CHAPTER XIII
Stuart seemed utterly vanquished--his spirit gone. In silence he wasconducted back to his quarters in Demere's house at Fort Loudon. And asthere he sat in the spare, clean room, in the single chair it contained,with one elbow on the queer, rough little table, constructed accordingto a primitive scheme by the post carpenter, he stared forward blanklyat the inevitable prospect so close before him. He had not now thesolace of solitude in which he might have rallied his faculties. On thebuffalo rug on the floor Atta-Kulla-Kulla reclined and smoked hislong-stemmed pipe and watched him with impenetrable eyes. Once he spoketo him of the preparations making without, selecting the men for thegunners of the expedition. Stuart lifted his head abruptly.
"I will not go!" he cried in sudden passion. "So help me, God! I willdie first!--a thousand deaths. So help me, God!" He lifted his clinchedright hand in attestation and shook it wildly in the air.
"He stared forward blankly at the inevitable prospect."]
He had a momentary shame in thus giving way to his surchargedfeelings, but as he rose mechanically from his chair his restless eyes,glancing excitedly about the room, surprised an expression of sympathyin the face of the Cherokee as he lay coiled up on the rug.
"Atta-Kulla-Kulla!" Stuart exclaimed impulsively, holding out both arms,"feel for me! Think of me! The poor remnant of the garrison! My 'youngmen'! My own command! I will die first, myself, a thousand deaths!"
Atta-Kulla-Kulla began to argue, speaking partly in Cherokee and now andagain in fragmentary English. Neither the one nor the other might be thevictim. The commandant at Fort Prince George would yield under thisstrong coercion.
"Never! Never!" cried Stuart. "His duty is to hold the fort. He willdefend it to the last man and the last round of ammunition and the lastissuance of rations. For his countrymen to be tortured and burned in hissight and hearing would doubtless give him great pain. But his duty isto his own command, and he will do it."
Atta-Kulla-Kulla seemed doubtful. "And then," argued Stuart, "would suchtorturing and burning of the surrendered garrison of Fort Loudon beforethe eyes of the garrison of Fort Prince George be an inducement to themto surrender too, and perhaps meet the same fate? Be sure they willsell their lives more dearly! Be sure they will have heard of themassacre of the soldiers under the Cherokees' pledge of safe-conduct onthe plains of Taliquo."
"_To-e-u-hah!_" Atta-Kulla-Kulla broke out furiously. "_To-e-u-hah!_ Itis most true!"
His countenance had changed to extreme anger. He launched out into abitter protest that he had always contemned, and deprecated, and soughtto prevent this continual violation of their plighted word and theobligations of their treaties on the part of the Cherokee nation. Itinvariably hampered their efforts afterward, as it was hampering themnow. It took from their hand the tool of negotiation, the weapon of thehead-men, and left only the tomahawk, the brute force of the tribe._Wahkane, wahkane!_ Was it not so when the treaty of Lyttleton wasbroken and Montgomery, the Terrible, came in his stead? And when theCherokees had driven him out, and had taken their revenge on him for theblood which had been shed in his first foray, of what avail to massacrethe garrison evacuating Fort Loudon, the possession of which had beenfor so long a coveted boon, and thus preclude a peaceful rendering ofFort Prince George and the expulsion of all English soldiery fromCherokee soil!
Stuart, cautiously reticent, let him dilate upon all the wrongs wroughtin council by the disregard of his advice, only now and again dropping aword as fuel to the flame. Cautiously, too, he led to the topic of theregard and the admiration which the acute mind and the more enlightenedmoral sentiment of this chief had excited in the English authorities,and the service this official esteem would have been to the headstrongnation if they had availed themselves of it. For was not Montgomeryinstructed to offer them terms on _his_ account only? Their crueltyAtta-Kulla-Kulla was brought to perceive had despoiled them of thefruits of their victory; they might have, for all their patience and alltheir valor, and all their statecraft, only a few more scalps here andthere; for presently the great English nation would be pressing againfrom the south, with Fort Prince George as a base, and the war would beto begin anew.
Deep into the night Atta-Kulla-Kulla dwelt on the treachery towardhim,--for he had known naught of the enterprise of the massacre--thathad so metamorphosed victory into disaster. The moonlight was coming inat the window, reminding Stuart of that night when he lay at length onthe rug and consulted with Demere and anxiously foreboded events, thenews of Montgomery's departure from the country having fallen upon themlike a crushing blow. How prescient of disaster they had felt--but howlittle they had appraised its force! Paler now was the moon, moremelancholy, desolate to the last degree as it glimmered on thewhite-washed walls of the bare, sparely furnished room. His attentionhad relaxed with fatigue as he still sat with his elbow on the table,his head on his hand, vaguely hearing the Indian councillor droning outhis griefs of disregarded statesmanship and of the preferable attitudeof affairs, so rudely, so disastrously altered. Suddenly his tonechanged to a personal note.
"But it was ill with you, starving with your young men, in thisplace--long days, heap hungry."
"They seem happy days, now," said Stuart drearily, rousing himself.
"And to-morrow--and yet next day?" asked Atta-Kulla-Kulla.
Stuart stirred uneasily. "I can only die with what grace and courage Ican muster," he said reluctantly. He glanced about him with restlesseyes, like a hunted creature. "I cannot escape."
He looked up in sudden surprise. The Indian was standing now, gazingdown at him with a benignity of expression which warranted the characterof bold and forceful mind, and broad and even humane disposition, whichthis Cherokee had won of his enemies in the midst of the bloodshed andthe treachery and the hideous cruelty of the warfare in which he was somuch concerned.
