work on the last day of the year. The Indians had lied before
them, keeping -pie- out to watch their movements. One of these,
while giving signals from a ridge by beating a drum, was -hot by the
white-. The soldiers lost only one man. who was buried in an Indian
cabin which was then burned down to conceal the trace of the inter-
ment. The return march was begun on New Year's day. Ten prin-
v cipal towns, including Echota, the capital, had been destroyed, besides
several smaller villages, containing in the aggregate over one thousand
house-, and not less than fifty thousand bushels of corn and large stores
of other provision. Everything not needed on the return march
was committed to the flames or otherwise wasted. Of all the towns
west of the mountains only Talassee, andone or two about Chicka-
mauga or on the headwaters of the Coosa, escaped. The whites had
lost only one man killed and two wounded. Before the return a
proclamation was sent to the Cherokee chief-, warning them to make
peace on penalty of a worse visitation."
Some Cherokee who met them at Echota. on the return march, to
talk of peace, brought in and surrendered several white prisoners. 1
One rea-on for the slight resistance made by the Indians was prob-
ably the fact that at the very time of the invasion many of their
warriors were away, raiding on the Upper Holston and in the neigh-
borhood of Cumberland gap.'
Although the Upper or Overhill Cherokee were thus humbled,
those of the middle towns, on the head waters id' Little Tennessee, still
continued to send out parties against the