The War in the Northwest 313 



sand strong, most of them mounted on swift, wiry 

 horses. They were led by leaders they trusted, 

 they were wonted to Indian warfare, they were 

 skilled as horsemen and marksmen, they knew 

 how to face every kind of danger, hardship, and 

 privation. Their fringed and tasseled hunting- 

 shirts were girded in by bead-worked belts, and 

 the trappings of their horses were stained red and 

 yellow. On their heads they wore caps of coon- 

 skin or mink-skin, with the tails hanging down, 

 or else felt hats, in each of which was thrust a 

 buck-tail or a sprig of evergreen. Every man carried 

 a small-bore rifle, a tomahawk, and a scalping- 

 knife. A very few of the officers had swords, and 

 there was not a bayonet or a tent in the army. 20 

 Before leaving their camping-ground at the Syca- 

 more Shoals they gathered in an open grove to 

 hear a stern old Presbyterian preacher 21 invoke on 

 the enterprise the blessing of Jehovah. Leaning 

 on their long rifles, they stood in rings round the 

 black-frocked minister, a grim and wild congre- 



army under his command," signed by Campbell, Shelby, and 

 Clea viand. The official report; it is in the Gates MSS. in 

 the N. Y. Hist. Society. It was published complete at the 

 time, except the tabulated statement of loss, which has never 

 been printed ; I give it further on. 



20 Gen. Wm. Lenoir's account, prepared for Judge A. D. 

 Murphy's intended history of North Carolina. Lenoir was a 

 private in the battle. 



21 Rev. Samuel Doak. Draper, 176. A tradition, but prob- 

 ably truthful, being based on the statements of Sevier and 

 Shelby's soldiers in their old age. It is the kind of an inci- 

 dent that tradition will often faithfully preserve. 



VOL. VI. N 



