* Hewatt's Hist. S.C.—
The Cherokees, meanwhile, were not unobservant of the preparations and approaches of the Carolinians. They gathered themselves up for defence, and in silence matured their half civilized, half primitive modes of warfare. This people, at the period of which we write, were a people of very superior endowments and resources to any of the neighboring savage nations. If less warlike, in the simple sense of the word, than their rivals the Creeks, they were really more to be feared, as it was in consequence of their superior civilisation that they had lost some of their brute ferocity. If they were less reckless, they were better skilled; if less frantic in their fury, they coupled it with a wary vindictiveness which rendered the blow more fatal when it fell. The advances which they had made in civilisation had naturally increased their numbers; while the novel tastes by which their wandering habits were diminished, had necessarily added to their love of country, in adding to the resources and improvements by which its comforts and delights were increased. Thus, neither degraded by the lowest condition in which we find the human animal, nor enervated by the superior luxuries to which he may attain, the Cherokee was perhaps at this time in possession of his greatest vigor; not very remote, in his moral and physical condition, from the Roman when he overcame his Etrurian and Sabine neighbors. The Cherokees occupied a country equally broad and beautiful. It lay in fertile valleys, green meadows, sunny slopes, and mighty forests, along the sides of lofty summits, that circled their extensive territory with natural fortresses of giant grandeur. Spreading from the Broad, or Cherokee river, beyond the Tennessee and the Savannah, it comprised every variety of soil and surface, and while adapted in a high degree to the hands of the agriculturist, seemed almost as easily made secure against the footsteps of invasion. Its apparent securities had made them insolent. Their mountain recesses had never known the presence of this foe. Their fruits and fields, their villages and towns, with the exception of a district that lay upon the Atlantic slopes, were generally fenced in, and admirably protected, by wild and rugged masses of rocky mountains, natural defences, impenetrable, unless through certain passes which a few determined hearts might easily make good against twenty times their number. But the numerical force of this great aboriginal people, seemed of itself sufficiently strong to promise security to their country. At the time of Montgomery's invasion they had no less than sixty-four towns and villages. In an emergency, they could send six thousand warriors into the field. Many of these were armed with the weapons of European warfare—were accustomed to that warfare, and were thus doubly prepared to encounter the enemy in whose ranks they had received their best military lessons. Such a force very far exceeded that of the Carolinians. Mustering but two thousand men, Col. Montgomery found it advisable to urge his march upon the nation with equal celerity and caution. Having reached a place called Twelve-mile River, within twenty miles of the Indian town of Estatoee, he advanced by night upon it, secretly, and with a view to its surprise. In his march, surrounding the town of Little Keowee, not a warrior of the Cherokees escaped the sword. His success was less complete at Estatoee. The Indians, apprised of his approach, with few exceptions, succeeded in making their escape; but the town, consisting of more than two hundred houses, and well stored with corn, hogs, poultry and ammunition, perished in the flames. Shugaw Town and every other settlement in the "Lower Nation", shared the same fate. The lightning-like rapidity of the march had taken the savages everywhere, in this part of the country, by surprise. They fled rather than fought, and while they lost everything in the shape of property, but few of them were slain. They sought for shelter among their more numerous and better protected brethren of the mountains; a people neither so easily approached, nor so easily overcome.
Montgomery, having finished this part of his work so successfully, hurried on to the relief of Fort Prince George, which, from the time when their Chiefs were so cruelly butchered within its walls, had been closely invested by a formidable force of Cherokees. The fort was relieved. The Indians fled at his approach; and, thinking that the severe chastisement which he had inflicted upon them, had inclined their hearts to peace, the General of the Carolinians paused in his progress, to give them an opportunity to sue for it, as the former friends and allies of the English. But he had mistaken the stubborn nature of his foe. They were not sufficiently humbled, and it was resolved to march upon the "middle settlements". To this task, that which had been performed was comparatively easy. They were now to enter upon a different country, where the Indians were better prepared for them—nay, where they HAD prepared for them,—in all probability, to the neglect of the lower towns. Toilsome and full of peril was this march. Dismal and dense was the wilderness which they were now to penetrate. Rugged paths, narrow passes, gloomy thickets and dark ravines, encountered them in their hourly progress, calling for constant vigilance and the maintenance of all their courage. Rivers, fordable in unfrequent places and overlooked by precipitous banks on either side, crowned most commonly by dense and intricate masses of forest, through which and without a guide, our little army was compelled to pass,—presented opportunities for frequent ambush and attack, in which, very inferior forces, if properly commanded, might, with little danger to themselves, overwhelm and utterly destroy an advancing enemy. It was in such a region that the Cherokees made their first and formidable stand. Within five miles of Etchoee, the nearest town of the middle settlements, the army of Montgomery approached a low valley, clothed with a thicket so dense that the soldiers could scarcely discern objects three paces ahead. Through this thicket ran a muddy river, enclosed between steep banks of clay. This passage, where but few men could act in unison, was that through which it became necessary that the army should proceed. It was the very spot, which, over all others, a sagacious warrior would choose in which to place an ambush, or meet a superior assailant. Montgomery knew his enemy, and prepared for the encounter. Captain Morrison, commanding a company of rangers, native marksmen and well acquainted with the forest—was sent forward to scour the thicket. His advance was the signal for battle. Scarcely had he entered upon the dismal passage when the savages rose from their hiding-places and poured in a severe fire. Morrison, with several of his men, perished at the first discharge. They were sustained by the light Infantry and Grenadiers, who boldly advanced upon the wood in the face of the invisible foe. A heavy fire followed on both sides, the Cherokees, each with his eye upon his man, the Carolinians aiming at the flash of the enemy's guns. The pass was disputed by the savages with a degree of conduct and courage, which left the issue doubtful. The necessity was apparent for extraordinary effort. The Royal Scots, who were in the rear, were now pushed forward to take possession of a rising ground on the right, while the Highlanders were marched forward to the immediate support of the Infantry and Grenadiers. This movement had the effect of bringing the enemy into close action. The bayonet stirred and laid bare the thicket. The woods resounded with the shouts and yells of the Cherokees, but they no longer fell with terror upon the ear of the whites. They had grown familiar. The savages yielded slowly as the bayonet advanced. Suffering severely as they fled, they yet displayed the native obstinacy of their race,—turning upon the pursuer when they could, availing themselves of tree or thicket to retard, by shot or stroke, the assailants; and, even in flight, only so far keeping ahead of the bayonet as to avoid its stroke. As he beheld this, Montgomery changed the head of his army, and advanced upon the town of Etchoee, which it had been their purpose to defend, and from which they now strove to divert him. This movement alarmed them for their wives and children. Their retreat became a flight; and, satisfied with having inflicted upon them this measure of punishment, the British General prepared to march back to Fort Prince George.
