No event materially affecting the interests of the colony occurred during the four years following Robertson's visit to the Cherokees at Echota. The battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought, but the shot which was "heard round the world" did not echo till months afterward in that secluded hamlet on the Watauga. But when it did reverberate amid those old woods, every backwoodsman sprang to his feet and asked to be enrolled to rush to the rescue of his countrymen on the seaboard. His patriotism was not stimulated by British oppression, for he was beyond the reach of the "king's minions." He had no grievances to complain of, for he drank no tea, used no stamps, and never saw a tax-gatherer. It was the "glorious cause of liberty," as Sevier expressed it, which called them all to arms to do battle for freedom and their countrymen.
"A company of fine riflemen was accordingly enlisted, and embodied at the expense and risque of their private fortunes, to act in defence of the common cause on the sea-shore."[001] But before the volunteers could be despatched over the mountains it became apparent that their services would be needed at home for the defence of the frontier against the Indians.
Through the trader Isaac Thomas it soon became known to the settlers that Cameron, the British agent, was among the Cherokees, endeavoring to incite them to hostilities against the Americans. At first the Indians resisted the enticements—the hopes of spoil and plunder and the recovery of their hunting-grounds—which Cameron held out to them. They could not understand how men of the same race and language could be at war with one another. It was never so known in Indian tradition. But soon—late in 1775—an event occurred which showed that the virus spread among them by the crafty Scotchman had begun to work, at least with the younger braves, and that it might at any moment break out among the whole nation. A trader named Andrew Grear, who lived at Watauga, had been at Echota. He had disposed of his wares, and was about to return with the furs he had taken in exchange, when he perceived signs of hostile feeling among some of the young warriors, and on his return, fearing an ambuscade on the great war-path, he left it before he reached the crossing at the French Broad, and went homeward by a less-frequented trail along the Nolachucky. Two other traders, named Boyd and Dagget, who left Echota on the following day, pursued the usual route, and were waylaid and murdered at a small stream which has ever since borne the name of Boyd's Creek. In a few days their bodies were found, only half concealed in the shallow water; and as the tidings flew among the scattered settlements they excited universal alarm and indignation.
The settlers had been so long at peace with the Cherokees that they had been lulled into a false security; but, the savage having once tasted blood, they knew his appetite would "grow by what it fed on," and they prepared for a deadly struggle with an enemy of more than twenty times their number. The fort at Watauga was at once put into a state of efficient defence, smaller forts were erected in the centre of every scattered settlement, and a larger one was built on the frontier, near the confluence of the north and south forks of the Holston River, to protect the more remote settlements. This last was called Fort Patrick Henry, in honor of the patriotic governor of Virginia. The one at Watauga received the name of Fort Lee.
All the able-bodied males sixteen years of age and over were enrolled, put under competent officers, and drilled for the coming struggle. But the winter passed without any further act of hostility on the part of the disaffected Cherokees. The older chiefs, true to their pledges to Robertson, still held back, and were able to restrain the younger braves, who thirsted for the conflict from a passion for the excitement and glory they could find only in battle.
Nancy Ward was in the secrets of the Cherokee leaders, and every word uttered in their councils she faithfully repeated to the trader Isaac Thomas, who conveyed the intelligence personally or by trusty messengers to Sevier and Robertson at Watauga. Thus the settlers were enabled to circumvent the machinations of Cameron until a more powerful enemy appeared among the Cherokees in the spring of 1776. This was John Stuart, British superintendent of Southern Indian affairs, a man of great address and ability, and universally known and beloved among all the Southwestern tribes. Fifteen years before, his life had been saved at the Fort Loudon massacre by Atta-Culla-Culla, and a friendship had then been contracted between them which now secured the influence of the half-king in plunging the Cherokees into hostilities with the settlers.
The plan of operations had been concerted between Stuart and the British commander-in-chief, General Gage. It was for a universal rising among the Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Shawnees, who were to invade the frontiers of Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas, while simultaneously a large military and naval force under Sir Peter Parker descended upon the Southern seaboard and captured Charleston. It was also intended to enlist the co-operation of such inhabitants of the back settlements as were known to be favorable to the British. Thus the feeble colonists were to be not only encircled by a cordon of fire, but a conflagration was to be lighted which should consume every patriot's dwelling. It was an able but pitiless and bloodthirsty plan, for it would let loose upon the settler every savage atrocity and make his worst foes those of his own household. If successful, it would have strangled in fire and blood the spirit of independence in the Southern colonies.
That it did not succeed seems to us, who know the means employed to thwart it, little short of a miracle. Those means were the four hundred and forty-five raw militia under Moultrie, who, behind a pile of palmetto logs, on the 28th of June, 1776, repulsed Sir Peter Parker in his attack on Sullivan's Island in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, and the two hundred and ten "over-mountain men," under Sevier, Robertson, and Isaac Shelby, who beat back, on the 20th and 21st of July, the Cherokee invasion of the western frontier.
As early as the 30th of May, Sevier and Robertson were apprised by their faithful friend Nancy Ward of the intended attack, and at once they sent messengers to Colonel Preston, of the Virginia Committee of Safety, for an additional supply of powder and lead and a reinforcement of such men as could be spared from home-service. One hundred pounds of powder and twice as much lead, and one hundred militiamen, were despatched in answer to the summons. The powder and lead were distributed among the stations, and the hundred men were sent to strengthen the garrison of Fort Patrick Henry, the most exposed position on the frontier. The entire force of the settlers was now two hundred and ten, forty of whom were at Watauga under Sevier and Robertson, the remainder at and near Fort Patrick Henry under no less than six militia captains, no one of whom was bound to obey the command of any of the others. This many-headed authority would doubtless have worked disastrously to the loosely-jointed force had there not been in it as a volunteer a young man of twenty-five who in the moment of supreme danger seized the absolute command and rallied the men to victory. His name was Isaac Shelby, and this was the first act in a long career in the whole of which "he deserved well of his country."
Thus, from the 30th of May till the 11th of July the settlers slept with their rifles in their hands, expecting every night to hear the Indian war-whoop, and every day to receive some messenger from Nancy Ward with tidings that the warriors were on the march for the settlements. At last the messengers came,—four of them at once,—as we may see from the following letter, in which Sevier announces their arrival to the Committee of Safety of Fincastle County, Virginia: