Whatever may have been the case elsewhere, the attacks on the Watauga and Holston settlements were not instigated by British agents. It was not Nancy Ward but Henry Stuart, John Stuart's deputy, who sent Isaac Thomas to warn the settlers. In their efforts to keep the friendship of the red men, the British and the Americans were providing them with powder and lead. The Indians had run short of ammunition and, since hunting was their only means of livelihood, they must shoot or starve. South Carolina sent the Cherokees a large supply of powder and lead which was captured en route by Tories. About the same time Henry Stuart set out from Pensacola with another consignment from the British. His report to Lord Germain of his arrival in the Chickamaugan towns and of what took place there just prior to the raids on the Tennessee settlements is one of the most illuminating as well as one of the most dramatic papers in the collected records of that time. ¹
[¹] North Carolina Colonial Records, vol. X, pp. 763-785.
Stuart's first act was secretly to send out Thomas, the trader, to warn the settlers of their peril, for a small war party of braves was even then concluding the preliminary war ceremonies. The reason for this Indian alarm and projected excursion was the fact that the settlers had built one fort at least on the Indian lands. Stuart finally persuaded the Indians to remain at peace until he could write to the settlers stating the grievances and asking for negotiations. The letters were to be carried by Thomas on his return.
But no sooner was Thomas on his way again with the letters than there arrived a deputation of warriors from the Northern tribes—from “the Confederate nations, the Mohawks, Ottawas, Nantucas, Shawanoes and Delawares”—fourteen men in all, who entered the council hall of the Old Beloved Town of Chota with their faces painted black and the war belt carried before them. They said that they had been seventy days on their journey. Everywhere along their way they had seen houses and forts springing up like weeds across the green sod of their hunting lands. Where once were great herds of deer and buffalo, they had watched thousands of men at arms preparing for war. So many now were the white warriors and their women and children that the red men had been obliged to travel a great way on the other side of the Ohio and to make a detour of nearly three hundred miles to avoid being seen. Even on this outlying route they had crossed the fresh tracks of a great body of people with horses and cattle going still further towards the setting sun. But their cries were not to be in vain; for “their fathers, the French” had heard them and had promised to aid them if they would now strike as one for their lands.
After this preamble the deputy of the Mohawks rose. He said that some American people had made war on one of their towns and had seized the son of their Great Beloved Man, Sir William Johnson, imprisoned him, and put him to a cruel death; this crime demanded a great vengeance and they would not cease until they had taken it. One after another the fourteen delegates rose and made their “talks” and presented their wampum strings to Dragging Canoe. The last to speak was a chief of the Shawanoes. He also declared that “their fathers, the French,” who had been so long dead, were “alive again,” that they had supplied them plentifully with arms and ammunition and had promised to assist them in driving out the Americans and in reclaiming their country. Now all the Northern tribes were joined in one for this great purpose; and they themselves were on their way to all the Southern tribes and had resolved that, if any tribe refused to join, they would fall upon and extirpate that tribe, after having overcome the whites. At the conclusion of his oration the Shawanoe presented the war belt—nine feet of six-inch wide purple wampum spattered with vermilion—to Dragging Canoe, who held it extended between his two hands, in silence, and waited. Presently rose a headman whose wife had been a member of Sir William Johnson's household. He laid his hand on the belt and sang the war song. One by one, then, chiefs and warriors rose, laid hold of the great belt and chanted the war song. Only the older men, made wise by many defeats, sat still in their places, mute and dejected. “After that day every young fellow's face in the overhills towns appeared blackened and nothing was now talked of but war.”
Stuart reports that “all the white men” in the tribe also laid hands on the belt. Dragging Canoe then demanded that Cameron and Stuart come forward and take hold of the war belt—“which we refused.” Despite the offense their refusal gave—and it would seem a dangerous time to give such offense—Cameron delivered a “strong talk” for peace, warning the Cherokees of what must surely be the end of the rashness they contemplated. Stuart informed the chief that if the Indians persisted in attacking the settlements with out waiting for answers to his letters, he would not remain with them any longer or bring them any more ammunition. He went to his house and made ready to leave on the following day. Early the next morning Dragging Canoe appeared at his door and told him that the Indians were now very angry about the letters he had written, which could only have put the settlers on their guard; and that if any white man attempted to leave the nation “they had determined to follow him but not to bring him back.” Dragging Canoe had painted his face black to carry this message. Thomas now returned with an answer from “the West Fincastle men,” which was so unsatisfactory to the tribe that war ceremonies were immediately begun. Stuart and Cameron could no longer influence the Indians. “All that could now be done was to give them strict charge not to pass the Boundary Line, not to injure any of the King's faithful subjects, not to Kill any women and children”; and to threaten to “stop all ammunition” if they did not obey these orders.
The major part of the Watauga militia went out to meet the Indians and defeated a large advance force at Long Island Flats on the Holston. The Watauga fort, where many of the settlers had taken refuge, contained forty fighting men under Robertson and Sevier. As Indians usually retreated and waited for a while after a defeat, those within the fort took it for granted that no immediate attack was to be expected; and the women went out at daybreak into the fields to milk the cows. Suddenly the war whoop shrilled from the edge of the clearing. Red warriors leaped from the green skirting of the forest. The women ran for the fort. Quickly the heavy gates swung to and the dropped bar secured them. Only then did the watchmen discover that one woman had been shut out. She was a young woman nearing her twenties and, if legend has reported her truly, “Bonnie Kate Sherrill” was a beauty. Through a porthole Sevier saw her running towards the shut gates, dodging and darting, her brown hair blowing from the wind of her race for life—and offering far too rich a prize to the yelling fiends who dashed after her. Sevier coolly shot the foremost of her pursuers, then sprang upon the wall, caught up Bonnie Kate, and tossed her inside to safety. And legend says further that when, after Sevier's brief widowerhood, she became his wife, four years later, Bonnie Kate was wont to say that she would be willing to run another such race any day to have another such introduction!
There were no casualties within the fort and, after three hours, the foe withdrew, leaving several of their warriors slain.
In the excursions against the Indians which followed this opening of hostilities Sevier won his first fame as an “Indian fighter”—the fame later crystallized in the phrase “thirty-five battles, thirty-five victories.” His method was to take a very small company of the hardiest and swiftest horsemen—men who could keep their seat and endurance, and horses that could keep their feet and their speed, on any steep of the mountains no matter how tangled and rough the going might be—swoop down upon war camp, or town, and go through it with rifle and hatchet and fire, then dash homeward at the same pace before the enemy had begun to consider whether to follow him or not. In all his “thirty-five battles” it is said he lost not more than fifty men.