Volume II Part 15 (1/2)

In the burnt towns, and on the dead warriors, were found many letters and proclamations from the British agents and commanders, showing that almost every chief in the nation had been carrying on a double game; for the letters covered the periods at which they had been treating with the Americans and earnestly professing their friends.h.i.+p for the latter and their determination to be neutral in the contest then waging. As Campbell wrote in his report to the Virginian governor, no people had ever acted with more foolish duplicity.

Before returning, the three commanders, Campbell, Sevier, and Martin, issued an address to the Otari chiefs and warriors, and sent it by one of their captured braves, who was to deliver it to the head-men.

[Footnote: Campbell MSS. Issued at Kai-a-tee, Jan. 4, 1781; the copy sent to Governor Jefferson is dated Feb. 28th.] The address set forth what the white troops had done, telling the Indians it was a just punishment for their folly and perfidy in consenting to carry out the wishes of the British agents; it warned them shortly to come in and treat for peace, lest their country should again be visited, and not only laid waste, but conquered and held for all time. Some chiefs came in to talk, and were met at Chota [Footnote: The Tennessee historians all speak of this as a treaty; and probably a meeting did take place as described; but it led to nothing, and no actual treaty was made until some months later.]; but though they were anxious for peace they could not restrain the vindictive spirit of the young braves, nor prevent them from hara.s.sing the settlements. Nor could the white commanders keep the frontiersmen from themselves settling within the acknowledged boundaries of the Indian territory. They were constantly pressing against the lines, and eagerly burst through at every opening. When the army marched back from burning the Overhill towns, they found that adventurous settlers had followed in its wake, and had already made clearings and built cabins near all the best springs down to the French Broad. People of every rank showed keen desire to encroach on the Indian lands.

[Footnote: Calendar of Va. State Papers, II., letter of Col. Wm.

Christian to Governor of Virginia, April 10, 1781.]

The success of this expedition gave much relief to the border, and was hailed with pleasure throughout Virginia [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 15, Feb. 25, 1781.] and North Carolina. Nevertheless the war continued without a break, bands of warriors from the middle towns coming to the help of their disheartened Overhill brethren. Sevier determined to try one of his swift, sudden strokes against these new foes. Early in March he rode off at the head of a hundred and fifty picked hors.e.m.e.n, resolute to penetrate the hitherto untrodden wilds that s.h.i.+elded the far-off fastnesses where dwelt the Erati. Nothing shows his daring, adventurous nature more clearly than his starting on such an expedition; and only a man of strong will and much power could have carried it to a successful conclusion. For a hundred and fifty miles he led his hors.e.m.e.n through a mountainous wilderness where there was not so much as a hunter's trail. They wound their way through the deep defiles and among the towering peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains, descending by pa.s.ses so precipitous that it was with difficulty the men led down them even such surefooted beasts as their hardy hill-horses. At last they burst out of the woods and fell like a thunderbolt on the towns of the Erati, nestling in their high gorges. The Indians were completely taken by surprise; they had never dreamed that they could be attacked in their innermost strongholds, cut off, as they were, from the nearest settlements by vast trackless wastes of woodland and lofty, bald-topped mountain chains. They had warriors enough to overwhelm Sevier's band by sheer force of numbers, but he gave them no time to gather. Falling on their main town, he took it by surprise and stormed it, killing thirty warriors and capturing a large number of women and children. Of these, however, he was able to bring in but twenty, who were especially valuable because they could be exchanged for white captives. He burnt two other towns and three small villages, destroying much provision and capturing two hundred horses. He himself had but one man killed and one wounded. Before the startled warriors could gather to attack him he plunged once more into the wilderness, carrying his prisoners and plunder, and driving the captured horses before him; and so swift were his motions that he got back in safety to the settlements. [Footnote: _Do_. Letters of Col. Wm. Christian, April 10, 1781; of Joseph Martin, March 1st; and of Arthur Campbell, March 28th. The accounts vary slightly; for instance, Christian gives him one hundred and eighty, Campbell only one hundred and fifty men. One account says he killed thirty, another twenty Indians. Martin, by the way, speaks bitterly of the militia as men ”who do duty at times as their inclination leads them.” The incident, brilliant enough anyhow, of course grows a little under Ramsey and Haywood; and Mr. Kirke fairly surpa.s.ses himself when he comes to it.] The length of the journey, the absolutely untravelled nature of the country, which no white man, save perhaps an occasional wandering hunter, had ever before traversed, the extreme difficulty of the route over the wooded, cliff-scarred mountains, and the strength of the Cherokee towns that were to be attacked, all combined to render the feat most difficult. For its successful performance there was need of courage, hardihood, woodcraft, good judgment, stealth, and great rapidity of motion. It was one of the most brilliant exploits of the border war.

