This bold foray, so shrewdly executed and even more sagaciously foiled, was a true precursor of the dread happenings of the coming neighborhood of the stations; and relief was felt when the Transylvania Fort, the great stockade planned by Judge Henderson, was completed by the pioneers (July, 1776). Glad tidings arrived only a few days later when the Declaration of Independence, read aloud from the Virginia Gazette, was greeted with wild huzzas by the patriotic backwoodsmen. During the ensuing months occasional invasions were made by savage bands; but it was not until April 24, 1777, that Henderson"s "big fort" received its first attack, being invested by a company of some seventy-five savages. The twenty-two riflemen in the fort drove off the painted warriors, but not before Michael Stoner, Daniel Boone, and several others were severely wounded. As he lay helpless upon the ground, his ankle shattered by a bullet, Boone was lifted by Simon Kenton and borne away upon his shoulders to the haven of the stockade amid a veritable shower of b.a.l.l.s. The stoical and taciturn Boone clasped Kenton"s hand and gave him the accolade of the wilderness in the brief but heartfelt utterance; "You are a fine fellow." On July 4th of this same year the fort was again subjected to siege, when two hundred gaudily painted savages surrounded it for two days.
But owing to the vigilance and superb markmanship of the defenders, as well as to the lack of cannon by the besieging force, the Indians reluctantly abandoned the siege, after leaving a number dead upon the field. Soon afterward the arrival of two strong bodies of prime riflemen, who had been hastily summoned from the frontiers of North Carolina and Virginia, once again made firm the bulwark of white supremacy in the West.
Kentucky"s terrible year, 1778, opened with a severe disaster to the white settlers--when Boone with thirty men, while engaged in making salt at the "Lower Salt Spring," was captured in February by more than a hundred Indians, sent by Governor Hamilton of Detroit to drive the white settlers from "Kentucke." Boone remained in captivity until early summer, when, learning that his Indian captors were planning an attack in force upon the Transylvania Fort, he succeeded in effecting his escape. After a break-neck journey of one hundred and sixty miles, during which he ate but one meal, Boone finally arrived at the big fort on June 20th. The settlers were thus given ample time for preparation, as the long siege did not begin until September 7th.
The fort was invested by a powerful force flying the English flag--four hundred and forty-four savages gaudy in the vermilion and ochre of their war-paint, and eleven Frenchmen, the whole being commanded by the French-Canadian, Captain Dagniaux de Quindre, and the great Indian Chief, Black-fish who had adopted Boone as a son. In the effort to gain his end de Quindre resorted to a dishonorable stratagem, by which he hoped to outwit the settlers and capture the fort with but slight loss. "They formed a scheme to deceive us," says Boone, "declaring it was their orders, from Governor Hamilton, to take us captives, and not to destroy us; but if nine of us would come out and treat with them, they would immediately withdraw their forces from our walls, and return home peacably." Transparent as the stratagem was, Boone incautiously agreed to a conference with the enemy; Callaway alone took the precaution to guard against Indian duplicity.
After a long talk, the Indians proposed to Boone, Callaway, and the seven or eight pioneers who accompanied them that they shake hands in token of peace and friendship. As picturesquely described by Daniel Trabue:
"The Indians sayed two Indians must shake hands with one white man to make a Double or sure peace at this time the Indians had hold of the white men"s hands and held them. Col. Calloway objected to this but the other Indians laid hold or tryed to lay hold of the other hand but Colonel Calloway was the first that jerked away from them but the Indians seized the men two Indians holt of one man or it was mostly the case and did their best to hold them but while the man and Indians was a scuffling the men from the Fort agreeable to Col. Calloway"s order fired on them they had a dreadful skuffel but our men all got in the fort safe and the fire continued on both sides."
During the siege Callaway, the leader of the pioneers, made a wooden cannon wrapped with wagon tires, which on being fired at a group of Indians "made them scamper perdidiously." The secret effort of the Indians to tunnel a way underground into the fort, being discovered by the defenders, was frustrated by a countermine. Unable to outwit, outfight, or outmaneuver the resourceful Callaway, de Quindre finally withdrew on September 16th, closing the longest and severest attack that any of the fortified stations of Kentucky had ever been called upon to withstand.
