appeared in their rear. The whites wheeled about at once, and were
forming into line, when the whole body of Indians rushed upon them with
great fury, shouting, "The Unacas are running! Come on! scalp them!"
They attacked simultaneously the centre and left flank of the whites;
and then was seen the hazard of going into battle with a many-headed
commander. For a moment all was confusion, and the companies in
attempting to form in the face of the impetuous attack were being
broken, when Isaac Shelby rushed to the front and ordered each company a
few steps to the rear, where they should reform, while he, with
Lieutenant Moore, Robert Edmiston, and John Morrison, and a private
named John Findlay,--in all five men,--should meet the onset of the
savages. Instantly the six captains obeyed the command, recognizing in
the volunteer of twenty-five their natural leader, and then the battle
became general. The Indians attacked furiously, and for a few moments
those five men bore the brunt of the assault. With his own hand Robert
Edmiston slew six of the more forward of the enemy, Morrison nearly as
many, and then Moore became engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand fight
with an herculean chieftain of the Cherokees. They were a few paces in
advance of the main body, and, as if by common consent, the firing was
partly suspended on both sides to await the issue of the conflict.
"Moore had shot the chief, wounding him in the knee, but not so badly as
to prevent him from standing. Moore advanced toward him, and the Indian
threw his tomahawk, but missed him. Moore sprung at him with his large
butcher-knife drawn, which the Indian caught by the blade and attempted
to wrest from the hand of his antagonist. Holding on with desperate
tenacity to the knife, both clinched with their left hands. A scuffle
ensued, in which the Indian was thrown to the ground, his right hand
being nearly dissevered, and bleeding profusely. Moore, still holding
the handle of his knife in the right hand, succeeded with the other in
disengaging his own tomahawk from his belt, and ended the strife by
sinking it in the skull of the Indian. Until this conflict was ended,
the Indians fought with unyielding spirit. After its issue became known,
they retreated."[002] "Our men pursued in a cautious manner, lest they
might be led into an ambuscade, hardly crediting their own senses that
so numerous a foe was completely routed. In this miracle of a battle we
had not a man killed, and only five wounded, who all recovered. But the
wounded of the enemy died till the whole loss in killed amounted to
upward of forty."[003]
As soon as this conflict was over, a horseman was sent off to Watauga
with tidings of the astonishing victory. "A great day's work in the
woods," was Sevier's remark when speaking subsequently of this battle.
Meanwhile, Oconostota, with his three hundred and fifty warriors, had
followed the trail along the Nolachucky, and on the morning of the 20th
had come upon the house of William Bean, the hospitable entertainer of
Robertson on his first visit to Watauga, Bean himself was at the fort,
to which had fled all the women and children in the settlement, but his
wife had preferred to remain at home. She had many friends among the
Indians, and she felt confident they would pass her without molestation.
She was mistaken. They took her captive, and removed her to their
station-camp on the Nolachucky. There a warrior pointed his rifle at
her, as if to fire; but Oconostota threw up the barrel and began to
question her as to the strength of the whites. She gave him misleading
replies, with which he appeared satisfied, for he soon told her she was
not to be killed, but taken to their towns to teach their women how to
manage a dairy.
Those at the fort knew that Oconostota was near by on the Nolachucky,
but he had deferred the attack so long that they concluded the wary and
cautious old chief was waiting to be reinforced by the body under
Dragging-Canoe, which had gone to attack Fort Patrick Henry. News had
reached them of Shelby's victory, and, as it would be some time before
the broken Cherokees could rally and join Oconostota, they were in no
apprehension of immediate danger. Accordingly, they went about their
usual vocations, and so it happened that a number of the women ventured
outside the fort as usual to milk the cows on the morning of the 21st of
July. Among them was one who was destined to occupy for many years the
position of the "first lady in Tennessee."
Her name was Catherine Sherrell, and she was the daughter of Samuel
Sherrell, one of the first settlers on the Watauga. In age she was
verging upon twenty, and she was tall, straight as an arrow, and lithe
as a hickory sapling. I know of no portrait of her in existence, but
tradition describes her as having dark eyes, flexible nostrils, regular
features, a clear, transparent skin, a neck like a swan, and a wealth of
wavy brown hair, which was a wonder to look at and was in striking
contrast to the whiteness of her complexion. A free life in the open air
had made her as supple as an eel and as agile as a deer. It was said
that, encumbered by her womanly raiment, she had been known to place one
hand upon a six-barred fence and clear it at a single bound. And now her
agility was to do her essential service.