Even after his return Sevier was kept busy pursuing and defeating small bands of plundering savages. In the early summer he made a quick inroad south of the French Broad. At the head of over a hundred hard riders he fell suddenly on the camp of a war party, took a dozen scalps, and scattered the rest of the Indians in every direction. A succession of these blows completely humbled the Cherokees, and they sued for peace; thanks to Sevier's tactics, they had suffered more loss than they had inflicted, an almost unknown thing in these wars with the forest Indians. In midsummer peace was made by a treaty at the Great Island of the Holston.

End of the War with the British and Tories.

During the latter half of the year, when danger from the Indians had temporarily ceased, Sevier and Shelby led down bands of mounted riflemen to a.s.sist the American forces in the Carolinas and Georgia. They took an honorable share under Marion in some skirmishes against the British and Hessians but they did not render any special service, and Greene found he could place no reliance on them for the actual stubborn campaigns that broke the strength of the king's armies. They enlisted for very short periods, and when their time was up promptly returned to their mountains, for they were sure to get home-sick and uneasy about their families; and neither the officers nor the soldiers had any proper idea of the value of obedience. Among their own hills and forests and for their own work, they were literally unequalled; and they were ready enough to swoop down from their strongholds, strike some definite blow, or do some single piece of valiant fighting in the low country, and then fall back as quickly as they had come. But they were not particularly suited for a pitched battle in the open, and were quite unfitted to carry on a long campaign. [Footnote: Shelby MSS. Of course Shelby paints these skirmishes in very strong colors. Haywood and Ramsey base their accounts purely on his papers.]; [Footnote: Ramsey and his followers endeavor to prove that the mountain men did excellently in these 1781 campaigns; but the endeavor is futile. They were good for some one definite stroke, but their shortcomings were manifest the instant a long campaign was attempted; and the comments of the South Carolina historians upon their willingness to leave at unfortunate moments are on the whole just. They behaved somewhat as Stark and the victors at Bennington did when they left the American army before Saratoga; although their conduct was on the whole better than that of Stark's men.

They were a brave, hardy, warlike band of irregulars, probably better fighters than any similar force on this continent or elsewhere; but occasional brilliant exceptions must not blind us to the general inefficiency of the Revolutionary militia, and their great inferiority to the Continentals of Was.h.i.+ngton, Greene, and Wayne. See Appendix.]

In one respect the mountain men deserve great credit for their conduct in the Carolinas. As a general thing they held aloof from the plundering. The frightful character of the civil war between the whigs and tories, and the excesses of the British armies, had utterly demoralized the southern States; they were cast into a condition of anarchic disorder, and the conflicts between the patriots and loyalists degenerated into a b.l.o.o.d.y scramble for murder and plunder wherein the whigs behaved as badly as ever the tories had done. [Footnote: In the Clay MSS. there is a letter from Jesse Benton (the father of the great Missouri Senator) to Col. Thos. Hart, of March 23d, 1783, which gives a glimpse of the way in which the tories were treated even after the British had been driven out; it also shows how soon maltreatment of royalists was turned into general misrule and rioting. The letter runs, in part, as follows:

”I cannot help mentioning to You an Evil which seems intaild upon the upper part of this State, to wit, Mobbs and commotions amongst the People. I shall give you the particulars of the last Work of this kind which lately happend, & which is not yet settled; Plunder being the first cause. The Scoundrels, under the cloak of great Whigs cannot bear the thought of paying the unfortunate Wretches whom Fame and ill will call Tories (though many of them perhaps honest, industrious and useful men) for plunderd property; but on the other Hand think they together with their Wives and Children (who are now beging for Mercy) ought to be punished to the utmost extremity. I am sorry that Col. O Neal and his Brother Peter, who have been useful men and whom I am in hopes are pretty clear of plundering, should have a hand in Arbitrary measures at this Day when the Civil Laws might take place.