"John Stuart," he said, "have I not called you my friend? Have I notgiven all I possess of wealth to save your life? Do I not value it, andyet it is yours!"
Stuart had forgotten the chief's words that Christmas night at the greatgates, but they came back to him as Atta-Kulla-Kulla repeated them,anew.
"I know your heart, and I do not always forget! I do not _always_forget!"
In Stuart's amazement, in the abrupt reaction, he could hardly masterthe details of the unfolded plan. The Cherokee declared he had made uphis mind to a stratagem, such as might baffle even the designs ofOconostota. He doubted his own power to protect his prisoner, should theking learn that Stuart still refused his services in the expedition toFort Prince George. Oconostota's heart was set upon the reduction ofthis stronghold, and so was that of all the Cherokee nation. And yetAtta-Kulla-Kulla could but perceive the flagrant futility of theexpectation of the surrender of the garrison on the coercion thatOconostota had devised, especially as Fort Prince George was so muchnearer than Fort Loudon to communication with the white settlements. "Icontemplate the fact before it happens, they only afterward," he said.
On the pretext of diverting Stuart's mind after his glut of horrors, andin affording him this recreation to secure an influence over him,eminently in character with the wiles of the Cherokee statesman, he gaveout that he intended to take his prisoner with him for a few days on ahunting expedition. The deer were now in prime condition, and CaptainStuart was known by the Indians to be specially fond of venison. In theold days at Fort Loudon they had often taken note of this preference,and stopped there to leave as a gift a choice haunch, or saddle, or tocrave the privilege of nailing a gigantic pair of antlers to vie withthe others on the walls of the great hall. Stuart himself was a famousshot, and was often called by them in compliment _A-wah-ta-how-we_, the"great deer-killer." The project created no surprise, and Stuart sawwith amazement the door of his prison ajar. One might have thought insuch a crisis of deliverance no other consideration could appeal to him.But his attachment to the British interest seems to have been like themarrow in his bones. He demanded of Atta-Kulla-Kulla the privilege ofbeing accompanied by tw
o men of the garrison of his own choice.
The chief cast upon him a look of deep reproach. Did he fear treachery?Had his friend, his brother, deserved this?
"I ask much of a friend--nothing of an enemy," declared Stuart, bluffly."You know my heart--trust me."
Atta-Kulla-Kulla yielded. If he experienced curiosity, the names of thetwo men which Stuart gave him afforded no clue as to the reason fortheir selection; one was a gun-smith, an armorer of uncommon skill, andStuart knew that he was capable of dismounting and removing the cannon,without injury, through the tangled wilderness to Fort Prince George,should coercion overcome his resistance to the demands of the savages;the other, an artillery-man of long experience and much intelligence,himself adequately fitted to take command of the guns of the expedition,with a good chance of a successful issue. The massacre had swept awaymost of the cannoneers, and Stuart was aware that the infantrymen leftof the garrison would be hardly more capable of dealing with theproblems of gun service than was Oconostota, their careless and casualobservation being worth little more than his earnest, but denseignorance. Nevertheless, with his exacting insistence on the extremelimit of demand, he begged Atta-Kulla-Kulla, whose patience was wearingdangerously thin, to let him see them, speak to them for one moment.
"You can hear all I say--you who understand the English so well."
As he stepped into the old exhausted store-room, where the soldiers wereherded together, squalid, heart-broken, ill, forlorn, Atta-Kulla-Kullaoutside closing the door fast, a quavering cheer went up to greetStuart. For one moment he stood silent while their eyes met--a momentfraught with feeling too deep for words. Then his voice rang out and hespoke to the point. He wanted to remind them, he said, how the action ofthe garrison had forced the surrender and left the officers no choice,no discretion; however the event would have fallen out, it would nothave happened thus. "But I did not come here to mock your distress," heprotested. "I wish to urge you to rely upon me now. I have hopes ofsecuring the ransom of the garrison by the government,"--again a pitifulcheer,--"and as I may never be allowed to see you again this is my onlychance. _Be sure of this_,--no man need hope for ransom who affords theCherokees the slightest assistance in any enterprise against Fort PrinceGeorge, or takes up arms at their command."
He smiled, and waved his hat in courteous farewell, and stepped backwardout of the door, apparently guarded by Atta-Kulla-Kulla, while thatquavering huzza went up anew, the very sound almost breaking down hisself-control.
The next day Stuart, accompanied by Atta-Kulla-Kulla, the warrior'swife, his brother, the armorer, and the artillery-man,--thesupposititious hunting party,--set gayly and leisurely forth. But onceout of reach of espionage they traveled in a northeastern directionwith the utmost expedition night and day through the tracklesswilderness, guided only by the sun and moon. What terrors of capture,what hardships of fatigue, what anxious doubt and anguish of hope theyendured, but added wings to the flight of the unhappy fugitives. Ninedays and nights they journeyed thus, hardly relaxing a muscle.
On the tenth day, having gained the frontiers of Virginia, theyfortunately fell in with a party of three hundred men, a part of Bird'sVirginia regiment, thrown out for the relief of any soldiers who mightbe escaping in the direction of that province from Fort Loudon, forthrough Hamish's dispatches its state of blockade and straits ofstarvation had become widely bruited abroad. With the succor thusafforded and the terror of capture overpast, the four days' furthertravel were accomplished in comparative ease, and brought the fugitivesto Colonel Bird's camp, within the boundaries of Virginia.
