In the Current of the Revolution 343 



perhaps some of their dead. The whites took thir- 

 teen scalps, and of their own number but four were 

 seriously hurt ; they also took many guns and much 

 plunder. 



In this battle of the Island Flats 38 the whites were 

 slightly superior 39 in number to their foes ; and they 



38 Tennessee historians sometimes call it the battle of Long 

 Island; which confuses it with Washington's defeat of about 

 the same date. 



39 The captains' report says the Indians were "not inferior" 

 in numbers ; they probably put them at a maximum. Hay- 

 wood and all later writers greatly exaggerate the Indian 

 numbers; as also their losses, which are commonly placed at 

 "over 40," "26 being left dead on the ground." In reality 

 only 13 were so left; but in the various skirmishes on the 

 Watauga about this time, from the middle of July to the 

 middle of August, the backwoodsmen took in all 26 scalps, 

 and one prisoner ("American Archives," 5th Series, I, 973). 

 This is probably the origin of the "26 dead" story; the "over 

 40" being merely a nourish. Ramsey gives a story about Isaac 

 Shelby rallying the whites to victory, and later writers of 

 course follow and embellish this; but Shelby's MS. autobi- 

 ography (see copy in Col. Durrett's library at Louisville) not 

 only makes no mention of the battle, but states that Shelby 

 was at this time in Kentucky ; he came back in August or 

 September, and so was hundreds of miles from the place 

 when the battle occurred. Ramsey gives a number of anec- 

 dotes of ferocious personal encounters that took place during 

 the battle. Some of them are of very doubtful value for in- 

 stance that of the man who killed six of the most daring In- 

 dians himself (the total number killed being only thirteen), 

 and the account of the Indians all retreating when they saw 

 another of their champions vanquished. The climax of ab- 

 surdity is reached by a recent writer, Mr. Kirke, who, after 

 embodying in his account all the errors of his predecessors 

 and adding several others on his own responsibility, winds 

 up by stating that "two hundred and ten men under Sevier 

 and [Isaac] Shelby . . . beat back . . . fifteen thousand In- 



