Colonel Bledsoe, after waiting in
Sullivan county for nearly a month for
Major Evans' battalion, left in disgust
for his home on the Cumberland. June
1st, as he passed through Kentucky he
wrote to Governor Caswell:
At this place I received accounts from
Cumberland that, since I last did myself
the pleasure of addressing you, three
persons have been killed at that place
within seven miles of Nashville, and
there is scarcely a day that the Indians
do not steal horses in either Sumner or
Davidson counties; and I am informed the
people are exceedingly dispirited: had
accounts that the several northern
tribes, in conjunction with the Creek
nation, have determined the destruction
of that defenceless country this summer;
and their hopes seem blasted as to Major
Evans's assistance. Colonel Robertson
has lately been to this country to get
some assistance to carry on a campaign
against the Chickamauga towns and got
some assurance from several officers;
and the time appointed for the
rendezvous was fixed to the 15th inst.
but find the men cannot be drawn out at
that season of the year. I have thought
it my duty to ask your advice in the
matter, whether or not we shall have
leave of government to carry on such a
campaign if we can make ourselves able,
with the assistance of our friends, the
Virginians [Kentucky district] as they
promise us immediately after harvest.
I am fully convinced that it is the
perfidious Chickamaugas that annoy our
frontiers, tho' some of them wish to
have the Creeks charged with the whole
of the damage. As it is always my desire
to act advisedly, I should thank you to
advise me as to carrying on an
expedition as it appears to me and to
the people in the counties of Davidson
and Sumner counties, that nothing can
give security to them but to carry the
war into the enemy's own country. . . .
Self-preservation and the distress and
cries of a bleeding country make it
absolutely necessary to preserve it from
ruin and destruction.1
Major Evans had seen fit to journey by
way of Richmond, Virginia, from which
place late in May he wrote that he was
trying to collect men for his battalion
and that he was in need of funds for the
purchase of supplies "before the troops
can possibly go through the wilderness."2
Governor Caswell in his reply confessed
his great uneasiness to find the major's
letter dated at Richmond, and to learn
the causes of the delay; and expressed
fear that Bledsoe had lost patience and
gone west.3
The middle of August found the major yet
lingering east of the Blue Ridge, as
Caswell charged, "engaged in making an
attack on a lady whom he has lately
reduced into possession by making her
his wife."4
On Colonel Bledsoe's reaching home, he
and Colonel James Robertson joined in
reporting to Governor Caswell the
distressed situation of their people. A
rumor, believed by them to be true, was
that the Spaniards were doing what they
could to encourage the several savage
tribes to war against the American
settlers, by offering a reward for
scalps. "A disorderly set of French and
Spanish traders are continually on the
Tennessee,. . . a great means of
encouraging the Indians to do much
mischief."5
The day after this was written, the
Indians killed Mark Robertson, the
younger brother of Colonel Robertson,
near the latter's home. Without waiting
for authority from Governor Caswell a
spirited campaign was launched against
the Chickamauga town of Coldwater.
Through the friendly Chickasaws, news
reached Colonel Robertson that the
Creeks had planned to raid the
Cumberland settlements. The North
Carolina battalion had not even been
heard from. In his dilemma, Robertson
addressed an urgent letter to Governor
John Sevier, Mount Pleasant, Franklin,
as follows:
| |
Nashville, August 1st. 1787. |
Sir:
By account from the Chickasaws, we are
informed that at a grand council held by
the Creeks, it was determined by that
whole nation to do their utmost this
fall to cut off this country; and we
expect the Cherokees have joined them,
as they were to have come in some time
ago to make peace, which however, they
have not done. Every circumstance seems
to confirm this.
The 5th of July, a party of Creeks
killed Captain Davenport, Agent for
Georgia, and those men in the Chickasaw
nation, wounded three and took one
prisoner; which the Chickasaws are not
able to resent for want of ammunition.
The people are drawing together in large
stations and doing everything necessary
for their defense. But I fear, without
some timely assistance, we shall chiefly
fall a sacrifice. Ammunition is very
scarce; and a Chickasaw now here tells
us they imagine they will reduce our
station by killing all our cattle, etc.
and starving us out.
We expect, from every account, they are
now on their way to this country to the
number of a thousand. I beg you to use
your influence in that country to
relieve us, which I think might be done
by fixing a station near the mouth of
Elk, if possible, or by marching a body
of men into the Cherokee nation. Relieve
us in any manner you may judge
beneficial. We hope our brethren in that
country will not suffer us to be
massacred by the savages without giving
us any assistance; and I candidly assure
you that never was there a time in which
I imagined ourselves in more danger.
