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before seen men's heads skinned. Major Lewis soon perceiving, by the retreating fire, that Grant was overmatched, came to the rescue with his provincials, and falling on the rear of the Indians, made way for Grant and some of his men to retreat; but his own party was overwhelmed by numbers. This action proved disastrous to the English, more than one-third of the whole force being killed. Grant and Lewis were both taken prisoners, and the remnant of the detachment was saved mainly through the bravery and skill of Captain Bullet, of the Virginia provincials, the only officer who escaped unhurt.

Col. Boquet, while remaining at Loyal Hanna with the advance, was shortly after twice attacked by the French and Indians with great vigor; but he successfully repulsed them, with a loss on his part of only sixty-seven in killed and wounded. The intrenchment he threw up at that place was afterward called Fort Ligonier.

In November, the commandant of Fort Duquesne, unable to cope with the overwhelming force approaching under Forbes, destroyed the fortress, and descended the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. On his route he erected Fort Massac, on the Ohio, about forty miles from its mouth, in the Illinois country. General Forbes repaired Fort Duquesne and changed its named to Fort Pitt; on this spot now stands the flourishing city of Pittsburgh.

The English were now, for the first time, in possession of the whole Upper Ohio region. In the spring of 1759, they established posts on the eastern side of the Ohio, prominent among which was Fort Burd, on the site of Brownstown, Pennsylvania, later called Redstone Old Fort. They also soon had possession of Presque Isle, Detroit, and other French posts in that region.

While these events had been transpiring in the West, most brilliant successes had attended the English arms on the North. Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Fort Niagara, and Quebec were taken in 1759; the next year Montreal fell, and with it, the whole of Canada. By the treaty of Paris, in 1763, France relinquished all her claims to Canada, and the western country, east of the Mississippi, to Great Britain; to Spain, she ceded that west of the Mississippi.

THE CHEROKEE WAR OF 1760.

AN important episode in the French and Indian war, which resulted in the loss of Canada and the West to that power, was the Cherokee war. Most of the prominent incidents of which occurred

on or near the eastern and southeastern line of Tennessee.

The Cherokees occupied a beautiful and broad extent of country; one of fertile valleys, green meadows, sunny slopes, immense forests, girt about by mountains of giant grandeur, that alike served as natural fortresses, and to exclude them from the outer world.

They were a highly intellectual people, compared to most of the aborigines. They possessed fine fruit and corn fields; and their towns were generally fenced in. Beside the great natural strength of their position, their numerical force was large, for they had no less than sixty-four towns and villages, and were able, in an emergency, to send six thousand warriors into the field.

In 1756, the English sent deputies among the Cherokees to secure their aid against the French. A council was convened and likely to terminate favorably, when tidings suddenly came that a party of their nation, who had visited the French on the Ohio, were massacred by some Virginians, on their return home. Immediately the council was in an uproar, and it was not without the greatest exertions on the part of their renowned chief, Attakulla, that the deputies were saved from immediate death.

Great excitement succeeded this provocation. The older part of the nation remained calm, and Attakulla and Oconostota, or the Great Warrior, were both against the war; but the French emissaries instigated the younger warriors to take the field; parties of whom involved the frontiers in horrid devastation and massacre. Governor Lyttleton, of South Carolina, summoned the militia to meet at the Congarees to commence active hostilities. No sooner did the Cherokees hear of this movement, than they sent thirtytwo of their chiefs, among whom was Great Warrior, to settle all differences at Charleston. Conference ensued, and the governor made a long speech of accusation, which he concluded by saying the chiefs must follow his troops, or he would not be answerable for their safety. Oconostota gravely rose to reply, but the governor forbade him to proceed: "he would hear no talk in vindication of the orator's countrymen, nor any proposals with regard to peace, but was determined to proceed with his expedition."

