hundred horsemen made a forced march to the Little Tennessee; and on the 24th crossed it unopposed, making a feint at one ford, while the main body passed rapidly over another.  The Indians did not have the numbers to oppose so formidable a body of good fighters, and only ventured on a little very long range and harmless skirmishing with the vanguard.  Dividing into two bodies, the troops destroyed Chota and the other towns up and down the stream, finding in them a welcome supply of provisions.  The next day Martin, with a detachment, fell on a party of flying Indians, killed one, and captured seventeen horses loaded with clothing, skins, and the scanty household furniture of the cabins; while another detachment destroyed the part of Chilhowee that was on the nearer side of the river.  On the 26th the rest of Chilhowee was burned, three Indians killed, and nine captured.  Tipton, with one hundred and fifty men, was sent to attack another town beyond the river; but owing to the fault of their commander, [Footnote:  His “unmilitary behavior,” says Campbell.  Ramsey makes him one of the (imaginary) wounded at Boyd’s Creek.  Kirke improves on this by describing him as falling “badly wounded” just as he was about to move his wing forward, and ascribes to his fall the failure of the wing to advance.] this body failed to get across.  The Indian woman, Nancy Ward, who in ’76 had given the settlers timely warning of the intended attack by her tribesmen here came into camp.  She brought overtures of peace from the chiefs; but to these Campbell and Sevier would not listen, as they wished first to demolish the Hiawassee towns, where the warriors had been especially hostile.  Accordingly, they marched thither.  On their way there were a couple of skirmishes, in which several Indians were killed and one white man.  The latter, whose name was Elliot, was buried in the Tellico town, a cabin being burned down over his grave, that the Indians might not know where it was.  The Indians watched the army from the hills.  At one point a warrior was seen stationed on a ridge to beat a drum and give signals to the rest; but the spies of the whites stole on him unawares, and shot him.  The Hiawassee towns and all the stores of provisions they contained were destroyed, the work being finished on the last day of the year.

On January 1, 1781, the army broke up into detachments which went home by different routes, some additional towns being destroyed.  The Indians never ventured to offer the invaders a pitched battle.  Many of the war parties were absent on the frontier, and, at the very time their own country was being invaded, they committed ravages in Powell’s Valley, along the upper Holston, and on the Kentucky road, near Cumberland Gap.  The remaining warriors were cowed by Sevier’s first success, and were puzzled by the rapidity with which the troops moved; for the mounted riflemen went at speed wherever they wished, and were not encumbered by baggage, each man taking only his blanket and a wallet of parched corn.