49. Doddridge, 161, 185.
50. At the best such a frontier levy was composed of men of the type of Leatherstocking, Ishmael Bush, Tom Hutter, Harry March, Bill Kirby, and Aaron Thousandacres. When animated by a common and overmastering passion, such a body would be almost irresistible; but it could not hold together long, and there was generally a plentiful mixture of men less trained in woodcraft, and therefore useless in forest fighting, while if, as must generally be the case in any body, there were a number of cowards in the ranks, the total lack of discipline not only permitted them to flinch from their work with impunity, but also allowed them, by their example, to infect and demoralize their braver companions.
51. Haywood, DeHaas, Withers, McClung, and other border annalists, give innumerable anecdotes about these and many other men, illustrating their feats of fierce prowess and, too often, of brutal ferocity.
52. McAfee MSS. The story is told both in the "Autobiography of Robert McAfee," and in the "History of the First Settlement on Salt River."
53. Incidents of this sort are frequently mentioned. Generally the woman went back to her first husband. "Early Times in Middle Tennessee," John Carr, Nashville, 1859, p. 231.
54. See "A Short History of the English Colonies in America," by Henry Cabot Lodge (New York, 1886), for an account of these people.
55. The regulators of backwoods society corresponded exactly to the vigilantes of the western border to-day. In many of the cases of lynch law which have come to my knowledge the effect has been healthy for the community; but sometimes great injustice is done. Generally the vigilantes, by a series of summary executions, do really good work; but I have rarely known them fail, among the men whom they killed for good reason, to also kill one or two either by mistake or to gratify private malice.
56. See Doddridge.
57. McAfee MSS.
58. Doddridge.