MoosEY] RUTHERFORD AND WILLIAMSON EXPEDITIONS 1776 49 



in the summer of 177fi four expoditiou.s were equipped froui Virginia. 

 North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to enter the Cherokee 

 territoi-y .simultaneously from as many different directions. 



In August of that year the army of North Carolina, 2,400 strong, 

 under (Jeiieral (Jriffith Rutherford, crossed the Blue ridge at Swaa- 

 nanoa gap, and following tlie main trail almost along the present line 

 of the railroad, struck the first Indian town. Stika'yi, or Stecoee, on 

 the Tuekasegee, near the present Whittier. The inhal)itants having 

 fled, the soldii>rs hurncd the town, together with an unfinished town- 

 house ready for the roof, cut down the standing corn, killed one or 

 two straggling Indians, and then proceeded on their mission of destruc- 

 tion. Every town upon Oconaluftee, Tucka.segee, and tii(^ upper 

 part of Little Tennessee, and on Hiwassee to below the junction of 

 Valley river — tliirty-six towns in all — was destroyed in turn, the corn 

 cut down or trampled under the lioofs of the stock driven into the 

 fields for that puipose. and the stock itself killed or carried off. Before 

 such an overwhelming fori'C, supplemented as it was Viv three others 

 simultaneously advancing from other directions, the Cherokee made 

 but poor resistance, and Hed with their women and children into the 

 fastnesses of the Great Smoky mountains, leaving their desolated fields 

 and smoking towns behind them. As was usual in Indian wars, the 

 actual number killed or taken was small, but the destruction of pro- 

 perty was beyond calculation. At Sugartown (Kulsetsi'yi, east of the 

 present Franklin) one detachment, sent to destroy it, was surprised, 

 and escaped only tlirough the aid of another force sent to its rescue. 

 Rutherford himself, while proceeding to the destruction of the Hiwas- 

 see towns, encountered the Indians drawn up to oppose his progress in 

 the Wayagap of the Nantahala mountains, and one of the hardest fights 

 of the campaign resulted, the soldiers losing over forty killed and 

 wounded, although the Cherokee were finall}' repulsed (IT). One of 

 the Indians killed on this occasion was afterward discovered to be a 

 woman, painted and armed like a warrior.^ 



On September 26 the Soutli Carolina army. 1,860 strong, under 

 Colonel Andi-ew Williamson, and including a number of Catawba 

 Indians, cH'ected a junction with Rutherford's forces on Hiwassee 

 river, near the present Mui'phv, North Carolina. It had been expected 

 that Williamson would join the northern army at Cowee, on the Little 

 Tennessee*, when they would proceed together against the western 

 towns, l)ut he had been delayed, and the work of destruction in tliat 

 direction was already completed, so that after a short rest each army 

 returned home along the rout(> t)y ^vhich it had come. 



The Soutli Carolina men had centered bv different detachments in 



'See no. no, "Incidentsof Personal Heroism." ForRntherford'scxpedition. sec Moore. Rutherford's 

 K,xpedition. in North Carolinu I'niversity Magazine. February. 1KS.S; Swain, Sketch of the Indian War 

 in 1770, iljid.. May. 1Xii2. reprinted in Historical Magazine. November, 1867; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 164, 

 18-53; RiMjsevelt. Winnini; of the West. I. pp. 291-302, 1889, ete. 



19 ETH 01 4 



