Border Fights & Fighters
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PD Commons aia University Souther Libra] UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES GIFT OF W.P. Harrison PD Books PD Commons PD Books PD Commons PD Books PD Commons Border Fights ^ Fighters PD Books PD Commons < 1 They came on with fixed without bayonets firing.' PD Books PD Commons Border Fights <^ Fighters STORIES OF THE PIONEERS BETWEEN THE ALLEGHENIES AND THE MISSIS- SIPPI AND IN THE TEXAN REPUBLIC BY CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY, LL.D. Author of American Fights & Fighters, Colonial Fights & Fighters, &c. With Maps, Plans, & many Illustrations by Louis Betts, Howard Giles, J. N. Mar- chand, Roy L. Williams, Harry Fenn & A. de F. Pitney NEW YORK MCCLURE, PHILLIPS &f C9 MCMII Copyright, 1901, by S. S. McCLURE Co. Copyright, 1902, by McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. Published, October, 1902, N ' ; : : : '':.' - .-.* i-ii. j" *'! .- - : - - t / ' J .* -I ,- J ,5 , - - ....".. t , . - ' PD Books - PD Commons173 <J- I? jr cr o < I dedicate this book in the bonds of an old affection to that venerated and admired SCHOLAR & GENTLEMAN CO ., etc* Superintendent of Public Education, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, whose VARIED LEARNING, PHILO- SOPHIC CULTURE, WIDE EXPERIENCE, and " mOSt of all, UNFAILING CHRISTIAN COURTESY and KINDLINESS OF HEART, have so endeared him to all those who, like myself, are privileged to call him friend o ^ t 5 281279 PD Books PD Commons Prefatory Note De Soto, who opens the first book of this Fights and Fighters Series, to Houston, who closes FROMthe third, is just three centuries. The salient incidents of these three hundred years, from the Conquistador to the Pioneer, have engaged the greater part of my attention for a long time, and with the completion of this book they are set before the reader. To me this last book of the series has been the most interesting. It is more thoroughly American and the men come more closely home to us therefore. Two of them come especially close to me, since Captain John Brady was my great-great-grandfather, and Captain Samuel Brady my great-granduncle. It has been a pleasure and pride to me to find them worthy of inclu- sion in this category of heroes. As I look back upon the history of America through my studies therein, I seem to catch a glimpse of the great purpose and plan back of it all. The story of our land has been the story of a struggle for the possession of a continent, a story of the rise to domination of that branch of the Germanic Race known as the Anglo-Saxon. Whatever be the continental affiliation of the early or late settler, whether Irish, Dutch, Scots, German, or Latin, he has been modified, changed, absorbed by the dominant racial solvent, primarily into a Germane-Anglo- Saxon, latterly into an American the new racial type. Our social habits and political practices, like our Ian- viii Prefatory Note guage, law, and religion, are English, with just enough modification to differentiate us and give us an originality of our own. The struggle by which this has been brought about is the true meaning of our history, and that is the story told in these books. Alien races were compelled either affiliate out or destruction were the to or go ; absorption unconscious alternatives, and if they could not be ab- sorbed they had to disappear in one way or another. The French, the Spanish, the Indians, have gone, and so jealous of control have we been that even the ties that bound us to older civilizations of Europe had to be ruthlessly broken. To anticipate a little, the dominant idea of America for the free Americans persisted through a Civil War of appalling magnitude, and until we had driven the Spanish flag from Cuba and the Antilles; and if I dare venture a prophecy, though I personally am called an Anti- Imperialist, this supreme idea of American Continental Domination will not reach its limit until there is but one flag from the Isthmus of Panama to the Arctic Circle, and that the Stars and Stripes. One of the greatest questions that troubles the Ameri- can mind is the ultimate solution of what is known as the race problem. How far modern ethics may modify ancient habit cannot be said, yet the experience of the past presented but two possibilities to the alien, assimila- tion or disappearance and we cannot assimilate the negro! As to the particular volume in which this note appears let me say that to these unfamiliar subjects I have given more thought, study, and investigation, than to both the preceding books. Again, I admit the free use of all PD Books PD Commons Prefatory Note ix authentic printed authorities, among them only citing " by name Roosevelt's great Epic, The Winning of the West," much old manuscript unprinted and some per- sonal recollections of ancient men, together