12 The Winning of the West 



Donelson's flotilla, after being joined by a num 

 ber of other boats, especially at the mouth of the 

 Clinch, consisted of some thirty craft, all told flat- 

 boats, dug-outs, and canoes. There were probably 

 two or three hundred people, perhaps many more, in 

 the company; among them, as the journal records, 

 "James Robertson's lady and children," the latter 

 to the number of five. The chief boat, the flag 

 ship of the flotilla, was the Adventure, a great scow, 

 in which there were over thirty men, besides the 

 families of some of them. 



They embarked at Holston, Long Island, on De 

 cember 22d, but falling water and heavy frosts de 

 tained them two months, and the voyage did not 

 really begin until they left Cloud Creek on Febru- 



down the Cherokee River who on their way down they took 

 a Dellaway Indian prisoner & kept him till they found out 

 what Nation he was of they told him they had come from 

 Long Island and were on their way to Illinois with an intent 

 to settle Sir I have some reason to think they are a party of 

 Rebels My reason is this after they left the Dellaway Indian 

 at liberty they met with some Cherokees whom they endeav 

 oured to decoy, but finding they would not be decoyed they 

 fired on them but they all made their Escape with the Loss 

 of their arms and ammunition and one fellow wounded, who 

 arrived yesterday. The Dellaway informs me that Lieut. 

 Governor Hamilton is defeated and himself taken prisoner," 

 etc. 



It is curious that none of the Tennessee annalists have no 

 ticed the departure of this expedition ; very, very few of the 

 deeds and wanderings of the old frontiersmen have been re 

 corded ; and in consequence historians are apt to regard these 

 few as being exceptional, instead of typical. Donelson was 

 merely one of a hundred leaders of flotillas that went down 

 the Western rivers at this time. 



