The War in the Northwest 29 



ticular, was severely felt by the women. Moreover, 

 there were heavy freshets, flooding the low bottoms 

 on which the corn had been planted, and destroying 

 most of the crop. 



These accumulated disasters wrought the greatest 

 discouragement among the settlers. Many left the 

 country, and most of the remainder, when midsum 

 mer was past, began to urge that they should all go 

 back in a body to the old settlements. The panic 

 became very great. One by one the stockades were 

 deserted, until finally all the settlers who remained 

 were gathered in Nashborough and Freelands. 19 

 The Cumberland country would have been aban 

 doned to the Indians, had Robertson not shown 

 himself to be exactly the man for whom the crisis 

 called. 



Robertson was not a dashing, brilliant Indian 

 fighter and popular frontier leader, like Sevier. He 

 had rather the qualities of Boone, with the differ 

 ence that he was less a wandering hunter and ex 

 plorer, and better fitted to be head of a settled com 

 munity. He was far-seeing, tranquil, resolute, un 

 shaken by misfortune and disaster; a most trust 

 worthy man, with a certain severe fortitude of tem 

 per. All people naturally turned to him in time of 

 panic, when the ordinarily bold and daring became 

 cowed and confused. The straits to which the set 

 tlers were reduced, and their wild clamor for im- 



19 By some accounts there were also a few settlers left in 

 Eaton's Station ; and Mansker's was rarely entirely deserted 

 for any length of time. 



