be done at first to parry or revenge the strokes of the
Indians. [Footnote: Putnam, p. 107, talks as if the settlers were
utterly unused to Indian warfare, saying that until the first murder
occurred, in this spring, "few, if any" of them had ever gazed on the
victim of scalping-knife and tomahawk. This is a curiously absurd
statement. Many of the settlers were veteran Indian fighters. Almost all
of them had been born and brought up on the frontier, amid a succession
of Indian wars. It is, unfortunately, exceedingly difficult in Putnam's
book to distinguish the really valuable authentic information it
contains from the interwoven tissue of matter written solely to suit his
theory of dramatic effect. He puts in with equal gravity the "Articles
of Agreement" and purely fictitious conversations, jokes, and the like.
(See pp. 126, 144, and _passim_.)]

Horses and cattle had been brought into the new settlement in some
number during the year; but the savages killed or drove off most of
them, shooting the hogs and horned stock, and stealing the riding
animals. The loss of the milch cows in particular, was severely felt by
the women. Moreover, there were heavy freshets, flooding the low bottoms
on which the corn had been planted, and destroying most of the crop.

These accumulated disasters wrought the greatest discouragement among
the settlers. Many left the country, and most of the remainder, when
midsummer was past, began to urge that they should all go back in a body
to the old settlements. The panic became very great. One by one the
stockades were deserted, until finally all the settlers who remained
were gathered in Nashborough and Freelands. [Footnote: By some accounts
there were also a few settlers left in Eaton's Station; and Mansker's
was rarely entirely deserted for any length of time.] The Cumberland
country would have been abandoned to the Indians, had Robertson not
shown himself to be exactly the man for whom the crisis called.

Robertson was not a dashing, brilliant Indian fighter and popular
frontier leader, like Sevier. He had rather the qualities of Boon, with
the difference that he was less a wandering hunter and explorer, and
better fitted to be head of a settled community. He was far-seeing,
tranquil, resolute, unshaken by misfortune and disaster; a most
trustworthy man, with a certain severe fortitude of temper. All people
naturally turned to him in time of panic, when the ordinarily bold and
daring bec