Here Stuart parted from Atta-Kulla-Kulla, with many a protestation andmany a regret, and many an urgent prayer that the chief would protectsuch of the unhappy garrison as were still imprisoned at Fort Loudonuntil they could be ransomed, measures for which Stuart intended to seton foot immediately. So the half-king of the Cherokees went his way backto his native wilds, loaded by Stuart with presents and commendations,and in no wise regretting the radical course he had taken.[14] Stuarthad instantly sent off messengers to apprise the commandant of FortPrince George of the threatened attack, and to acquaint the governor ofSouth Carolina with the imminence of its danger and the fall of FortLoudon, for Governor Bull had expected Virginia to raise the siege ofLoudon, unaware that that province had dropped all thought of theattempt, finding its means utterly inadequate to march an army thitherthrough those vast and tangled wildernesses carrying the necessarysupplies for its own subsistence. Provisions for ten weeks were at oncethrown into Fort Prince George, and a report was industriouslycirculated among the Indians that the ground about it on every side hadbeen craftily mined to prevent approach.[15]
Stuart found that Hamish MacLeod, after performing his mission andsetting out for his return to the beleaguered fort with the responsivedispatches, had succumbed to the extreme hardship of those continuousjourneys throughout the wild fastnesses, many hundred miles of whichwere traversed on foot and at full speed under a blazing summer sun, andlay ill of brain-fever at one of the frontier settlements. There Stuartsaw him--still so delirious that, although recognizing the officer insome sort, he talked wildly of pressing dispatches, of the inattentionand callous hearts of officials in high station, of delays and longwaitings for audience in official anterooms, of the prospect of anyexpedition of relief for the fort, of Odalie, and red calashes, andSavanukah, and rifle-shots, and Fifine, and "top-feathers," andSandy--Sandy--Sandy; always Sandy!
Later, Stuart was apprised that the boy was on the way to recovery whenhe received a coherent letter from Hamish, who had learned that Stuartwas using every endeavor--moving heaven and earth as the phrase went--tocompass the ransom of the survivors of the garrison still at Fort Loudonor the Indian villages in its neighborhood. Hamish had heard of the fallof the fort and the massacre of the evacuating force, and stillstaggering under the weight of the blow, he reminded Stuart peremptorilyenough of the services which Odalie had rendered in venturing forth fromthe walls under the officer's orders, when he dared not seek to induce aman to volunteer nor constrain one to the duty, and to urge upon hisconsideration the fact that she might be justly esteemed to have earnedher ransom and that of her husband and child. Hamish had an immediatereply by a sure hand.
If it could avail aught to Mrs. MacLeod or any of her household, Stuartwrote with an uncharacteristic vehemence of protest, every influence hecould exert, every half-penny he possessed, every drop of his bloodwould be cheerfully devoted to the service, so highly did he rate thelofty courage which had given to Fort Loudon its only chance of relief,and which under happier auspices would undoubtedly have resulted inraising the siege. Whatever might be forgotten, assuredly it would notbe the intrepid devotion of the "forlorn hope" of Fort Loudon.
Hamish, left to his own not overwise devices, decided to return to thecountry where he had quitted all that was dear to him, dangerous thoughthat return might be. And, indeed, those wild western woods included theboundaries of all the world to him--elsewhere he felt alone and analien. It seemed strange to realize that there were other people, otherinterests, other happenings of moment. He long remembered the sensation,and was wont to tell of it afterward, with which he discovered, campingone night at the foot of a tree--for he journeyed now by easy stages,keeping sedulously from the main trail through the forest--the traces ofa previous presence, a bit of writing cut on the bark of the tree."Daniel Boon," it ran, "cilled a bar on tree in the year 1760."
That momentous year--that crucial time of endeavor and fluctuating hopeand despair and death--a hunter here, all unaware of the maelstrom ofmental and physical agony away there to the south in the shadow of thesame mountain range, was pursuing his quiet sylvan craft, andslaughtering his "bar" and the alphabet with equal calm and aplomb.
Perhaps it was well for the future career of the adventurous youngfellow that he fell in with some French traders, who were traveling withmany packhorses well laden, and who designed to establish themselveswith their goods at one of the Lower Towns of the Cher
okees; they urgedthat he should attach himself to their march, whether from a humanesense of diminishing his danger, or because of the industry andusefulness and ever ready proffer of aid in the frank, bright, amiableboy, who showed a quality of good breeding quite beyond their custom,yet not unappreciated. They warned him that it would be certain death tohim, and perhaps to his captive relatives, should he in a flimsydisguise, which he had fancied adequate, of dyeing his hair a singularyellow and walking with a limp, which he often alertly forgot, ventureinto the villages of those Cherokees by whom he had been so well known,and against whose interest he had been employed in such vigorous andbold aggression. The traders showed some genuine feeling of sympathy anda deep indignation, because of the treachery that had resulted in themassacre of the garrison of Fort Loudon,--although the English werealways the sworn foe of the French. The leader of the party, elderly, ofcommercial instincts rather than sylvan, albeit a dead shot, anddecorated with ear-rings, had a great proclivity toward snuff and tears,and often indulged in both as a luxury when Hamish with his simple artsought to portray the characters of the tragedy of the siege; and as theFrenchman heard of Fifine and Odalie, and Stuart and Demere, and alltheir sufferings and courage and devices of despair--"_Quellebarbarie!_" he would burst forth, and Hamish would greet the phrase witha boyish delight of remembrance. Two or three of the party made anincursion into Chote when they reached its neighborhood, and returnedwith the news that the ransom of such of the garrison as were there hadtaken place, and they had been delivered to the commandant of FortPrince George, but certain others had been removed to Huwhasee Town andamong them were the French squaw, the pappoose, and the Scotchman. Inhis simplicity Hamish believed them, although Monsieur Galette sat late,with his delicate sentiments, over the camp-fire that night, and staredat it with red eyes, often suffused with tears, and took snuff after hisslovenly fashion until he acquired the aspect of a blackened pointedmuzzle, and looked in his elevated susceptibility like some queerunclassified baboon.
