General Anthony Wayne.
198. British Movement on the South.—The efforts thus far made to destroy the revolutionary army by striking at its center having failed, the British determined in the spring of 1779 upon a new policy. It was decided to attack the South, partly for the purpose of bringing the Southern states completely under their control, and partly for the purpose of drawing off a portion of Washington’s army. In the execution of this plan they had no difficulty in overrunning Georgia and South Carolina, but Washington understood perfectly well that the temporary loss of the Southern states would not mean the loss of the cause if the Middle states and New England could be kept together. He therefore refused to weaken his grip upon the Hudson. In July, General Anthony Wayne[[91]] took by storm the seemingly impregnable position at Stony Point on the Hudson, in one of the most brilliant assaults of the war. His fearless dash, which was made at midnight, caused him to be known as “Mad Anthony.”
CONDITIONS WEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES.
199. British Control in the West.—At the outbreak of the war the vast region west of the mountains was already the field of much strife between the Indians and the few settlers that had pushed their way along the valleys into what was then the far West. The territory between the mountains and the Mississippi River, a region twice as large as the German Empire, was still an almost unbroken wilderness. French settlements had been established at Detroit, at Vincennes on the Wabash, and at Natchez, Kaskaskia, and Cahokia on the Mississippi. But these fortified hamlets since the fall of Quebec had been controlled by British garrisons. Though the region was thus under British dominion, it was claimed by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia by authority of their original charters. The possession of the whole region was therefore involved in the war.
Wayne’s Dispatch to Washington.
200. Settlements in Tennessee and Kentucky.—Virginia and North Carolina were the first to send explorers and settlers into this distant region. Before the outbreak of the war, Daniel Boone[[92]] had explored the Kentucky Kiver, and Virginia surveyors had gone down the Ohio as far as the present site of Louisville, which was soon after named in honor of our new ally, the reigning king of France, Louis XVI. Virginians entered the country as settlers, and their sympathy with the revolutionary movement was so intense that they named one of their principal towns Lexington, in honor of the village where the first shots had been fired. The pioneers of most influence in Tennessee were James Robertson and John Sevier, who played a part as explorers and organizers much like the parts played by Daniel Boone and James Harrod in Kentucky. In both of these regions laws were enacted and courts instituted, and when the Continental Congress met, delegates were sent to it to represent the interests of the new settlements. The one was called the State of Transylvania and the other the County of Kentucky.
Daniel Boone.
201. Border Warfare.—The early years of these settlements were periods of constant hardship and of strife with the Indians. Even before the Revolutionary War broke out, the Indians organized for systematic resistance. This was the result partly of outrageous treatment by the white settlers, and partly of repeated Indian depredations.