OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - HISTORY: Chapter 3a (Abbott, John S. C., 1875)
***************************************************************************
OHGENWEB NOTICE:  All distribution rights to this electronic data are
reserved by the submitter.  Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted
material will require the permission of the copyright owner.  The submitter 
has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently 
for free access.
***************************************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Kay L. Mason
keziah63@yahoo.com	
August 2, 1999
***************************************************************************

   Ere long the main body of the army made its appearance. With the over-
whelming force, then numbering six or seven thousand men, they soon captured
Fort Duquesne. The banners of all-conquering England were unfurled over its
ramparts, and the name of the fort was changed to Pitt, from the illstrious
British minister of that name. The little village which soon sprang up
around it as called Pittsburgh. General Forbes repaired the fort, and then, 
in flat-bottomed boats, with the remainder of his army, descended the Ohio
River to the Mississippi, and then floated down the "Father of Waters" to 
the gulf.
   On the way he took possession of all the French forts and trading posts 
on the Ohio River, and also erected and garrisoned a fort, which he called
Massac, on the right bank of the river, in the present state of Illinois, 
about forty miles above the mouth of the Ohio.
   While these signal victories were obtained in the great valley, the 
British arms were equally triumphant in the north. Ticonderoga, Crown Point, 
Fort Niagara and Quebec were taken that same year. Presque Isle, Detroit, 
and several other French posts, fell also into the hands of the English. The
next year, Montreal passed to the British crown, and with it the whole of
Canada. But still the French, with their Indian allies, kept up the war.
   The British were very brave, but, in their intercourse with the savages, 
they manifested but little of that spirit of politeness and conciliation 
with which the French won the hearts of the Indians. 
   In the southeastern borders of what is now Tennesee, there was a very 
beautiful country, of fertile and sheltering meadows, sunny and green slopes,
gigantic forests and towering mountains, where the Cherokee Indians had a 
happy home, with abundant supplies of game. Mountain ridges bounded their 
magnificent realm, and the Cherokees, though peacefully inclined, were con-
sidered one of the most powerful nations on the continent. Intellectually
they were far above the great mass of the Indians. They had many large and 
pleasant villages, with fields of corn and fruit. English adventurers had
been hospitably received in sixty-four of these towns, and had found some of
them very respectfully fortified. The nation could send six thousand war-
riors in the field.
   In 1756, the English sent a deputation to the Cherokee country, to solicit
the aid of the nation against the French. A council was convened. The English
commissioners and Cherokee chiefs met, and smoked a pipe of peace amicably.
Everything promised a speedy and firm alliance, when a messenger came in 
with the visit to the French on the banks of the Ohio, while peaceably re-
turning, had been attacked and massacred by the English.
   These tidings threw the council into the greatest excitement. Many of 
the impervious young warriors were disposed to toke immediate revenge, by 
putting the English commissioners to the torture and to death. It was with
much difficulty that the older and more considerate braves restrained them.
There was a very wise and truly noble old man, by the name of Attakulla, who
was the head chief of the nation. He, with magnanimity worthy of all praise, 
saved the lives of the commissioners and allowed them to depart in peace.
   After all this, the French found but little difficulty in enlisting the
nation on their side. All the young warriors were pleased with the excite-
ments of war, and, burning with the desire for vengence, flocked eagerly to
their standards. With horrid devastation they swept the frontiers. The 
Government of South Carolina summoned the whole militia of the state, to 
protect his borders and to carry the war into the territory of the Cherokees.
   But the Indians had sufficient intelligence to understand that their 
quarrel was with the Virginia colonists, and none others. They, therefore, 
sent thirty of their chiefs on a peace embassage, led by the humane and re-
nowned Allakulla, to settle all differences with the South Carolinians, at 
Charleston. Governor Littleton received them very haughtily. He condescended
to meet them in council, not, however, to listen to their views, but to 
announce his own.
   In a long and angry speech he denounced their actions, and, in conclusion,
declared to them that if they did not immediately renounce their alliance 
with the French, and join the English, in their warfare against them, he 
would not be responsible for their personal safety.
   Thus the English governor proved himself more of a savage than the Indian
chieftain. One of the chiefs gravely rose to reply. The Governor angrily
silenced him, saying:
   "I will listen to no talk in vindication of your tribe. You have heard my
terms. I will listen to no other proposals for peace. Come and join our
standards or I will desolate your whole country with my military force, 
which is now ready to march."
