Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885

He says nothing of the feeble fort and his slender garrison of only forty men; he shows no sign of fear, nor does he ask for aid in the great peril. The letter is characteristic of the man, and it displays that utter fearlessness which, with other great qualities, made him the hero of the Border. The details of the information brought by Thomas to Sevier and Robertson showed how truthfully Nancy Ward had previously reported to them the secret designs of the Cherokees. The whole nation was about to set out upon the war-path. 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. This last force was to be divided into two bodies of three hundred and fifty each, one of which, under Oconostota, was to attack Fort Watauga; the other, under Dragging-Canoe, head-chief of the Chickamaugas, was to attempt the capture of Fort Patrick Henry, which they supposed to be still defended by only about seventy men. But the two bodies were to act together, the one supporting the other in case it should be found that the settlers were better prepared for defence than was anticipated. The preparation for the expedition Thomas had himself seen: its object and the points of attack he had learned from Nancy Ward, who had come to his cabin at midnight on the 7th of July and urged his immediate departure. He had delayed setting out till the following night, to impart his information to William Falling and Jarot and Isaac Williams, men who could be trusted, and who he proposed should set out at the same time, but by different routes, to warn the settlements, so that in case one or more of them was waylaid and killed the others might have a chance to get through in safety. 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. These men had set out with the Indians, but had escaped from them during the night of the 8th, and all had arrived at Watauga in safety.

Thomas and Falling were despatched at once with the tidings into Virginia, the two Williamses were sent to warn the garrison at Fort Patrick Henry, and then the little force at Watauga furbished up their rifles and waited in grim expectation the coming of Oconostota.

But the garrison at Fort Patrick Henry was the first to have tidings from the Cherokees. Only a few men were at the fort, the rest being scattered among the outlying stations, but all were within supporting-distance. On the 19th of July the scouts came in and reported that a large body of Indians was only about twenty miles away and marching directly upon the garrison. Runners were at once despatched to bring in the scattered forces, and by nightfall the one hundred and seventy were gathered at the fort, ready to meet the enemy. Then a council of war was held by the six militia captains to determine upon the best plan of action. Some were in favor of awaiting the attack of the savages behind the walls of the fort, but one of them, William Cocke, who afterward became honorably conspicuous in the history of Tennessee, proposed the bolder course of encountering the enemy in the open field. If they did not, he contended that the Indians, passing them on the flank, would fall on and butcher the defenceless women of the settlements in their rear.

It was a step of extreme boldness, for they supposed they would encounter the whole body of seven hundred Cherokees; but it was unanimously agreed to, and early on the following morning the little army, with flankers and an advance guard of twelve men, marched out to meet the enemy. They had not gone far when the advance guard came upon a force of about twenty Indians. The latter fled, and the whites pursued for several miles, the main body following close upon the heels of the advance, but without coming upon any considerable force of the enemy. Then, being in a country favorable to an ambuscade, and the evening coming on, they held a council and decided to return to the fort.