This decision was the result of his exigencies. The situation of his army was neither a safe nor an agreeable one. The victory was with the Carolinians, yet the affair was very far from decisive in its consequences. The enemy had only retired from one advantageous position to another. They waited his approach only to renew a conflict in which even victory might be without its fruits. To gain a battle, unless a final one, was, with a force so small as his, a matter of very doubtful advantage. He was already encumbered with his wounded, to furnish horses for whom, he was compelled to discard, and to destroy, a large quantity of the provisions necessary for the army. What remained was measured with a nice reference to their absolute wants on the return march to Prince George. Under these suggestions of prudence the retreat was begun. It was conducted with admirable regularity. The Cherokees, meanwhile, hung upon the retiring footsteps of the invaders, annoying them to the utmost of their power. Sixty miles of mountainous country were traversed in this manner, and under various hardships, with a skill and intrepidity which confer the highest credit upon the English captain. A large train of wounded was brought to the frontier without the loss of a man.
We have admitted an uncertainty as to the presence of Marion in this campaign. It would be impertinent and idle, therefore, to speculate upon his performances, or the share which he might have taken in its events. Tradition simply assures us that he distinguished himself. That, if present, he did his duty, we have no question; and, enduring with becoming resolution the worst severities of the march, proved himself possessed of the first great requisite for soldiership in Indian warfare.
Chapter 4.
Cherokee War continues—Marion leads the Forlorn Hope at
the Battle of Etchoee.
The Cherokees were very far from being subdued or satisfied. The snake had been "scotched not killed", and stung, rather than humbled by the chastisement they received, they prepared to assume the offensive with sudden vigor. Concentrating a numerous force upon the distant garrison of Fort Loudon, on the Tennessee river, they succeeded in reducing it by famine. Here they took bloody revenge for the massacre of their chiefs at Prince George. The garrison was butchered, after a formal surrender upon terms which guaranteed them protection. This wholesale and vindictive barbarity, while it betrayed the spirit which filled the savages, had the still farther effect of encouraging them in a warfare which had so far gratified very equally their appetites for blood and booty. In addition to this natural effect, the result of their own wild passions, there were other influences, from without, at work among them. Certain French emissaries had crept into their towns and were busily engaged, with bribes and arguments, in stimulating them to continued warfare. This, in all probability, was the secret influence, which, over all, kept them from listening, as well to their own fears, as to the urgent suggestions of the British authorities, for peace. Hitherto, the Cherokees had given no ear to the temptations of the French, whom they considered a frivolous people, and whose professions of faith they were very likely to have regarded with distrust. But the labors of their emissaries at this juncture, harmonizing with the temper of the nation, were necessarily more than usually successful. One of these emissaries, Louis Latinac, an officer of considerable talent, proved an able instigator to mischief. He persuaded them, against the better reason of their older chiefs, to the rejection of every overture for peace. Their successes at Fort Loudon were, perhaps, sufficient arguments for the continuance of war, but there were others not less potent. The king of France was now to be their ally in place of him of Great Britain. The one "great father" was no less able than the other to minister to their appetites and necessities. His arms and ammunition replaced those which had been withdrawn by the latter; and we may suppose that the liberality of the new allies was such as to admit of very favorable comparison and contrast with that which they had experienced at the hands of the British. Their very excesses in the war were favorable to its continuance; as they might very well doubt the binding force of treaties between parties, the bad faith of whom had been written so terribly in blood. At a great meeting of the nation, at which Louis Latinac was present, he, with something of their own manner, seizing suddenly upon a hatchet, struck it violently into a block of wood, exclaiming, as he did so, "Who is the warrior that will take this up for the king of France?" Salouee, a young chief of Estatoee, instantly tore the weapon from the tree. He declared himself for instant and continued war. "The spirits of our slain brothers," was his cry, "call upon us to avenge their massacre. He is a woman that dares not follow me!"
Such being the spirit of the savages, the Carolinians had no alternative but to resume their arms. Col. Montgomery having gone to England, the command devolved upon Colonel Grant, and the Highlanders were once more ordered to the relief of the province. The Carolinians were now somewhat better prepared to cooperate with their allies. A native regiment of twelve hundred men was raised, and the command given to Col. Middleton, a brave and accomplished provincial officer.