University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER IV

THE INDIAN WAR

LONG before the actual outbreak of hostilities
powerful forces were gradually
converging to produce a clash between the aggressive
colonials and the crafty Indians. As
the settlers pressed farther westward into the
domain of the red men, arrogantly grazing
their stock over the cherished hunting-grounds
of the Cherokees, the savages, who were already
well disposed toward the French, began to
manifest a deep indignation against the British
colonists because of this callous encroachment
upon their territory. During the sporadic
forays by scattered bands of Northern Indians

upon the Catawbas and other tribes friendly
to the pioneers the isolated settlements at the
back part of the Carolinas suffered rude and
sanguinary onslaughts. In the summer of
1753 a party of northern Indians warring in
the French interest made their appearance in
Rowan County, which had just been organized,
and committed various depredations upon the
scattered settlements. To repel these attacks
a band of the Catawbas sallied forth, encountered
a detached party of the enemy, and slew
five of their number. Among the spoils, significantly
enough, were silver crucifixes, beads,
looking-glasses, tomahawks and other implements
of war, all of French manufacture.[1]

Intense rivalry for the good will of the
near-by southern tribes existed between Virginia
and South Carolina. In strong remonstrance
against the alleged attempt of Governor
Dinwiddie of Virginia to alienate the
Cherokees, Catawbas, Muscogees, and Chickasaws
from South Carolina and to attach them
to Virginia, Governor Glen of South Carolina
made pungent observations to Dinwiddie:

"South Carolina is a weak frontier colony, and
in case of invasion by the French would be
their first object of attack. We have not
much to fear, however, while we retain the
affection of the Indians around us; but should
we forfeit that by any mismanagement on our
part, or by the superior address of the French,
we are in a miserable situation. The Cherokees
alone have several thousand gunmen well
acquainted with every inch of the province
. . . their country is the key to Carolina."
By a treaty concluded at Saluda (November
24, 1753), Glen promised to build the Cherokees
a fort near the lower towns, for the protection
of themselves and their allies; and the
Cherokees on their part agreed to become the
subjects of the King of Great Britain and hold
their lands under him.[2] This fort, erected
this same year on the headwaters of the Savannah,
within gunshot distance of the important
Indian town of Keowee, was named Fort
Prince George. "It is a square," says the
founder of the fort (Governor Glen to the
Board of Trade, August 26, 1754), "with
regular Bastions and four Ravelins it is near
Two hundred foot from Salient Angle to Salient
Angle and is made of Earth taken out
of the Ditch, secured with fachines and well
rammed with a banquet on the Inside for the
men to stand upon when they fire over, the
Ravelins are made of Posts of Lightwood
which is very durable, they are ten foot in
length sharp pointed three foot and a half in
the ground."[3] The dire need for such a fort
in the back country was tragically illustrated
by the sudden onslaught upon the "House
of John Gutry & James Anshers" in York
County by a party of sixty French Indians
(December 16, 1754), who brutally murdered
sixteen of the twenty-one persons present, and
carried off as captives the remaining five.[4]

At the outbreak of the French and Indian
War in 1754 North Carolina voted twelve
thousand pounds for the raising of troops and
several thousand pounds additional for the
construction of forts—a sum considerably
larger than that voted by Virginia. A regiment
of two hundred and fifty men was placed

under the command of Colonel James Innes of
the Cape Fear section; and the ablest officer
under him was the young Irishman from the
same section, Lieutenant Hugh Waddell. On
June 3, 1754, Dinwiddie appointed Innes, his
close friend, commander-in-chief of all the
forces against the French; and immediately
after the disaster at Great Meadows (July,
1754), Innes took command. Within two
months the supplies for the North Carolina
troops were exhausted; and as Virginia then
failed to furnish additional supplies, Colonel
Innes had no recourse but to disband his troops
and permit them to return home. Appointed
governor of Fort Cumberland by General
Braddock, he was in command there while
Braddock advanced on his disastrous march.