The Great Warrior and his brother deputies were indignant; with hearts open for peace they were grossly insulted. Nay, more, they were forcibly obliged to accompany the governor to the Congarees, where were collected one thousand four hundred men; and when the expedition started on its march, a guard was placed over them to prevent their escape. On reaching Fort George, which stood on the Isundiga River, about three hundred miles from Charleston, on the borders of the Cherokee country, the chiefs were placed in close confinement.

As his troops were becoming discontented and mutinous, the governor dared not advance any farther, and sent for Attakulla, the steady friend of the English, and the wisest man of the nation. He obeyed the summons, and a conference took place on the 17th of December, 1759. The governor declared his readiness for peace but on the condition that twenty-four of the Cherokees should be delivered up to be put to death, or otherwise disposed of at option, as an atonement for that number of Carolinians massacred in the late foray of the savages. These terms were accepted; but as soon as they were known the mass of the Cherokees fled to

the mountains, and the number of hostages could only be secured by detaining twenty-two of the chiefs already in custody.

No sooner had the governor disbanded his forces than the Cherokees determined to violate a treaty so unjustly extorted, sounded the warhoop, killed fourteen whites within a mile of Fort George. This was followed up by a stratagem by which Oconostota, who had been released, aimed to take possession of the fort. Pretending to have something of importance to communicate to the commander, he dispatched a woman who had usually obtained access to the station to solicit an interview with the commandant on the bank of the river. Cotymore imprudently assented, and accompanied by two officers, walked down to the river; from the opposite side of which Oconostota addressed him. While they spoke, the Indian waved a bridle over his head as a signal to his ambushed warriors. They fired; Coty more fell dead, and his companions were wounded. But the Cherokees failed to get possession of the fort. Suspecting a concerted movement among the hostages, by which they would co-operate with the assailing foe without, the officers in the fort gave orders to secure them with irons. The Indians resisted with arms, and stabbing three of the soldiers, so exasperated the rest, already excited by the murder of their captain, that they fell upon the miserable captives, and butchered them to a man.

There were but few men in the Cherokee nation that did not lose a friend or relation in this massacre. All, with one voice, cried for war: "the spirits of their murdered brothers were hovering around them, and calling out for vengeance on their enemies. Large parties rushed down upon the defenseless frontiers of Carolina, and men, women, and children fell a prey to their merciless fury. Some, who escaped the scalping-knife, starved to death in the forests; others, borne into captivity, suffered incredible hardships. Every day brought fresh accounts of their ravages and murders.

Great alarm prevailed throughout the Carolinas, and troops were raised for the protection of the frontiers, and with the others, General Amherst sent twelve companies of British regulars to the theater of hostilities. In May, 1760, the campaign commenced with a rapid invasion of the Cherokee territory; considerable ravages were speedily made; Estatoe and Keowee, the latter containing two hundred houses, were burnt; the army then marched to the relief of Fort George.

And now the war grew fervid. Saloueh and Fiftoe had sworn vengeance over the ashes of their homes, and the soul of the Great Warrior was hot within him. The invaders were suffered to pursue their hazardous and difficult march, through dark thickets and deep defiles, and over mountains, rivers, and swamps, until within five miles of Etchoe. Here was a low valley covered so thick with bushes that the soldiers could scarcely see three yards before them. The army was obliged to pass through it, and that in such a

manner as to permit but a few troops to act together. An officer was ordered to advance and scour the thicket with a company of rangers. A sudden discharge of fire-arms laid him dead with several of his soldiers. The grenadiers and light infantry now charged the enemy, a heavy fire commenced on both sides, and the woods rang with the warriors' whoop, the ring of musketry, the shouts of the soldiery, and the groans of the dying. The action lasted more than an hour; the English losing in killed and wounded almost a hundred men, when the Indians slowly retreated and disappeared, carrying off the bodies of their slain. Upon viewing the ground, all were astonished at the judgment shown in its selection; the most experienced officer could scarce have fixed upon a more advantageous spot for attacking an enemy. Orders were immediately given for an expeditious retreat.

