
well-nigh impossible. Glen, as we have seen, had resented Dinwiddie's
efforts to win the South Carolina Indians over to Virginia's interest.
And Dinwiddie had been very indignant when the force promised him by the
Indians to aid General Braddock did not arrive, attributing this
defection in part to Glen's negotiations for a meeting with the
chieftains and in part to the influence of the South Carolina traders,
who kept the Indians away by hiring them to go on long hunts for furs
and skins. But there was no such contention between Virginia and North
Carolina. Dinwiddie and Dobbs arranged (November 6, 1755) to send a
commission from these colonies to treat with the Cherokees and the
Catawbas. Virginia sent two commissioners, Colonel William Byrd, third
of that name, and Colonel Peter Randolph; while North Carolina sent one,
Captain Hugh Waddell. Salisbury, North Carolina, was the place of
rendezvous. The treaty with the Catawbas was made at the Catawba Town,
presumably the village opposite the mouth of Sugaw Creek, in York
County, South Carolina, on February 20-21, 1756; that with the Cherokees
on Broad River, North Carolina, March 13-17. As a result of the
negotiations and after the receipt of a present of goods, the Catawbas
agreed to send forty warriors to aid Virginia within forty days; and the
Cherokees, in return for presents and Virginia's promise to contribute
her proportion toward the erection of a strong fort, undertook to send
four hundred warriors within forty days, "as soon as the said fort shall
be built." Virginia and North Carolina thus wisely coöperated to
"straighten the path" and "brighten the chain" between the white and the
red men, in important treaties which have largely escaped the attention
of historians. [42]
On May 25, 1756, a conference was held at Salisbury between King Heygler
and warriors of the Catawba nation on the one side and Chief Justice
Henley, doubtless attended by Captain Waddell and his frontier company,
on the other. King Heygler, following the lead set by the Cherokees,
petitioned the Governor of North Carolina to send the Catawbas some
ammunition and to "build us a fort for securing our old men, women and
children when we turn out to fight the Enemy on their coming." The chief
justice assured the King that the Catawbas would receive a necessary
supply of ammunition (one hundred pounds of gunpowder and four hundred
pounds of lead were later sent them) and promised to urge with the
governor their request to have a fort built as soon as possible. Pathos
not unmixed with dry humor tinges the eloquent appeal of good old King
Heygler, ever the loyal friend of the whites, at this conference:
I desire a stop may be put to the selling of strong Liquors by the White
people to my people especially near the Indian nation. If the White
people make strong drink, let them sell it to one another, or drink it
in their own families. This will avoid a great deal of mischief which
otherwise will happen from my people getting drunk and quarrelling with
the White people. I have no strong prisons like you to confine them for
it. Our only way is to put them under ground and all these (pointing
proudly to his Warriors) will be ready to do that to those who shall
deserve it. [43]
In response to this request, the sum of four thousand pounds was
appropriated by the North Carolina Assembly for the erection of "a Fort
on our western frontier to protect and secure the Catawbas" and for the
support of two companies of fifty men each to garrison this and another
fort building on the sea coast. The commissioners appointed for the
purpose recommended (December 21, 1756) a site for the fort "near the
Catawba nation"; and on January 20, 1757, Governor Dobbs reported: "We
are now building a Fort in the midst of their towns at their own
Request." The fort thereupon begun must have stood near the mouth of the
South Fork of the Catawba River, as Dobbs says it was in the "midst" of
their towns, which are situated a "few miles north and south of 38°" and
might properly be included within a circle of thirty miles radius. [44]
During the succeeding months many depredations were committed by the
Indians upon the exposed and scattered settlements. Had it not been for
the protection afforded by all these forts, by the militia companies
under Alexander Osborne of Rowan and Nathaniel Alexander of Anson, and
by a special company of patrollers under Green and Moore, the back
settlers who had been so outrageously "pilfered" by the Indians would
have "retired from the Frontier into the inner settlements." [45]