The successful defense of the Transylvania Fort, made by these indomitable backwoodsmen who were lost sight of by the Continental Congress and left to fight alone their battles in the forests, was of national significance in its results. Had the Transylvania Fort fallen, the northern Indians in overwhelming numbers, directed by Hamilton and led by British officers, might well have swept Kentucky free of defenders and fallen with devastating force upon the exposed settlements along the western frontiers of North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, This defense of Boonesborough, therefore, is deserving of commemoration in the annals of the Revolution, along with Lexington and Bunker"s Hill. Coupled with Clark"s meteoric campaign in the Northwest and the subsequent struggles in the defense of Kentucky, it may be regarded as an event basically responsible for the retention of the trans-Alleghany region by the United States. The bitter struggles, desperate sieges, and b.l.o.o.d.y reprisals of these dark years came to a close with the expeditions of Clark and Logan in November, 1782, which appropriately concluded the Revolution in the West by putting a definite end to all prospect of formidable invasion of Kentucky.
In November, 1777, "Washington District," the delegates of which had been received in the preceding year by the Provincial Congress of North Carolina, was formed by the North Carolina General a.s.sembly into Washington County; and to it were a.s.signed the boundaries of the whole of the present state of Tennessee.
While this immense territory was thus being definitely included within the bounds of North Carolina, Judge Henderson on behalf of the Transylvania Company was making a vigorous effort to secure the reestablishment of its rights from the Virginia a.s.sembly. By order of the Virginia legislature, an exhaustive investigation of the claims of the Transylvania Company was therefore made, hearings being held at various points in the back country. On July 18, 1777, Judge Henderson presented to the peace commissioners for North Carolina and Virginia at the Long Island treaty ground an elaborate memorial in behalf of the Transylvania Company, which the commissioners unanimously refused to consider, as not coming under their jurisdiction. Finally, after a full and impartial discussion before the Virginia House of Delegates, that body declared the Transylvania purchase void. But in consideration of "the very great expense [incurred by the company] in making the said purchase, and in settling the said lands, by which the commonwealth is likely to receive great advantage, by increasing its inhabitants, and establishing a barrier against the Indians," the House of Delegates granted Richard Henderson and Company two hundred thousand acres of land situated between the Ohio and Green rivers, where the town of Henderson, Kentucky, now stands. With this bursting of the Transylvania bubble and the vanishing of the golden dreams of Henderson and his a.s.sociates for establishing the fourteenth American colony in the heart of the trans-Alleghany, a first romantic chapter in the history of Westward expansion comes to a close.
But another and more feasible project immediately succeeded.
Undiscouraged by Virginia"s confiscation of Transylvania, and disregarding North Carolina"s action in extending her boundaries over the trans-Alleghany region lying within her chartered limits, Henderson, in whom the genius of the colonizer and the ambition of the speculative capitalist were found in striking conjunction, was now inspired to repeat, along broader and more solidly practical lines, the revolutionary experiment of Transylvania. It was not his purpose, however, to found an independent colony; for he believed that millions of acres in the Transylvania purchase lay within the bounds of North Carolina, and he wished to open for colonization, settlement, and the sale of lands, the vast wilderness of the valley of the c.u.mberland supposed to lie within those confines. But so universal was the prevailing uncertainty in regard to boundaries that it was necessary to prolong the North Carolina-Virginia line in order to determine whether or not the Great French Lick, the ideal location for settlement, lay within the chartered limits of North Carolina.
Judge Henderson"s comprehensive plans for the promotion of an extensive colonization of the c.u.mberland region soon began to take form in vigorous action. Just as in his Transylvania project Henderson had chosen Daniel Boone, the ablest of the North Carolina pioneers, to spy out the land and select sites for future location, so now he chose as leader of the new colonizing party the ablest of the Tennessee pioneers, James Robertson.
Although he was the acknowledged leader of the Watauga settlement and held the responsible position of Indian agent for North Carolina, Robertson was induced by Henderson"s liberal offers to leave his comparatively peaceful home and to venture his life in this desperate hazard of new fortunes. The advance party of eight white men and one negro, under Robertson"s leadership, set forth from the Holston settlement on February 6, 1779, to make a preliminary exploration and to plant corn "that bread might be prepared for the main body of emigrants in the fall." After erecting a few cabins for dwellings and posts of defense, Robertson plunged alone into the wilderness and made the long journey to Post St. Vincent in the Illinois, in order to consult with George Rogers Clark, who had entered for himself in the Virginia Land Office several thousand acres of land at the French Lick. After perfecting arrangements with Clark for securing "cabin rights" should the land prove to lie in Virginia, Robertson returned to Watauga to take command of the migration.