The lesson of Braddock's defeat (July 9,
1755) was memorable in the history of the Old
Southwest. Well might Braddock exclaim
with his last breath: "Who would have
thought it? . . . We shall know better how to
deal with them another time." Led on by the
reckless and fiery Beaujeu, wearing an Indian

gorget about his neck, the savages from the
protection of trees and rough defenses, a prepared
ambuscade, poured a galling fire into
the compact divisions of the English, whose
scarlet coats furnished ideal targets. The obstinacy
of the British commanders in refusing
to permit their troops to fight Indian fashion
was suicidal; for as Herman Alrichs wrote
Governor Morris of Pennsylvania (July 22,
1755): ". . . the French and Indians had
cast an Intrenchment across the road before
our Army which they Discovered not Untill
the [y] came Close up to it, from thence and
both sides of the road the enemy kept a constant
fireing on them, our Army being so confused,
they could not fight, and they would
not be admitted by the Genl or Sir John St.
Clair, to break thro' their Ranks and Take
behind trees."[5] Daniel Boone, who went
from North Carolina as a wagoner in the company
commanded by Edward Brice Dobbs,
was on the battle-field; but Dobbs's company
at the time was scouting in the woods. When
the fierce attack fell upon the baggage train,
Boone succeeded in effecting his escape only
by cutting the traces of his team and fleeing
on one of the horses. To his dying day Boone
continued to censure Braddock's conduct, and
reprehended especially his fatal neglect to employ
strong flank-guards and a sufficient number
of Provincial scouts thoroughly acquainted
with the wilderness and all the wiles and strategies
of savage warfare.

For a number of months following Braddock's
defeat there was a great rush of the
frightened people southward. In a letter to
Dinwiddie, Washington expresses the apprehension
that Augusta, Frederick, and Hampshire
County will soon be depopulated, as the
whole back country is in motion toward the
southern colonies. During this same summer
Governor Arthur Dobbs of North Carolina
made a tour of exploration through the western
part of the colony, seeking a site for a
fort to guard the frontier.[6] The frontier company
of fifty men which was to garrison the
projected fort was placed under the command
of Hugh Waddell, now promoted to the rank

of captain, though only twenty-one years old.
In addition to Waddell's company, armed
patrols were required for the protection of the
Rowan County frontier; and during the summer
Indian alarms were frequent at the Moravian
village of Bethabara, whose inhabitants
had heard with distress on March 31st of the
slaughter of eleven Moravians on the Mahoni
and of the ruin of Gnadenhütten. Many of
the settlers in the outlying districts of Rowan
fled for safety to the refuge of the little village;
and frequently every available house, every
place of temporary abode was filled with panic-stricken
refugees. So persistent were the depredations
of the Indians and so alarmed were
the scattered Rowan settlers by the news of
the murders and the destruction of Vaux's
Fort in Virginia (June 25, 1756) that at a
conference on July 5th the Moravians "decided
to protect our houses with palisades, and
make them safe before the enemy should invade
our tract or attack us, for if the people
were all going to retreat we would be the last
left on the frontier and the first point of attack."

FORT DOBBS

Sketch made from official description of fort

THE TRANSYLVANIA FORT
AT BOONESBOROUGH

Built by Daniel Boone and the pioneers from plans by Richard
Henderson

By July 23d, they had constructed a
strong defense for their settlement, afterward
called the "Dutch Fort" by the Indians. The
principal structure was a stockade, triangular
in plan, some three hundred feet on a side,
enclosing the principal buildings of the settlement;
and the gateway was guarded by an
observation tower. The other defense was a
stockade embracing eight houses at the mill
some distance away, around which a small
settlement had sprung up.[7]

During the same year the fort planned by
Dobbs was erected upon the site he had chosen
—between Third and Fourth creeks; and the
commissioners Richard Caswell and Francis
Brown, sent out to inspect the fort, made the
following picturesque report to the Assembly
(December 21, 1756):

