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The remaining warriors were cowed by Sevier's first success, and were puzzled by the rapidity with which the troops moved; for the mounted riflemen went at speed wherever they wished, and were not encumbered by baggage, each man taking only his blanket and a wallet of parched corn.
Billy Bob looked dashed with amazement, Hobson sat down limply in the deserted chair, Tom whistled but the major looked at them with a quizzical smile which was for a second reflected in Andrew Sevier's face. Phoebe sat in Milly's little nursery in the failing winter light which was augmented by the glow from the fire of coals.
I slept in the room with Captain Sevier's boys, and one window of it was of paper smeared with bear's grease, through which the sunlight came all bleared and yellow in the morning.
Sevier's latest biographer, Mr. Kirke, in the "Rear-guard of the Revolution," goes far beyond even the old writers. For instance, on p. 141 he speaks of Sevier's victories being "often" gained over "twenty times his own number" of Indians. As a matter of fact, one of the proofs of Sevier's skill as a commander is that he almost always fought with the advantage of numbers on his side.
Colonel Shelby, one of the county lieutenants of Washington County, rode posthaste to John Sevier's home, sixty miles away, to carry Ferguson's threat. Sevier lived on the Nolichucky River, and from his deeds of daring and his hospitality was nicknamed "Chucky Jack." When Shelby arrived, it was a day of merrymaking.
In this very chapter he gives, with gross inaccuracy of detail, an account of one of Sevier's campaigns as taking place in 1779, whereas it really occurred after his return from King's Mountain. Such drastic measures soon brought about peace; but it was broken again and again by similar risings and disturbances.
Robertson was a man of humble origin, unlettered, not a dour Scot but a solemn one. Sevier was cavalier as well as frontiersman. On his father's side he was of the patrician family of Xavier in France. His progenitors, having become Huguenots, had taken refuge in England, where the name Xavier was finally changed to Sevier. John Sevier's mother was an Englishwoman.
They had warriors enough to overwhelm Sevier's band by sheer force of numbers, but he gave them no time to gather. Falling on their main town, he took it by surprise and stormed it, killing thirty warriors and capturing a large number of women and children. Of these, however, he was able to bring in but twenty, who were especially valuable because they could be exchanged for white captives.
In their origin they were precisely alike; but whereas the original pioneers, the hunters and Indian fighters, kept possession of Tennessee as long as they lived, Jackson, at Sevier's death, taking the latter's place with even more than his power, in Kentucky, on the other hand, after twenty years' rule, the first settlers were swamped by the great inrush of immigration, and with the defeat of Logan for governor the control passed into the hands of the same class of men that then ruled Virginia.
When the Indians were drawn into the middle, the two wings were to close in, when the whole party would be killed or captured. The plan worked well. The scouts soon came up with the warriors, and, after a moment's firing, ran back, with the Indians in hot pursuit. Sevier's men lay hid, and, when the leading warriors were close up, they rose and fired.
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