One Sunday Campbell was returning from church with his wife and some friends, carrying his baby on a pillow in front of his saddle, for they were all mounted.  Suddenly a horseman crossed the road close in front of them, and was recognized by one of the party as a noted tory.  Upon being challenged, he rode off at full speed.  Instantly Campbell handed the baby to a negro slave, struck spur into his horse, and galloping after the fugitive, overtook and captured him.  The other men of the party came up a minute later.  Several recognized the prisoner as a well-known tory; he was riding a stolen horse; he had on him letters to the British agents among the Cherokees, arranging for an Indian rising.  The party of returning church-goers were accustomed to the quick and summary justice of lynch law.  With stern gravity they organized themselves into a court.  The prisoner was adjudged guilty, and was given but a short shrift; for the horsemen hung him to a sycamore tree before they returned to the road where they had left their families.

On another occasion, while Campbell was in command of a camp of militia, at the time of a Cherokee outbreak, he wrote a letter to his wife, a sister of Patrick Henry, that gives us a glimpse of the way in which he looked at Indians.  His letter began, “My dearest Betsy”; in it he spoke of his joy at receiving her “sweet and affectionate letter”; he told how he had finally got the needles and pins she wished, and how pleased a friend had been with the apples she had sent him.  He urged her to buy a saddle-horse, of which she had spoken, but to be careful that it did not start nor stumble, which were bad faults, “especially in a woman’s hackney.”  In terms of endearment that showed he had not sunk the lover in the husband, he spoke of his delight at being again in the house where he had for the first time seen her loved face, “from which happy moment he dated the hour of all his bliss,” and besought her not to trouble herself too much about him, quoting to her Solomon’s account of a good wife, as reminding him always of her; and he ended by commending her to the peculiar care of Heaven.  It was a letter that it was an honor to a true man to have written; such a letter as the best of women and wives might be proud to have received.  Yet in the middle of it he promised to bring a strange trophy to show his tender and God-fearing spouse.  He was speaking of the Indians; how they had murdered men, women, and children near-by, and how they had been beaten back; and he added:  “I have now the scalp of one who was killed eight or nine miles from my house about three weeks ago.  The first time I go up I shall take it along to let you see it.”  Evidently it was as natural for him to bring home to his wife and children the scalp of a slain Indian as the skin of a slain deer. [Footnote:  See Preston’s pamphlet on Mrs. Russell, pp. 11-18.]

The times were hard, and they called for men of flinty fibre.  Those of softer, gentler mould would have failed in the midst of such surroundings.  The iron men of the border had a harsh and terrible task allotted them; and though they did it roughly, they did it thoroughly and on the whole well.  They may have failed to learn that it is good to be merciful, but at least they knew that it is still better to be just and strong and brave; to see clearly one’s rights, and to guard them with a ready hand.