Toward the end of the year two parties set out, one by land, the other by water, for the wonderful new country on the c.u.mberland of which Boone and Scaggs and Mansker had brought back such glowing descriptions. During the autumn Judge Henderson and other commissioners from North Carolina, in conjunction with commissioners from Virginia, had been running out the boundary line between the two states. On the very day--Christmas, 1779--that Judge Henderson reached the site of the Transylvania Fort, now called Boonesborough, the swarm of colonists from the parent hive at Watauga, under Robertson"s leadership, reached the French Lick and on New Year"s Day, 1780, crossed the river on the ice to the present site of Nashville.
The journal of the other party, which, as has been aptly said, reads like a chapter from one of Captain Mayne Reid"s fascinating novels of adventure, was written by Colonel John Donelson, the father-in-law of Andrew Jackson. Setting out from Fort Patrick Henry on Holston River, December 22, 1779, with a flotilla consisting of about thirty flatboats, dugouts, and canoes, they encountered few difficulties until they began to run the gauntlet of the Chickamauga towns on the Tennessee. Here they were furiously attacked by the Indians, terrible in their red and black war-paint; and a well-filled boat lagging in the rear, with smallpox on board, was driven to sh.o.r.e by the Indians. The occupants were ma.s.sacred; but the Indians at once contracted the disease and died by the hundreds. This luckless sacrifice of "poor Stuart, his family and friends," while a ghastly price to pay, undoubtedly procured for the c.u.mberland settlements comparative immunity from Indian forays until the new-comers had firmly established themselves in their wilderness stronghold.
Eloquent of the granite endurance and courageous spirit of the typical American pioneer in its thankfulness for sanctuary, for reunion of families and friends, and for the humble shelter of a log cabin, is the last entry in Donelson"s diary (April 24, 1780):
"This day we arrived at our journey"s end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Capt. Robertson and his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore to him and others their families and friends, who were intrusted to our care, and who, some time since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again. Though our prospects at present are dreary, we have found a few log cabins which have been built on a cedar bluff above the Lick by Capt. Robertson and his company."
In the midst of the famine during this terrible period of the "hard winter," Judge Henderson was sorely concerned for the fate of the new colony which he had projected, and immediately proceeded to purchase at huge cost a large stock of corn. On March 5, 1780, this corn, which had been raised by Captain Nathaniel Hart, was "sent from Boonesborough in perogues [pettiaugers or flatboats] under the command of William Bailey Smith.... This corn was taken down the Kentucky River, and over the Falls of Ohio, to the mouth of the c.u.mberland, and thence up that river to the fort at the French Lick. It is believed have been the only bread which the settlers had until it was raised there in 1781." There is genuine impressiveness in this heroic triumphing over the obstacles of obdurate nature and this paternalistic provision for the exposed c.u.mberland settlement--the purchase by Judge Henderson, the shipment by Captain Hart, and the transportation by Colonel Smith, in an awful winter of bitter cold and obstructed navigation, of this indispensable quant.i.ty of corn purchased for sixty thousand dollars in depreciated currency.
Upon his arrival at the French Lick, shortly after the middle of April, Judge Henderson at once proceeded to organize a government for the little community. On May 1st articles of a.s.sociation were drawn up; and important additions thereto were made on May 13th, when the settlers signed the complete series. The original doc.u.ment, still preserved, was drafted by Judge Henderson, being written throughout in his own handwriting; and his name heads the list of two hundred and fifty and more signatures. The "c.u.mberland Compact," as this paper is called, is fundamentally a mutual contract between the copartners of the Transylvania Company and the settlers upon the lands claimed by the company.