with family traditions. Many of the incidents depicted, while more or less familiar, are not easy to come at in detail, even in the larger histories accessible to the people. The period treated of was a most important one in our history, and its masters must be judged according to their tasks. The President in a recent speech well said : " To conquer a continent is rough work. All really great work is rough in the doing, though it may seem smooth enough to those who look back upon it or gaze upon it from afar. The roughness is an unavoidable part of the doing of the deed. We need display but scant patience with those, who, sitting at ease in their own homes, delight to exercise a querulous and censorious spirit of judgment upon their brethren who, whatever their shortcomings, are doing strong men's work as they bring the light of civilization into the world's darkest places." And Stuart Edward White, a welcome young apostle of the west, in a recent clever novel writes: " When history has granted him the justice of per- spective, we will know the American Pioneer as one of the most picturesque of her many figures. Resourceful, self-reliant, bold; adapting himself with fluidity to di- verse circumstances and conditions; meeting with equal cheerfulness of confidence and completeness of capabil- ity both unknown dangers and the perils by which he has been educated; seizing the useful in the lives of the beasts and men nearest him, and assimilating it with marvellous rapidity; he presents to the world a picture x Prefatory Note of complete adequacy which it would be difficult to match in any other walk of life." In this book I have striven to do the Pioneer justice, as I have striven to lay aside prejudice all through the series and to write fairly even of the enemy, be he Briton, or Indian, or Mexican, or whatever he may. And in ad- dition to a mere recital of heroic incidents I have endeav- ored to depict the characters of men like Boone, Hous- ton, Crockett, Brady, Sevier, Tecumseh, Bouquet, Santa Anna, and the rest. More pressing literary engagements will probably pre- vent the issuance of the fourth volume of the series in 1903, as I had wished, but the next book is already planned under the title of Beyond the Mississippi FigJrts and Fighters, and I hope to have it ready in 1904. C. T. B. The Normandie, PHILADELPHIA, PENNA., June, 1902. PD Books PD Commons CONTENTS PART I PENNSYLVANIA PAGE HOW HENRY BOUQUET SAVED PENNSYLVANIA . i I. A VETERAN SOLDIER AND His PROBLEM . -3 II. THE MARCH OVER THE MOUNTAINS .... 8 III. THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN . ..... 13 IV. THE END OF BOUQUET ....... 19 CAPTAIN SAMUEL BRADY, CHIEF OF THE RANGERS . 21 I. A FAMILY OF FIGHTERS ....... 23 II. THE FIRST OF THE BORDERERS ..... 27 III. THE ADVENTURE AT BLOODY SPRING . .28 IV. BRADY'S FAMOUS LEAP ..... -33 V. AN EXPEDITION WITH WETZEL AND OTHER ADVENTURES 36 PART II VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE, THE CAROLINAS ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION . ... .41 I. ANDREW LEWIS AND His BORDERERS . ... -43 II. THE BATTLE . OF POINT PLEASANT , .48 III. THE FATE OF THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE CAMPAIGN . 56 xii Contents PAGB THE PIONEERS OF EAST TENNESSEE . 61 I. JOHN SEVIER AND THE WATAUGA MEN . .63 II. "THE REAR GUARD OF THE REVOLUTION" . .67 III. THE STATE OF FRANKLIN AND ITS GOVERNOR . 68 IV. THE ASSEMBLING OF THE MOUNTAINEERS . 72 V. THE DASH TO CATCH FERGUSON 79 VI. KING'S MOUNTAIN; LAUNCHING THE THUNDERBOLT . 83 VII. AFTER THE BATTLE 91 UNPUBLISHED ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN, BY THE REV. STEPHEN FOSTER, A PAR- TICIPANT . ". 95 PART III KENTUCKY DANIEL BOONE, GREATEST OF PIONEERS . .Ill I. THE LAND BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS . .113 II. THE GREATEST OF THE PIONEERS 116 III. THE EXPLORATION OF KENTUCKY 118 IV. THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY 122 V. ADVENTURES WITH INDIANS . 127 VI. THE DEFENCE OF BOONESBOROUGH 134 VII. THE LAST BATTLE OF THE REVOLUTION . .138 VIII. THE END OF THE OLD PIONEER 146 THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF BRYAN'S STATION . 149 I. THE WIVES OF THE PIONEERS 151 II. AN OLDTIME FRONTIER FORT 153 III. RUSE AGAINST RUSE ........ 155 IV. THE STORY OF THE MORGANS 163 PD Books PD Commons Contents xiii PART IV THE FAR SOUTH PAGE THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS 165 I. THE BEGINNING OF THE CREEK WAR .... 167 II. CARELESS DEFENDERS . .,...'-. .171 III. PAYING THE AWFUL PENALTY 173 JACKSON'S VICTORY AT TOHOPEKA ... .179 I. THE LAST STAND OF THE CREEKS 181 II. THE HEROISM OF YOUNG SAM HOUSTON . .186 WHEN THE SEMINOLES FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM . 191 I. THE INJUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES . , . 193 II. THE MASSACRE OF DADE AND His MEN ...