Pioneers of the Old Southwest [58]
the company declared it could not be--it was so much smaller than was expected.... We determined however to make the trial, pushed up some distance and encamped for the night.
"Saturday 25th. Today we are much encouraged; the river grows wider;...we are now convinced it is the Cumberland....
"Sunday 26th...procured some buffalo meat; though poor it was palatable.
"Friday 31st...met with Colonel Richard Henderson, who is running the line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this meeting we were much rejoiced. He gave us every information we wished, and further informed us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are now without bread and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve life....
"Monday, April 24th. This day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Captain Robertson and his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore to him and others their families and friends, who were entrusted to our care, and who, sometime since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again...."
Past the camps of the Chickamaugans--who were retreating farther and farther down the twisting flood, seeking a last standing ground in the giant caves by the Tennessee--these white voyagers had steered their pirogues. Near Robertson's station, where they landed after having traversed the triangle of the three great rivers which enclose the larger part of western Tennessee, stood a crumbling trading house marking the defeat of a Frenchman who had, one time, sailed in from the Ohio to establish an outpost of his nation there. At a little distance were the ruins of a rude fort cast up by the Cherokees in the days when the redoubtable Chickasaws had driven them from the pleasant shores of the western waters. Under the towering forest growth lay vast burial mounds and the sunken foundations of walled towns, telling of a departed race which had once flashed its rude paddles and had its dream of permanence along the courses of these great waterways. Now another tribe had come to dream that dream anew. Already its primitive keels had traced the opening lines of its history on the face of the immemorial rivers.
Chapter IX. King's Mountain
About the time when James Robertson went from Watauga to fling out the frontier line three hundred miles farther westward, the British took Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and Augusta, and overran Georgia. Augusta was the point where the old trading path forked north and west, and it was the key to the Back Country and the overhill domain. In Georgia and the Back Country of South Carolina there were many Tories ready to rally to the King's standard whenever a King's officer should carry it through their midst. A large number of these Tories were Scotch, chiefly from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, Scotch blood predominated among the racial streams in the Back Country from Georgia to Pennsylvania. Now, to insure a triumphant march northward for Cornwallis and his royal troops, these sons of Scotland must be gathered together, the loyal encouraged and those of rebellious tendencies converted, and they must be drilled and turned to account. This task, if it were to be accomplished successfully, must be entrusted to an offcer with positive qualifications, one who would command respect, whose personal address would attract men and disarm opposition, and especially one who could go as a Scot among his own clan. Cornwallis found his man in Major. Patrick Ferguson.
Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord Pitfour of Aberdeen, and thirty-six years of age. He was of short stature for a Highlander--about five feet eight--lean and dark, with straight black hair. He had a serious unhandsome countenance which, at casual glance, might not arrest attention; but when he spoke he became magnetic, by reason of the intelligence and innate force that gleamed in his eyes and the convincing sincerity of his manner. He was admired
"Saturday 25th. Today we are much encouraged; the river grows wider;...we are now convinced it is the Cumberland....
"Sunday 26th...procured some buffalo meat; though poor it was palatable.
"Friday 31st...met with Colonel Richard Henderson, who is running the line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this meeting we were much rejoiced. He gave us every information we wished, and further informed us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are now without bread and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve life....
"Monday, April 24th. This day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Captain Robertson and his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore to him and others their families and friends, who were entrusted to our care, and who, sometime since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again...."
Past the camps of the Chickamaugans--who were retreating farther and farther down the twisting flood, seeking a last standing ground in the giant caves by the Tennessee--these white voyagers had steered their pirogues. Near Robertson's station, where they landed after having traversed the triangle of the three great rivers which enclose the larger part of western Tennessee, stood a crumbling trading house marking the defeat of a Frenchman who had, one time, sailed in from the Ohio to establish an outpost of his nation there. At a little distance were the ruins of a rude fort cast up by the Cherokees in the days when the redoubtable Chickasaws had driven them from the pleasant shores of the western waters. Under the towering forest growth lay vast burial mounds and the sunken foundations of walled towns, telling of a departed race which had once flashed its rude paddles and had its dream of permanence along the courses of these great waterways. Now another tribe had come to dream that dream anew. Already its primitive keels had traced the opening lines of its history on the face of the immemorial rivers.
Chapter IX. King's Mountain
About the time when James Robertson went from Watauga to fling out the frontier line three hundred miles farther westward, the British took Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and Augusta, and overran Georgia. Augusta was the point where the old trading path forked north and west, and it was the key to the Back Country and the overhill domain. In Georgia and the Back Country of South Carolina there were many Tories ready to rally to the King's standard whenever a King's officer should carry it through their midst. A large number of these Tories were Scotch, chiefly from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, Scotch blood predominated among the racial streams in the Back Country from Georgia to Pennsylvania. Now, to insure a triumphant march northward for Cornwallis and his royal troops, these sons of Scotland must be gathered together, the loyal encouraged and those of rebellious tendencies converted, and they must be drilled and turned to account. This task, if it were to be accomplished successfully, must be entrusted to an offcer with positive qualifications, one who would command respect, whose personal address would attract men and disarm opposition, and especially one who could go as a Scot among his own clan. Cornwallis found his man in Major. Patrick Ferguson.
Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord Pitfour of Aberdeen, and thirty-six years of age. He was of short stature for a Highlander--about five feet eight--lean and dark, with straight black hair. He had a serious unhandsome countenance which, at casual glance, might not arrest attention; but when he spoke he became magnetic, by reason of the intelligence and innate force that gleamed in his eyes and the convincing sincerity of his manner. He was admired