It represents the collective will of the community; and on account of the careful provisions safeguarding the rights of each party to the contract it may be called a bill of rights. The organization of this pure democracy was sound and admirable--another notable early example of the commission form of government. The most remarkable feature of this backwoods const.i.tution marks Judge Henderson as a pioneer in the use of the political device so prominent to-day, one hundred and forty years later--the "recall of judges." In the following striking clause this innovation in government was recognized thus early in American history as the most effective means of securing and safeguarding justice in a democracy:
"As often as the people in general are dissatisfied with the doings of the Judges or Triers so to be chosen, they may call a new selection in any of the said stations, and elect bothers in their stead, having due respect to the number now agreed to be elected at each station, which persons so to be chosen shall have the same power with those in whose room or place they shall or may be chosen to act."
A land-office was now opened, the entry-taker being appointed by Judge Henderson, in accordance with the compact; and the lands, for costs of entry, etc., were registered for the nominal fee of ten dollars per thousand acres. But as the Transylvania Company was never able to secure a "satisfactory and indisputable t.i.tle,"
the clause resulted in perpetual nonpayment. In 1783, following the lead of Virginia in the case of Transylvania, North Carolina declared the Transylvania Company"s purchase void, but granted the company in compensation a tract of one hundred and ninety thousand acres in Powell"s Valley. As compensation, the grants of North Carolina and Virginia were quite inadequate, considering the value of the service in behalf of permanent western colonization rendered by the Transylvania company.
James Robertson was chosen as presiding officer of the court of twelve commissioners, and was also elected commander-in-chief of the military forces of the eight little a.s.sociated settlements on the c.u.mberland. Here for the next two years the self-reliant settlers under Robertson"s wise and able leadership successfully repelled the Indians in their guerrilla warfare, firmly entrenched themselves in their forest-girt stronghold, and vindicated their claim to the territory by right of occupation and conquest. Here sprang up in later times a great and populous city--named, strangely enough, neither for Henderson, the founder, nor for Robertson and Donelson, the leaders of the two colonizing parties, but for one having no a.s.sociation with its history or origins, the gallant North Carolinian, General Francis Nash, who was killed at the Battle of Germantown.
CHAPTER XVIII. King"s Mountain
With the utmost satisfaction I can acquaint you with the sudden and favorable turn of our public affairs. A few days ago destruction hung over our heads. Cornwallis with at least 1500 British and Tories waited at Charlotte for the reinforcement of 1000 from Broad River, which reinforcement has been entirely cut off, 130 killed and the remainder captured. Cornwallis immediately retreated, and is now on his way toward Charleston, with part of our army in his rear....--Elizabeth Maxwell Steel: Salisbury, October 25, 1780.
So thoroughly had the Cherokees been subdued by the devastations of the campaign of 1776 that for several years thereafter they were unable to organize for a new campaign against the backwoodsmen along the frontiers of North Carolina and Tennessee.
During these years the Holston settlers princ.i.p.ally busied themselves in making their position secure, as well as in setting their house in order by severely punishing the lawless Tory element among them. In 1779 the Chickamaugas, with whom The Dragging Canoe and his irreconcilable followers among the Cherokees had joined hands after the campaign of 1776, grew so bold in their b.l.o.o.d.y forays upon small exposed settlements that North Carolina and Virginia in conjunction despatched a strong expedition against them. Embarking on April 10th at the mouth of Big Creek near the present Rogersville, Tennessee, three hundred and fifty men led by Colonel Evan Shelby descended the Tennessee to the fastnesses of the Chickamaugas. Meeting with no resistance from the astonished Indians, who fled to the shelter of the densely wooded hills, they laid waste the Indian towns and destroyed the immense stores of goods collected by the British agents for distribution among the red men. The Chickamaugas were completely quelled; and during the period of great stress through which the Tennessee frontiersmen were soon to pa.s.s, the Cherokees were restrained through the wise diplomacy of Joseph Martin, Superintendent of Indian affairs for Virginia.
The great British offensive against the Southern colonies, which were regarded as the vulnerable point in the American Confederacy, was fully launched upon the fall of Charleston in May, 1780. Cornwallis established his headquarters at Camden; and one of his lieutenants, the persuasive and brilliant Ferguson, soon rallied thousands of Loyalists in South Carolina to the British standard. When Cornwallis inaugurated his campaign for cutting Washington wholly off from the Southern colonies by invading North Carolina, the men upon the western waters realized that the time had come to rise, in defense of their state and in protection of their homes. Two hundred Tennessee riflemen from Sullivan County, under Colonel Isaac Shelby, were engaged in minor operations in South Carolina conducted by Colonel Charles McDowell; and conspicuous among these engagements was the affair at Musgrove"s Mill on August 18th when three hundred hors.e.m.e.n led by Colonel James Williams, a native of Granville County, North Carolina, Colonel Isaac Shelby, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clark of Georgia repulsed with heavy loss a British force of between four and five hundred.