Kentucky being nearest, we have applied
there for some assistance, but fear we
shall find none in time. Could you now
give us any? I am convinced it would
have the greatest tendency to unite our
counties, as the people will never
forget those who are their friends in a
time of such imminent danger. . . . I
have written to General Shelby on this
subject, and hope no division will
prevent you from endeavoring to give us
relief, which will be ever remembered by
the inhabitants of Cumberland.6
It must have been with some hesitation
that Robertson wrote this to Sevier, his
comrade of the old Watauga Association
whose gallant efforts in behalf of
Franklin had more than once been chilled
by Robertson's people. There is more
than a hint here of a union with
Franklin in the future as there had been
once before in 1786.
Another Cumberland leader at the same
time appealed to Governor Sevier—Anthony
Bledsoe, who had but a few months before
joined General Shelby in urging Governor
Caswell to "act a decided part" in
putting down the Franks:
When I had last the pleasure of seeing
your Excellency, I think you were kind
enough to propose that, in case the
perfidious Chickamaugas should infest
this country, to notify your Excellency
and you would send a campaign against
them without delay. The period has
arrived that they, as I have good reason
to believe, in combination with the
Creeks have done this country great
spoil by murdering numbers of our
peaceful inhabitants, stealing our
horses, killing our cattle and hogs, and
burning our buildings through
wantonness, cutting down our corn, etc.
. . . Our dependence is much that your
Excellency will revenge the blood thus
wantonly shed.7
Putnam states that Governor Sevier was
able to assure Colonels Robertson and
Bledsoe: "Let matters occur as they may
here (in Franklin) if I am spared, I
propose joining the Georgia army with a
considerable number of volunteers, to
act in concert against the Creeks,
though many of our enemies are making
use of every diabolical plan in their
power in order to destroy our laudable
intention."8 Putnam also says that a
number of the men of Franklin enlisted
in the battalion of Evans.9
And to Governor Mathews, of Georgia,
Sevier wrote enclosing the
communications of Robertson and Bledsoe,
and saying: "It is our duty, and highly
requisite in my opinion that such
lawless tribes be reduced by dint of the
sword.. . Be assured we will encounter
[surmount] every difficulty to raise a
formidable force to act in conjunction
with the army from your State?"10
The danger on the frontiers passed
without the necessity of the troops
taking the field. The plans of Sevier
included the erection of a fortified
station in the vicinity of the
Chickamaugas, as Robertson had asked.
The men on the Cumberland were
thoroughly disgusted and ireful over the
failure of the North Carolina troops to
come to their rescue. The battalion
raised in February had been scheduled to
arrive on the Clinch river in April. In
point of fact, Major Evans reached
General Shelby's (Bristol) August 18th
and halted there until the 29th, and
only reached Moccasin Gap on September
10th, headed for Nashville through
Cumberland Gap and Kentucky, and arrived
at his destination October 16th, 1787.11
Franks had been enrolled,11a yet the
battalion was reduced in number, and in
a bedraggled, half-clad condition—truly
not an imposing representation of the
strong arm of a sovereign State when
Nashville was reached.
After-history records still less to the
credit of North Carolina in respect to
her treatment of the men of this
battalion. Survivors of Evans' force
were compelled to petition the first
legislature of the Territory South of
the Ohio River (September, 1794) for
compensation for the services they had
rendered, payment of which had been
pledged by North Carolina out of the
taxes to be collected west of the
mountains. By irony of fate, it fell to
the lot of North Carolina's champion in
the Franklin State contest, John Tipton,
as chairman of the committee, to report
upon the petition to the Assembly. That
report can scarcely be conceived of as
being purposely unfair to the obligor
State:
The said batallion was raised on the
faith of the State of North Carolina as
appears by their act of 1786, and was
destined for the protection of their
then frontiers. The soldiers did their
duty faithfully, and in discharging the
same many of them lost their lives, but
have received no part of their pecuniary
pay.
It would be dishonorable and iniquitous
for the government of this Territory not
to pay these troops had its public faith
been pledged for that purpose, nor could
the failure of any particular fund have
in that case been with propriety alleged
as a pretext to evade the debt.
Your committee are forced to recall to
remembrance that this Territory has
never been protected in a state of peace
and security, without which it was not
reasonable to expect from it finances
equal to the payment of such troops as
North Carolina might think proper to
enlist: besides that, the inhabitants of
this country contributed equally with
said battalion to afford security and
peace to the interior parts of North
Carolina.
The most natural fund for the payment of
the soldiers aforesaid would have been
derived from the vacant lands which
those soldiers helped to protect and
secure, which fund has been disposed of
for other purposes by the government
which raised the battalion; that as for
any other fund established for this
payment by the State of North Carolina,
if said fund has not proved effectual,
the default did not arise from any
misconduct in this government, or in the
citizens thereof, but either through the
neglect of the officers of that State,
or the deficiency might be fairly
ascribable to this, that the lands on
which the taxes ought to have been
collected were chiefly in the hands of
citizens of North Carolina whose absence
from the Territory enabled them to evade
the taxes imposed on and paid by the
people of this Territory.
