The Winning of the West

by Theodore Roosevelt

  Yet all the while they were planning further attacks; at the same time that they sent peace talks to Shelby they sent war talks to the Northwestern Indians, inviting them to join in a great combined movement against the Americans.25 When the news of Hamilton’s capture was brought it wrought a momentary discouragement; but the efforts of the British agents were unceasing, and by the end of the year most of the Southwestern Indians were again ready to take up the hatchet. The rapid successes of the royal armies in the Southern States had turned the Creeks into open antagonists of the Americans, and their war parties were sent out in quick succession, the British agents keeping alive the alliance by a continued series of gifts—for the Creeks were a venal, fickle race whose friendship could not otherwise be permanently kept.26

  As for the Cherokees, they had not confined themselves to sending the war belt to the Northwestern tribes, while professing friendship for the Americans; they had continued in close communication with the British Indian agents, assuring them that their peace negotiations were only shams, intended to blind the settlers, and that they would be soon ready to take up the hatchet.27 This time Cameron himself marched into the Cherokee country with his company of fifty tories, brutal outlaws, accustomed to savage warfare, and ready to take part in the worst Indian outrages.28. The ensuing Cherokee war was due not to the misdeeds of the settlers—though doubtless a few lawless whites occasionally did wrong to their red neighbors—but to the short-sighted treachery and ferocity of the savages themselves, and especially to the machinations of the tories and British agents. The latter unceasingly incited the Indians to ravage the frontier with torch and scalping knife. They deliberately made the deeds of the torturers and woman-killers their own, and this they did with the approbation of the British Government, and to its merited and lasting shame.

  Yet by the end of 1779 the inrush of settlers to the Holston regions had been so great that, as with Kentucky, there was never any real danger after this year that the whites would be driven from the land by the red tribes whose hunting-ground it once had been.

  1 The petition, drawn up in the summer of ’76, was signed by 112 men. It is given in full by Ramsey, p. 138. See also Phelan, p. 40.

  2 Haywood, p. 58. As Haywood’s narrative is based largely on what the pioneers in their old age told him, his dates, and especially his accounts of the numbers and losses of the Indians in their battles, are often very inaccurate. In this very chapter he gives, with gross inaccuracy of detail, an account of one of Sevier’s campaigns as taking place in 1779, whereas it really occurred after his return from King’s Mountain. There is therefore need to be cautious in using them.

  3 However this was not actually done until some years later.

  4 Smythe’s Tours, I, 103, describes the up-country crackers of North Carolina and Virginia.

  5 See “East Tennessee a Hundred Years Ago,” by the Hon. John Allison, Nashville, 1887, p. 8.

  6 Ramsey, 144.

  7 Campbell MSS. Notes by Gov. David Campbell.

  8 MSS. “Notes of Conversations with Old Pioneers,” by Ramsey, in Tenn. Hist. Soc. Campbell MSS.

  9 “Sketch of Mrs. Elizabeth Russell,” by her grandson, Thomas L. Preston, Nashville, 1888, p. 29. An interesting pamphlet.

  10 Campbell MSS. Notes, by Gov. David Campbell.

  11 See Preston’s pamphlet on Mrs. Russell, pp. 11-18.

  12 See ante, Chapter III of “In the Current of the Revolution.”

  13 Shelby’s MS. autobiography, copy in Col. Durrett’s library.

  14 Va. State Papers, III, 271; the settlers always spoke of it as the “suck” or “whirl.”

  15 Shelby MS.

  16 Chas. Robertson to Captain-General of North Carolina, April 27, 1777.

  17 See ante, Chap. V, “In the Current of the Revolution.”

  18 Monette (followed by Ramsey and others) hopelessly confuses these small relief expeditions; he portrays Logan as a messenger from Boone’s Station, is in error as to the siege of the latter, etc.

  19 Haldimand MSS. Letter of Rainsford and Tait to Hamilton, April 9, 1779.

  20 Haldimand MSS. Series B, Vol. 117, p. 131. Letter of Alexander Cameron, July 15, 1779.

  21 Do. “A rebel commissioner in Chote being informed of their movments here sent express into Holston River.” This “rebel commissioner” was in all probability Robertson.

  22 State Department MSS. No. 51, Vol. II, p. 17, a letter from the British agents among the Creeks to Lord George Germaine, of July 12, 1779. It says “near 300 rebels”; Hay wood, whose accounts are derived from oral tradition, says one thousand. Cameron’s letter of July 15th in the Haldimand MSS. says seven hundred. Some of them were Virginians who had been designed for Clark’s assistance in his Illinois campaign, but who were not sent him. Shelby made a very clever stroke, but it had no permanent effect, and it is nonsense to couple it, as has been recently done, with Clark’s campaigns.

  23 Cameron in his letter says four, which is probably near the truth. Haywood says forty, which merely represents the backwoods tradition on the subject, and is doubtless a great exaggeration.

