CHAP. party granted it, except that towns like Tuskega, IX. where a captive boy had lately been burnt alive,

1776.

July.

were reduced to ashes.

The warriors of the lower settlements, who began the war, at daybreak on the first of July poured down upon the frontiers of South Carolina, killing and scalping all persons who fell into their power, without distinction of age or sex. The people had parted with their best rifles to the defenders of Charleston; and now flew for safety to stockade forts. The Indians were joined by the agent Cameron and a small band of white men, who crossed the mountains to promote a rising of the numerous loyalists in upper South Carolina. Eleven hundred men of that state, under the lead of Williamson, August. made head against the invaders, and, in August,

Sept.

destroyed the Cherokee towns on the Keowee and the Seneca and on the one side of the Tugaloo, while a party of Georgians laid waste those on the other. Then, drawing nearer the region of precipices and waterfalls, which mark the eastern side of the Alleghanies, his army broke up the towns on the Whitewater, the Toxaway, the Estatoe, and in the beautiful valley of Jocassa, leaving not one to the east of the Oconee mountain. The outcasts, who had so lately been engaged in scalping and murdering, fled to the Creeks, whose neutrality was respected.

In September, leaving a well-garrisoned fort on the Seneca, and marching up War-woman's creek, Williamson passed through Rabun gap, destroyed the towns on the Little Tennessee as far as the Unica mountain, and then toiled over the dividing

IX.

1776.

ridge into the Hiwassee valley, sparing or razing CHAP. the towns at his will. There he was joined by Rutherford of North Carolina, who had promptly assembled in the district of Salisbury an army of more than two thousand men, crossed the Alleghanies at the Swannanoa gap, forded the French Broad, and, by the trace which still bears his name, penetrated into the middle and valley towns, of which he laid waste six-and-thirty. "The Cherokees," wrote Germain, in November, to his trusty agent, "must be supported, for they have declared for us; I expect with some impatience to hear from you of the success of your negotiation with the Creeks and Choctaws, and that you have prevailed on them to join the Cherokees. I cannot doubt of your being able, under such advantageous circumstances, to engage them in a general confederacy against the rebels in defence of those liberties of which they are so exceedingly jealous, and in the full enjoyment of which they have been always protected by the king." But the Choctaws never inclined to the war; the Chickasaws seasonably receded; the Creeks kept wisely at home; and dearly did the Cherokees aby their rising. Before Germain's letter was written, they were forced to beg for mercy. At a talk in Charleston, in February, 1777, the Man-killer said: "You have destroyed my homes, but it is not my eldest brother's fault; it is the fault of my father over the water;" and at the peace in the following May, they gave up all their lands as far as the top of the Oconee mountain.

Nor was the overawing of the wild men the

CHAP. only good that came out of this bootless eagerness IX. of the British minister to crush America by an 1776. Indian confederacy: henceforward the settlers of

Tennessee with oneness of heart upheld American independence; and putting all their feelings and all their mind into one word, they named their district WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER X.

WHITE PLAINS.

OCTOBER 1-28, 1776.

X.

1776.

Oct.

FOR nearly four weeks Washington and the CHAP. main body of his army remained on the heights of Harlem. The uneven upland, little more than a half-mile wide, and except at a few points less than two hundred feet above the sea, falls away precipitously towards the Hudson; along the Harlem river, it is bounded for more than two miles by walls of primitive rock or declivities steep as an escarpment. Towards Manhattanville, it ended in pathless crags. There existed no highway from the south, except the narrow one which, near the One hundred and forty-fourth street, yet winds up Breakneck hill. The approach from that quarter was guarded by three parallel lines, of which the first and weakest ran from about the One hundred and forty-eighth street on the east to the One hundred and forty-fifth on the west; the second was in the rear, at the distance of two fifths of

X.

1776.

Oct.

CHAP. a mile; the third, one quarter of a mile still further to the north; so that they could be protected, one from another, by musketry as well as cannon. A little further than the third parallel the house which Washington occupied stood on high ground overlooking the plains, the hills above Macgowan's pass, the distant city, the bay, and its islands.

North of head-quarters, the land undulates for yet a mile, to where Mount Washington, its highest peak, rises two hundred and thirty-eight feet over the Hudson. The steep summit was crowned by a five-sided earthwork, mounting thirty-four cannon, but without casemates, or strong outposts.

Just beyond Fort Washington the heights cleave asunder, and the road to Albany, by an easy descent, passes for about a mile through the rocky gorge. Laurel hill, the highest cliff on the Harlem side, was occupied by a redoubt; the opposite hill, near the Hudson, known afterwards as Fort Tryon, was still more difficult of access. Thence both ridges fall abruptly to a valley which crosses the island from Tubby-hook. Beyond this pass, the land to Kingsbridge on the right is a plain and marsh; on the left, a new but less lofty spur springs up, and runs to Spyt den Duyvel creek, by which the Harlem joins the Hudson. This part of New York island was defended by Fort Independence, on the high ridge north of Spyt den Duyvel; a series of redoubts guarded Fordham heights, on the east bank of the Harlem; an earthwork was laid out above Williams' bridge; and on the third of October a guard of riflemen