   The sage Indian chiefs felt keenly this insult. They had visited the
Governor with hearts open for peace, and had been treated with the grossest
indignity. There was not a savage tribe on the continent, who would thus 
have repelled such friendly advances. The perfidious Governor compelled 
them, under a strong guard, to accompany him to the Congress, where he had 
assembled a very strong force for that times, consisting of one thousand 
four hundred men, thoroughly armed. He wished to show them how formidable 
was the army with which he intende to invade their country.
   When the Governor, with his escort and captives, reached the Trundiga
River, about three hundred miles from Charleston, and on the borders of the
Cherokee country, this Governor, who called himself a civilized man, fearful
that the chiefs might escape, ordered these ambassadors of peace into close
confinement. He then summoned Attakulla, who had ever been the firm friend 
of the English, before him, and declared that unless twenty-four of the 
Cherokees were delivered up to him, to be put to death, as an atonement for 
English who had been massacred by the savages, the war should be prosecuted
with all vigor.
   In the meantime the chiefs were detained as hostages, expecting daily to
be death. Attakulla was permitted to return to the nation with the terms the
Governor demanded. It soon being suspected that the chiefs were about to 
make a desparate effort to escape, they were all put in irons, or rather
orders were given to place the shackles on their hands and their feet. They
resisted, stabbing three of the soldiers. This so exasperated the rest that
they fell fiercely upon the captives, and brutally murdered them all.
   This horrid butchery roused the nation to a man. The chiefs were their
great men, their most renowned braves, and were much beloved. "The spirits,"
said one of their orators, "of our murdered brothers are hovering around us, 
and calling for vengence on our enemies."
   The exasperated young warriors came, with a rush, upon the frontiers of 
the Carolinas. Every where the war whoop resounded. Cabins blazed at mid-
night. Men, women, and children fell before the tomahawk of the savage. The 
benighted Indians thought that they were thus but performing a religious
duty, avenging their slaughtered fathers. The scattered settlers, in their
turn, fled from their homes. Many starved to death in the wilderness. Misery
held high carnival.
   Every day brought fresh accounts of ravages and murders. The alarm spread
fearfully through both of the Carolinas. Governor Lyttleton had loosed the 
tiger, and it was quite out of his power to cage him. Both of the Carolinas
united to raise troops to meet the awful emergence. Twelve companies of 
British regulars were sent, by General Amherst, to their aid.
   These troops, with a large number of provincials, were pushed rapidly
forward, directly into the Cherokee country, hoping that by killing, plun-
dering and burning there, without mercy, they might call back, to the pro-
tection of their homes, the wandering savage bands, who were inflicting such
awful desolation on the frontiers. One can not but pause to reflest upon the
fact, that one single man, by a spirit of consiliation, might have averted 
all these horrors.
   It was in May, 1760, that the English, with great energy, commenced their
campaign of the invasion of the Cherokee territory. For some time they ad-
vanced unmolested, all the Indians - men, women and children - retiring be-
fore them. They came to several Indian villages utterly deserted. They laid
them all in ashes. One of these villages, Keowee, contained two hundred very
comfortable houses. It was just the time for spring planting. But no plant-
ing could be done. Thus the intelligent Indians saw, before them, an autumn
and winter of hunger and starvation.
   The sagacious Indian chiefs allowed the English to push on, mile after 
mile, through the rugged and pathless defiles of the mountains. Foot-sore
and weary the troops clambered over the rocks, they came within five miles of
a large Indian town, called Etchoe. Here the narrow trail, which they were
following, led through a low, damp valley, which was so thickly overgrown
with forest trees and underbrush that the soldiers could not see ten feet
before them.   
   Through this valley the army must pass in a long and straggling line.
Prudently an officer was sent forward, with a company of rangers, to scour
the thicket. These troops had advanced but a few rods when a sudden dis-
charge of fire arms from an unseen foe laid the captain dead upon the ground,
and also many of his men. The English and provincial soldiers, always brave, 
immediately charged, with great impetuously, into the thicket. There was no 
foe to be seen. And yet the Indians, concealed behing the trees, and ac-
quainted with every inch of the ground, took deliberate aim, at their ad-
vancing foes, and kept up a constant and deadly fire. The English could only
fire at random in return.
   The forest resounded with the shrill war whoop of the savages, as they 
saw their enemies falling, one by one, before their deliberate aim. Thus, 
for an hour, the unequal conflict continued. The English lost in killed and 
wounded nearly a hundred men. It was never known what the loss of the In-
dians was, for, in slowly retreating, they carried with them their dead and 
wounded. They fought, however, at such great advantage that their loss must 
have been very small.
