These hill
towns lay in the high gorges of the Great Smoky Mountains, 150
miles distant. No one in Watauga had ever been in them except
Thomas, the trader, who, however, had reached them from the
eastern side of the mountains. With no knowledge of the Indians'
path and without a guide, yet nothing daunted, Sevier, late in
the summer of 1781 headed his force into the mountains. So steep
were some of the slopes they scaled that the men were obliged to
dismount and help their horses up. Unexpectedly to themselves
perhaps, as well as to the Indians, they descended one morning on
a group of villages and destroyed them. Before the fleeing
savages could rally, the mountaineers had plunged up the steeps
again. Sevier then turned southward into Georgia and inflicted a
severe castigation on the tribes along the Coosa River.
When, after thirty days of warfare and mad riding, Sevier arrived
at his Bonnie Kate's door on the Nolichucky, he found a messenger
from General Greene calling on him for immediate assistance to
cut off Cornwallis from his expected retreat through North
Carolina. Again he set out, and with two hundred men crossed the
mountains and made all speed to Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County,
where he learned that Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown on
October 19, 1781.
Pages:
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224