Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 10, 2025
On the 22d of February we quit our winter quarters, and took up our march towards Bull's Gap, and after a few days of severe marching we were again snugly encamped behind a spur of the mountain, jutting out from the Holston and on to the Nolachucky River.
The new-comers spread, in search of choice locations, west as far as the Chimney-Top Mountain, and south to the fertile valley of the Nolachucky. The more remote settlers were therefore in a very exposed position, almost alone, and beyond them a wide wilderness, but they had no fear from the Indians.
With the Creeks they were to make a descent upon Georgia, and with the Shawnees, Mingoes, and Delawares upon Kentucky and the exposed parts of Virginia, while seven hundred chosen Ottari warriors were to fall upon the settlers on the Watauga, Holston, and Nolachucky.
Those at the fort knew that Oconostota was near by on the Nolachucky, but he had deferred the attack so long that they concluded the wary and cautious old chief was waiting to be reinforced by the body under Dragging-Canoe, which had gone to attack Fort Patrick Henry.
He had disposed of his wares, and was about to return with the furs he had taken in exchange, when he perceived signs of hostile feeling among some of the young warriors, and on his return, fearing an ambuscade on the great war-path, he left it before he reached the crossing at the French Broad, and went homeward by a less-frequented trail along the Nolachucky.
We therefore spent three or four days in vigorous efforts to gain information of the enemy by means of our cavalry. We learned that Longstreet held the line of Bays Mountain, where the railway passes through Bull's Gap, thirteen miles above Morristown. His right flank seemed to be at Rogersville on the Holston, and his left rested near the Nolachucky beyond Greeneville.
However, at the last moment the British agent Cameron had himself disclosed the purpose of the expedition to Falling and the two brothers Williams, and detailed them with a Captain Guest to go along with the Indians as far as the Nolachucky, when they were to scatter among the settlements and warn any "king's men" to join the Indians or to wear a certain badge by which they would be known and protected in any attack from the savages.
The surface of the clayey roads soon became very slippery, then cut into deep ruts, and the moisture was just enough to give the mud the consistency of tenacious putty. The teams, half starved, were very weak, and it seemed as if they would never mount the hills before them, which were the southern end of the ridge of Bay's Mountain, separating the Holston valley from the Nolachucky.
Meanwhile, Oconostota, with his three hundred and fifty warriors, had followed the trail along the Nolachucky, and on the morning of the 20th had come upon the house of William Bean, the hospitable entertainer of Robertson on his first visit to Watauga, Bean himself was at the fort, to which had fled all the women and children in the settlement, but his wife had preferred to remain at home.
The cavalry moved out in the afternoon of the 16th, part on the right toward the Nolachucky River, and the left toward Kimbrough's Cross-roads on the Morristown road. The right wing found the enemy's cavalry in their front about five miles from town, but the left wing found Kimbrough's occupied by Longstreet's infantry.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking