The Winning of the West, Volume Two by Theodore Roosevelt

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Tarleton did his work with brutal ruthlessness; his men plundered and
ravaged, maltreated prisoners, outraged women, and hung without mercy
all who were suspected of turning from the loyalist to the whig side.
His victories were almost always followed by massacres; in particular,
when he routed with small loss a certain Captain Buford, his soldiers
refused to grant quarter, and mercilessly butchered the beaten.
Americans. [Footnote: It is worth while remembering that it was not
merely the tories who were guilty of gross crimes; the British regulars,
including even some of their officers, often behaved with abhorrent
brutality.]

Ferguson, on the contrary, while quite as valiant and successful a
commander, showed a generous heart, and treated the inhabitants of the
country fairly well. He was especially incensed at any outrage upon
women, punishing the offender with the utmost severity, and as far as
possible he spared his conquered foes. Yet even Ferguson's tender
mercies must have seemed cruel to the whigs, as may be judged by the
following extract from a diary kept by one of his lieutenants [Footnote:
Diary of Lt. Anthony Allaire, entry for March 24, 1780.]: "This day Col.
Ferguson got the rear guard in order to do his King and country justice,
by protecting friends and widows, and destroying rebel property; also to
collect live stock for the use of the army. All of which we effect as we
go by destroying furniture, breaking windows, etc., taking all their
horned cattle, horses, mules, sheep, etc., and their negroes to drive
them." When such were the authorized proceedings of troops under even
the most merciful of the British commanders, it is easy to guess what
deeds were done by uncontrolled bodies of stragglers bent on plunder.

When Ferguson moved into the back country of the two Carolinas still
worse outrages followed. In the three southernmost of the thirteen
rebellious colonies there was a very large tory party. [Footnote: Gates
MSS., _passim_, for July-October, 1780. _E.g._, letter of Mr. Ramsey,
August 9, 1780, describes how "the Scotch are all lying out," the number
of tories in the "Drowning Creek region," their resistance to the levy
of cattle, etc. In these colonies, as in the middle colonies, the tory
party was very strong.] In consequence the struggle in the Carolinas and
Georgia took the form of a ferocious civil war. Each side in turn
followed up its successes by a series of hangings and confiscations,
while the lawless and violent characters fairly revelled in the
confusion. Neither side can be held guiltless of many and grave
misdeeds; but for reasons already given the bulk--but by no means the
whole--of the criminal and disorderly classes espoused the king's cause
in the regions where the struggle was fiercest. They murdered, robbed,
or drove off the whigs in their hour of triumph; and in turn brought
down ferocious reprisals on their own heads and on those of their
luckless associates.

Moreover Cornwallis and his under-officers tried to cow and overawe the
inhabitants by executing some of the men whom they deemed the chief and
most criminal leaders of the rebellion, especially such as had sworn
allegiance and then again taken up arms; [Footnote: Gates MSS. See Letter
from Sumter, August 12th and _passim_, for instances of hanging by
express command of the British officers.] of course retaliation in kind
followed. Ferguson himself hung some men; and though he did his best to
spare the country people, there was much plundering and murdering by his
militia.

In June he marched to upper South Carolina, moving to and fro, calling
out the loyal militia. They responded enthusiastically, and three or
four thousand tories were embodied in different bands. Those who came to
Ferguson's own standard were divided into companies and regiments, and
taught the rudiments of discipline by himself and his subalterns. He
soon had a large but fluctuating force under him; in part composed of
good men, loyal adherents of the king (these being very frequently
recent arrivals from England, or else Scotch highlanders), in part also
of cut-throats, horse-thieves, and desperadoes of all kinds who wished
for revenge on the whigs and were eager to plunder them. His own regular
force was also mainly composed of Americans, although it contained many
Englishmen. His chief subordinates were Lieutenant-Colonels De
Peyster [Footnote: A relative of the Detroit commander.] and Cruger; the
former usually serving under him, the latter commanding at Ninety-Six.
They were both New York loyalists, members of old Knickerbocker
families; for in New York many of the gentry and merchants stood by the
king.

Ferguson Approaches the Mountains.

