of War directed Governor Blount
to hold a conference with the chiefs of the Chickasaw. Choctaw, and
Cherokee at Nashville in dune to enlist their warriors, if possible, in
active service against the northern tribes. The conference was held
as proposed, in August, but nothing seems to have come of it, although
the child's seemed to lie sincere in their assurances of friendship.
Very few of the Choctaw or Cherokee were in attendance. At the
annuity distribution of the Cherokee, shortly before, the chiefs had
also been profuse in declarations of their desire for peace.' Notwith-
standing all this the attacks along the Tennessee frontier continued to
such an extent that the blockhouses were again put in order ami gar-
risoned. Soon afterwards the governor reported to the Secretary of
War that the five lower Cherokee towns on the Tennessee(the Chicka-
mauga), headed by John Watts, had finally declared war against the
United State-, and that from three to six hundred warriors, including
a hundred Creeks, had started against the settlements. The militia
was at once called out. both in eastern Tennessee and on the Cumber-
land. On the Cumberland side it was directed that no pursuit should
he continued beyond the Cherokee boundary, the ridge between the
waters of Cumberland and Duck rivers. The order issued by Colonel
White, of Knox county, to each of his captains shows how great was
the alarm:
■ Governor Telfair's letters of November n ami December 5, with inclosure, 1792, American State
Papers: Indian Affairs, i, pp.332, 336, 887, 1832.
2 Rainwy, Trancm 1 , i.|..;,r,_'-.«,:;,-V.is, is:,:;.
mooney] ATTACK ON BUCHANAN'S STATION — L792 73
Knoxville, September n. 1792.
Sir: You arc hereby commanded to