Haywood says the Georgia expedition was commanded by Col. Leonard McBury. Ramsey follows Haywood in this regard. All the other accounts say that Major or Colonel Jack was in command.
The campaign of the Virginia column is briefly described in Girardin's continuation of Berk's History of Virginia.[1421] Brief allusions to this campaign are made in Wheeler's Historical Sketches of North Carolina, and in Martin's History of North Carolina. The story is more fully told in an Historical Sketch of the Indian War of 1776, by D. L. Swain, which is reprinted from the North Carolina University Magazine (May, 1852) in the Historical Magazine (Nov., 1867, p. 273). This account states that there were "three armies simultaneously fitted out by Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina", but makes no mention of the work which the Georgia contingent had already performed.
A journal kept during the Williamson expeditions was published in the Historical Magazine, vol. xii. (Oct., 1867, p. 212), by Professor E. F. Rockwell, of North Carolina, as "Parallel and combined expedition against the Cherokee Indians in South and North Carolina in 1776." The writer describes the houses in the Cherokee towns as follows: "Their dwelling-houses is made some one way and some another. Some is made with saplings stuck in the ground upright; then laths tide on these with splits of cane or such like; So with daubing outside and in with mud merely, they finish a close warm building. They have no chimnies, and their fires are all in the middle of the houses."
C. L. Hunter, in Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, illustrating principally the Revolutionary period, etc. (Raleigh, 1877), under "General Griffith Rutherford" gives a brief account of the march against the middle towns, and under "Colonel Isaac Shelby" he gives a paragraph to the expedition against the Chickamaugas in 1779.
It has been stated that the Cherokee outbreak in the South was the first aggressive movement made by the Indians during the Revolutionary War, and that this fact has caused the joint attack of the colonies to be noticed in the general histories of the times. It naturally finds a place in Moultrie's Memoirs and in Ramsay's South Carolina, but without detail. If we turn to Drayton's Memoirs we shall find an extended account of the expeditions of Colonel Williamson, who commanded the South Carolina troops, in the summer of 1776, when they ravaged the Cherokee settlements,—the campaigns being illustrated by a map of which a fac-simile is given herewith. Several letters are published in the Appendix as authorities. The movements of Major Jack in Georgia are given (Ibid. p. 313), and some account of the march of General Rutherford's army from North Carolina and of the attempts at coöperation. It is stated (Ibid. p. 353) that Virginia also raised an army, but no account of the movement of the troops is given.
The American Archives contain reprints of letters from several points in the South, which enable us to trace the history of most of these movements. We have rumors of the outbreak from various places scattered from Georgia to Virginia; stories of the siege of Watauga and of the gathering of the Indians in Carter's Valley; accounts of the desolation along the frontier; of the marches of Rutherford and of Williamson; of the speech of Rutledge, and of the replies of the Council and of the Assembly of South Carolina.
The Remembrancer also reprints some of these letters. Drayton, in his Memoirs (ii. p. 212), says that Col. Bull, in March, 1776, marched to Savannah with four hundred Carolina troops, "to awe the disaffected, to support the Continental regulations, and in particular to prevent the merchant ships from going to sea." These troops were accompanied by some Georgia militia and by "about seventy men of the Creek and Euchee Indians." In corroboration of this statement Drayton cites the Remembrancer (1776, Part ii. pp. 333, 334), where is a letter from Charleston, which opens, "By a remarkable Providence, the Creek Indians have engaged in our favour." It then goes on to describe how they became enraged with the Tories because they destroyed the house of a white man with whom the Indians were friendly, and adds that "they have brought down 500, who have killed several men of the fleet."
Another reference to the use of Indians by the Americans will be found in McCall's Georgia (ii. p. 82), where he says that General Rutherford was "joined by the Catawba Indians."
Various accounts of events connected with these campaigns will be found in the Remembrancer (Part ii., 1776, pp. 286, 319-334; and Part iii., 1776, pp. 50, 252-274, and 275), including a letter, Sept. 4th, which says: "The colonel's (Williamson's) next object will be the middle towns, where he expects to be joined by General Rutherford with 200 [2,000?] North Carolinians. Colonel Lewis, of Virginia, will go against the upper or over hill settlements, so that we have no doubt the savages will be effectually chastised."
The treaty at De Witt's Corner, May 20, 1777, between South Carolina, Georgia, and the Cherokees was printed in the Boston Gazette and Country Journal, Aug. 18, 1777.