1888,
p. 29. An interesting pamphlet.]

The leading family among these Holston Virginians was that of the
Campbells, who lived near Abingdon. They were frontier farmers, who
chopped down the forest and tilled the soil with their own hands. They
used the axe and guided the plow as skilfully as they handled their
rifles; they were also mighty hunters, and accustomed from boyhood to
Indian warfare. The children received the best schooling the back
country could afford, for they were a book-loving race, fond of reading
and study as well as of out-door sports. The two chief members were
cousins, Arthur and William. Arthur was captured by the northern Indians
when sixteen, and was kept a prisoner among them several years; when
Lord Dunmore's war broke out he made his escape, and acted as scout to
the Earl's army. He served as militia colonel in different Indian
campaigns, and was for thirty years a magistrate of the county; he was a
man of fine presence, but of jealous, ambitious, overbearing temper. He
combined with his fondness for Indian and hunter life a strong taste for
books, and gradually collected a large library. So keen were the
jealousies, bred of ambition, between himself and his cousin William
Campbell, they being the two ranking officers of the local forces, that
they finally agreed to go alternately on the different military
expeditions; and thus it happened that Arthur missed the battle of
King's Mountain, though he was at the time County Lieutenant.

William Campbell stood next in rank. He was a man of giant strength,
standing six feet two inches in height, and straight as a spear-shaft,
with fair complexion, red hair, and piercing, light blue eyes. A firm
friend and staunch patriot, a tender and loving husband and father,
gentle and courteous in ordinary intercourse with his fellows, he was,
nevertheless, if angered, subject to fits of raging wrath that impelled
him to any deed of violence. [Footnote: Campbell MSS. Notes, by Gov.
David Campbell.] He was a true type of the Roundheads of the frontier,
the earnest, eager men who pushed the border ever farther westward
across the continent. He followed Indians and tories with relentless and
undying hatred; for the long list of backwoods virtues did not include
pity for either public or private foes. The tories threatened his life
and the lives of his friends and families; they were hand in glove with
the outlaws who infested the borders, the murderers, horse-t