They had not gone upward of a mile when a large force of the enemy appeared in their rear. The whites wheeled about at once, and were forming into line, when the whole body of Indians rushed upon them with great fury, shouting, "The Unacas are running! Come on! scalp them!" They attacked simultaneously the centre and left flank of the whites; and then was seen the hazard of going into battle with a many-headed commander. For a moment all was confusion, and the companies in attempting to form in the face of the impetuous attack were being broken, when Isaac Shelby rushed to the front and ordered each company a few steps to the rear, where they should reform, while he, with Lieutenant Moore, Robert Edmiston, and John Morrison, and a private named John Findlay,—in all five men,—should meet the onset of the savages. Instantly the six captains obeyed the command, recognizing in the volunteer of twenty-five their natural leader, and then the battle became general. The Indians attacked furiously, and for a few moments those five men bore the brunt of the assault. With his own hand Robert Edmiston slew six of the more forward of the enemy, Morrison nearly as many, and then Moore became engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand fight with an herculean chieftain of the Cherokees. They were a few paces in advance of the main body, and, as if by common consent, the firing was partly suspended on both sides to await the issue of the conflict. "Moore had shot the chief, wounding him in the knee, but not so badly as to prevent him from standing. Moore advanced toward him, and the Indian threw his tomahawk, but missed him. Moore sprung at him with his large butcher-knife drawn, which the Indian caught by the blade and attempted to wrest from the hand of his antagonist. Holding on with desperate tenacity to the knife, both clinched with their left hands. A scuffle ensued, in which the Indian was thrown to the ground, his right hand being nearly dissevered, and bleeding profusely. Moore, still holding the handle of his knife in the right hand, succeeded with the other in disengaging his own tomahawk from his belt, and ended the strife by sinking it in the skull of the Indian. Until this conflict was ended, the Indians fought with unyielding spirit. After its issue became known, they retreated."[2 - J.G.M. Ramsay, "Annals of Tennessee."] "Our men pursued in a cautious manner, lest they might be led into an ambuscade, hardly crediting their own senses that so numerous a foe was completely routed. In this miracle of a battle we had not a man killed, and only five wounded, who all recovered. But the wounded of the enemy died till the whole loss in killed amounted to upward of forty."[3 - Haywood.]

As soon as this conflict was over, a horseman was sent off to Watauga with tidings of the astonishing victory. "A great day's work in the woods," was Sevier's remark when speaking subsequently of this battle.

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. She had many friends among the Indians, and she felt confident they would pass her without molestation. She was mistaken. They took her captive, and removed her to their station-camp on the Nolachucky. There a warrior pointed his rifle at her, as if to fire; but Oconostota threw up the barrel and began to question her as to the strength of the whites. She gave him misleading replies, with which he appeared satisfied, for he soon told her she was not to be killed, but taken to their towns to teach their women how to manage a dairy.

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. News had reached them of Shelby's victory, and, as it would be some time before the broken Cherokees could rally and join Oconostota, they were in no apprehension of immediate danger. Accordingly, they went about their usual vocations, and so it happened that a number of the women ventured outside the fort as usual to milk the cows on the morning of the 21st of July. Among them was one who was destined to occupy for many years the position of the "first lady in Tennessee."

Her name was Catherine Sherrell, and she was the daughter of Samuel Sherrell, one of the first settlers on the Watauga. In age she was verging upon twenty, and she was tall, straight as an arrow, and lithe as a hickory sapling. I know of no portrait of her in existence, but tradition describes her as having dark eyes, flexible nostrils, regular features, a clear, transparent skin, a neck like a swan, and a wealth of wavy brown hair, which was a wonder to look at and was in striking contrast to the whiteness of her complexion. A free life in the open air had made her as supple as an eel and as agile as a deer. It was said that, encumbered by her womanly raiment, she had been known to place one hand upon a six-barred fence and clear it at a single bound. And now her agility was to do her essential service.

While she and the other women, unconscious of danger, were "coaxing the snowy fluid from the yielding udders of the kine," suddenly the war-whoop sounded through the woods, and a band of yelling savages rushed out upon them. Quick as thought the women turned and darted for the gate of the fort; but the savages were close upon them in a neck-and-neck race, and Kate, more remote than the rest, was cut off from the entrance. Seeing her danger, Sevier and a dozen others opened the gate and were about to rush out upon the savages, hundreds of whom were now in front of the fort; but Robertson held them back, saying they could not rescue her, and to go out would insure their own destruction. At a glance Kate took in the situation. She could have no help from her friends, and the tomahawk and scalping-knife were close behind her. Instantly she turned, and, fleeter than a deer, made for a point in the stockade some distance from the entrance. The palisades were eight feet high, but with one bound she reached the top, and with another was over the wall, falling into the arms of Sevier, who for the first time called her his "bonnie Kate," his "brave girl for a foot-race." The other women reached the entrance of the fort in safety.

Then the baffled savages opened fire, and for a full hour it rained bullets upon the little enclosure. But the missiles fell harmless: not a man was wounded. Driven by the light charges the Indians were accustomed to use, the bullets simply bounded off from the thick logs and did no damage. But it was not so with the fire of the besieged. The order was, "Wait till you see the whites of your enemies' eyes, and then make sure of your man." And so every one of those forty rifles did terrible execution.

