The War in the Northwest 381 



of parched corn. Naturally such troops made war 

 purely according to their own ideas, and cared noth- 

 ing whatever for the commands of those govern- 

 mental bodies who were theoretically their supe- 

 riors. They were poor men, stanch patriots, who 

 had suffered much and done all they could during 

 the Revolution; 22 now, when threatened by the 

 savages they were left to protect themselves, and 

 they did it in their own way. Sevier led his force 

 down through the Overhill towns, doing their peo- 

 ple no injury and holding a peace talk with them. 

 They gave him a half-breed, John Watts, after- 

 ward one of their chiefs, as guide; and he marched 

 quickly against some of the Chickamauga towns, 

 where he destroyed the cabins and provision hoards. 

 Afterward he penetrated to the Coosa, where he 

 burned one or two Creek villages. The inhabitants 

 fled from the towns before he could reach them ; and 

 his own motions were so rapid that they could never 

 gather in force strong enough to assail him. 23 



22 Do. 



23 The authority for this expedition is Haywood (p. 106) ; 

 Ramsey simply alters one or two unimportant details. Hay- 

 wood commits so many blunders concerning the early Indian 

 wars that it is only safe to regard his accounts as true in out- 

 line; and even for this outline it is to be wished we had ad- 

 ditional authority. Mr. Kirke, in the "Rear-guard," p. 313, 

 puts in an account of a battle on Lookout Mountain, wherein 

 Sevier and his two hundred men defeat "five hundred tories 

 and savages." He does not even hint at his authority for 

 this, unless in a sentence of the preface where he says, "a 

 large part of my material I have derived from what may be 

 termed 'original sources' old settlers." Of course the state- 

 ment of an old settler is worthless when it relates to an al- 



