he could muster to relieve Colonel McDowell, ten men, and one
hundred and twenty women and children, who were "besieged in some
kind of a fort." Aroused to extraordinary exertions by these
daring and deadly blows, the governments of North Carolina, South
Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia instituted a joint campaign
against the Cherokees. It was believed that, by delivering a
series of crushing blows to the Indians and so conclusively
demonstrating the overwhelming superiority of the whites, the
state governments in the Old Southwest would convince the savages
of the futility, of any attempt ever again to oppose them
seriously.

Within less than a week after sending his despatches to the
council Rutherford set forth at the head of twenty-five hundred
men to protect the frontiers of North Carolina and to overwhelm
the foe. Leading the South Carolina army of more than eighteen
hundred men, Colonel Andrew Williamson directed his attack
against the lower Cherokee towns; while Colonel Samuel Jack led
two hundred Georgians against the Indian towns at the heads of
the Chattahoochee and Tugaloo Rivers. Assembling a force of some
sixteen hundred Virginians, Colonel William Christian
rendezvoused in August at the Long Island of Holston, where his
force was strengthened by between three and four hundred North
Carolinians under Colonels Joseph Williams and Love, and Major
Winston. The various expeditions met with little effective
opposition on the whole, succeeding everywhere in their design of
utterly laying waste the towns of the Cherokees. One serious
engagement occurred when the Indians resolutely challenged
Rutherford's advance at the gap of the Nantahala Mountains.
Indian women--heroic Amazons disguised in war-paint and armed
with the weapons of warriors and the courage of despair--fought
side by side with the Indian braves in the effort to arrest
Rutherford's progress and compass his defeat. More than forty
frontiersmen fell beneath the deadly shots of this truly Spartan
band before the final repulse of the savages.

The most picturesque figures in this overwhelmingly successful
campaign were the bluff old Indian-fighter, Griffith Rutherford,
wearing "a tow hunting shirt, dyed black, and trimmed with white
fringe" as a uniform; Captain Benjamin Cleveland, a rude paladin
of gigantic size, strength, and courage; Lieutenant William
Lenoir (Le Noir), the gallant and recklessly brave French
Huguenot, later to win a general's r