As to the erection of a fort on the Tennessee,
promised the Cherokees by South Carolina,
difficulties between the governor of that province
and of Virginia in regard to matters of
policy and the proportionate share of expenses
made effective coöperation between the two
colonies well-nigh impossible. Glen, as we
have seen, had resented Dinwiddie's efforts to
win the South Carolina Indians over to Virginia's
interest. And Dinwiddie had been
very indignant when the force promised him
by the Indians to aid General Braddock did
not arrive, attributing this defection in part

to Glen's negotiations for a meeting with the
chieftains and in part to the influence of the
South Carolina traders, who kept the Indians
away by hiring them to go on long hunts for
furs and skins. But there was no such contention
between Virginia and North Carolina.
Dinwiddie and Dobbs arranged (November
6, 1755) to send a commission from
these colonies to treat with the Cherokees and
the Catawbas. Virginia sent two commissioners,
Colonel William Byrd, third of that
name, and Colonel Peter Randolph; while
North Carolina sent one, Captain Hugh Waddell.
Salisbury, North Carolina, was the
place of rendezvous. The treaty with the Catawbas
was made at the Catawba Town, presumably
the village opposite the mouth of
Sugaw Creek, in York County, South Carolina,
on February 20-21, 1756; that with the
Cherokees on Broad River, North Carolina,
March 13-17. As a result of the negotiations
and after the receipt of a present of goods,
the Catawbas agreed to send forty warriors
to aid Virginia within forty days; and the
Cherokees, in return for presents and Virginia's
promise to contribute her proportion
toward the erection of a strong fort, undertook
to send four hundred warriors within forty
days, "as soon as the said fort shall be built."
Virginia and North Carolina thus wisely
coöperated to "straighten the path" and
"brighten the chain" between the white and
the red men, in important treaties which have
largely escaped the attention of historians.[9]

On May 25, 1756, a conference was held
at Salisbury between King Heygler and warriors
of the Catawba nation on the one side
and Chief Justice Henley, doubtless attended
by Captain Waddell and his frontier company,
on the other. King Heygler, following the
lead set by the Cherokees, petitioned the Governor
of North Carolina to send the Catawbas
some ammunition and to "build us a fort for
securing our old men, women and children
when we turn out to fight the Enemy on their
coming." The chief justice assured the King
that the Catawbas would receive a necessary
supply of ammunition (one hundred pounds of

gunpower and four hundred pounds of lead
were later sent them) and promised to urge
with the governor their request to have a fort
built as soon as possible. Pathos not unmixed
with dry humor tinges the eloquent appeal of
good old King Heygler, ever the loyal friend
of the whites, at this conference:

In response to this request, the sum of four
thousand pounds was appropriated by the
North Carolina Assembly for the erection of "a
Fort on our western frontier to protect and secure
the Catawbas" and for the support of two

companies of fifty men each to garrison this
and another fort building on the sea coast.
The commissioners appointed for the purpose
recommended (December 21, 1756) a site for
the fort "near the Catawba nation"; and on
January 20, 1757, Governor Dobbs reported:
"We are now building a Fort in the midst of
their towns at their own Request." The fort
thereupon begun must have stood near the
mouth of the South Fork of the Catawba
River, as Dobbs says it was in the "midst"
of their towns, which are situated a "few miles
north and south of 38°" and might properly
be included within a circle of thirty miles
radius.[11]

During the succeeding months many depredations
were committed by the Indians upon
the exposed and scattered settlements. Had
it not been for the protection afforded by all
these forts, by the militia companies under
Alexander Osborne of Rowan and Nathaniel
Alexander of Anson, and by a special company
of patrollers under Green and Moore, the back

settlers who had been so outrageously "pilfered"
by the Indians would have "retired
from the Frontier into the inner settlements."[12]