These minor successes availed nothing in face of the disastrous defeat of Gates by Cornwallis at Camden on August 16th and the humiliating blow to Sumter at Rocky Mount on the following day.
Ferguson hotly pursued the frontiersmen, who then retreated over the mountains; and from his camp at Gilbert Town he despatched a threatening message to the Western leaders, declaring that if they did not desist from their opposition to the British arms and take protection under his standard, he would march his army over the mountains and lay their country waste with fire and sword.
Stung to action, Shelby hastily rode off to consult with Sevier at his log castle near Jonesboro; and together they matured a plan to arouse the mountain men and attack Ferguson by surprise.
In the event of failure, these wilderness free-lances planned to leave the country and find a home with the Spaniards in Louisiana.
At the original place of rendezvous, the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga, the overmountain men gathered on September 25th. There an eloquent sermon was preached to them by that fiery man of G.o.d, the Reverend Samuel Doak, who concluded his discourse with a stirring invocation to the sword of the Lord and of Gideon--a sentiment greeted with the loud applause of the militant frontiersmen. Here and at various places along the march they were joined by detachments of border fighters summoned to join the expedition--Colonel William Campbell, who with some reluctance had abandoned his own plans in response to Shelby"s urgent and repeated message, in command of four hundred hardy frontiersmen from Washington County, Virginia; Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, with the wild fighters of Wilkes known as "Cleveland"s Bulldogs"; Colonel Andrew Hampton, with the stalwart riflemen of Rutherford; Major Joseph Winston, the cousin of Patrick Henry, with the flower of the citizenry of Surry; the McDowells, Charles and Joseph, with the bold borderers of Burke; Colonels Lacy and Hill, with well-trained soldiers of South Carolina; and Brigadier-General James Williams, leading the intrepid Rowan volunteers.
Before breaking camp at Quaker Meadows, the leading officers in conference chose Colonel William Campbell as temporary officer of the day, until they could secure a general officer from headquarters as commander-in-chief. The object of the mountaineers and big-game hunters was, in their own terms, to pursue Ferguson, to run him down, and to capture him. In pursuance of this plan, the leaders on arriving at the ford of Green River chose out a force of six hundred men, with the best mounts and equipment; and at daybreak on October 6th this force of picked mounted riflemen, followed by some fifty "foot-cavalry"
eager to join in the pursuit, pushed rapidly on to the Cowpens.
Here a second selection took place; and Colonel Campbell, was again elected commander of the detachment, now numbering some nine hundred and ten hors.e.m.e.n and eighty odd footmen, which dashed rapidly on in pursuit of Ferguson.
The British commander had been apprised of the coming of the over-mountain men. Scorning to make a forced march and attempt to effect a junction with Cornwallis at Charlotte, Ferguson chose to make a stand and dispose once for all of the barbarian horde whom he denounced as mongrels and the dregs of mankind. After despatching to Cornwallis a message asking for aid, Ferguson took up his camp on King"s Mountain, just south of the North Carolina border line, in the present York County, South Carolina. Here, after his pickets had been captured in silence, he was surprised by his opponents. At three o"clock in the afternoon of October 7th the mountain hunters treed their game upon the heights.