   The savages had made careful arrangements for a safe retreat. After they
had disappeared, the English officers examined the ground which their foes 
had selected for the battle-field. They were surprised at the judgement 
which the Indians had displayed in the position they had taken, and in all 
the tactics they had taken, and in all the tactics of the battle.
   The English had suffered so severely by the fatigues of their long march,
the want of food, and the loss in this bloody battle, that it was deemed 
necessary to order an immediate retreat. Their provisions were nearly ex-
hausted, and it was very certain that the Indians would leave them no sup-
plies.
   A chief, by the name of Oconostota, commanded the Cherokees in this
battle. Being left in possission of the field by the retreat of the English, 
he immediately marched his victorious warriors to Fort Loudon, on the River
Tellico, in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. The English had reared 
here quite a strong fort, which was garrisoned by two hundred men. A very
vigorous siege was promptly commenced. The troops had relied very much upon
the game, with which the forests abounded, for the supply of their larders. 
This resource was now cut off, and no possible replenishment of their empty
stores could reach them from beyond the mountains. They soon found them-
selves in a starving condition.
   After eating their horses and dogs, and being reduced to mere skeletons, 
they were compelled, on the 7th of August, to surrender. Oconostota granted
them very liberal terms. They were to abandon the fort with all its military
contents, but were permitted to retire, each soldier with his musket, to the
nearest white settlement.
   The next day, a weak and trembling band, they had ascended the river 
about fifteen miles towards the southeast, on their return to North Carolina, 
when five hundred warriors surrounded them. These savages, regardless of the
terms of capitulation, and breathing only vengence, fell upon them furiously, 
tomahawk in hand, and speedily put nearly every one to death. Amist horrid
yells the massacre was speedily accomplished. A few only were taken captive.
These were strongly pinioned, and carried back to Fort Loudon, perhaps 
reserved for torture to grace the Indians' victory. Strange as it may seem,
the noble Attakulla was still the earnest advocate for peace. His intelli-
gence taught him that the war could be fruitful only in ruin and misery to 
both parties.
   Among the captives brought back to Fort Loudon, there was a Captain Stew-
art, who had been a former acquaintance and friend of Attakulla. The renowned
chieftain, in virtue of his office as head chief, claimed Captain Stewart as
his prisoner. He then embraced an early opportunity to enable him to escape.
   Thus sadly passed the Summer of 1760. During the winter the savages kept
up a desultory warfare, but most of the lonely settlers had abandoned their
homes. In the Spring of 1761 the English made very rigorous preparations for 
a new campaign. The pride of England was aroused, that a handful of savages
should bid defiance to her powerful colonies. An English army of two thou-
sand five hundred men was rendezvoused in the extreme northwestern frontiers
of South Carolina, at a military post called Fort George. They had also
succeeded in winning to their side some of the Chickasaw and Catawbas war-
riors.
   In the meantime a French officer, Colonel Latinac, was sent on an em-
bassage to the Cherokees to supply them with arms and ammunition, and to
incite their zeal anew against the English. He met with the chiefs in coun-
cil, and said to them:
   "The English will be satisfied with nothing else than the utter exter-
mination of the Cherokees from the face of the earth. They seek to ravage 
all your fields, to burn all your villages and to put every man, woman and
child to death." Brandishing his hatchet he struck it furiously into a log, 
exclaiming: "Who is the man who will take this hatchet up for the king of
France? Where is he? Let him come forth."
   A young warrior, by the name of Saloneh, whose village, of Estatoe, had
been burned by the English, stepped forward, seized the hatchet, and waving
it in the air, exclaimed:
   "I will take it up. I am for war. The spirits of the slain call upon us.
I will avenge them. And who will not? He is no better than a woman who re-
fuses to follow me."
   All these fierce warriors responded to this appeal with the clash of wea-
pons and the shouting of the war-whoop. On the 7th of June, the English army, 
much more powerful in numbers and better appointed than before, commenced 
its march. As in the previous campaign, they met with no opposition in their
passage through the dreary defiles of the mountains. But when they reached
the spot where the battle took place a year before, the scouts discovered a
large body of Cherokess, very strongly posted on a hill side, on the right
flank of the army.
   The Indians, seeing the advance guard to be not very strong, rushed down
the hill upon them, in an impetuous charge. But the main body hurried up, 
and, after a very hot conflict, succeeded in driving the savages back to 
their position on the hill. General Grant, who was in command of the British
and provincial forces, now moved forward his whole army to drive the savages
from the heights.
