of coon skin or mink skin, with the tails hanging
down, or else felt hats, in each of which was thrust a buck tail or a
sprig of evergreen. Every man carried a small-bore rifle, a toma-
hawk, and a scalping knife. A very few of the officers had swords,
and there was not a bayonet nor a tent in the army." 2
To strike the blow at Kings mountain the border men had been
forced to leave their own homes unprotected. Even before they could
cross the mountains on their return the news came that the Cherokee
were again out in force for the destruction of the upper settlements,
and their numerous small bauds were killing, burning, and plundering
in the usual Indian fashion. Without loss of time the Holston settle-
ments of Virginia and Tennessee at onceraised seven hundred mounted
riflemen to march against the enemy, the command being assigned to
Colonel Arthur Campbell of Virginia and Colonel John Sexier of
Tennessee.
Sevier started first with nearly three hundred men, going south
along the great Indian war trail and driving small parties of the
Cherokee before him, until he crossed the French Broad and came
upon seventy of them on Boyds creek, not far from the present Sex in -
ville, on December 16, 1780. Ordering his men to spread out into a
half circle, he sent ahead some scouts, who, by an attack and feigned
retreat, managed to draw the Indians into the trap thus prepared,
1 Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 241-294, 1SS9; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 208-249, 1853.
- Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 256.
58 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.ajih.19
with the result that