company differed in degree, but not in kind, from those that befell the many similar flotillas that followed or preceded him.  From the time that settlers first came to the upper Tennessee valley occasional hardy hunters had floated down the stream in pirogues, or hollowed out tree-trunks.  Before the Revolution a few restless emigrants had adopted this method of reaching Natchez; some of them made the long and perilous trip in safety, others were killed by the Chickamaugas or else foundered in the whirlpools, or on the shoals.  The spring before Donelson started, a party of men, women, and children, in forty canoes or pirogues, went down the Tennessee to settle in the newly conquered Illinois country, and skirmished with the Cherokees or their way. [Footnote:  State Department MSS., No. 51, Vol.  II., p. 45: 

“JAMES COLBERT TO CHAS. STUART.

“CHICKASAW NATION, May 25, 1779.

“Sir,—­I was this day informed that there is forty large Cannoes loaded with men women and children passed by here down the Cherokee River who on their way down they took a Dellaway Indian prisoner & kept him till they found out what Nation he was of—­they told him they had come from Long Island and were on their way to Illinois with an intent to settle—­Sir I have some reason to think they are a party of Rebels.  My reason is this after they let the Dellaway Indian at liberty they met with some Cherokees whom they endeavoured to decoy, but finding they would not be decoyed they fired on them but they all made their Escape with the Loss of their arms and ammunition and one fellow wounded, who arrived yesterday.  The Dellaway informs me that Lieut.  Governor Hamilton is defeated and himself taken prisoner,” etc.

It is curious that none of the Tennessee annalists have noticed the departure of this expedition; very, very few of the deeds and wanderings of the old frontiersmen have been recorded; and in consequence historians are apt to regard these few as being exceptional, instead of typical.  Donelson was merely one of a hundred leaders of flotillas that went down the western rivers at this time.]

Donelson’s flotilla, after being joined by a number of other boats, especially at the mouth of the Clinch, consisted of some thirty craft, all told—­flat-boats, dug-outs, and canoes.  There were probably two or three hundred people, perhaps many more, in the company; among them, as the journal records, “James Robertson’s lady and children,” the latter to the number of five.  The chief boat, the flag-ship of the flotilla, was the Adventure, a great scow, in which there were over thirty men, besides the families of some of them.