a good book on the subject, summed up the case very justly when he said:
"I apprehend that the Indian discipline is as well calculated to answer
the purpose in the woods of America as the British discipline is in
Flanders; and British discipline in the woods is the way to have men
slaughtered, with scarcely any chance of defending themselves."
[Footnote: Col. Jas. Smith, "An Account," etc., Lexington, Ky., 1799.] A
comparison of the two victories gained by the backwoodsmen, at the Great
Kanawha, over the Indians, and at Kings Mountain over Ferguson's British
and tories, brings out clearly the formidable fighting capacity of the
red men. At the Kanawha the Americans outnumbered their foes, at King's
Mountain they were no more than equal; yet in the former battle they
suffered twice the loss they did in the latter, inflicted much less
damage in return, and did not gain nearly so decisive a victory.

Twofold Character of the Revolution.

The Indians were urged on by the British, who furnished them with arms,
ammunition, and provisions, and sometimes also with leaders and with
bands of auxiliary white troops, French, British, and tories. It was
this that gave to the revolutionary contest its twofold character,
making it on the part of the Americans a struggle for independence in
the east, and in the west a war of conquest, or rather a war to
establish, on behalf of all our people, the right of entry into the
fertile and vacant regions beyond the Alleghanies. The grievances of the
backwoodsmen were not the same as the grievances of the men of the
seacoast. The Ohio Valley and the other western lands of the French had
been conquered by the British, not the Americans. Great Britain had
succeeded to the policy as well as the possessions of her predecessor,
and, strange to say, had become almost equally hostile to the colonists
of her own stock. As France had striven for half a century, so England
now in her turn strove, to bar out the settlers of English race from the
country beyond the Alleghanies. The British Crown, Parliament, and
people were a unit in wishing to keep woodland and prairie for the sole
use of their own merchants, as regions tenanted only by Indian hunters
and French trappers and traders. They became the guardians and allies of
all the Indian tribes. On the other hand, the American backwoodsmen were
resolute in their determination to go in and possess the land. The aims
of the two sides thus clashed hopel