eparated him from his
destination; but he had no guide, and missed the regular pass--a
fortunate thing for him, as it afterwards turned out, for he thus
escaped falling into an ambush of five hundred Cherokees who were
encamped along it.[62] After in vain trying to penetrate the tangle of
gloomy defiles and wooded peaks, he returned to the middle towns at
Canucca on September 18th. Here he met Williamson, who had just arrived,
having been delayed so that he could not leave Fort Rutledge until the
13th.[63] The South Carolinians, two thousand strong, had crossed the
Blue Ridge near the sources of the Little Tennessee.

While Rutherford rested[64] Williamson, on the 19th, pushed on through
Noewee pass, and fell into the ambush which had been laid for the
former. The pass was a narrow, open valley, walled in by steep and lofty
mountains. The Indians waited until the troops were struggling up to the
outlet, and then assailed them with a close and deadly fire. The
surprised soldiers recoiled and fell into confusion; and they were for
the second time saved from disaster by the gallantry of Colonel Hammond,
who with voice and action rallied them, endeavoring to keep them firm
while a detachment was sent to clamber up the rocks and outflank the
Indians. At the same time Lieutenant Hampton got twenty men together,
out of the rout, and ran forward, calling out: "Loaded guns advance,
empty guns fall down and load." Being joined by some thirty men more he
pushed desperately upwards. The Indians fled from the shock; and the
army thus owed its safety solely to two gallant officers. Of the whites
seventeen were killed and twenty-nine wounded;[65] they took fourteen
scalps.[66]

Although the distance was but twenty odd miles, it took Williamson five
days of incredible toil before he reached the valley towns. The troops
showed the utmost patience, clearing a path for the pack-train along the
sheer mountain sides and through the dense, untrodden forests in the
valleys. The trail often wound along cliffs where a single misstep of a
pack-animal resulted in its being dashed to pieces. But the work, though
fatiguing, was healthy; it was noticed that during the whole expedition
not a man was laid up for any length of time by sickness.

Rutherford joined Williamson immediately afterwards, and together they
utterly laid waste the valley towns; and then, in the last week of
September, started homewards. All the Cherokee settlements west of the