But at Huwhasee Town Hamish heard naught of those his memory cherished.He was greatly amazed at the courage with which Monsieur Galette urgedupon the head-men that some measures should be taken to induceOconostota to remove that fence, of which they had heard at Chote, whichhad been built of the bones of the massacred garrison, and give themburial from out the affronted gaze of Christian people. This was notpleasing, he said, not even to the French. He was evidently growing oldand his heart was softening!
Lured by a vague rumor expressed among the party that those he soughthad been removed to a remote Indian town on the Tsullakee River, Hamishbroke away from Monsieur Galette, despite all remonstrances, to seekthose he loved in the further west--if slaves, as Monsieur Galettesuggested, he would rather share their slavery than without them enjoythe freedom of the king. And, constrained to receive two snuffy kisseson either cheek, he left Monsieur Galette shedding his frequent tears tomix with the snuff on his pointed muzzle.
And so in company with a French hunter in a canoe, Hamish went down thelong reaches of the Tsullakee River, coming after many days to theirdestination, to find only disappointment and a gnawing doubt, and astrange, palsying numbness of despair. For the French traders here,reading Monsieur Galette's letter, looked at one another with gravefaces and collogued together, and finally became of the opinion that themembers of the family he sought were somewhere--oh, far away!--in thecountry where now dwelt the expatriated Shawnees, and that region, sogreat an Indian traveler as he was must know was inaccessible now in thewinter season. It would be well for him to dismiss the matter from hismind, and stay with them for the present; he could engage in the furtrade; his society would be appreciated. With the well-meaning Frenchflattery they protested that he spoke the French language so well--theymade him upon his proficiency their felicitations. Poor Hamish ought tohave known from this statement what value to attach to what they saidotherwise, conscious as he was how his verbs and pronouns disagreed, anddislocated the sense of his remarks, and popped up and down out ofplace, like a lot of puppets on a disorganized system of wires. Thesetraders were not snuffy nor lachrymose; they were of a gay dispositionand also wore ear-rings--but they all looked sorrowfully at him when heleft them, and he thought one was minded to disclose something withheld.
And so down and down the Tsullakee River he went, and after thejunction of the great tributary with the Ohio, he plied his paddleagainst the strong current and with the French hunter came into theplacid waters of the beautiful Sewanee, or Cumberland, flouted by thenorth wind, his way winding for many miles in densest wintry solitudes.For this was the great hunting-ground of the Cherokee nation andabsolutely without population. His adventures were few and slight untilhe fell in with Daniel Boon, camping that year near the head waters ofthe Sewanee, who listened to his story with grave concern and a sane andeffective sympathy. He, too, advised the cessation of these ceaselesswanderings, but he thought Stuart's letter evasive, somehow, andcounseled the boy to write to him once more, detailing these longsearches and their futility. Hamish had always realized that Stuart'ssentiments, although by no means shallow, for he was warmly attached tohis friends, were simple, direct, devoid of the subtlety that sometimescharacterized his mental processes. Life to him was precious, aprivilege, and its environment the mere incident.
He now replied that he had not dared divulge all the truth while HamishMacLeod was in the enfeebled condition that follows brain-fever, and hadbeen loath, too, to rob him of hope, only that he might forlornly mournhis nearest and dearest. But since the fact must needs be revealed hecould yet say their sorrows were brief. In that drear dawn on theplains of Taliquo the mother and child were killed in the same volley ofmusketry, and afterward, as he ordered from time to time the ranks toclose up, he saw Sandy, who had been fighting in line with the troops,lying on the ground, quite dead. "You may be sure of this," Stuartadded; "I took especial note of their fate, having from the first caredmuch for them all."
The terrible certainty wrought a radical change in Hamish. From themoment he seemed, instead of the wild, impulsive, affectionate boy, astern reserved man. In the following year he enlisted in a provincialregiment mustered to join the British regulars sent again by GeneralAmherst to the relief of the Carolina frontier; for the difficulties inCanada being set at rest, troops could be put in the field in the south,and vengeance for the tragedy of Fort Loudon became a menace to theCherokees, who had grown arrogant and aggressive, stimulated to furthercruelties by their triumphs and immunity. Nevertheless, Atta-Kulla-Kullawent forth to meet the invaders, and earnestly attempted to negotiate atreaty. It was well understood now, however, that he was in no sense arepresentative man of his nation, and his mission failed.Lieutenant-Colonel James Grant, on whom Colonel Montgomery's command hadnow devolved, at the head of this little army of British regulars andprovincials, preceded by a vanguard of ninety Indian allies and thirtywhite settlers, painted and dressed like Indians, under command ofCaptain Quentin Kennedy,--in all about twenty-six hundredmen,--continued to advance into the Cherokee country. At Etchoee, thescene of the final battle of Colonel Montgomery's campaign in theprevious year, they encountered the Cherokees in their whole force--theunited warriors of all the towns. A furious battle ensued, both sidesfighting with prodigies of valor and persistence, that resulted inbreaking forever the power of the Cherokee nation. Three hours the rageof the fight lasted, and then the troops, pushing forward into thecountry, burned and slew on every side, wasting the growing crops allover the face of the land, and driving the inhabitants from the embersof their towns to the refuge of caves and dens of wild beasts in themountains. They stayed not their hand till Atta-Kulla-Kulla came again,now to humbly sue for peace and for the preservation of such poorremnant as was left of his people.