   The Indians were fresh from their homes, unfatigued, well fed and sanguine
with hope from their previous victory. On the other hand, the condition of
the English was deplorable. They had encountered a constant succession of 
storms on their toilsome march, keeping them drenched to the skin by day and
by night. All of them were much fatigued, and many of them in condition to 
go into a hospital rather than into battle.
   Still they fought with characteristic bravely. They were frequently re-
pelled by the galling fire of the savages, but they always rallied again.
Whenever they were losing in one quarter, they were gaining in another. 
Thus the tides of battle ebbed and flowed, from eight o'clock in the morn-
ing until eleven o'clock at noon. The military intelligence of the Indians
was evidenced in the fact that while they engrossed the attention of the 
English, by a fierce attack upon their front, a number of their warriors 
were sent secretely and by a circuitous route to attack their baggage train.
They came very near accomplishing this feat. The commissary and military
stores were only saved by a party being hastily sent from the main body to
the aid of the rear guard.
   At length British intelligence, discipline and valor prevailed over the
Cherokees, and they were put to flight. Sixty of the English were struck by
the bullets of the savages before they fled. The loss of the savages is not
known. It was, however, probably small, as they were very careful to keep
their persons concealed behind rocks and trees. "War", says Napoleon, "is 
the science of barbarians." The victorious English now entered upon a career
of punishing the defeated savages. They swept the Cherokee country for 
thirty days, in all directions, trampling the crops, burning the villages 
and shooting the warriors wherever they could be found. Fourteen large towns
were laid in ashes. A large number of well-stored granaries were committed
to the flames. The women and children fled in terror from their dreadful foe
to the fastnesses of the mountains, where, it is said, many of them perished
of starvation.
   Colonel Francis Marion, who subsequently attained national renown in the
Revolutionary war, was a subordinate officer in this campaign. In a letter 
to a friend he gives the following touching account of the scenes he wit-
nessed:
   "We arrived at the Indian towns in the month of July. As the lands were 
rich and the season had been favorable, the corn was bending under the 
double weight of lusty, roasting ears, and pods and clustering beans. The 
furrows seemed to rejoice under their precious loads; the fields stood thick
with bread. We encamped, the first night, in the woods near the fielsds, 
where the whole army feasted on the young corn, which, with fat venison, 
made a most delicious treat.
   "The next morning we proceeding, by order of Colonel Grant, to burn down 
the Indian cabins. Some of our men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing
very heartily at the curling flames as they mounted, loud, crackling over 
the tops of the huts; but to me it appeared a shocking sight. 'Poor crea-
tures', thought I, 'we surely need not grudge you such miserable habitua-
tions.' But when we came, according to orders, to cut down the fields of 
corn, I could scarcely refrain from tears. For who could see the stalks, 
that stood so stately, with broad, green leaves and gaily-tassled shocks, 
filled with sweet, milky fluid and flour, the staff of life, - who, I can,
could see without grief these sacred plants sinking under our swords, with
all their precious load, to wither and rot untasted in the fields.
   "I saw everywhere around the footsteps of little Indian children, where
they had lately played under the shelter of the rustling corn. No doubt 
they had often looked up with joy to swelling cakes for the coming winter. 
When we are gone, thought I, they will return, and, peeping through the 
weeds with tearful eyes, will mark the ghastly ruin poured over their homes
and the happy fields where they had so often played."
   The Cherokees were crushed. Like the rush of the tornado the English 
swept over their fertile fields. Smouldering ruins, desolation, death every-
where. A deputation of chiefs, completely humiliated, visited the camp, im-
ploring peace. Among them was the noble Attakulla. In the following appro-
priate and truly pathetic speech he addressed General Grant:
   "You live at the water side, and are in light. We are in darkness; but we
hope that all will yet be clear. I have been constantly going about doing
good. Though I am tired, yet I am come to see what can be done for my people, 
who are in great distress. As to what has happened, I believe that it has 
been ordered by our Father above. We are of a different color from the white
people. They are superior to us; but one God is Father of us all, and we 
hope that what is past will be forgotten. God Almighty made all people. 
There is not a day but that some are coming into the world, and others are
going out of it. The Great King told me that the path should never be 
crooked, but open for every one to pass and repass. As we all live in one 
land, I hope we shall all live as one people."
   Peace was formally ratified, with the declaration that it should last as
long as the sun should shine or the waters run. Thus the dreadful Cherokee
war was brought to an end in the Summer of 1761.