Thus Oconostota succeeded in the field. But his heart still thirsted for blood. Fort Loudon, in what is now Monroe county, Tennessee, was besieged, with its garrison of two hundred men. They were reduced to the horrors of famine, being obliged to consume their horses and dogs for food. It was not until then that the commandant agreed to capitulate upon condition that the garrison should be permitted to march out with their arms to the nearest white settlements. On the 7th of August, the fort was surrendered, and the troops had proceeded one day's march up the Tellico, about fifteen miles on the way to Fort George. Ilere, on the banks of the river, at daybreak next morning, they were surrounded and attacked by nearly five hundred warriors; with the most horrid yells they rushed, tomahawk in hand, upon the feeble and emaciated troops. At the first fire, the commandant and thirty men fell, and the greater portion of the remainder were massacred on the spot. The residue either fled or were captured, and the latter pinioned and sent back to Fort Loudon. Among the latter was a Captain Stuart, who before the war had been a friend of Attakulla. This chief had taken no part in the war. He came forward and claimed him as his prisoner, and at the first opportunity magnanimously assisted him to escape.

The spring of 1761 opened with new efforts, upon the part of the English, so that by the 27th of May, two thousand six hundred men mustered at Fort George, with whom were numbers of Chickasaws and Catawbas.

Latinac, a French officer, was at this time among the Cherokees, inciting them to war. He persuaded them that the English would be satisfied with nothing else than to exterminate them, man, woman and child, from the face of the earth. He gave them arms too, and urged them to war. At a grand meeting of the nation, he brandished his hatchet, and striking it furiously into a log of wood, cried out: "Who is the man that will take this up for the King of France? Where is he? Let him come forth!" Saloueh, the young warrior of Estatoe, instantly leaped forward, laid hold of it, and cried out: "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 refuses to follow me." Fierce looks and uplifted tomahawks answered this appeal, and again the war torrent rushed down upon the frontiers.

The English commenced their march into the interior on the 7th of June, and advanced unmolested as far as the well-remembered battle-ground of the year previous; but there the Indian scouts in front observed a large body of Cherokees posted upon a hill on the right flank of the army. Immediately the savages, rushing down, began to fire upon the advanced guard, which being supported, repulsed them; but they recovered the heights. Colonel Grant ordered a party to march up the hills, and drive the enemy from them. The engagement became general, and was fought on both sides with great bravery. The situation of the troops, in several respects, was deplorable-fatigued by a tedious march in rainy weather; surrounded by woods so that they could not discern the enemy; baulked by the scattering fire of the savages, who, when pressed, always fell back, but rallied again. No sooner was any advantage gained over them in any one quarter, than they appeared in another. While the attention of the commander was occupied in driving the enemy from their lurking-place on the river's side, his rear was attacked, and so vigorous an effort made for his cattle and flour, that he was obliged to order a party back to the relief of the rear-guard. From eight o'clock in the morning until eleven, the savages continued to keep up an incessant fire, sometimes from one place, sometimes from another, while the woods resounded with the hideous warhoops. At length the Cherokees gave way and were pursued. The English loss was about sixty in killed and wounded; that of the Cherokees was unknown.

Now commenced a scene of devastation scarcely paralleled in the annals of the continent. For thirty days the army employed themselves in burning and ravaging the country and settlements of the now broken-spirited Cherokees. No less than fourteen of their towns shared the fate of Etchoe. Their granaries were yielded to the flames, their cornfields ravaged, while the miserable fugitives, flying from the sword, took refuge with their almost starving families among the mountains-their only sustenance for most of the time being horseflesh.

The celebrated Francis Marion, then a subordinate officer in this campaign, in writing to a friend, gives the following touching and picturesque account: 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 fields, where the whole army feasted on the young corn, which, with fat venison, made a most delicious treat. The next morning

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