Ferguson moved rapidly from place to place, breaking up the bodies of
armed whigs; and the latter now and then skirmished fiercely with
similar bands of tories, sometimes one side winning sometimes the other.
Having reduced South Carolina to submission the British commander then
threatened North Carolina; and Col. McDowell, the commander of the whig
militia in that district, sent across the mountains to the Holston men
praying that they would come to his help. Though suffering continually
from Indian ravages, and momentarily expecting a formidable inroad, they
responded nobly to the call. Sevier remained to patrol the border and
watch the Cherokees, while Isaac Shelby crossed the mountains with a
couple of hundred mounted riflemen, early in July. The mountain men were
joined by McDowell, with whom they found also a handful of Georgians and
some South Carolinians; who when their States were subdued had fled
northward, resolute to fight their oppressors to the last.

The arrival of the mountain men put new life into the dispirited whigs.
On July 30th a mixed force, under Shelby and two or three local militia
colonels, captured Thickett's fort, with ninety tories, near the
Pacolet. They then camped at the Cherokee ford of Broad River, and sent
out parties of mounted men to carry on a guerilla or partisan warfare
against detachments, not choosing to face Ferguson's main body. After a
while they moved south to Cedar Spring. Here, on the 8th of August, they
were set upon by Ferguson's advanced guard, of dragoons and mounted
riflemen. These they repulsed, handling the British rather roughly; but,
as Ferguson himself came up, they fled, and though he pursued them
vigorously he could not overtake them. [Footnote: Shelby's MS.
Autobiography, and the various accounts he wrote of these affairs in his
old age (which Haywood and most of the other local American historians
follow or amplify), certainly greatly exaggerate the British force and
loss, as well as the part Shelby himself played, compared to the Georgia
and Carolina leaders. The Americans seemed to have outnumbered
Ferguson's advance guard, which was less than two hundred strong, about
three to one. Shelby's account of the Musgrove affair is especially
erroneous. See p. 120 of L. C. Draper's "King's Mountain and Its Heroes"
(Cincinnati, 1881). Mr. Draper has with infinite industry and research
gathered all the published and unpublished accounts and all the
traditions concerning the battle; his book is a mine of information on
the subject. He is generally quite impartial, but some of his
conclusions are certainly biassed; and the many traditional statements,
as well as those made by very old men concerning events that took place
fifty or sixty years previously, must be received with extreme caution.
A great many of them should never have been put in the book at all. When
they take the shape of anecdotes, telling how the British are overawed
by the mere appearance of the Americans on some occasion (as pp. 94, 95,
etc.), they must be discarded at once as absolutely worthless, as well
as ridiculous. The British and tory accounts, being forced to explain
ultimate defeat, are, if possible, even more untrustworthy, when taken
solely by themselves, than the American.]

On the 18th of the month the mountain men, assisted as usual by some
parties of local militia, all under their various colonels, performed
another feat; one of those swift, sudden strokes so dear to the hearts
of these rifle-bearing horsemen. It was of a kind peculiarly suited to
their powers; for they were brave and hardy, able to thread their way
unerringly through the forests, and fond of surprises; and though they
always fought on foot, they moved on horseback, and therefore with great
celerity. Their operations should be carefully studied by all who wish
to learn the possibilities of mounted riflemen. Yet they were impatient
of discipline or of regular service, and they really had no one
commander. The different militia officers combined to perform some
definite piece of work, but, like their troops, they were incapable of
long-continued campaigns; and there were frequent and bitter quarrels
between the several commanders, as well as between the bodies of men
they led.

It seems certain that the mountaineers were, as a rule, more formidable
fighters than the lowland militia, beside or against whom they battled;
and they formed the main strength of the attacking party that left the
camp at the Cherokee ford before sunset on the 17th. Ferguson's army was
encamped southwest of them, at Fair Forest Shoals; they marched round
him, and went straight on, leaving him in their rear. Sometimes they
rode through open forest, more often they followed the dim wood roads;
their horses pacing or cantering steadily through the night. As the day
dawned they reached Musgrove's Ford, on the Enoree, having gone forty
miles. Here they hoped to find a detachment of tory militia; but it had
been joined by a body of provincial regulars, the united force being
probably somewhat more numerous than that of the Americans. The latter
were discovered by a patrol, and the British after a short delay marched
out to attack them. The Americans in the meantime made good use of their
axes, felling trees for a breastwork, and when assailed they beat back
and finally completely routed their assailants. [Footnote: Shelby's
account of this action, written in his old age, is completely at fault;
he not only exaggerates the British force and loss, but he likewise
greatly overestimates the number of the Americans--always a favorite
trick of his. Each of the militia colonels of course claimed the chief
share of the glory of the day. Haywood, Ramsey, and even Phelan simply
follow Shelby. Draper gives all the different accounts; it is quite
impossible to reconcile them; but all admit that the British were
defeated.

