Crushing 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 crass and hideous
blunder. His domineering attitude 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
passions 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
massacre, 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 leadership 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." [64]
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 passed 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
recd 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. [65]
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. [66]
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-shirts and buckskin leggings, and who employed Indian tactics
in fighting, were captained by such hardy leaders as the veteran Morgan
Bryan, the intrepid Griffith Rutherford, 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, assisted 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 balls, 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. [67]
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
wayfaring 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 surpasses 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. [68]
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 worship. 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. [69]
There is one beautiful incident recorded by the Moravians, which has a
truly symbolic significance. While the war was at its height, a strong
party of Cherokees, who had lost their chief, planned in retaliation to
attack Bethabara. "When they went home," sets forth the Moravian Diary,
"they said they had been to a great town, where there were a great many
people, where the bells rang often, and during the night, time after
time, a horn was blown, so that they feared to attack the town and had
taken no prisoners." The trumpet of the watchman, announcing the passing
of the hour, had convinced the Indians that their plans for attack were
discovered; and the regular evening bell, summoning the pious to prayer,
rang in the stricken ears of the red men like the clamant call to arms.
Following the retirement from office of Governor Lyttelton,
Lieutenant-Governor Bull proceeded to prosecute the war with vigor. On
April 1, 1760, twelve hundred men under Colonel Archibald Montgomerie
arrived at Charleston, with instructions to strike an immediate blow and
to relieve Fort Loudon, then invested by the Cherokees. With his own
force, two hundred and ninety-five South Carolina Rangers, forty picked
men of the new "levies," and "a good number of guides," Montgomerie
moved from Fort Ninety-Six on May 28th. On the first of June, crossing
Twelve-Mile River, Montgomerie began the campaign in earnest,
devastating and burning every Indian village in the Valley of Keowee,
killing and capturing more than a hundred of the Cherokees, and
destroying immense stores of corn. Receiving no reply to his summons to
the Cherokees of the Middle and Upper Towns to make peace or suffer like
treatment, Montgomerie took up his march from Fort Prince George on June
24th, resolved to carry out his threat. On the morning of the 27th, he
was drawn into an ambuscade within six miles of Et-chow-ee, eight miles
south of the present Franklin, North Carolina, a mile and a half below
Smith's Bridge, and was vigorously attacked from dense cover by some six
hundred and thirty warriors led by Si-lou-ee. Fighting with Indian
tactics, the Provincial Rangers under Patrick Calhoun particularly
distinguished themselves; and the blood-curdling yells of the painted
savages were responded to by the wild huzzas of the kilted Highlanders
who, waving their Scotch bonnets, impetuously charged the redskins and
drove them again and again from their lurking-places. Nevertheless
Montgomerie lost from eighty to one hundred in killed and wounded, while
the loss of the Indians was supposed to be about half the loss of the
whites. Unable to care for his wounded and lacking the means of removing
his baggage, Montgomerie silently withdrew his forces. In so doing, he
acknowledged defeat, since he was compelled to abandon his original
intention of relieving the beleaguered garrison of Fort Loudon.
Captain Demere and his devoted little band, who had been resolutely
holding out, were now left to their tragic fate. After the bread was
exhausted, the garrison was reduced to the necessity of eating dogs and
horses; and the loyal aid of the Indian wives of some of the garrison,
who secretly brought them supplies of food daily, enabled them to hold
out still longer. Realizing at last the futility of prolonging the
hopeless contest, Captain Demere surrendered the fort on August 8, 1760.
At daylight the next morning, while on the march to Fort Prince George,
the soldiers were set upon by the treacherous Cherokees, who at the
first onset killed Captain Demere and twenty-nine others. A humane
chieftain, Outassitus, says one of the gazettes of the day, "went around
the field calling upon the Indians to desist, and making such
representations to them as stopped the further progress and effects of
their barbarous and brutal rage," which expressed itself in scalping and
hacking off the arms and legs of the defenseless whites.
Atta-kulla-kulla, who was friendly to the whites, claimed Captain
Stuart, the second officer, as his captive, and bore him away by
stealth. After nine days' journey through the wilderness they
encountered an advance party under Major Andrew Lewis, sent out by
Colonel Byrd, head of a relieving army, to rescue and succor any of the
garrison who might effect their escape. Thus Stuart was restored to his
friends. This abortive and tragic campaign, in which the victory lay
conclusively with the Indians, ended when Byrd disbanded his new levies
and Montgomerie sailed from Charleston for the north (August, 1760).
During the remainder of the year, the province of North Carolina
remained free of further alarms from the Indians. But the view was
generally entertained that one more joint effort of North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Virginia would have to be made in order to humble
the Cherokees. At the sessions of the North Carolina Assembly in
November and again in December, matters in dispute between Governor
Dobbs and the representatives of the people made impossible the passage
of a proposed aid bill, providing for five hundred men to coöperate with
Virginia and South Carolina. Nevertheless volunteers in large numbers
patriotically marched from North Carolina to Charleston and the Congaree
(December, 1760, to April, 1761), to enlist in the famous regiment being
organized by Colonel Thomas Middleton. [70] On March 31, 1761, Governor
Dobbs called together the Assembly to act upon a letter received from
General Amherst, outlining a more vigorous plan of campaign appropriate
to the succession of a young and vigorous sovereign, George III. An aid
bill was passed, providing twenty thousand pounds for men and supplies;
and one regiment of five companies of one hundred men each, under the
command of Colonel Hugh Waddell, was mustered into service for seven
months' duty, beginning May 1, 1761. [71]
On July 7, 1761, Colonel James Grant, detached from the main army in
command of a force of twenty-six hundred men, took up his march from
Fort Prince George. Attacked on June 10th two miles south of the spot
where Montgomerie was engaged the preceding year, Grant's army, after a
vigorous engagement lasting several hours, drove off the Indians. The
army then proceeded at leisure to lay waste the fifteen towns of the
Middle Settlements; and, after this work of systematic devastation was
over, returned to Fort Prince George. Peace was concluded in September
as the result of this campaign; and in consequence the frontier was
pushed seventy miles farther to the west.
Meantime, Colonel Waddell with his force of five hundred North
Carolinians had acted in concert with Colonel William Byrd, commanding
the Virginia detachment. The combined forces went into camp at Captain
Samuel Stalnaker's old place on the Middle Fork of Holston. Because of
his deliberately dilatory policy, Byrd was superseded in the command by
Colonel Adam Stephen. Marching their forces to the Long Island of
Holston, Stephen and Waddell erected there Fort Robinson, in compliance
with the instructions of Governor Fauquier, of Virginia. The Cherokees,
heartily tired of the war, now sued for peace, which was concluded,
independent of the treaty at Charleston, on November 19, 1761.
The successful termination of this campaign had an effect of signal
importance in the development of the expansionist spirit. The rich and
beautiful lands which fell under the eye of the North Carolina and
Virginia pioneers under Waddell, Byrd, and Stephen, lured them
irresistibly on to wider casts for fortune and bolder explorations into
the unknown, beckoning West.