serve in that capacity until the
outbreak of the civil war. As state senator he inaugurated a system of
road improvements for western North Carolina and was also the father
of the Western North Carolina Railroad (now a part of the Southern
-\ stem), originally projected to develop the copper mines of Ducktown,
Tennessee.
With his colleagues in the state senate he voted for secession in 1861,
and at once resigned to recruit troops for the Confederacy, to which,
until the close of the war. he gave his whole time, thought, and effort.
In 1862 he organized the Thomas Legion, consisting of two regiments
of infantry, a battalion of cavalry, a company of engineers, and a field
battery, he himself commanding as colonel, although then nearly sixty
years of age. Four companies were made up principally of his own
Cherokee. TheThomas Legion operated chiefly as a frontier guard
i In the Cherokee language rsiskwa'hl, --Bird place," Ani'-Wa'dihl, "Paint place, (Va'ya'hl, "Wolf
place," E'lawa'di, "Red earth" (now Cherokee post-office and tanufi'yl "Raven
place." There was also, for a tune, a " Pretty-woman town" Ani'-Gila'hl?).
19 KTH— Ul 11
162 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ans.19
for the Confederacy along the mountain region southward from Cum-
berland gap.
After tlic close of the conflict he returned to his home at Stekoa and
again took charge, unofficially, of the affairs of the Cherokee, whom
lie attended during the smallpox epidemic of 1866 and assisted through
the unsettled conditions of the reconstruction period. His own
resources had been swept away by the war. and all his hopes had gone
down with the lost cause. This, added to the effects of three years of
hardship and anxiety in