ninety-five South Carolina Rangers, forty picked men of the new
"levies," and "a good number of guides," Montgomerie moved from
Fort Ninety-Six on May 28th. On the first of June, crossing
Twelve-Mile River, Montgomerie began the campaign in earnest,
devastating and burning every Indian village in the Valley of
Keowee, killing and capturing more than a hundred of the
Cherokees, and destroying immense stores of corn. Receiving no
reply to his summons to the Cherokees of the Middle and Upper
Towns to make peace or suffer like treatment, Montgomerie took up
his march from Fort Prince George on June 24th, resolved to carry
out his threat. On the morning of the 27th, he was drawn into an
ambuscade within six miles of Et-chow-ee, eight miles south of
the present Franklin, North Carolina, a mile and a half below
Smith's Bridge, and was vigorously attacked from dense cover by
some six hundred and thirty warriors led by Si-lou-ee. Fighting
with Indian tactics, the Provincial Rangers under Patrick Calhoun
particularly distinguished themselves; and the bloodcurdling
yells of the painted savages were responded to by the wild huzzas
of the kilted Highlanders who, waving their Scotch bonnets,
impetuously charged the redskins and drove them again and again
from their lurking-places. Nevertheless Montgomerie lost from
eighty to one hundred in killed and wounded, while the loss of
the Indians was supposed to be about half the loss of the whites.
Unable to care for his wounded and lacking the means of removing
his baggage, Montgomerie silently withdrew his forces. In so
doing, he acknowledged defeat, since he was compelled to abandon
his original intention of relieving the beleaguered garrison of
Fort London.

Captain Demere and his devoted little band, who had been