andy Creek Expedition; but whether they all
actually joined it is not known. The war leaders of these savages were
old Outacite, the Round O, and the Yellow Bird. Captain David
Stewart,[490:A] of Augusta, seems to have acted as commissary to the
expedition. The whole force that marched from Fort Frederick amounted to
three hundred and forty. While waiting to procure horses and
pack-saddles, the soldiers were preached to by the pioneer Presbyterian
clergymen of the valley, Craig and Brown. Major Lewis marched on the
eighteenth of February, and passing by the Holston River and the head of
the Clinch, they reached the head of Sandy Creek on the twenty-eighth.
This stream was found exceedingly tortuous; on the twenty-ninth, they
crossed it sixty-six times in the distance of fifteen miles. Although
some bears, deer, and buffaloes were killed, yet their provisions began
to run low early in March, when they were reduced to half a pound of
flour per man, and no meat except what they could kill, which was very
little. There being no provender for the horses, they strayed away. The
march was fatiguing, the men having frequently to wade laboriously
across the deepening water of the river; they suffered with hunger, and
starvation began to stare them in the face. The Cherokees undertook to
make bark canoes to convey themselves down the creek, and Lewis ordered
a large canoe to be made to transport the ammunition and the remaining
flour. The men murmured, and many threatened to return home. Lewis
ordered a cask of butter to be divided among them. An advance party of
one hundred and thirty, with nearly all of the horses, proceeded down
the creek, Lewis with the rest remaining to complete the canoes. No game
was met with by the party proceeding down the stream, and the mountains
were found difficult to cross. Hunger and want increased, and the men
became almost mutinous. Captain Preston proposed to kill the horses for
food, but this offer was rejected. About this time some elks and
buffaloes were killed, and this relief rescued some of the men from the
jaws of starvation. The advance party had now, as they supposed, reached
the distance of fifteen miles below the forks of the Sandy. Captain
Preston, who commanded it, was greatly perplexed at the discontents
which prevailed, and which threatened the ruin of the expedition. The
men laid no little blame on the commissaries, who had furnished only
fifteen days' provision for what they suppo