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Christian made peace on these terms and ceased his ravages, but he excepted the town of Tuskega, whose people had burned alive the boy taken captive at Watauga. This town he reduced to ashes. Nor would the chief Dragging Canoe accept peace at all; but gathering round him the fiercest and most unruly of the young men, he left the rest of the tribe and retired to the Chickamauga fastnesses.
The face did not deceive us; the charge was one dollar. It was a hot afternoon, and it needed some courage to mount and climb the sandy hill leading us away from the corn-crib of Tatem. But we entered almost immediately into fine stretches of forest, and rode under the shade of great oaks. The way, which began by the New River, soon led us over the hills to the higher levels of Watauga County.
The morning found the telegraph in active requisition, flashing up and down all lines by which a man might have left Cottonville or Watauga. The police of the latter place were notified, furnished with information, and set to find out if possible whether anybody in the city had seen Stoddard since he rode away on Friday morning. The inquiries were fruitless.
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.
Her face was set to the east, and after a time a pallid line showed itself above the great bulk of mountains which in this quarter backed up the ramparts of the circling ridges about Watauga.
And later, when the fireflies glowed and the Nollichucky sang in the darkness, we listened to the talk of the war of the year gone by. I needed not to be told that before me were the renowned leaders of the Watauga settlements. My hero worship cried it aloud within me.
Although the Indian braves were eager for the scalps of the Watauga settlers, they failed to capture the fort and finally went away, just as they did from the neighboring settlements. For a while, but only for a while, the pioneers were left free from Indian ravages. In spite of the danger, however, daring men kept coming to join the pioneers at the Watauga settlements.
Whilst we held the barrier at Bull's Gap the enemy could not stay on the hither side of the Watauga, nor could we pass the river and stop short of a strong position an equal distance beyond. We made a strong demonstration of cavalry supported by infantry, as if we were determined to cross the Watauga and push on into Virginia.
Although the Cherokees had regularly ceded to the Watauga settlers their land, they still continued jealous of them; and both Creeks and Cherokees were much irritated at the conduct of some of the lawless Georgian frontiersmen. The colonial authorities tried to put a stop to this lawlessness, and one of the chief offenders was actually seized and hung in the presence of two Indians.
Grant therefore adhered to his original purpose of destroying enough of the railroad near the Watauga River to make a serious obstruction to hostile movements against East Tennessee from the east, and turn everything that could be spared into the advance upon Atlanta.
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