I have used the word "British"; but though there were some Englishmen
and Scotchmen among the tories and provincials, they were mainly
loyalist Americans.] However, the victory was of little effect, for just
as it was won word was brought to Shelby that the day before Cornwallis
had met Gates at Camden, and had not only defeated but practically
destroyed the American army; and on the very day of the fight on the
Enoree, Tarleton surprised Sumter, and scattered his forces to the four
winds. The panic among the whigs was tremendous, and the mountaineers
shared it. They knew that Ferguson, angered at the loss of his
detachment, would soon be in hot pursuit, and there was no time for
delay. The local militia made off in various directions; while Shelby
and his men pushed straight for the mountains, crossed them, and
returned each man to his own home. Ferguson speedily stamped out the few
remaining sparks of rebellion in South Carolina, and crossing the
boundary into the North State he there repeated the process. On
September 12th he caught McDowell and the only remaining body of militia
at Cane Creek, of the Catawba, and beat them thoroughly, [Footnote:
Draper apparently endorses the absurd tradition that makes this a whig
victory instead of a defeat. It seems certain (see Draper), contrary to
the statements of the Tennessee historians, that Sevier had no part in
these preliminary operations.] the survivors, including their commander,
fleeing over the mountains to take refuge with the Holston men. Except
for an occasional small guerilla party there was not a single organized
body of American troops left south of Gates' broken and dispirited army.

All the southern lands lay at the feet of the conquerors. The British
leaders, overbearing and arrogant, held almost unchecked sway throughout
the Carolinas and Georgia; and looking northward they made ready for the
conquest of Virginia. [Footnote: The northern portion of North Carolina
was still in possession of the remainder of Gates' army, but they could
have been brushed aside without an effort.] Their right flank was
covered by the waters of the ocean, their left by the high mountain
barrier-chains, beyond which stretched the interminable forest; and they
had as little thought of danger from one side as from the other.

The Mountaineers Gather to the Attack.

Suddenly and without warning, the wilderness sent forth a swarm of
stalwart and hardy riflemen, of whose very existence the British had
hitherto been ignorant. [Footnote: "A numerous army now appeared on the
frontier drawn from Nolachucky and other settlements beyond the
mountains, whose very names had been unknown to us." Lord Rawdon's
letter of October 24, 1780. Clarke of Georgia had plundered a convoy of
presents intended for the Indians, at Augusta, and the British wrongly
supposed this to be likewise the aim of the mountaineers.] Riders
spurring in hot haste brought word to the king's commanders that the
backwater men had come over the mountains. The Indian fighters of the
frontier, leaving unguarded their homes on the western waters, had
crossed by wooded and precipitous defiles, and were pouring down to the
help of their brethren of the plains.

Ferguson had pushed his victories to the foot of the Smoky and the
Yellow mountains. Here he learned, perhaps for the first time, that
there were a few small settlements beyond the high ranges he saw in his
front; and he heard that some of these backwoods mountaineers had
already borne arms against him, and were now harboring men who had fled
from before his advance. By a prisoner whom he had taken he at once sent
them warning to cease their hostilities, and threatened that if they did
not desist he would march across the mountains, hang their leaders, put
their fighting men to the sword, and waste their settlements with fire.
He had been joined by refugee tories from the Watauga, who could have
piloted him thither; and perhaps he intended to make his threats good.
It seems more likely that he paid little heed to the mountaineers,
scorning their power to do him hurt; though he did not regard them with
the haughty and ignorant disdain usually felt for such irregulars by the
British army officers.

When the Holston men learned that Ferguson had come to the other side of
the mountains, and threatened their chiefs with the halter and their
homes with the torch, a flame of passionate anger was kindled in all
their hearts. They did not wait for his attack; they sallied from their
strongholds to meet him. Their crops were garnered, their young men were
ready for the march; and though the Otari war bands lowered like
thunder-clouds on their southern border, they determined to leave only
enough men to keep the savages at bay for the moment, and with the rest
to overwhelm Ferguson before he could retreat out of their reach.
Hitherto the war with the British had been something afar off; now it
had come to their thresholds and their spirits rose to the danger.