After this the colonists came more rapidly into the region. A settlementsprang up at Watauga, the site of one of Hamish's old camps as he hadjourneyed on his fruitless search for those who had made his home andthe wilderness a sort of paradise. But the place, fa
r away from Loudonthough it was, seemed sad to him. The austere range of mountain domeson the eastern horizon looked down on him with suggestions which theyimparted to none others who beheld them. He and they had confidences anda drear interchange of memories and a knowledge of a past that broke theheart already of the future. He was glad to look upon them no more! Hismind had turned often to the trivial scenes, the happier times, when,unbereaved of hope, he had hunted with the Frenchman on the banks of thebeautiful Sewanee River. And he welcomed the project of a number of thepioneers to carry their settlement on to the region of the French SaltLick, which other hunters had already rendered famous, and with a few ofthese he made his way thither by land while the rest traveled by water,the way of his old journey in search of his lost happiness. And here helived and passed his days.
He heard from Stuart from time to time afterward, but not always withpleasure. It is true that it afforded him a sentiment of deepgratification to learn that the Assembly of South Carolina had givenStuart a vote of thanks for his "courage, good conduct and longperseverance at Fort Loudon," with a testimonial of fifteen hundredpounds currency, and earnestly recommended him to the royal governor fora position of honor and profit in the service of the province; theoffice of Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the South having beencreated, Stuart's appointment thereto by the Crown was received with theliveliest public satisfaction, it being a position that he waspronounced in every way qualified to fill.[16] For some years thissatisfaction continued, failing only when, in the growing differencesbetween the colonists and Great Britain, Stuart, wholly devoted to theroyal cause, conceived himself under obligations to carry out theinstructions which the British War Department sent to him and the fourroyal governors of the southern provinces to use every endeavor tocontinue the Indians in their adherence to the British standard asallies against all its enemies; even concocting a plan with GeneralGage, Governor Tonyn, Lord William Campbell, and other royalists,--whichplan happily failed,--to land a British army on the western coast ofFlorida, whence, joined by tories and Indians, the united force shouldfall upon the western frontiers of Carolina at the moment of attack onthe eastern coast by a British fleet, in the hope that the province thussurrounded would be obliged to sue the royal government for peace.
Hamish had had some opportunity at Fort Loudon to observe the tenacitywith which Stuart at all hazards adhered to his "instructions and theinterest of the government," but in this crisis it ceased to appear inthe guise of duty. In such a time it seemed to Hamish an independent,enlightened judgment partook of the values of a pious patriotism. Apermanent breach in their friendship was made when Stuart wrote toHamish to call his attention to the fact that the MacDonalds ofKingsburgh and the MacLeods and other leal Scotch hearts in the southernprovinces were fighting under the royal banner. Hamish repliedsuccinctly that "on whatever side the MacLeods fought, with whateverresult, be sure the thing would be well done." As if to illustrate thefact, he himself some time afterward set forth with the "mountain men"to march against the royalists under Ferguson, and was among the victorsin the battle of King's Mountain.
In the earlier times of the settlement of the State, fraught withtroubles with the Indians, who, more timorous than formerly, were yetmore skulking, Hamish was wont to take with hearty good-will to therifle, the knife, the pistol, and the firebrand. He was with Sevier onmore than one of those furious forays, when vengeance nerved the handand hardened the heart, for many of the pioneers avenged the slain oftheir own household. But as he grew old, the affinity of his hand forthe trigger slackened, and he liked only the blaze of the benignantfireside; sometimes he would laugh and shake his gray head and declarethat he reminded himself of Monsieur Galette, with his theories ofsweet peace in that fierce land, and his soft heart and his sinewy oldhand that could send a bullet so straight from the bore of his flintlockrifle. And so great a favorite did Monsieur Galette become in Hamish'sfireside stories, so often clamored for, that he would ask hisgrandchildren, clustering about him, if they would like him better witha muzzle of snuff and a pair of ear-rings and a tear-discoursing eye,and declare that he must take measures to secure these embellishments.
And so, gradually, by slow degrees, he was led on to talk of thepast,--of the beautiful Carolina girl who had been his brother's wife,of the quaint babble of Fifine, of Stuart and Demere, of CorporalO'Flynn, and the big drum-major, and the queer old African cook, and thecat that had been so cherished--but he never, never ventured a word ofSandy, to the last day of his life; Sandy!--for whom he had had almost afilial veneration blended with the admiring applausive affection of theyounger brother for the elder.
When he had grown very old--for he died only in 1813--he had abeneficent illusion that might come but to one standing, as could besaid, on the borderland of the two worlds. It came in dreams, suchperhaps as old men often dream, but his experiences made it thetenderer. Sometimes in the golden afternoon of summer, as he sat inplacid sleep, with his long, white hair falling about his shoulders,one of his wrinkled, veinous hands lying on the arm of his chair wouldtremble suddenly and contract with a strong grasp, and he would look up,at naught, with a face of such joyous recognition and tender appeal,that the children, playing about, would pause in their mirth and ask,with awe, what had he seen. And it seemed that he had felt his handcaught with a certain playful clasp such as years ago--more than half acentury--Odalie was wont to give it, when she had been waiting for himlong, and would wait no longer. And looking up, he could see herstanding there, waiting still, smiling serenely, joyously as of yore;and so she would stand till the dream vanished in the reality of thechildren clustering around his knees, besieging him once more for thestory of Old Fort Loudon.