  24 State Department MSS. No. 71, Vol. I, p. 255, letter of Evan Shelby, June 4, 1779.

  25 Haldimand MSS. Series B, Vol. 117, p. 157. A talk from the Cherokees to the envoy from the Wabash and other Indians, July 12, 1779. One paragraph is interesting: “We can not forget the talk you brought us some years ago into this Nation, which was to take up the hatchet against the Virginians. We heard and listened to it with great attention, and before the time that was appointed to lift it we took it up and struck the Virginians. Our Nation was alone and surrounded by them. They were numerous and their hatchets were sharp; and after we had lost some of our best warriors, we were forced to leave our towns and corn to be burnt by them, and now we live in the grass as you see us. But we are not yet conquered, and to convince you that we have not thrown away your talk here are 4 strands of wham pums we received from you when you came before as a messenger to our Nation.”

  26 State Department MSS. Papers Continental Congress. Intercepted Letters, No. 51, Vol. II. Letter of British Agents Messrs. Rainsford, Mitchell, and Macullagh, of July 12, 1779. “The present unanimity of the Creek Nation is no doubt greatly owing to the rapid successes of His Majesty’s forces in the Southern provinces, as they have now no cause to apprehend the least danger from the Rebels … we have found by experience that without presents the Indians are not to be depended on.”

  27 Do., No. 71, Vol. II, p. 189. Letter of David Tait to Oconostota. “I believe what you say about telling lies to the Virginians to be very right.”

  28 Do., No. 51, Vol. II. Letter of the three agents. “The Cherokees are now exceedingly well disposed. Mr. Cameron is now among them… . Captain Cameron has his company of Loyal Refugees with him, who are well qualified for the service they are engaged in… . He carried up with him a considerable quantity of presents and ammunition which are absolutely necessary to engage the Indians to go upon service.”

  CHAPTER V

  KING’S MOUNTAIN, 1780

  DURING THE Revolutionary War the men of the West for the most part took no share in the actual campaigning against the British and Hessians. Their duty was to conquer and hold the wooded wilderness that stretched westward to the Mississippi; and to lay therein the foundations of many future commonwealths. Yet at a crisis in the great struggle for liberty, at one of the darkest hours for the patriot cause, it was given to a band of Western men to come to the relief of their brethren of the seaboard and to strike a telling and decisive blow for all America. When the three Southern provinces lay crushed and helpless at the feet of Cornwallis, the Holston backwoodsmen suddenly gathered to assail the triumphant conqueror. Crossing the mountains that divided them from the beaten and despairing people of the tidewater region, they killed the ablest lieutenant of the British commander, and at a single stroke undid all that he had done.

  By the end of 1779 the British had reconquered Georgia. In May, 1780, they c
aptured Charleston, speedily reduced all South Carolina to submission, and then marched into the old North State. Cornwallis, much the ablest of the British generals, was in command over a mixed force of British, Hessian, and loyal American regulars, aided by Irish volunteers and bodies of refugees from Florida. In addition, the friends to the king’s cause, who were very numerous in the southernmost States, rose at once on the news of the British successes, and thronged to the royal standards; so that a number of regiments of tory militia were soon embodied. McGillivray, the Creek chief, sent bands of his warriors to assist the British and tories on the frontier, and the Cherokees likewise came to their help. The patriots for the moment abandoned hope, and bowed before their victorious foes.

  Cornwallis himself led the main army northward against the American forces. Meanwhile he intrusted to two of his most redoubtable officers the task of scouring the country, raising the loyalists, scattering the patriot troops that were still embodied, and finally crushing out all remaining opposition. These two men were Tarleton the dashing cavalryman, and Ferguson the rifleman, the skilled partisan leader.

  Patrick Ferguson, the son of Lord Pitfour, was a Scotch soldier, at this time about thirty-six years old, who had been twenty years in the British army. He had served with distinction against the French in Germany, had quelled a Carib uprising in the West Indies, and in 1777 was given the command of a company of riflemen in the army opposed to Washington.1 He played a good part at Brandywine and Monmouth. At the former battle he was wounded by an American sharpshooter, and had an opportunity, of which he forbore taking advantage, to himself shoot an American officer of high rank, who unsuspectingly approached the place where he lay hid; he always insisted that the man he thus spared was no less a person than Washington. While suffering from his wound, Sir William Howe disbanded his rifle corps, distributing it among the light companies of the different regiments; and its commander in consequence became an unattached volunteer in the army. But he was too able to be allowed to remain long unemployed. When the British moved to New York he was given the command of several small independent expeditions, and was successful in each case; once, in particular, he surprised and routed Pulaski’s legion, committing great havoc with the bayonet, which was always with him a favorite weapon. His energy and valor attracted much attention; and when a British army was sent against Charleston and the South he went along, as a lieutenant-colonel of a recently raised regular regiment, known as the American Volunteers.2

  Cornwallis speedily found him to be peculiarly fitted for just such service as was needed; for he possessed rare personal qualities. He was of middle height and slender build, with a quiet, serious face and a singularly winning manner; and withal, he was of literally dauntless courage, of hopeful, eager temper, and remarkably fertile in shifts and expedients. He was particularly fond of night attacks, surprises, and swift, sudden movements generally, and was unwearied in drilling and disciplining his men. Not only was he an able leader, but he was also a finished horseman, and the best marksman with both pistol and rifle in the British army. Being of quick, inventive mind, he constructed a breech-loading rifle, which he used in battle with deadly effect. This invention had been one of the chief causes of his being brought into prominence in the war against America, for the British officers especially dreaded the American sharpshooters.3 It would be difficult to imagine a better partisan leader, or one more fitted by his feats of prowess and individual skill, to impress the minds of his followers. Moreover, his courtesy stood him in good stead with the people of the country; he was always kind and civil, and would spend hours in talking affairs over with them and pointing out the mischief of rebelling against their lawful sovereign. He soon became a potent force in winning the doubtful to the British side, and exerted a great influence over the tories; they gathered eagerly to his standard, and he drilled them with patient perseverance.

