on the towns of the Erati, nestling in their high gorges.  The Indians were completely taken by surprise; they had never dreamed that they could be attacked in their innermost strongholds, cut off, as they were, from the nearest settlements by vast trackless wastes of woodland and lofty, bald-topped mountain chains.  They had warriors enough to overwhelm Sevier’s band by sheer force of numbers, but he gave them no time to gather.  Falling on their main town, he took it by surprise and stormed it, killing thirty warriors and capturing a large number of women and children.  Of these, however, he was able to bring in but twenty, who were especially valuable because they could be exchanged for white captives.  He burnt two other towns and three small villages, destroying much provision and capturing two hundred horses.  He himself had but one man killed and one wounded.  Before the startled warriors could gather to attack him he plunged once more into the wilderness, carrying his prisoners and plunder, and driving the captured horses before him; and so swift were his motions that he got back in safety to the settlements. [Footnote:  Do.  Letters of Col.  Wm. Christian, April 10, 1781; of Joseph Martin, March 1st; and of Arthur Campbell, March 28th.  The accounts vary slightly; for instance, Christian gives him one hundred and eighty, Campbell only one hundred and fifty men.  One account says he killed thirty, another twenty Indians.  Martin, by the way, speaks bitterly of the militia as men “who do duty at times as their inclination leads them.”  The incident, brilliant enough anyhow, of course grows a little under Ramsey and Haywood; and Mr. Kirke fairly surpasses himself when he comes to it.] The length of the journey, the absolutely untravelled nature of the country, which no white man, save perhaps an occasional wandering hunter, had ever before traversed, the extreme difficulty of the route over the wooded, cliff-scarred mountains, and the strength of the Cherokee towns that were to be attacked, all combined to render the feat most difficult.  For its successful performance there was need of courage, hardihood, woodcraft, good judgment, stealth, and great rapidity of motion.  It was one of the most brilliant exploits of the border war.

Even after his return Sevier was kept busy pursuing and defeating small bands of plundering savages.  In the early summer he made a quick inroad south of the French Broad.  At the head of over a hundred hard riders he fell suddenly on the camp of a war party, took a dozen scalps, and scattered the rest of the Indians in every direction.  A succession of these blows completely humbled the Cherokees, and they sued for peace; thanks to Sevier’s tactics, they had suffered more loss than they had inflicted, an almost unknown thing in these wars with the forest Indians.  In midsummer peace was made by a treaty at the Great Island of the Holston.

    End of the War with the British and Tories.