NOTES
1 Page 8. In addition to luring an enemy within shot by the mimicry ofthe voice of bird or beast the Indians' consummate art of ambuscadeenabled them to imitate the footprints of game by affixing the hoofs ofdeer or buffalo or the paws of bear to their own feet and hands, andthus duplicate the winding progress of these animals for miles with suchskill as to deceive not merely the white settlers, new to the country,but Indian enemies of other tribes, expert woodmen like themselves.
2 Page 18. The name of this famous town is variously given. Adair spellsit as Choate. Bancroft inclines to Chotee. Bartram has it asChote-Great. Some of the old maps show it as Chotte. Modern historiansof Tennessee, Hayward, J. G. M. Ramsey, Putnam, and others make itChota, but most of the earlier writers concerning this region adopt theFrench rendering and call it Chote; Hewatt, however, David Ramsey, andothers use the _accent grave_, Chote. This town, seldom alluded towithout the phrase "old town" or "beloved town," to distinguish it fromanother Indian village of the same name among the Lower Towns, was averitable "city of refuge," and the only one of the Cherokee nation. Amurderer, even if a white man and the victim a Cherokee, might live foryears here secure from vengeance. Although there is an instance known ofa malefactor, who sought an asylum here and was prevented from landing,being held down in the Tennessee River until drowned, still the rule wasinviolable that if the refugee could but gain a footing on theever-sacred soil, he was as safe as if clinging to the horns of analtar. This fact contributed, with other confirmatory circumstances ofusage and tradition, to continue the speculations touching the identityof the American Indians with the lost tribes of Israel. Humboldt saysthat from the most remote times of the Missions the opinion has beenentertained that the languages of the American Indians and the Hebrewdisplay extraordinary analogies. He ascribes this fact to the positionof the personal and possessive pronouns at the end of the nouns andverbs, and the numerous tenses of the latter, a characteristic of boththe Indian and Hebrew tongues which naturally struck the attention ofthe monks. An analogy, however, does not go far to prove an identity oforigin. He refers to Adair as among travelers "somewhat credulous whohave heard the strains of the Hebrew Hallelujah among the Chickasaws andChoctaws of North America,"--and he might have added the Cherokees also.James Adair, however, could hardly be called a trav
eler. He published inLondon in 1775 the results of his observation during a residence offorty years as a trader among the Chickasaws and neighboring tribes. Headduces many analogies of their languages with the Hebrew, and callsattention to many customs for which he seeks to discern precedent in theMosaic dispensation. How much he had read of previous speculations it isimpossible to say. He protests that he is but a trader and not "askillful Hebraist," by his vocation obliged to write far from alllibraries, literary associations, and conversation with the learned,compelled even to keep his papers secret from the observation of theIndians, always very jealous of the enigmatical "black marks" of thetraders' correspondence, but he quotes largely from many writers bothEnglish and foreign--the Reverend Mr. Thorowgood, Don Antonio de Ulloa,Acosta, Benzo, etc., and shows considerable aptness of logic in adaptinghis theories to his investigations into the structure of the Indianlanguages. Such nice verbal distinctions, such order and symmetry, sucha train of subtle and exact religious terms, he argues, could not beinvented by a people so ignorant and illiterate as the modern Indian,and contends that they obviously bear all the distinctive marks of alanguage of culture. He further declares that one of the Chickasawprophets, _the Loache_, assured him that they had once had an "oldbeloved speech," which in the course of time and national degenerationthey had lost. In this connection, but entirely apart from all Hebraicanalogies, one is moved to wonder if there were also among them areminiscence of an "old beloved character," and if the extraordinaryinvention of the Cherokee character of the "syllabic alphabet" by theIndian, Guest, early in the present century, partly partakes of thenature of tradition.
3 Page 22. The high value which the French government placed on theservices of these allies may be inferred from a remark which has comedown from a council of state, in reference to their conduct in thisbattle: "_Quoique je n'approuve pas qu'on mange les morts, cependant ilne faut pas quereller avec ces bonnetes gens pour des bagatelles._"
4 Page 38. Among others bearing witness to these strange relics, TimothyFlint says, in his _History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley_:"In this state [Tennessee] burying grounds have been found where theskeletons seem all to have been pigmies. The graves in which the bodieswere deposited are seldom more than two feet or two feet and a half inlength. To obviate the objection that these are all the bodies ofchildren, it is affirmed that the skulls are found to have possessed the_dentes sapientiae_ and must have belonged to persons of mature age. Thetwo bodies that were found in the vast limestone cavern in Tennessee,one of which I saw at Lexington, were neither of them more than fourfeet high; the hair seemed to have been sandy, or inclining to yellow.It is well known that nothing is so uniform in the present Indian as hislank, black hair. From the pains taken to preserve the bodies, and thegreat labor of making the funeral robes in which they were folded, theymust have been of the 'blood royal' or personages of consideration intheir day." (Hayward, in his quaint and rare _Natural and AboriginalHistory of Tennessee_, referring to the curious method of interment, ina copperas cave, of two mummies, both of full size, however, arrayed infabrics of great beauty, evincing much mechanical skill in manufacture,also mentions the hair on the heads of both as long, and of a yellowcast and a fine texture.) Webber, in his _Romance of Natural History_,gives the size of the diminutive sarcophagi of the supposed pygmiesfound in Tennessee as three feet in length by eighteen inches in depth.Hayward also mentions the pygmy dwellers of Tennessee, and anotherwriter still, describing one of these singular graveyards of the "littlepeople," states that the bones were strong and well formed, and that oneof the skeletons had about its neck ninety-four pearls. The painfullyprosaic hypothesis of certain craniologists that such relics were onlythose of children is, of course, rejected by any person possessed of theresources of imagination.
