puzzled by the rapidity with which the troops moved; for the mounted
riflemen went at speed wherever they wished, and were not encumbered by
baggage, each man taking only his blanket and a wallet of parched corn.

All the country of the Overhill Cherokees was laid waste, a thousand
cabins were burned, and fifty thousand bushels of corn destroyed.
Twenty-nine warriors in all were killed, and seventeen women and
children captured, not including the family of Nancy Ward, who were
treated as friends, not prisoners. But one white man was killed and two
wounded. [Footnote: Campbell MSS. Arthur Campbell's official report. The
figures of the cabins and corn destroyed are probably exaggerated. All
the Tennessee historians, down to Phelan, are hopelessly in the dark
over this campaign. Haywood actually duplicates it (pp. 63 and 99)
recounting it first as occurring in '79, and then with widely changed
incidents as happening in '8l--making two expeditions. When he falls
into such a tremendous initial error, it is not to be wondered at that
the details he gives are very untrustworthy. Ramsey corrects Haywood as
far as the two separate expeditions are concerned, but he makes a number
of reckless statements apparently on no better authority than the
traditions current among the border people, sixty or seventy years after
the event. These stand on the same foundation with the baseless tale
that makes Isaac Shelby take part in the battle of Island Flats. The
Tennessee historians treat Sevier as being the chief commander; but he
was certainly under Campbell; the address they sent out to the Indians
is signed by Campbell first, Sevier second, and Martin third. Haywood,
followed by Ramsey, says that Sevier marched to the Chickamauga towns,
which he destroyed, and then marched down the Coosa to the region of the
Cypress Swamps. But Campbell's official report says that the towns "in
the neighborhood of Chickamauga and the Town of Cologn, situated on the
sources of the Mobile" were _not_ destroyed, nor visited, and he