For twenty days the Indians hung about the fort, returning again and again to the attack; but not a man who kept within the walls was even wounded. It was not so with a man and a boy who, emboldened by a few days' absence of the Indians, ventured outside to go down to the river. The man was scalped on the spot; the boy was taken prisoner, and subjected to a worse fate in one of the Indian villages. His name was Moore, and he was a younger brother of the lieutenant who fought so bravely in the battle near Fort Patrick Henry.

At last, baffled and dispirited, the Indians fell back to the Tellico. They had lost about sixty killed and a larger number wounded, and they had inflicted next to no damage upon the white settlers. They were enraged beyond bounds and thirsting for vengeance. Only two prisoners were in their power; but on them they resolved to wreak their extremest tortures. Young Moore was taken to the village of his captor, high up in the mountains, and there burned at a stake. A like fate was determined upon for good Mrs. Bean, the kindly woman whose hospitable door had ever been open to all, white man or Indian. Oconostota would not have her die; but Dragging-Canoe insisted that she should be offered up as a sacrifice to the manes of his fallen warriors; and the head-king was not powerful enough to prevent it.

She was taken to the summit of one of the burial-mounds,—those relics of a forgotten race which are so numerous along the banks of the Tellico. She was tied to a stake, the fagots were heaped about her, and the fire was about to be lighted, when suddenly Nancy Ward appeared among the crowd of savages and ordered a stay of the execution. Dragging-Canoe was a powerful brave, but not powerful enough to combat the will of this woman. Mrs. Bean was not only liberated, but sent back with an honorable escort to her husband.

The village in which young Moore was executed was soon visited by Sevier with a terrible retribution; and from that day for twenty years his name was a terror among the Cherokees.

Before many months there was a wedding in the fort at Watauga. It was that of John Sevier and the "bonnie Kate," famous to this day for leaping stockades and six-barred fences. He lived to be twelve years governor of Tennessee and the idol of a whole people. She shared all his love and all his honors; but in her highest estate she was never ashamed of her lowly days, and never tired of relating her desperate leap at Watauga; and, even in her old age, she would merrily add, "I would make it again—every day in the week—for such a husband."

    EDMUND KIRKE.

A PLEASANT SPIRIT

It was drawing toward nine o'clock, and symptoms of closing for the night were beginning to manifest themselves in Mr. Pegram's store. The few among the nightly loungers there who had still a remnant of domestic conscience left had already risen from boxes and "kags," and gathered up the pound packages of sugar and coffee which had served as the pretext for their coming, but which would not, alas! sufficiently account for the length of their stay. The older stagers still sat composedly in the seats of honor immediately surrounding the red-hot stove, and a look of disapproval passed over their faces as Mr. Pegram, opening the door and thereby letting in a blast of cold air upon their legs, proceeded to put up the outside shutters.

"In a hurry to-night, ain't you, Pegram?" inquired Mr. Dickey, as the proprietor returned, brushing flakes of snow from his coat and shivering expressively.

"Well, not particular," replied Mr. Pegram, with a deliberation which confirmed his words, "but it's pretty nigh nine, and Sally she ast me not to be later than nine to-night, for our hired girl's gone home for a spell, and that makes it kind of lonesome for Sally: the baby don't count for much, only when he cries, and I'll do him the justice to say that isn't often."

"It's a new thing for Sally to be scary, ain't it?" queried Mr. Crumlish, with an expression of mild surprise.

"Well, yes, I may say it is," admitted Mr. Pegram; "but, you know, we had a kind of a warning, before we moved in, that all wasn't quite as it should be, and, as bad luck would have it, there was a Boston paper come round her new coat, with a story in it that laid out to be true, of noises and appearances, and one thing and another, in a house right there to Boston, and Sally she says to me, 'If they believe in them things to Boston, where they don't believe in nothing they can't see and handle, if all we hear's true, there must be something in it, and I only wish I'd read that piece before we took the house.'