5 Page 40. This name is also given in one or two instances as Dejean,and several dates both earlier and later have been assigned to thedisastrous visit to Chote to which reference is here made.
6 Page 82. Washington readily recognized the futility of the cumbrousregular military methods in a rough, unsettled country. On the Forbesexpedition, to counteract the French and their Indian allies, Washingtoncontinually sent out small parties of the Cherokees under his command."Small parties of Indians," said he, "will more effectually harass theenemy by keeping them under continual alarms than any parties of whitemen can do." However, "with all his efforts," says Irving, "he was neverable to make the officers of the regular army appreciate the importanceof Indian allies in these campaigns in the wilderness." But the fact hasbeen taught elsewhere, both earlier and later than Washington's day.General Gordon, in his journal, says of the Soudan: "A heavy lumberingcolumn is nowhere in this land. Parties of forty or sixty men movingswiftly about will do more than any column. Native allies, above allthings, at whatever cost. It is the country of the irregular, not of theregular. I can say I owe the defeats in this country to having artillerywith me, which delayed me much, and it was the artillery with Hickswhich in my opinion did for him." And as if he himself merely turnedback a leaf instead of the pages of centuries, he here inserts anextract from Herodotus: "Cambyses marched against the Ethiopians withoutmaking any provision for the subsistence of his army or once consideringthat he was going to carry his arms to the remotest parts of the world,but as a madman ... before the army had passed over a fifth of the wayall the provisions were exhausted, and the beasts of burden wereeaten.... Now if Cambyses had then led his army back he would haveproved himself a wise man. He, however, went on ... the report was thatheaps of sand covered them over, and they disappeared." Gordon comments,"Hicks' army disappeared. The expedition was made into these lands."
7 Page 137. This pride flourished probably too far on the frontier to bedeteriorated by the knowledge of the gradual decline in the popularityof the periwig then in progress, for only a few years later thewig-makers of London found it necessary to petition the king, settingforth their distresses occasioned by the perversity of the men of hisrealm in persisting in wearing their own hair. The most definite outcomeof this proceeding was the sprightly travesty of the petition, appearingin the _Gentleman's Magazine_ on behalf of the carpenters, entreatinghis majesty to wear a wooden leg himself, and to require this of all hissubjects, since otherwise the advent of peace bade fair to ruin thejoiner's trade in wooden legs.
8 Page 148. The Duke of Cumberland has never been considered what isprettily called a "lovely character." His temperament, which would noteven brook that certain gentlemen, whom he denominated with a profaneadjective "old women," should talk to him "about humanity" (and it maybe said in passing that these hopeful "old women" were most obviouslycondemned to disappointment at least), his rigid discipline of his owntroops, and his unparalleled brutality to the enemy, leave the devotionexhibited for him by his soldiers to be accounted for only by theadmiration which they felt for his personal courage, which was verygreat, and of which Walpole tells a good story about this time,--ofcourse before the days of anaesthetics: "The Duke of Cumberland is quiterecovered after an incision of many inches into his knee. Ranby [thesurgeon] did not dare to propose that a hero should be tied, but wasfrightened out of his senses when the hero _would_ hold the candlehimself, which none of his generals could bear to do: in the middle ofthe operation the Duke said 'Hold!' Ranby said, 'For God's sake, Sir,let me proceed now--it will be worse to renew it.' The Duke repeated, 'Isay, hold!' and then calmly bade them give Ranby a clean waistcoat andcap; 'for,' said he, 'the poor man has sweated through these.' It wastrue; but the Duke did not utter a groan."
9 Page 168. It is with a renewal of confidence in the better aspects ofhuman nature, and the genuineness of such sanctions as control civilizedwar that we realize that the French and English officers encounteringdangers so far transcending legitimate perils as those pervading Indianfighting manifested individually, now and again, a true and soldierlysympathy with one another, and sought to protect the helpless in theirpower, often liberating those exposed to torture at the hands of theirsavage
allies. For the methods of the Indians were by no meansameliorated by association with their civilized comrades, and they couldscarcely be held subject to any control. Washington himself, whosecapacity in authority amounted to a special genius, even when only ayoung provincial officer, could not restrain his Indian allies fromscalping the slain, and in several instances it required his utmostexertions to prevent a like fate from befalling his own livingprisoners.
10 Page 217. Governor Lyttleton on the request of Atta-Kulla-Kullareleased Oconostota, Fiftoe, the chief warrior of Keowee Town, and thehead warrior of Estatoe, who the next day surrendered two other Indiansto be held as substitutes. Although it has been generally said thatthere were twenty-two hostages, only twenty-one seem to have beendetained, and it is therefore possible that Oconostota was liberatedwithout exchange, on account of his position and influence in the tribe,being always known as the "Great Warrior." The names of the hostagesdetained are as follows: Chenohe, Ousanatanah, Tallichama, Tallitahe,Quarrasatahe, Connasaratah, Kataetoi, Otassite of Watogo, Ousanoletahof Jore, Kataletah of Cowetche, Chisquatalone, Skiagusta of Sticoe,Tanaesto, Wohatche, Wyejah, Oucachistanah, Nicolche, Tony, Toatiahoi,Shallisloske, and Chistie.
