44 MYTHS OF THE CHKROKEE (eth.ann.W 



powcU'i- and a large quantity of ball that bad been sc(^-etly buried in 

 the fort, to prevent their falling into the enemy'.s hands" (Hewat). 

 It is said also that cannon, small arms, and ammunition had been 

 thrown into the river vrith the same intention (Haywood). Enraged 

 at this lireach of the capitulation the Cherokee attacked the soldiers 

 next morning at daylight, killing Demere and twenty-nine others at 

 the first fire. The rest were taken and held as prisoners until ran- 

 somed some time after. The second officer. Captain Stuart (1?.), for 

 whom the Indians had a high regard, was claimed by Ata-kullakulla, 

 who soon after took him into the woods, ostensibly on a hunting 

 excursion, and conducted him for nine days through the wilderness 

 until he delivered him safely into the hands of friends in Virginia. 

 The chief's kindness was well rewarded, and it was largely through 

 his influence that peace was tinally brought about. 



It was now too late, and the settlements were too much exhausted, 

 for another expedition, so the fall and winter were employed M' the 

 English in preparations for an active campaign the next year in force 

 to crush out all resistance. In June ITfil. Colonel Grant with an 

 army of 2,600 men, including a number of Chickasaw and almost 

 every i-i-maining warrior of the Catawba,' set out from Fort Prince 

 George. Refusing a request from Ata-kullakulla for a friendly accom- 

 modation, he crossed Rabun gap and ad\anced rapidly down the 

 Little Tennessee along the same trail taken by the expedition of the 

 previous year. On June 10, when within two miles of Montgomery's 

 battlefield, he encountered the Cherokee, whom he defeated, although 

 with considerable loss to himself, after a stubborn engagement lasting 

 several hours. Having repulsed the Indians, he proceeded on his 

 way, sending out detachments to the outlying settlements, until in 

 the course of a month he had destroyed every one of the Middle 

 towns, 15 in all, with all their granaries and cornfields, driven the 

 inhabitants into the mountains, and "pushed the frontier seventy 

 miles farther to the west." 



The Cherokee were now reduced to the greatest extremity. With 

 some of their best towns in ashes, their fields and orchards wasted for 

 two successive years, their ammunition nearly exhausted, many of 

 their bravest warriors dead, their people fugitives in the mountains, 

 hiding in caves and living like beasts upon roots or killing their 

 horses for food, with the terrible scourge of smallpox adding to the 

 miseries of starvation, and withal torn Ijy factional difierences which 

 had existed from the very beginning of the war— it was impossible 

 for even brave men to resist longer. In September Ata-kullakulla, 

 who had all along done everything in his power to stay the disaffec- 

 tion, came down to Charleston, a treaty of peace was made, and the 



1 Catawba reference from Milligan, 1763, in Carroll, South Carolina Historical Collections, ii, p. 

 519, 1S3C. 



