the
Tennessee river; and for his services and gallantry, was appointed a
Brigadier General by the State of Virginia; the first officer ever
vested with that grade on the western waters.

Thomas Shelby, a brother of Gen. Evan Shelby, joined the great tide of
southern emigration and settled on Caldwell's Creek, in the eastern
part of Mecklenburg county (now Cabarrus) about 1760. He died near the
beginning of the Revolutionary war, leaving four sons, William, John,
Evan and Thomas. One of these sons (Thomas) served as a private in
Captain Charles Polk's company in the spring of 1776, in the
Wilmington campaign.

Col. Isaac Shelby, the immediate subject of this sketch was born to
the use of arms, blessed with a strong constitution and capable of
enduring great exposure and fatigue. His whole educational training
was such as fitted him for the stirring scenes in which he was
destined by Providence to become so prominent an actor.

His first essay in arms was as a Lieutenant in a company commanded by
his father, in the celebrated battle, previously mentioned, at the
mouth of the Kenhawa, the most sanguinary conflict ever maintained
against the northwestern Indians, the action lasting from sunrise to
sunset, with varying success.

Night closed the conflict and under its cover, the celebrated chief
_Cornstalk_, who commanded the Indians, abandoned the ground. In July,
1776, he was appointed Captain of a company of minute men by the
Virginia committee of safety. In 1777, he was appointed by Governor
Henry, a commissary of supplies for an extensive body of troops to
guard the frontiers and one of the commissioners appointed to form a
treaty with the Cherokees at the Long Island of the Holston river. In
1778, he was elected a member of the Virginia Legislature from
Washington county, and was appointed by Thomas Jefferson, then
Governor of that State, a Major in the escort of guards for the
commissioners, engaged in running the line between Virginia and North
Carolina. On the completion of that line, his residence was found to
be in North Carolina, which circumstance induced Richard Caswell, then
Governor of the State, to appoint him Colonel of the militia of
Sullivan county. In the summer of 1780, he was engaged in Kentucky in
surveying, locating and securing the lands which five years
previously, he had marked out, and improved. It was at this time, that
he heard of the surrender of Charleston. This disaster aroused his
pat