While she and the other women, unconscious of danger, were "coaxing the
snowy fluid from the yielding udders of the kine," suddenly the
war-whoop sounded through the woods, and a band of yelling savages
rushed out upon them. Quick as thought the women turned and darted for
the gate of the fort; but the savages were close upon them in a
neck-and-neck race, and Kate, more remote than the rest, was cut off
from the entrance. Seeing her danger, Sevier and a dozen others opened
the gate and were about to rush out upon the savages, hundreds of whom
were now in front of the fort; but Robertson held them back, saying they
could not rescue her, and to go out would insure their own destruction.
At a glance Kate took in the situation. She could have no help from her
friends, and the tomahawk and scalping-knife were close behind her.
Instantly she turned, and, fleeter than a deer, made for a point in the
stockade some distance from the entrance. The palisades were eight feet
high, but with one bound she reached the top, and with another was over
the wall, falling into the arms of Sevier, who for the first time called
her his "bonnie Kate," his "brave girl for a foot-race." The other women
reached the entrance of the fort in safety.
Then the baffled savages opened fire, and for a full hour it rained
bullets upon the little enclosure. But the missiles fell harmless: not a
man was wounded. Driven by the light charges the Indians were accustomed
to use, the bullets simply bounded off from the thick logs and did no
damage. But it was not so with the fire of the besieged. The order was,
"Wait till you see the whites of your enemies' eyes, and then make sure
of your man." And so every one of those forty rifles did terrible
execution.
For twenty days the Indians hung about the fort, returning again and
again to the attack; but not a man who kept within the walls was even
wounded. It was not so with a man and a boy who, emboldened by a few
days' absence of the Indians, ventured outside to go down to the river.
The man was scalped on the spot; the boy was taken prisoner, and
subjected to a worse fate in one of the Indian villages. His name was
Moore, and he was a younger brother of the lieutenant who fought so
bravely in the battle near Fort Patrick Henry.
At last, baffled and dispirited, the Indians fell back to the Tellico.
They had lost about sixty killed and a larger number wounded, and they
had inflicted next to no damage upon the white settlers. They were
enraged beyond bounds and thirsting for vengeance. Only two prisoners
were in their power; but on them they resolved to wreak their extremest
tortures. Young Moore was taken to the village of his captor, high up in
the mountains, and there burned at a stake. A like fate was determined
upon for good Mrs. Bean, the kindly woman whose hospitable door had ever
been open to all, white man or Indian. Oconostota would not have her
die; but Dragging-Canoe insisted that she should be offered up as a
sacrifice to the _manes_ of his fallen warriors; and the head-king was
not powerful enough to prevent it.
She was taken to the summit of one of the burial-mounds,--those relics
of a forgotten race which are so numerous along the banks of the
Tellico. She was tied to a stake, the fagots were heaped about her, and
the fire was about to be lighted, when suddenly Nancy Ward appeared
among the crowd of savages and ordered a stay of the execution.
Dragging-Canoe was a powerful brave, but not powerful enough to combat
the will of this woman. Mrs. Bean was not only liberated, but sent back
with an honorable escort to her husband.
The village in which young Moore was executed was soon visited by Sevier
with a terrible retribution; and from that day for twenty years his name
was a terror among the Cherokees.
Before many months there was a wedding in the fort at Watauga. It was
that of John Sevier and the "bonnie Kate," famous to this day for
leaping stockades and six-barred fences. He lived to be twelve years
governor of Tennessee and the idol of a whole people. She shared all his
love and all his honors; but in her highest estate she was never ashamed
of her lowly days, and never tired of relating her desperate leap at
Watauga; and, even in her old age, she would merrily add, "I would make
it again--every day in the week--for such a husband."
EDMUND KIRKE.
A PLEASANT SPIRIT.
It was drawing toward nine o'clock, and symptoms of closing for the
night were beginning to manifest themselves in Mr. Pegram's store. The
few among the nightly loungers there who had still a remnant of domestic
conscience left had already risen from boxes and "kags," and gathered up
the pound packages of sugar and coffee which had served as the pretext
for their coming, but which would not, alas! sufficiently account for
the length of their stay. The older stagers still sat composedly in the
seats of honor immediately surrounding the red-hot stove, and a look of
disapproval passed over their faces as Mr. Pegram, opening the door and
thereby letting in a blast of cold air upon their legs, proceeded to put
up the outside shutters.
"In a hurry to-night, ain't you, Pegram?" inquired Mr. Dickey, as the
proprietor returned, brushing flakes of snow from his coat and shivering
expressively.
"Well, not particular," replied Mr. Pegram, with a deliberation which
confirmed his words, "but it's pretty nigh nine, and Sally she ast me
not to be later _than_ nine to-night, for our hired girl's gone
home for a spell, and that makes it kind of lonesome for Sally: the baby
don't count for much, only when he cries, and I'll do him the justice to
say that isn't often."
"It's a new thing for Sally to be scary, ain't it?" queried Mr.
