isions"; from Haywood we
learn that the two divisions were two lines, evidently marching side by
side, there being a right line and a left line.

32. See James Smith, _passim._

33. Among the later Campbell MSS. are a number of copies of papers
containing traditional accounts of this battle. They are mostly very
incorrect, both as to the numbers and losses of the Indians and whites,
and as to the battle itself very little help can be derived from them.

34. Campbell MSS.

35. Campell MSS.

36. Tennessee historians sometimes call it the battle of Long Island;
which confuses it with Washington's defeat of about the same date.

37. The captains' report says the Indians were "not inferior" in
numbers; they probably put them at a maximum. Haywood and all later
writers greatly exaggerate the Indian numbers; as also their losses,
which are commonly placed at "over 40," of "26 being left dead on the
ground." In reality only 13 were so left; but in the various skirmishes
on the Watauga about this time, from the middle of July to the middle of
August, the backwoodsmen took in all 26 scalps, and one prisoner
("American Archives," 5th Series, I., 973). This is probably the origin
of the "26 dead" story; the "over 40" being merely a flourish. Ramsey
gives a story about Isaac Shelby rallying the whites to victory, and
later writers of course follow and embellish this; but Shelby's MS.
autobiography (see copy in Col. Durrett's library at Louisville) not
only makes no mention of the battle, but states that Shelby was at this
time in Kentucky; he came back in August or September, and so was
hundreds of miles from the place when the battle occurred. Ramsey gives
a number of anecdotes of ferocious personal encounters that took place
during the battle. Some of them are of very doubtful value--for instance
that of the man who killed six of the most daring Indians himself (the
total number killed being only thirteen), and the account of the Indians
all retreating when they saw another of their champions vanquished. The
climax of absurdity is reached by a recent writer, Mr. Kirke, who, after
embodying in his account all the errors of his predecessors and adding
several others on his own responsibility, winds up by stating that "two
hundred and ten men under Sevier and [Isaac] Shelby ... beat back ...
fifteen thousand Indians." These numbers can only be reached by
comparing an exaggerated estimate of all the Cherokees, men, women, and
c