The battle which ensued presents an extraordinary contrast in the character of the combatants and the nature of the strategy and tactics. Each party ran true to form--Ferguson repeating Braddock"s suicidal policy of opposing bayonet charges to the deadly fusillade of riflemen, who in Indian fashion were carefully posted behind trees and every shelter afforded by the natural inequalities of the ground. In the army of the Carolina and Virginia frontiersmen, composed of independent detachments recruited from many sources and solicitous for their own individual credit, each command was directed in the battle by its own leader. Campbell--like Cleveland, Winston, Williams, Lacey, Shelby, McDowell, Sevier, and Hambright--personally led his own division; but the nature of the fighting and the peculiarity of the terrain made it impossible for him, though the chosen commander of the expedition, actually to play that role in the battle. The plan agreed upon in advance by the frontier leaders was simple enough--to surround and capture Ferguson"s camp on the high plateau. The more experienced Indian fighters, Sevier and Shelby, unquestionably suggested the general scheme which in any case would doubtless have been employed by the frontiersmen; it was to give the British "Indian play"--namely to take cover everywhere and to fire from natural shelter. Cleveland, a Hercules in strength and courage who had fought the Indians and recognized the wisdom of Indian tactics, ordered his men, as did some of the other leaders, to give way before a bayonet charge, but to return to the attack after the charge had spent its force.
"My brave fellows," said Cleveland, "every man must consider himself an officer, and act from his own judgment. Fire as quick as you can, and stand your ground as long as you can. When you can do no better, get behind trees, or retreat; but I beg you not to run quite off. If we are repulsed, let us make a point of returning and renewing the fight; perhaps we may have better luck in the second attempt than in the first."
The plateau upon which Ferguson was encamped was the top of an eminence some six hundred yards long and about two hundred and fifty yards from one base across to the other; and its shape was that of an Indian paddle, varying from one hundred and twenty yards at the blade to sixty yards at the handle in width.
Outcropping boulders upon the outer edge of the plateau afforded some slight shelter for Ferguson"s force; but, unsuspicious of attack, Ferguson had made no abatis to protect his camp from the a.s.sault to which it was so vulnerable because of the protection of the timber surrounding it on all sides. As to the disposition of the attacking force, the center to the northeast was occupied by Cleveland with his "Bulldogs," Hambright with his South Fork Boys from the Catawba (now Lincoln County, North Carolina), and Winston with his Surry riflemen; to the south were the divisions of Joseph McDowell, Sevier, and Campbell; while Lacey"s South Carolinians, the Rowan levies under Williams, and the Watauga borderers under Shelby were stationed upon the north side.
Ferguson"s forces consisted of Provincial Rangers, one hundred and fifty strong, and other well-drilled Loyalists, between eight and nine hundred in number; but his strength was seriously weakened by the absence of a foraging party of between one and two hundred who had gone off on the morning the battle occurred.
Shelby"s men, before getting into position, received a hot fire, the opening shots of the engagement. This inspired Campbell, who now threw off his coat, to shout encouraging orders to his men posted on the side of the mountain opposite to Shelby"s force.
When Campbell"s Virginians uttered a series of piercing shouts, the British officer, De Peyster, second in command, remarked to his chief: "These things are ominous--these are the d.a.m.ned yelling boys."
The battle, which lasted some minutes short of an hour, was waged with terrific ferocity. The Loyalist militia, whenever possible, fired from the shelter of the rocks; while the Provincial Corps, with fixed bayonets, steadily charged the frontiersmen, who fired at close range and then rapidly withdrew to the very base of the mountain. After each bayonet charge the Provincials coolly withdrew to the summit, under the acc.u.mulating fire of the returning mountaineers, who quickly gathered in their rear. Owing to their elevated location, the British, although using the rapid-fire breech-loading rifle invented by Ferguson himself, found their vision deflected, and continually fired high, thus suffering from nature"s handicap, refraction. The militia, using sharpened butcher-knives which Ferguson had taught them to utilize as bayonets, charged against the mountaineers; but their fire, in answer to the deadly fusillade of the expert squirrel-shooters, was belated, owing to the fact that they could not fire while the crudely improvised bayonets remained inserted in their pieces. The Americans, continually firing upward, found ready marks for their aim in the clearly delineated outlines of their adversaries, and felt the fierce exultation which animates the hunter who has tracked to its lair and surrounded wild game at bay.
The leaders of the various divisions of the mountaineers bore themselves with impetuous bravery, recklessly rushing between the lines of fire and with native eloquence, interspersed with profanity, rallying their individual commands again and again to the attack. The valiant Campbell scaled the rugged heights, loudly encouraging his men to the ascent. Cleveland, resolutely facing the foe, urged on is Bulldogs with the inspiriting words: "Come, boys; let"s try "em again. We"ll have better luck next time." No sooner did Shelby"s men reach the bottom of the hill, in retreating before a charge, than their commander, fiery and strenuous, ardently shouted: "Now boys, quickly reload your rifles, and let"s advance upon them, and give them another h.e.l.l of a fire." The most deadly charge, led by De Peyster himself, fell upon Hambright"s South Fork boys; and one of their gallant officers, Major Chronicle, waving his military hat, was mortally wounded, the command, "Face to the hill!", dying on his lips.
