The Story of Old Fort Loudon

by Charles Egbert Craddock

The problem stayed with them all that night. They were forced to maintain a cheerful casual guise in the presence of their little public, and the appearance of the express put great heart into the soldiery. The fact that the commandant was in the immediate receipt of advices from Colonel Montgomery and his victorious army seemed itself a pledge of safety. The express was turned loose among them to rehearse the exploits of Montgomery's troops,—the splendid forced marches they made; the execution of their marksmanship; the terror that the Cherokees manifested of their sputtering grenades, hurled exploding into the ambuscades by the stalwart grenadiers at the word,—"Fall on"; the interest of the Indians in the sound of the bagpipes and in the national dress, the plaid and philibeg, of the Highlanders, which, although now generally proscribed by law, was continued as a privilege granted to those enlisted in regiments in the British army. He told of the delight of the Highlanders in the sight of the Great Smoky Mountains, how they rejoiced to climb the crags and steep ravines even of the foothills. He repeated jokes and gibes of the camp outside Fort Prince George, for Montgomery had overtaken him and raised the siege before he reached the fort, so difficult was the slow progress of the express among the inimical Cherokees. He detailed Colonel Montgomery's relish of the sight of a piece of field artillery which Ensign Milne showed him; that officer had mounted it one day before the siege when he was with a detail that he had ordered into the woods to get fuel for the post, and a band of Cherokees had descended upon him,—"a Quaker," he called it; you might have heard Colonel Montgomery laugh two hundred miles to Fort Loudon, for of course it wouldn't fight,—a very powerful Friend, indeed,—only a black log mounted between two wheels, which the soldiers had been in the habit of using to ease up the loads of wood. But the Indians were deceived, and with their terror of artillery got out of range in short order, and the soldiers made their way back into the fort under the protection of their "little Quaker."

When the barracks were lost in slumber, and the parade was deserted but for the moon, and the soft wind, and the echo of the tramp of the sentry, Captain Stuart went over to Captain Demeré's house, and there until late the two discussed the practicabilities, that each, like a blind trail, promised thoroughfare and led but to confusion. The officers did not dare to call for volunteers to carry dispatches to Montgomery, in the face of the fact that the express just arrived could not be prevailed on to return. Without, moreover, some assurance of the safety of the messengers previously sent out, no man would now so lightly venture his life as to seek to slip through the vigilant savage hordes. To explain the terrors of the crisis to the garrison would be to have the ferocious Cherokees without, and panic, mutiny, and violence within. Yet a man must go; a man who would return; a man who would risk torture and death twice. "For we must have some assurance of the delivery of our dispatches," Stuart argued. "I am anxious as to the homing qualities of our dove that we are about to send out of this ark of ours," he said, as he lay stretched out at full length on the buffalo rug on the floor, in the moonlight that fell so peacefully in at the window of his friend's bedroom. Demeré was recumbent on his narrow camp-bed, so still, so silent, that more than once Stuart asked him if he slept.

"How can I sleep,—with this sense of responsibility?" Demeré returned, reproachfully.

But Stuart slept presently, waking once to reply to Demeré's remark that a married man would have the homing quality desired, the fort holding his family; Stuart declared that no one would be willing to leave wife and children to such protection as other men might have presence of mind to give them in a desperate crisis. The mere communication might create a panic.

"Of all things," said Stuart, as he lay at his stalwart length, his long, fair hair blowsing in the wind over the rug, "I am most afraid of fear."

When Demeré presently asked him if he were quite comfortable down there, his unceremonious presence placing him somewhat in the position of guest, his silence answered for him, and he did not again speak or stir until the drums were sounding without and the troops were falling in line for roll-call.

Neither gave sign of their vigil; they both were exceedingly spruce, and fresh, and well set up, to sustain the covert scrutiny of the garrison, who regarded them as a sort of moral barometer of the situation, and sought to discern in their appearance the tenor of Montgomery's official dispatches.

That morning, when Stuart went with his spy-glass to reconnoiter from the tower of one of the block-houses, he noted, always keenly observant, a trifle of confusion, as he entered, in the manner of the sentinel,—the smart, fair-haired, freckled-faced young soldier whose services were sometimes used as orderly, and whose name was Daniel Eske. The boy immediately sought to appear unconcerned. The officer asked no question. He raised the glass to his eye and in one moment discerned, amongst the laurel jungles close to the river, an Indian, a young girl, who suddenly lifted her arm and gracefully waved her hand toward the bastion. Stuart lowered the glass and gravely looked a grim inquiry at the young soldier.

Daniel Eske answered precipitately: "For God's sake, sir, don't let this go against me. I'm not holding any communication with the enemy,—the red devils. That baggage, sir, has been twice a-waving her hand to me when I have been on guard here. I never took no notice, so help me God,—Captain,—I—"

The distance being minimized by the lens, Stuart could discern all the coquettish details of the apparition; the garb of white dressed doe skin—a fabric as soft and flexible, the writers of that day tell us, as "velvet cloth"—the fringed borders of which were hung with shells and bits of tinkling metal; the hair, duly anointed, black and lustrous, dressed high on the head and decorated with small wings of the red bird; many strings of red beads dangled about the neck, and the moccasons were those so highly valued by the Indians, painted an indelible red. With a definite realization of the menace of treachery in her presence, Stuart's face was stern indeed as he looked at her. All at once his expression changed.