Crumlish, with an expression of mild surprise.
"Well, yes, I may say it is," admitted Mr. Pegram; "but, you know, we
had a kind of a warning, before we moved in, that all wasn't quite as it
should be, and, as bad luck would have it, there was a Boston paper come
round her new coat, with a story in it that laid out to be true, of
noises and appearances, and one thing and another, in a house right
there to Boston, and Sally she says to me, 'If they believe in them
things to Boston, where they don't believe in nothing they can't see and
handle, if all we hear's true, there must be something in it, and I only
wish I'd read that piece before we took the house.'
"I keep a-telling her we've neither seen nor heard nothing out of the
common, so far, but all she'll say to that is, 'That's no reason we
won't;' and sure enough it isn't, though I don't tell her so."
"But surely," said Mr. Birchard, the young schoolmaster, who boarded
with Mr. Dickey, "you don't believe any such trash as that account of a
haunted house in Boston?" There was a non-committal silence, and he went
on impatiently, "I could give you a dozen instances in which mysteries
of this kind, when they were energetically followed up, were proved to
be the results of the most simple and natural causes."
"Like enough, like enough, young man," said Uncle Jabez Snyder, in his
tremulous tones, "and mebbe some folks not a hunderd miles from here
could tell you another dozen that hadn't no natural causes."
"I should like very much to hear them," replied the young man, with an
exasperatingly incredulous smile.
"If Pegram here wasn't in such a durned hurry to turn us out and shet
up," said Mr. Dickey, with manifest irritation, "Uncle Jabez could tell
you all you want to hear."
Mr. Pegram looked disturbed. It was with him a fixed principle never to
disoblige a customer, and he saw that he was disobliging at least half a
dozen. On the other hand, he was not prepared to face his wife should he
so daringly disregard her wishes as to keep the store open half an hour
later than usual. He pondered for a few moments, and then his face
suddenly brightened, and he said, "If one of you gentlemen that passes
my house on your way home would undertake to put coal on the fire, put
the lights out, lock the door, and bring me the key, the store's at your
disposal till ten o'clock; and I'm only sorry I can't stay myself."
Two or three immediately volunteered, but as the schoolmaster and Mr.
Dickey were the only ones whose way lay directly past Mr. Pegram's door,
it was decided that they should divide the labors and honors between
them.
"I'd like you not to stop later _than_ ten," said Mr. Pegram
deprecatingly, as he buttoned his great-coat and drew his hat down over
his eyes, "for I have to be up so early, since that boy cleared out,
that I need to go to bed sooner than I mostly do."
Compliance with this modest request was readily promised, good-nights
were exchanged, and the lessened circle drew in more closely around the
stove, for several of the company had reluctantly decided that, all
things considered, it would be the better part of valor for them to go
when Mr. Pegram went.
There was a few minutes' silence, and then Mr. Dickey said impatiently,
"We're all ready, Uncle Jabez. Why don't you fire away, so's to be
through by ten o'clock?"
"I was a-thinkin' which one I'd best tell him," said Uncle Jabez mildly.
"They're all convincin' to a mind that's open to convincement, but I'd
like to pick out the one that's most so."
"There's the one about Alviry Pratt's grandfather," suggested Mr.
Crumlish encouragingly.
"No," mused the old man. "I've no doubt of that myself, but then it
didn't happen to me in person, and I've a notion he'd rather hear one
I've experienced than two I've heard tell of."
"Of course I would, Uncle Jabez," said Mr. Birchard kindly, but with an
amused twinkle in his eyes. "You take your own time: it's only just
struck nine, and there's no hurry at all."
"Supposin' I was to tell him that one about my first wife?" said the old
man presently, and with an inquiring look around the circle.
Several heads were nodded approvingly, and Mr. Crumlish said, "The very
one I'd 'a' chosen myself if you'd ast me."
Thus encouraged, Uncle Jabez, with a sort of deliberate promptness,
began: "We married very young, Lavina and me,--too young, some said, but
I never could see why, for I had a good farm, with health and strength
to carry it on, and she was a master-hand with butter and cheese. At any
rate, we thriv; and if we had plenty of children, there was plenty for
'em to eat, and they grew as fast as everything else did. She wasn't
what you'd fairly call handsome, Lavina wasn't, but she was
pleasant-appearin', very,--plump as a pa'tridge, with nice brown hair
and eyes and a clean-lookin' skin. But it was her smile in particular
that took me; and when she set in to laugh you couldn't no more' help
laughin' along with her than one bobolink can help laughin' back when he
hears another. She was the tenderest-hearted woman that ever breathed
the breath of life: she couldn't bear to hurt the feelin's of a cat, and
she'd go 'ithout a chicken-dinner any day sooner'n kill a chicken. As
time passed on and she begun to age a little, she grew stouter 'n'
stouter; but it didn't seem to worry her none. She'd puff and blow a
good bit when she went up-stairs, but she'd always laugh about it, and
say that when we was rich enough we'd put in an elevator, like they had
at a big hotel we saw once. It would suit her fine, she said, to set
down on a cushioned seat and be up-stairs afore she could git up again.