Shelby was the first to hear the news. He at once rode down to Sevier's
home on the Nolichucky; for they were the two county lieutenants,
[Footnote: Shelby was regularly commissioned as county lieutenant.
Sevier's commission was not sent him until several weeks later; but he
had long acted as such by the agreement of the settlers, who paid very
little heed to the weak and disorganized North Carolina government.] who
had control of all the militia of the district. At Sevier's log-house
there was feasting and merry-making, for he had given a barbecue, and a
great horse race was to be run, while the backwoods champions tried
their skill as marksmen and wrestlers. In the midst of the merry-making
Shelby appeared, hot with hard riding, to tell of the British advance,
and to urge that the time was ripe for fighting, not feasting. Sevier at
once entered heartily into his friend's plan, and agreed to raise his
rifle-rangers, and gather the broken and disorganized refugees who had
fled across the mountains under McDowell. While this was being done
Shelby returned to his home to call out his own militia and to summon
the Holston Virginians to his aid. With the latter purpose he sent one
of his brothers to Arthur Campbell, the county lieutenant of his
neighbors across the border. Arthur at once proceeded to urge the
adoption of the plan on his cousin, William Campbell, who had just
returned from a short and successful campaign against the tories round
the head of the Kanawha, where he had speedily quelled an attempted
uprising.

Gates had already sent William Campbell an earnest request to march down
with his troops and join the main army. This he could not do, as his
militia had only been called out to put down their own internal foes,
and their time of service had expired. [Footnote: Gates MSS. Letter of
William Campbell, Sept. 6, 1780. He evidently at the time failed to
appreciate the pressing danger; but he ended by saying that "if the
Indians were not harassing their frontier," and a corps of riflemen were
formed, he would do all in his power to forward them to Gates.] But the
continued advance of the British at last thoroughly alarmed the
Virginians of the mountain region. They promptly set about raising a
corps of riflemen, [Footnote: Gates MSS. Letter of William Preston,
Sept. 18, 1780. The corps was destined to join Gates, as Preston says;
hence Campbell's reluctance to go with Shelby and Sevier. There were to
be from five hundred to one thousand men. See letter of Wm. Davidson,
Sept. 18, 1780.] and as soon as this course of action was determined on
Campbell was foremost in embodying all the Holston men who could be
spared, intending to march westward and join any Virginia army that
might be raised to oppose Cornwallis. While thus employed he received
Shelby's request, and, for answer, at first sent word that he could not
change his plans; but on receiving a second and more urgent message he
agreed to come as desired. [Footnote: Shelby's MS. Autobiography.
Campbell MSS., especially MS. letters of Col. Arthur Campbell of Sept.
3, 1810, Oct. 18, 1810, etc.; MS. notes on Sevier in Tenn. Hist. Soc.
The latter consist of memoranda by his old soldiers, who were with him
in the battle; many of their statements are to be received cautiously,
but there seems no reason to doubt their account of his receiving the
news while giving a great barbecue. Shelby is certainly entitled to the
credit of planning and starting the campaign against Ferguson.]

The appointed meeting-place was at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga.
There the riflemen gathered on the 25th of September, Campbell bringing
four hundred men, Sevier and Shelby two hundred and forty each, while
the refugees under McDowell amounted to about one hundred and sixty.
With Shelby came his two brothers, one of whom was afterwards slightly
wounded at King's Mountain; while Sevier had in his regiment no less
than six relations of his own name, his two sons being privates, and his
two brothers captains. One of the latter was mortally wounded in the
battle.

To raise money for provisions Sevier and Shelby were obliged to take, on
their individual guaranties, the funds in the entry-taker's offices that
had been received from the sale of lands. They amounted in all to nearly
thirteen thousand dollars, every dollar of which they afterward
refunded.

The March to the Battle.

On the 26th [Footnote: "State of the proceedings of the western army
from Sept. 25, 1780, to the reduction of Major Ferguson and the army
under his command," signed by Campbell, Shelby, and Cleavland. The
official report; it is in the Gates MSS. in the N. Y. Hist. Society. It
was published complete at the time, except the tabulated statement of
loss, which has never been printed; I give it further on.] they began
the march, over a thousand strong, most of them mounted on swift, wiry
horses. They were led by leaders they trusted, they were wonted to
Indian warfare, they were skilled as horsemen and marksmen, they knew
how to face every kind of danger, hardship, and privation. Their fringed
and tasselled hunting-shirts were girded in by bead-worked belts, and
the trappings of their horses were stained red and yellow. On their
heads they wore caps of coon-skin or mink-skin, with the tails hanging
down, or else felt hats, in each of which was thrust a buck-tail or a
sprig of evergreen. Every man carried a small-bore rifle, a tomahawk,
and a scalping knife. A very few of the officers had swords, and there
was not a bayonet nor a tent in the army. [Footnote: Gen. Wm. Lenoir's
account, prepared for Judge A. D. Murphy's intended history of North
Carolina. Lenoir was a private in the battle.] Before leaving their
camping-ground at the Sycamore Shoals they gathered in an open grove to
hear a stern old Presbyterian preacher [Footnote: Rev. Samuel Doak.
Draper, 176. A tradition, but probably truthful, being based on the
statements of Sevier and Shelby's soldiers in their old age. It is the
kind of an incident that tradition will often faithfully preserve.]
invoke on the enterprise the blessing of Jehovah. Leaning on their long
rifles, they stood in rings round the black-frocked minister, a grim and
wild congregation, who listened in silence to his words of burning zeal
as he called on them to stand stoutly in the battle and to smite their
foes with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.