Neither do we see any equitable
circumstances which ought to induce this
Assembly to discharge a debt contracted
by and justly due from the State of
North Carolina.12 The words
of the Tipton report, "the neglect of
the officers" of North Carolina, may
refer to a series of frauds which were
being uncovered about the year now under
review (1787) in the office of John
Armstrong, entry-taker for the western
lands under the act of 1784. The deficit
in the accounts of that officer was
reported to the Assembly to be 6732.13
The rank injustice to the
trans-Alleghany people worked by this
act of 1784 and its snap repeal seems to
have invited peculation, the result of
which came upon the Commonwealth. as
retribution. The added charge that the
North Carolina grantees of such lands
had evaded taxation is sustained by the
record, which denounces their claim of
justification as "groundless pretense."14
The Cumberland folk proposed to a
new-state convention, held in Kentucky
in September, that they be included in
the new government. "The Cumberland
people have sent two gentlemen to wait
on our convention to try if Kentucky
will allow them to join with it in
government; and, if so, on what terms,
they first obtaining leave from North
Carolina. What may be done I cannot tell
at this time?"15
In pursuance of this purpose, doubtless,
Colonel James Robertson, who was senator
in the North Carolina Assembly
(November, 1787) aided by Col. William
Blount, prepared a statement to that
body of the situation and sentiments of
his constituents. In it he set forth the
people's harassment by the Indians.
"They have cheerfully endured the most
inconquerable difficulties in settling
the Western Country, in full confidence
that they should be enabled to send
their products to market through the
rivers which water the country; but they
now have the mortification not only to
be excluded from that channel of
commerce by a foreign nation, but the
Indians are rendered more hostile
through the influence of that very
nation probably with a. view to drive
them from the country, as they, the
.Spaniards, claim the whole soil."
Robertson then called upon the humanity
and justice of the State to prevent
further massacres and depredations, and
recommended as the most convenient and
the safest means of relief compliance by
North Carolina with the resolves of the
Continental Congress which had urged the
cession to the nation of their western
lands by the States which owned them.16
__________________
1 N. C. St. Records,XX, 712.
2 N. C. St. Records,XX, 704*
3 Th., 714, June and.
4 B., 758.
5 Ramsey, 465
6 For accounts of the
Coldwater campaign, see Ramsey, 465;
Goodpasture, Indian Wars, Tennessee
Historical Mag., IV, 120; N. C. St.
Rec.,XX, 730.
7 Putnam, History of Middle
Tennessee, 285-6.
8 Putnam, 286.
9 Ib., 276. Gilmore, in the
Advance Guard of the Western
Civilization,' io, seizing upon this
fact, enlarges upon it, and represents
Sevier as calling for volunteers to fill
up the battalion in response to the
appeal for aid, and that the "tall
Watauga boys" sprang up at the call of
Sevier, two hundred and fifty strong.
Roosevelt's strictures on Gilmore as a
romancer are justified.
10 August 3oth. Ramsey, 392.
11 Major Evans reported Nov.
l0th, vindicating his delays east of the
mountains. He makes a strong case
against the North Carolina authorities:
"I have done my duty to the utmost of my
power, and can assure your Excellency
that few men would have ever attempted
to march the men I did from Holston
without a more ample supply than I was
furnished with, as your Excellency will
see by a return of commissary and
quarter-master, transmitted to you by
Mr. Markland, who left me with no other
supply than what is contained in said
return, and not one shilling of money,
quite contrary to orders, to perform a
march of near four hundred miles, and
that cheerfully, through a wilderness
and in a strange State where no supplies
could be had either on public or private
credit. This was my situation when I
arrived at Kentucky; was therefore
obliged to furlough my men in order that
they might work for a sufficiency of
provisions to carry them to Nashville,
which they did, and returned, chiefly,
agreeable to my orders. . . . The men
are so bare for every necessary of
clothing, that unless they are supplied
soon they will be entirely unable to
perform any kind of duty, and they
murmur much that they have not got, or
any prospect to get, what was promised
them when they entered the service." N.
C. St. Rec., 30C, 786. For confirmation
in part: Putnam, 278.
11a Wm. Martin, son of Col.
Joseph Martin, was captain of one of the
companies of thirty-three men. George
Doherty, yet a major, was paymaster of
the battalion.
12Journal of Legislative
Council, of Territory South of the Ohio,
(reprint 1852), 10.
13N. C. St. Rec.,XXI, 133.
14N. C. St. Rec.,XX, 396-7.
15Samuel McDowell to Arthur
Campbell, Sept. 23, 1787. Draper MSS.,
9, D. D.
16Ramsey, 5o2-3; Tenn.
Historical Mag., III, 231. |
