the
lines, and eagerly burst through at every opening. When the army marched
back from burning the Overhill towns, they found that adventurous
settlers had followed in its wake, and had already made clearings and
built cabins near all the best springs down to the French Broad. People
of every rank showed keen desire to encroach on the Indian lands.
[Footnote: Calendar of Va. State Papers, II., letter of Col. Wm.
Christian to Governor of Virginia, April 10, 1781.]

The success of this expedition gave much relief to the border, and was
hailed with pleasure throughout Virginia [Footnote: State Department
MSS., No. 15, Feb. 25, 1781.] and North Carolina. Nevertheless the war
continued without a break, bands of warriors from the middle towns
coming to the help of their disheartened Overhill brethren. Sevier
determined to try one of his swift, sudden strokes against these new
foes. Early in March he rode off at the head of a hundred and fifty
picked horsemen, resolute to penetrate the hitherto untrodden wilds that
shielded the far-off fastnesses where dwelt the Erati. Nothing shows his
daring, adventurous nature more clearly than his starting on such an
expedition; and only a man of strong will and much power could have
carried it to a successful conclusion. For a hundred and fifty miles he
led his horsemen through a mountainous wilderness where there was not so
much as a hunter's trail. They wound their way through the deep defiles
and among the towering peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains, descending by
passes so precipitous that it was with difficulty the men led down them
even such surefooted beasts as their hardy hill-horses. At last they
burst out of the woods and fell like a thunderbolt on the towns of the
Erati, nestling in their high gorges. The Indians were completely taken
by surprise; they had never dreamed that they could be attacked in their
innermost strongholds, cut off, as they were, from the nearest
settlements by vast trackless wastes of woodland and lofty, bald-topped
mountain chains. They had warriors enough to overwhelm Sevier's band by
sheer force of numbers, but he gave them no time to gather. Falling on
their main town, he took it by surprise and stormed it, killing thirty
warriors and capturing a large number of women and children. Of these,
however, he was able to bring in but twenty, who were especially
valuable because they could be exchanged for white captives. He burnt
two other towns and three