The army marched along Doe River, driving their beef cattle with them,
and camped that night at the "Resting-Place," under Shelving Rock,
beyond Crab Orchard. Next morning they started late, and went up the
pass between Roan and Yellow mountains. The table-land on the top was
deep in snow. [Footnote: Diary of Ensign Robert Campbell.] Here two
tories who were in Sevier's band deserted and fled to warn Ferguson; and
the troops, on learning of the desertion, abandoned their purpose of
following the direct route, and turned to the left, taking a more
northerly trail. It was of so difficult a character that Shelby
afterwards described it as "the worst route ever followed by an army of
horsemen." [Footnote: Shelby MS.] That afternoon they partly descended
the east side of the range, camping in Elk Hollow, near Roaring Run. The
following day they went down through the ravines and across the spurs by
a stony and precipitous path, in the midst of magnificent scenery, and
camped at the mouth of Grassy Creek. On the 29th they crossed the Blue
Ridge at Gillespie's Gap, and saw afar off, in the mountain coves and
rich valleys of the upper Catawba, the advanced settlements of the
Carolina pioneers,--for hitherto they had gone through an uninhabited
waste. The mountaineers, fresh from their bleak and rugged hills, gazed
with delight on the soft and fertile beauty of the landscape. That night
they camped on the North Fork of the Catawba, and next day they went
down the river to Quaker Meadows, McDowell's home.

At this point they were joined by three hundred and fifty North Carolina
militia from the counties of Wilkes and Surrey, who were creeping along
through the woods hoping to fall in with some party going to harass the
enemy. [Footnote: Shelby MS. Autobiography. See also Gates MSS. Letter
of Wm. Davidson, Sept. 14, 1780. Davidson had foreseen that there would
be a fight between the western militia and Ferguson, and he had sent
word to his militia subordinates to join any force--as McDowell's--that
might go against the British leader. The alarm caused by the latter had
prevented the militia from joining Davidson himself.] They were under
Col. Benjamin Cleavland, a mighty hunter and Indian fighter, and an
adventurous wanderer in the wilderness. He was an uneducated
backwoodsman, famous for his great size, and his skill with the rifle,
no less than for the curious mixture of courage, rough good humor, and
brutality in his character. He bore a ferocious hatred to the royalists,
and in the course of the vindictive civil war carried on between the
whigs and tories in North Carolina he suffered much. In return he
persecuted his public and private foes with ruthless ferocity, hanging
and mutilating any tories against whom the neighboring whigs chose to
bear evidence. As the fortunes of the war veered about he himself
received many injuries. His goods were destroyed, and his friends and
relations were killed or had their ears cropped off. Such deeds often
repeated roused to a fury of revenge his fierce and passionate nature,
to which every principle of self-control was foreign. He had no hope of
redress, save in his own strength and courage, and on every favorable
opportunity he hastened to take more than ample vengeance. Admitting all
the wrongs he suffered, it still remains true that many of his acts of
brutality were past excuse. His wife was a worthy helpmeet. Once, in his
absence, a tory horse-thief was brought to their home, and after some
discussion the captors, Cleavland's sons, turned to their mother, who
was placidly going on with her ordinary domestic avocations, to know
what they should do with the prisoner. Taking from her mouth the
corn-cob pipe she had been smoking, she coolly sentenced him to be hung,
and hung he was without further delay or scruple. [Footnote: Draper,
448.] Yet Cleavland was a good friend and neighbor, devoted to his
country, and also a staunch Presbyterian. [Footnote: Allaire's Diary,
entry for October 29th.]

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