”One Jacob Graves son of old John of Stinking Quarter, went off & was taken with the British Army, escaped from the Guards, came & surrendered himself to Gen'l Butler, about the middle of Last month & went to his Family upon Parole. Col. O Neal being informed of this, armed himself with Gun and sword, went to Graves's in a pa.s.sion, Graves shut the Door, O Neal broke it down, Graves I believe thinking his own Life at stake, took his Brothers Gun which happened to be in the house & shot O Neal through the Breast.

”O Neal has suffered much but is now recovering. This accident has inflamed and set to work those who were afraid of suffering for their unjust and unwarrantable Deeds, the Ignorant honest men are also willing to take part against their Rulers & I don't know when nor where it is to end, but I wish it was over. At the Guilford Feb'y Court Peter O Neal & others armed with clubs in the Face of the Court then sitting and in the Court house too, beat some men called Tories so much that their Lives were despaired of, broke up the Court and finally have stopd the civil Laws in that County. Your old Friend Col. Dunn got out at Window, fled in a Fright, took cold and died immediately. Rowan County Court I am told was also broke up.

”If O Neal should die I fear that a number of the unhappy wretches called Tories will be Murdered, and that a man disposed to do justice dare not interfere, indeed the times seem to imitate the commencement of the Regulators.”] Men were shot, houses burned, horses stolen, and negroes kidnapped; even the unfortunate freedmen of color were hurried off and sold into slavery. It was with the utmost difficulty that a few wise and good commanders, earnest lovers of their country, like the gallant General Pickens, were able to put a partial stop to these outrages, and gather a few brave men to help in overcoming the foreign foe. To the honor of the troops under Sevier and Shelby be it said that they took little part in these misdeeds. There were doubtless some men among them who shared in all the evil of that turbulent time; but most of these frontier riflemen, though poor and ignorant, were sincerely patriotic; they marched to fight the oppressor, to drive out the stranger, not to ill-treat their own friends and countrymen.

Towards the end of these campaigns, which marked the close of the Revolutionary struggle, Shelby was sent to the North Carolina Legislature, where he served for a couple of terms. Then, when peace was formally declared, he removed to Kentucky, where he lived ever afterwards. Sevier stayed in his home on the Nolichucky, to be thenceforth, while his life lasted, the leader in peace and war of his beloved mountaineers.

Quarrels over the Land

Early in 1782 fresh difficulties arose with the Indians. In the war just ended the Cherokees themselves had been chiefly to blame. The whites were now in their turn the aggressors the trouble being, as usual, that they encroached on lands secured to the red men by solemn treaty. The Watauga settlements had been kept compact by the presence of the neighboring Indians. They had grown steadily but slowly. They extended their domain slightly after every treaty, such treaty being usually though not always the sequel to a successful war; but they never gained any large stretch of territory at once. Had it not been for the presence of the hostile tribes they would have scattered far and wide over the country, and could not have formed any government.

The preceding spring (1781) the land office had been closed, not to be opened until after peace with Great Britain was definitely declared, the utter demoralization of the government bringing the work to a standstill. The rage for land speculation, however, which had continued, even in the stormiest days of the Revolution, grew tenfold in strength after Yorktown, when peace at no distant day was a.s.sured. The wealthy land speculators of the seaboard counties made agreements of various sorts with the more prominent frontier leaders in the effort to secure large tracts of good country. The system of surveying was much better than in Kentucky, but it was still by no means perfect, as each man placed his plot wherever he chose, first describing the boundary marks rather vaguely, and leaving an illiterate old hunter to run the lines.

Moreover, the intending settler frequently absented himself for several months, or was temporarily chased away by the Indians, while the official record books were most imperfect. In consequence, many conflicts ensued. The frontiersmen settled on any spot of good land they saw fit, and clung to it with defiant tenacity, whether or not it afterwards proved to be on a tract previously granted to some land company or rich private individual who had never been a hundred miles from the sea-coast. Public officials went into these speculations. Thus Major Joseph Martin, while an Indian agent, tried to speculate in Cherokee lands. [Footnote: See Va. State Papers, III., 560.] Of course the officer's public influence was speedily destroyed when he once undertook such operations; he could no longer do justice to outsiders.

