490 RABUN COUNTY. 



Had you, sir, or Gen. Glascock been in possession of the facts 

 that produced the affair, it is to be presumed, at least, that 

 you would not have indulged in a strain so indecorous and 

 unbecoming. I had, on the 21st March last, stated the situa- 

 tion of our bleeding frontier to you, and requested you, in 

 respectful terms, to detail a part of your overwhelming force 

 for our protection, or that you would furnish supplies, and I 

 would order out more troops, to which you have never yet 

 deigned to reply. You state, in a very haughty tone, " that I, 

 as Governor of a State under your military division, have no 

 right to give a military order whilst you are in the field." 

 Wretched and contemptible indeed must be our situation, if 

 this be the fact ; when the liberties of the people of Georgia 

 shall have been prostrated at the feet of a military despotism, 

 then, and not till then, will your imperious doctrine be tamely 

 submitted to. You may rest assured that if the savages con- 

 tinue their depredations on our unprotected frontier, I shall 

 think and act for myself in that respect. You demand " that 

 Capt. Wright be delivered in irons to Major Uavis, your 

 agent." If, sir, you are unacquainted with the fact, I beg leave 

 to inform you, that Capt. Wright was not under your com- 

 mand, for he had been appointed an officer in the Chatham 

 county militia, wh^ch was drafted for the special purpose 

 of assisting Gen. Gaines in reducing Amelia Island. That 

 object having been accomplished before our militia had taken 

 the field, Gen. Gaines, as soon as their organization was com- 

 pleted, assumed the right of ordering them to the frontier, with- 

 out even consulting the State authority upon the subject. 

 Capt. Wright being at that time in a state of debility, failed to 

 march, and of course was not mustered into the service of the 

 United States. He however followed on to Hartford, where, 

 finding himself not likely to be received into the service of 

 the United States, he tendered his services to command the 

 contemplated expedition, which were accordingly accepted. 

 Having violated his orders by destroying the Chehaw village, 

 instead of Hoponnis and Philemmis towns (against which the 

 expedition was directed), I had previous to receiving your de- 

 mand ordered him to be arrested ; but before he was appre- 

 hended agreeably to my orders, he was taken by your agent, 



