While the Creeks were halting and considering, and while the Choctaws and Chickasaws were being visited by British emissaries, the Cherokees flung themselves on the frontier folk.  They had been short of ammunition; but when the British agents sent them fifty horse-loads by a pack-train that was driven through the Creek towns, they no longer hesitated.[19] The agents showed very poor generalship in making them rise so early, when there were no British troops in the southern States, and when the Americans were consequently unhampered and free to deal with the Indians.[20] Had the rising been put off until a British army was in Georgia, it might well have proved successful.

The Cherokee villages stood in that cluster of high mountain chains which mark the ending of the present boundaries of Georgia and both Carolinas.  These provinces lay east and southeast of them.  Directly north were the forted villages of the Watauga pioneers, in the valley of the upper Tennessee, and beyond these again, in the same valley, the Virginian outpost settlements.  Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia were alike threatened by the outbreak, while the Watauga people were certain to be the chief sufferers.  The Cherokees were so near the settlements that their incursions were doubly dangerous.  On the other hand, there was not nearly as much difficulty in dealing them a counter-blow as in the case of the northern Indians, for their towns lay thickly together and were comparatively easy of access.  Moreover, they were not rated such formidable fighters.  By comparing Lord Dunmore’s war in 1774 with this struggle against the Cherokees in 1776, it is easy to see the difference between a contest against the northern and one against the southern tribes.  In 1776 our Indian foes were more numerous than in 1774, for there were over two thousand Cherokee warriors—­perhaps two thousand five hundred,—­assisted by a few Creeks and tories; they were closer to the frontier, and so their ravages were more serious; but they did not prove such redoubtable foes as Cornstalk’s warriors, their villages were easier reached, and a more telling punishment was inflicted.

The Cherokees had been showing signs of hostility for some time.  They had murdered two Virginians the previous year;[21] and word was brought to the settlements, early in the summer of ’76, that they were undoubtedly preparing for war, as they were mending guns, making moccasins and beating flour for the march.[22] In June their ravages began.[23] The Otari, or Overhill Cherokees, had sent runners to the valley towns, asking their people to wait until all were ready before marching, that the settlements might be struck simultaneously; but some of the young braves among the lower towns could not be restrained, and in consequence the outlying settlers of Georgia and the Carolinas were the first to be assailed.

The main attack was made early in July, the warriors rushing down from their upland fastnesses in fierce and headlong haste, the different bands marching north, east, and southeast at the same moment.  From the Holston to the Tugelou, from southwestern Virginia to northwestern Georgia, the back-county settlements were instantly wrapped in the sudden horror of savage warfare.