Now, you needn't think I'm wanderin' from the p'int," and Uncle Jabez
looked severely at Mr. Dickey, who was manifestly fidgeting. "All you
folks that have lived about here all your lives knew Lavina 'ithout my
tellin' you this; but Mr. Birchard he's a stranger in the neighborhood,
and it's needful to the understandin' of my story that he should know
just what sort of a woman she was,--or is, as I should say."
Mr. Dickey subsided, while Mr. Birchard tried to throw still more of an
expression of the deepest interest and attention into his face. He must
have succeeded, for the old man, going on with his story, fixed his eyes
more and more frequently upon those of the young one. They were large,
gentle, appealing blue eyes, with a mildly surprised expression, which
Mr. Birchard found exceedingly attractive. Whether or not the fact that
the youngest of Uncle Jabez's children, a daughter, had precisely
similar eyes, in any way accounted for the attraction, I leave to minds
more astute than my own.
"You may think," the narrator resumed, when he felt that he had settled
Mr. Dickey, "whether or not you'd miss a woman like that, when you'd
summered and wintered with her more'n forty year. She always said she
hoped she'd go sudden, for she was so heavy it would 'a' took three or
four of the common run of folks to lift her, and she dreaded a long
sickness. Well, she was took at her word. We was settin', as it might be
now, one on one side the fire, the other on t'other, in the big
easy-cheers that Samuel--that's our oldest son, and a good boy, if I do
say it--had sent us with the fust spare money he had. She'd been
laughin' and jokin', as she so often did, five minutes afore.
Gracie--she was a little thing then, and, bein' the youngest, a little
sassy and sp'iled, mebbe--had been on a trip to the city, and she'd
brought her ma a present of a shoe-buttoner with a handle a full foot
long.
"'There, ma,' she says, laughin' up in her mother's face; 'you was
complainin' about the distance it seemed to be to your feet: here's a
kind of a telegraft-pole to shorten it a little.'
"My, how we did laugh! And Lavina must needs try it right away, to
please Gracie; and she said it worked beautiful. But whether it was the
laughin' so much right on top of a hearty supper, or the bendin' down to
try her new toy, or both, she jest says, as natural as I'm speakin' now,
'Jabez, I'm a-goin'--' and then stopped. And when I looked up to see why
she didn't finish, she was gone, sure enough."
His voice broke, and he stopped abruptly. Mr. Birchard, without in the
least intending to do it, grasped his hand, and held it with
affectionate warmth for a moment.
"Thank you, young man, thank you kindly," said Uncle Jabez, recovering
his voice and shaking Mr. Birchard's hand heartily at the same moment.
"You've an uncommon feelin' heart for one so young.
"To say I was lonesome after she went don't say much; but time evens
things out after a while, or we couldn't stand it as long as we do.
Gracie she settled into a little woman all at once, as you may say, and
seemed older for a while than she does now. The rest was all married and
gone, but one boy,--a good boy, too. But they came around me, comfortin'
and helpin', though each one of 'em mourned her nigh as much as I did
myself; and after a while, as I said, I got used, in a manner, to doin'
'ithout her."
Here he made a long pause, with his eyes intently fixed upon the
darkness of the adjoining store-room. The heat from the stove had become
too great after the shutting of the shutters, and one of the men had
opened an inner door for ventilation.
Now, as one pair of eyes after another followed those of the old man,
there was a sort of subdued stir around the circle, and the
schoolmaster, to his intense disgust, caught himself looking hastily
over his shoulder,--the door being behind him.
Mr. Dickey broke the spell by suddenly rising, with the exclamation, "I
think we're cooled off about enough; and, as I'm a little rheumaticky
to-night, I'll shut that door, if you've none of you no objections."
There was a subdued murmur of assent, the door was closed, and Uncle
Jabez returned to the thread of his discourse:
"Lemme see: where was I? Oh, yes. You may think it a little strange,
now, but I didn't neither see nor hear tell of her for a full six
months. If I was makin' this story up, and anxious to make a _good_
story of it, you can see, if you're fair-minded, that I'd say she came
back right away. Now, wouldn't I be most likely to? Say?"
He appealed so directly to Mr. Birchard, pausing for a reply, that the
sceptic was obliged to answer in some way, and, with a curious sort of
reluctance, he said slowly, "Yes--I suppose--I'm sure you would."
This seemed to satisfy Uncle Jabez, and he went on with his story: