Messengers were sent to Colonel
William Campbell of the Virginia settlements on the Clinch,
asking his aid. Campbell at first refused, thinking it better to
fortify the positions they held and let Ferguson come and put the
mountains between himself and Cornwallis. On receipt of a second
message, however, he concurred. The call to arms was heard up and
down the valleys, and the frontiersmen poured into Watauga. The
overhill men were augmented by McDowell's troops from Burke
County, who had dashed over the mountains a few weeks before in
their escape from Ferguson.
At daybreak on the 26th of September they mustered at the
Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, over a thousand strong. It was a
different picture they made from that other great gathering at
the same spot when Henderson had made his purchase in money of
the Dark and Bloody Ground, and Sevier and Robertson had bought
for the Wataugans this strip of Tennessee. There were no Indians
in this picture. Dragging Canoe, who had uttered his bloody
prophecy, had by these very men been driven far south into the
caves of the Tennessee River. But the Indian prophecy still hung
over them, and in this day with a heavier menace. Not with money,
now, were they to seal their purchase of the free land by the
western waters.
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