ant of Fort Prince George knew that that
post was in danger. The overtures to the Cherokees for peace having
proved fruitless, Colonel Montgomery had sought to make peace by force.
In pursuance of this further effort he pushed forward with great energy
and spirit, but encountered throughout disasters so serious as to
cripple his enterprise, culminating finally in a result equivalent to a
repulse. The Indians, in the skulking methods peculiar to their warfare,
harassed his march, hanging upon the flanks of the main body, and firing
in detail from behind trees and rocks, from the depths of ravines and
the summits of hills of the broken, rugged wilderness. Never did they
present any front that it was possible to charge and turn. The
advance-guard, approaching through a narrow valley, the town of Etchoee,
which the Indians had abandoned, fell into an ambuscade of considerable
strength, and there he lost Captain Morrison of the Rangers, and ten or
twelve men who fell at the first fire. The vanguard, discouraged, began
to give way, when the light infantry and grenadiers were detached for
its support. They succeeded in locating the chief strength of the
Cherokees sufficiently to drive the savages back, despite the disastrous
results of their scattered fire. The main body, coming up, encamped near
Etchoee, on a level space which proved, however, to be commanded by
eminences in the vicinity. Thence the Indians poured destructive volleys
into the British ranks, and only after repeated charges the soldiers
succeeded in dislodging them. Impetuously attacked on the flank, the
Cherokees suffered severely at the hands of the Royal Scots before being
able to get out of their reach. The terrible aspect of the painted
savages, and their nerve-thrilling whoops with which the woods
resounded, failed also to affect the courage of the wild Highlanders,
and all the troops fought with great ardor. But Colonel Montgomery
deemed it impossible to penetrate further through the wilderness,
hampered as he was by seventy wounded men whom he could not leave to the
mercies of so savage an enemy, by the loss of many horses, by the
necessity--which was yet almost an impossibility--of carrying a train of
cattle and other provisions with him in so rugged, trackless, and
heavily wooded a region, and relinquished the attempt, thinking the
terrible losses which the Indians had sustained would prove sufficient
punishment and dispose them to peace. He was even co