"I keep a-telling her we've neither seen nor heard nothing out of the common, so far, but all she'll say to that is, 'That's no reason we won't;' and sure enough it isn't, though I don't tell her so."

"But surely," said Mr. Birchard, the young schoolmaster, who boarded with Mr. Dickey, "you don't believe any such trash as that account of a haunted house in Boston?" There was a non-committal silence, and he went on impatiently, "I could give you a dozen instances in which mysteries of this kind, when they were energetically followed up, were proved to be the results of the most simple and natural causes."

"Like enough, like enough, young man," said Uncle Jabez Snyder, in his tremulous tones, "and mebbe some folks not a hunderd miles from here could tell you another dozen that hadn't no natural causes."

"I should like very much to hear them," replied the young man, with an exasperatingly incredulous smile.

"If Pegram here wasn't in such a durned hurry to turn us out and shet up," said Mr. Dickey, with manifest irritation, "Uncle Jabez could tell you all you want to hear."

Mr. Pegram looked disturbed. It was with him a fixed principle never to disoblige a customer, and he saw that he was disobliging at least half a dozen. On the other hand, he was not prepared to face his wife should he so daringly disregard her wishes as to keep the store open half an hour later than usual. He pondered for a few moments, and then his face suddenly brightened, and he said, "If one of you gentlemen that passes my house on your way home would undertake to put coal on the fire, put the lights out, lock the door, and bring me the key, the store's at your disposal till ten o'clock; and I'm only sorry I can't stay myself."

Two or three immediately volunteered, but as the schoolmaster and Mr. Dickey were the only ones whose way lay directly past Mr. Pegram's door, it was decided that they should divide the labors and honors between them.

"I'd like you not to stop later than ten," said Mr. Pegram deprecatingly, as he buttoned his great-coat and drew his hat down over his eyes, "for I have to be up so early, since that boy cleared out, that I need to go to bed sooner than I mostly do."

Compliance with this modest request was readily promised, good-nights were exchanged, and the lessened circle drew in more closely around the stove, for several of the company had reluctantly decided that, all things considered, it would be the better part of valor for them to go when Mr. Pegram went.

There was a few minutes' silence, and then Mr. Dickey said impatiently, "We're all ready, Uncle Jabez. Why don't you fire away, so's to be through by ten o'clock?"

"I was a-thinkin' which one I'd best tell him," said Uncle Jabez mildly. "They're all convincin' to a mind that's open to convincement, but I'd like to pick out the one that's most so."

"There's the one about Alviry Pratt's grandfather," suggested Mr. Crumlish encouragingly.

"No," mused the old man. "I've no doubt of that myself, but then it didn't happen to me in person, and I've a notion he'd rather hear one I've experienced than two I've heard tell of."

"Of course I would, Uncle Jabez," said Mr. Birchard kindly, but with an amused twinkle in his eyes. "You take your own time: it's only just struck nine, and there's no hurry at all."

"Supposin' I was to tell him that one about my first wife?" said the old man presently, and with an inquiring look around the circle.

Several heads were nodded approvingly, and Mr. Crumlish said, "The very one I'd 'a' chosen myself if you'd ast me."

