confidence in all kinds of tradition, especially if they care more for
picturesqueness than for accuracy. The contemporary official report is
explicit. There were three hundred whites and seventy Indians. Of the
latter, thirteen were slain. Campbell's whole report shows a jealousy of
Sevier, whom he probably knew well enough was a man of superior ability
to himself; but this jealousy appears mainly in the coloring. He does
not change any material fact, and there is no reason for questioning the
substantial truth of his statements.

Forty years afterward Haywood writes of the affair, trying to tell
simply the truth, but obliged to rely mainly on oral tradition. He
speaks of Sevier's troops as only two hundred in number; and says
twenty-eight Indians were killed. He does not speak of the number of the
Indians, but from the way he describes Sevier's troops as encircling
them, he evidently knew that the white men were more numerous than their
foes. His mistake as to the number of Indian dead is easily explicable.
The official report gives twenty-nine as the number killed in the entire
campaign, and Haywood, as in the Island Flats battle, simply puts the
total of several skirmishes into one.

Thirty years later comes Ramsey. He relies on traditions that have grown
more circumstantial and less accurate. He gives two accounts of what he
calls "one of the best-fought battles in the border war of Tennessee";
one of these accounts is mainly true; the other entirely false; he does
not try to reconcile them. He says three whites were wounded, although
the official report says that in the whole campaign but one man was
killed and two wounded. He reduces Sevier's force to one hundred and
seventy men, and calls the Indians "a large body."

Thirty-four years later comes Mr. Kirke, with the "Rear-guard of the