11 Page 236. Bancroft says this detached force comprised six hundredHighlanders and six hundred Royal Americans. Adair says it consisted oftwelve hundred Highlanders. Other historians add to this number a bodyof grenadiers. Hewatt, who writes almost contemporaneously, publishingin 1779, and who was a resident of Charlestown, where the force landedand whence it departed, states that it consisted of a battalion ofHighlanders and four companies of the Royal Scots, and it was therejoined by a company of South Carolina Volunteers. He further mentionsthat upon Colonel Montgomery's return to New York he left four companiesof his force in Charlestown, upon the urgent request of the governor andassembly, to aid the defense of the Carolina frontier, and that thesewere of the royal regiment under the command of Major FrederickHamilton. The Royal Scots, being one of the oldest and most celebratedof military organizations, has the peculiar claim on the considerationof all the world, that having been the body-guard of King Louis XI. ofFrance, the renowned Scottish Archers, it must surely bear on theancient and illustrious rolls the ever-cherished name of QuentinDurward, for are we not told that the venerable commander of the guard,Lord Crawford, entered it there himself? And if it is not now to beseen, why--so much the worse for the ancient and illustrious rolls!
12 Page 261. The personal vanity of the Cherokees was so great thatafter discovering the functions of a mirror the men were never withoutone. Even in their most unimpeded war-trim they carried a mirror slungover one shoulder and consulted it from time to time with pleasuredoubtless. When the small-pox broke out among them, those whoseappearance had suffered from that disease could not endure to survivetheir disfigurement, and promptly took their own lives, althoughsuicides were buried without the highly esteemed honors usually paid tothe dead.
13 Page 366. The temperament of Atta-Kulla-Kulla seems far more complexthan the simple traits attributed usually to untrained character. Apartfrom his savage craft, courage, and a sort of natural eloquence which heshared with his tribe, the close discernment shown in some of hisspeeches still extant, his magnanimity, his capacity to receive andassimilate new impressions, his diplomatic talents, all suggest aversatile mind, and he also possessed a caustic wit to which he was wontto give rein touching the oft-broken promises of one of the governors ofSouth Carolina, from whom it is related he had received many letterswhich he said "were not agreeable to the old beloved speech." He keptthem regularly piled in a bundle in the order in which he had receivedthem, and often showed them. "'The first,' he used to say, 'contained a_little_ truth,' and he would devise fantastic excuses for the failureof the rest of it, urging the governor's perplexing rush of officialbusiness which had occasioned him to forget his strong promises. 'Butcount,' said he, 'the lying black marks of this one'--and he woulddescant minutely on every circumstance of it." His patience, he woulddeclare, was exhausted, and he felt that the letters were "nothing butan heap of broad black papers and ought to be burnt in the old year'sfire." The old year's fire was a symbol of departed values, the newyear's fire being kindled with great ceremony by the Cheera-taghe, orprophets, "men of the divine fire."
14 Page 386. It is pleasant to know that this strong friendship sufferedno diminution by reason of time and distance. Bartram relates that whenhe traveled in the Cherokee country in 1773 he met descending theheights a company of Indians all well mounted on horses. "I observed achief at the head of the caravan, and as they came up I turned off fromthe path to make way in token of respect, which compliment was acceptedand gracefully and magnanimously returned, for his highness, with agracious and cheerful smile, came up to me and clapping his hand on hisbreast offered it to me, saying, 'I am Ata-Cul-Culla,' and heartilyshook hands with me, and asked me if I knew it. I answered that thegood spirit who goes before me spoke to me and said 'that is the greatAta-Cul-Culla.'" The chief then asked him if he came direct fromCharlestown, and if his friend John Stuart were well. Mr. Bartram wasable to his great pleasure to reply that he had seen John Stuart veryrecently, and that he was well.
15 Page 386. French emissaries were shortly in the vicinity of thisfort. At a great meeting of the Cherokee nation the indefatigable LouisLatinac struck a hatchet into a log, crying out, "Who will take up thisfor the king of France?" Saloue, the young warrior of Estatoe, instantlylaid hold of it, exclaiming, "I am for war!" And in indorsement of thiscompact many tomahawks were brandished, already red with British blood.
16 Page 397. As an interesting example of the appropriate and successfulmethod to address barbarous peoples, the historian Hewatt gives entirethe text of a speech to several tribes of Indians which Stuart, in hiscapacity of superintendent of Indian affairs for the South, delivered ata general congress at Mobile, attended by Governor Johnstone and manyBritish officers and soldiers. It is strikingly apt, and despite thefigurative language for which the Indians had so strong a preference, itis direct and simple, bold yet conciliatory, dignified in tone, but witha very engaging air of extreme candor, and it may be that Stuart'sinfluence over them lay chiefly in fair and impartial measures and thefaithful performance of promises. Among the writers of that date he israrely mentioned without some reference to his mental ability, whichseems to have been very marked, or to the exact and strict fidelity withwhich he followed the letter and spirit of his instructions. A certainfling, however, by one who had wanted the office to which Stuart wasafterward appointed is so deft a bit of character-drawing in few wordsthat, regardless of its obvious spite, it is worth repeating,--"ahaughty person, devoted to parade, and a proud uniform."
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Transcriber's note
The following change has been made to the text:
Page 290: "or such people" changed to "of such people".
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