ed men at Eseneka, which he christened Fort Rutledge. This
ended the first stage of the retaliatory campaign, undertaken by the
whites in revenge for the outbreak. The South Carolinians, assisted
slightly by a small independent command of Georgians, who acted
separately, had destroyed the lower Cherokee towns, at the same time
that the Watauga people repulsed the attack of the Overhill warriors.

The second and most important movement was to be made by South Carolina,
North Carolina, and Virginia jointly, each sending a column of two
thousand men,[56] the two former against the middle and valley, the
latter against the Overhill towns. If the columns acted together the
Cherokees would be overwhelmed by a force three times the number of all
their warriors. The plan succeeded well, although the Virginia division
was delayed so that its action, though no less effective, was much later
than that of the others, and though the latter likewise failed to act in
perfect unison.

Rutherford and his North Carolinians were the first to take the
field.[57] He had an army of two thousand gunmen, besides pack-horsemen
and men to tend the drove of bullocks, together with a few Catawba
Indians,--a total of twenty-four hundred.[58] On September 1st he left
the head of the Catawba,[59] and the route he followed was long known by
the name of Rutherford's trace. There was not a tent in his army, and
but very few blankets; the pack-horses earned the flour, while the beef
was driven along on the hoof. Officers and men alike wore homespun
hunting-shirts trimmed with colored cotton; the cloth was made from
hemp, tow, and wild-nettle bark.

He passed over the Blue Ridge at Swananoa Gap, crossed the French Broad
at the Warriors' Ford, and then went through the mountains[60] to the
middle towns, a detachment of a thousand men making a forced march in
advance. This detachment was fired at by a small band of Indians from an
ambush, and one man was wounded in the foot; but no further resistance
was made, the towns being abandoned.[61] The main body coming up,
parties of troops were sent out in every direction, and all of the
middle towns were destroyed. Rutherford had expected to meet Williamson
at this place, but the latter did not appear, and so the North Carolina
commander determined to proceed alone against the valley towns along the
Hiawassee. Taking with him only nine hundred picked men, he attempted to
cross the rugged mountain chains which s