Occasionally the falseness of his position made him unjust to the Indians; more often it forced him into league with the latter, and made him hostile to the borderers. [Footnote: This is a chief reason why the reports of the Indian agents are so often bitterly hostile towards those of their own color.]

Before the end of the Revolution the trouble between the actual settlers and the land speculators became so great that a small subsidiary civil war was threatened. The rough riflemen resolutely declined to leave their clearings, while the t.i.tular owners appealed to the authority of the loose land laws, and wished them to be backed up by the armed force of the State. [Footnote: See in Durrett MSS. papers relating to Isaac Shelby; letter of John Taylor to Isaac Shelby, June 8, 1782.]

The government of North Carolina was far too weak to turn out the frontiersmen in favor of the speculators to whom the land had been granted,--often by fraudulent means, or at least for a ridiculously small sum of money. Still less could it prevent its unruly subjects from trespa.s.sing on the Indian country, or protect them if they were themselves threatened by the savages. It could not do justice as between its own citizens, and it was quite incompetent to preserve the peace between them and outsiders. [Footnote: Calendar of Va. State Papers, III., p. 213.] The borderers were left to work out their own salvation.

Further Indian Troubles.

By the beginning of 1782 settlements were being made south of the French Broad. This alarmed and irritated the Indians, and they sent repeated remonstrances to Major Martin, who was Indian agent, and also to the governor of North Carolina. The latter wrote Sevier, directing him to drive off the intruding settlers, and pull down their cabins. Sevier did not obey. He took purely the frontier view of the question, and he had no intention of hara.s.sing his own staunch adherents for the sake of the savages whom he had so often fought. Nevertheless, the Cherokees always liked him personally, for he was as open-handed and free-hearted to them as to every one else, and treated them to the best he had whenever they came to his house. He had much justification for his refusal, too, in the fact that the Indians themselves were always committing outrages.

When the Americans reconquered the southern States many tories fled to the Cherokee towns, and incited the savages to hostility; and the outlying settlements of the borderers were being burned and plundered by members of the very tribes whose chiefs were at the same time writing to the governor to complain of the white encroachments. [Footnote: _Do_., p. 4.]

When in April the Cherokees held a friendly talk with Evan Shelby they admitted that the tories among them and their own evil-disposed young men committed ravages on the whites, but a.s.serted that most of them greatly desired peace, for they were weak and distressed, and had shrunk much in numbers. [Footnote: _Do_., p. 171, April 29, 1782.] The trouble was that when they were so absolutely unable to control their own bad characters, it was inevitable that they should become embroiled with the whites.

The worst members of each race committed crimes against the other, and not only did the retaliation often fall on the innocent, but, unfortunately, even the good men were apt to make common cause with the criminals of their own color. Thus in July the Chickamaugas sent in a talk for peace; but at that very time a band of their young braves made a foray into Powell's valley, killing two settlers and driving off some stock. They were pursued, one of their number killed, and most of the stock retaken. In the same month, on the other hand, two friendly Indians, who had a canoe laden with peltry, were murdered on the Holston by a couple of white ruffians, who then attempted to sell the furs. They were discovered, and the furs taken from them; but to their disgrace be it said, the people round about would not suffer the criminals to be brought to justice. [Footnote: _Do_., pp. 213, 248.]

The mutual outrages continued throughout the summer, and in September they came to a head. The great majority of the Otari of the Overhill towns were still desirous of peace, and after a council of their head-men the chief Old Ta.s.sel, of the town of Chota, sent on their behalf a strong appeal to the governors of both Virginia and North Carolina. The doc.u.ment is written with such dignity, and yet in a tone of such curious pathos, that it is worth giving in full, as putting in strongest possible form the Indian side of the case, and as a sample of the best of these Indian ”talks.”

”A Talk to Colonel Joseph Martin, by the Old Ta.s.sell, in Chota, the 25th of September, 1782, in favour of the whole nation. For His Excellency, the Governor of North Carolina. Present, all the chiefs of the friendly towns and a number of young men.