382 The Winning of the West 



Very few Indians were killed, and apparently none 

 of Sevier's people; a tory, an ex-British sergeant, 

 then living with an Indian squaw, was among the 

 slain. 



This foray brought but a short relief to the set- 

 tlements. On Christmas Day three men were killed 

 on the Clinch ; and it was so unusual a season for 

 the war parties to be abroad that thfc attack caused 

 widespread alarm. 24 Early in the spring of 1783 

 the ravages began again. 25 Some time before Gen- 

 eral Wayne had addressed the Creeks and Choc- 

 taws, reproaching them with the aid they had given 

 the British, and threatening them with a bloody 



leged important event which took place a hundred and five 

 years before, and yet escaped the notice of all contemporary 

 and subsequent historians. In plain truth unless Mr. Kirke 

 can produce something like contemporary or approxi- 

 mately contemporary documentary evidence for this myth- 

 ical battle, it must be set down as pure invention. It 

 is with real reluctance that I speak thus of Mr. Kirke's 

 books. He has done good service in popularizing the 

 study of early Western history, and especially in calling 

 attention to the wonderful careers of Sevier and Rob- 

 ertson. Had he laid no claim to historic accuracy I should 

 have been tempted to let his books pass unnoticed; but in 

 the preface to his "John Sevier" he especially asserts that 

 his writings "may be safely accepted as authentic history." 

 On first reading his book I was surprised and pleased at the 

 information it contained; when I came to study the subject 

 I was still more surprised and much less pleased at discover- 

 ing such wholesale inaccuracy to be perfectly just I should 

 be obliged to use a stronger term. Even a popular history 

 ought to pay at least some little regard to truth. 



24 Calendar of Va. State Papers, III, p. 424- 



25 Do., p. 479- 