Thus encouraged, Uncle Jabez, with a sort of deliberate promptness, began: "We married very young, Lavina and me,—too young, some said, but I never could see why, for I had a good farm, with health and strength to carry it on, and she was a master-hand with butter and cheese. At any rate, we thriv; and if we had plenty of children, there was plenty for 'em to eat, and they grew as fast as everything else did. She wasn't what you'd fairly call handsome, Lavina wasn't, but she was pleasant-appearin', very,—plump as a pa'tridge, with nice brown hair and eyes and a clean-lookin' skin. But it was her smile in particular that took me; and when she set in to laugh you couldn't no more' help laughin' along with her than one bobolink can help laughin' back when he hears another. She was the tenderest-hearted woman that ever breathed the breath of life: she couldn't bear to hurt the feelin's of a cat, and she'd go 'ithout a chicken-dinner any day sooner'n kill a chicken. As time passed on and she begun to age a little, she grew stouter 'n' stouter; but it didn't seem to worry her none. She'd puff and blow a good bit when she went up-stairs, but she'd always laugh about it, and say that when we was rich enough we'd put in an elevator, like they had at a big hotel we saw once. It would suit her fine, she said, to set down on a cushioned seat and be up-stairs afore she could git up again. Now, you needn't think I'm wanderin' from the p'int," and Uncle Jabez looked severely at Mr. Dickey, who was manifestly fidgeting. "All you folks that have lived about here all your lives knew Lavina 'ithout my tellin' you this; but Mr. Birchard he's a stranger in the neighborhood, and it's needful to the understandin' of my story that he should know just what sort of a woman she was,—or is, as I should say."

Mr. Dickey subsided, while Mr. Birchard tried to throw still more of an expression of the deepest interest and attention into his face. He must have succeeded, for the old man, going on with his story, fixed his eyes more and more frequently upon those of the young one. They were large, gentle, appealing blue eyes, with a mildly surprised expression, which Mr. Birchard found exceedingly attractive. Whether or not the fact that the youngest of Uncle Jabez's children, a daughter, had precisely similar eyes, in any way accounted for the attraction, I leave to minds more astute than my own.

"You may think," the narrator resumed, when he felt that he had settled Mr. Dickey, "whether or not you'd miss a woman like that, when you'd summered and wintered with her more'n forty year. She always said she hoped she'd go sudden, for she was so heavy it would 'a' took three or four of the common run of folks to lift her, and she dreaded a long sickness. Well, she was took at her word. We was settin', as it might be now, one on one side the fire, the other on t'other, in the big easy-cheers that Samuel—that's our oldest son, and a good boy, if I do say it—had sent us with the fust spare money he had. She'd been laughin' and jokin', as she so often did, five minutes afore. Gracie—she was a little thing then, and, bein' the youngest, a little sassy and sp'iled, mebbe—had been on a trip to the city, and she'd brought her ma a present of a shoe-buttoner with a handle a full foot long.

"'There, ma,' she says, laughin' up in her mother's face; 'you was complainin' about the distance it seemed to be to your feet: here's a kind of a telegraft-pole to shorten it a little.'

"My, how we did laugh! And Lavina must needs try it right away, to please Gracie; and she said it worked beautiful. But whether it was the laughin' so much right on top of a hearty supper, or the bendin' down to try her new toy, or both, she jest says, as natural as I'm speakin' now, 'Jabez, I'm a-goin'—' and then stopped. And when I looked up to see why she didn't finish, she was gone, sure enough."

His voice broke, and he stopped abruptly. Mr. Birchard, without in the least intending to do it, grasped his hand, and held it with affectionate warmth for a moment.

"Thank you, young man, thank you kindly," said Uncle Jabez, recovering his voice and shaking Mr. Birchard's hand heartily at the same moment. "You've an uncommon feelin' heart for one so young.

"To say I was lonesome after she went don't say much; but time evens things out after a while, or we couldn't stand it as long as we do. Gracie she settled into a little woman all at once, as you may say, and seemed older for a while than she does now. The rest was all married and gone, but one boy,—a good boy, too. But they came around me, comfortin' and helpin', though each one of 'em mourned her nigh as much as I did myself; and after a while, as I said, I got used, in a manner, to doin' 'ithout her."

Here he made a long pause, with his eyes intently fixed upon the darkness of the adjoining store-room. The heat from the stove had become too great after the shutting of the shutters, and one of the men had opened an inner door for ventilation.

Now, as one pair of eyes after another followed those of the old man, there was a sort of subdued stir around the circle, and the schoolmaster, to his intense disgust, caught himself looking hastily over his shoulder,—the door being behind him.

Mr. Dickey broke the spell by suddenly rising, with the exclamation, "I think we're cooled off about enough; and, as I'm a little rheumaticky to-night, I'll shut that door, if you've none of you no objections."