These veteran soldiers, unlike the mountaineers, firmly met the shock of the charge, and a number of their men were shot down or transfixed; but the remainder, reserving their fire until the charging column was only a few feet away, poured in a deadly volley before retiring. The gallant William Lenoir, whose reckless bravery made him a conspicuous target for the enemy, received several wounds and emerged from the battle with his hair and clothes torn by b.a.l.l.s. The ranking American officer, Brigadier General James Williams, was mortally wounded while "on the very top of the mountain, in the thickest of the fight"; and as he momentarily revived, his first words were: "For G.o.d"s sake, boys, don"t give up the hill." Hambright, sorely wounded, his boot overflowing with blood and his hat riddled with three bullet holes, declined to dismount, but pressed gallantly forward, exclaiming in his "Pennsylvania Dutch": "Huzza, my prave poys, fight on a few minutes more, and the pattle will be over!" On the British side, Ferguson was supremely valorous, rapidly dashing from one point to another, rallying his men, oblivious to all danger. Wherever the shrill note of his silver whistle sounded, there the fighting was hottest and the British resistance the most stubborn. His officers fought with the characteristic steadiness of the British soldier; and again and again his men charged headlong against the wavering and fiery circle of the frontiersmen.
Ferguson"s boast that "he was on King"s Mountain, that he was king of the Mountain, and G.o.d Almighty could not drive him from it" was doubtless prompted, less by a belief in the impregnability of his position, than by a desperate desire to inspire confidence in his men. His location was admirably chosen for defense against attack by troops employing regulation tactics; but, never dreaming of the possibility of sudden investment, Ferguson had erected no fortifications for his encampment. His frenzied efforts on the battlefield seem like a mad rush against fate; for the place was indefensible against the peculiar tactics of the frontiersmen. While the mountain flamed like a volcano and resounded with the thunder of the guns, a steady stricture was in progress. The lines were drawn tighter and tighter around the trapped and frantically struggling army; and at last the fall of their commander, riddled with bullets, proved the tragic futility of further resistance. The game was caught and bagged to a man. When Winston, with his fox-hunters of Surry, dashed recklessly through the woods, says a chronicler of the battle, and the last to come into position,
Flow"d in, and settling, circled all the lists,
then
From all the circle of the hills death sleeted in upon the doomed.
The battle was decisive in its effect--shattering the plans of Cornwallis, which till then appeared certain of success. The victory put a full stop to the invasion of North Carolina, which was then well under way. Cornwallis abandoned his carefully prepared campaign and immediately left the state. After ruthlessly hanging nine prisoners, an action which had an effectively deterrent effect upon future Tory murders and depredations, the patriot force quietly disbanded. The brilliant initiative of the buckskin-clad borderers, the strenuous energy of their pursuit, the perfection of their surprise--all reinforced by the employment of ideal tactics for meeting the given situation--were the controlling factors in this overwhelming victory of the Revolution. The pioneers of the Old Southwest--the independent and aggressive yeomanry of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina--had risen in their might.
Without the aid or authority of blundering state governments, they had created an army of frontiersmen, Indian-fighters, and big-game hunters which had found no parallel or equal on the continent since the Battle of the Great Kanawha.
CHAPTER XIX. The State of Franklin
Designs of a more dangerous nature and deeper die seem to glare in the western revolt .... I have thought proper to issue this manifesto, hereby warning all persons concerned in the said revolt ... that the honour of this State has been particularly wounded, by seizing that by violence which, in time, no doubt, would have been obtained by consent, when the terms of separation would have been explained or stipulated, to the mutual satisfaction of the mother and new State.... Let your proposals be consistent with the honour of the State to accede to, which by your allegiance as good citizens, you cannot violate and I make no doubt but her generosity, in time, will meet your wishes.--Governor Alexander Martin: Manifesto against the State of Franklin, April 25, 1785.