  After the taking of Charleston Ferguson’s volunteers and Tarleton’s legion acting separately or together speedily destroyed the different bodies of patriot soldiers. Their activity and energy was such that the opposing commanders seemed for the time being quite unable to cope with them, and the American detachments were routed and scattered in quick succession.4 On one of these occasions, the surprise at Monk’s Corners, where the American commander, Huger, was slain, Ferguson’s troops again had a chance to show their skill in the use of the bayonet.

  Tarleton did his work with brutal ruthlessness; his men plundered and ravaged, maltreated prisoners, outraged women, and hanged without mercy all who were suspected of turning from the loyalist to the whig side. His victories were almost always followed by massacres; in particular, when he routed with small loss a certain Captain Buford, his soldiers refused to grant quarter, and mercilessly butchered the beaten Americans.5

  Ferguson, on the contrary, while quite as valiant and successful a commander, showed a generous heart, and treated the inhabitants of the country fairly well. He was especially incensed at any outrage upon women, punishing the offender with the utmost severity, and as far as possible he spared his conquered foes. Yet even Ferguson’s tender mercies must have seemed cruel to the whigs, as may be judged by the following extract from a diary kept by one of his lieutenants6: “This day Col. Ferguson got the rear guard in order to do his King and country justice, by protecting friends and widows, and destroying rebel property; also to collect live stock for the use of the army. All of which we effect as we go by destroying furniture, breaking windows, etc., taking all their horned cattle, horses, mules, sheep, etc., and their negroes to drive them.” When such were the authorized proceedings of troops under even the most merciful of the British commanders, it is easy to guess what deeds were done by uncontrolled bodies of stragglers bent on plunder.

  When Ferguson moved into the back country of the two Carolinas still worse outrages followed. In the three southernmost of the thirteen rebellious colonies there was a very large tory party.7 In consequence the struggle in the Carolinas and Georgia took the form of a ferocious civil war. Each side in turn followed up its successes by a series of hangings and confiscations, while the lawless and violent characters fairly reveled in the confusion. Neither side can be held guiltless of many and grave misdeeds; but for reasons already given the bulk—but by no means the whole—of the criminal and disorderly classes espoused the king’s cause in the regions where the struggle was fiercest. They murdered, robbed, or drove off the whigs in their hour of triumph; and in turn brought down ferocious reprisals on their own heads and on those of their luckless associates.

  Moreover, Cornwallis and his under-officers tried to cow and overawe the inhabitants by executing some of the men whom they deemed the chief and most criminal leaders of the rebellion, especially such as had sworn allegiance and then again taken up arms 8; of course retaliation in kind followed. Ferguson himself hanged some men; and though he did his best to spare the country people, there was much plundering and murdering by his militia.

  In June he marched to upper South Carolina, moving to and fro, calling out the loyal militia. They responded enthusiastically, and three or four thousand tories were embodied in different bands. Those who came to Ferguson’s own standard were divided into companies and regiments, and taught the rudiments of discipline by himself and his subalterns. He soon had a large but fluctuating force under him, in part composed of good men, loyal adherents of the king (these being very frequently recent arrivals from England, or else Scotch high-landers), in part also of cut-throats, horse-thieves, and desperadoes of all kinds who wished for revenge on the whigs and were eager to plunder them. His own regular force was also mainly composed of Americans, although it contained many Englishmen. His chief subordinates were Lieutenant-Colonels De Peyster 9 and Cruger; the former usually serving under him, the latter commanding at Ninety-Six. They were both New York loyalists, members of old Knickerbocker families; for in New York many of the gentry and merchants stood by the king.

  Ferguson moved rapidly from place to place, brea
king up the bodies of armed whigs; and the latter now and then skirmished fiercely with similar bands of tories, sometimes one side winning, sometimes the other. Having reduced South Carolina to submission the British commander then threatened North Carolina; and Col. McDowell, the commander of the whig militia in that district, sent across the mountains to the Holston men praying that they would come to his help. Though suffering continually from Indian ravages, and momentarily expecting a formidable inroad, they responded nobly to the call. Sevier remained to patrol the border and watch the Cherokees, while Isaac Shelby crossed the mountains with a couple of hundred mounted riflemen, early in July. The mountain men were joined by McDowell, with whom they found also a handful of Georgians and some South Carolinans; who when their States were subdued had fled northward, resolute to fight their oppressors to the last.