The whites speedily got the upper hand, ceasing to stand on the defensive; and the panic disappeared.  When the North Carolina Legislature met, the members, and the people of the seaboard generally, were rather surprised to find that the over-hill men talked of the Indian war as troublesome rather than formidable. [Footnote:  Columbian Magazine, ii., 472.]

The militia officers holding commissions from North Carolina wished Martin to take command of the retaliatory expeditious against the Cherokees; but Martin, though a good fighter on occasions, preferred the arts of peace, and liked best treating with and managing the Indians.  He had already acted as agent to different tribes on behalf of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia; and at this time he accepted an offer from the Continental Congress to serve in the same capacity for all the Southern Indians. [Footnote:  State Dep.  MSS., No. 50, vol. ii., p. 505 etc.] Nevertheless he led a body of militia against the Chickamaugas towns.  He burnt a couple, but one of his detachments was driven back in a fight on Lookout Mountain; his men became discontented, and he was forced to withdraw, followed and harassed by the Indians.  On his retreat the Indians attacked the settlements in force, and captured Gillespie’s station.

    Sevier’s Feats.

Sevier was the natural leader of the Holston riflemen in such a war; and the bands of frontiersmen insisted that he should take the command whenever it was possible.  Sevier swam well in troubled waters, and he profited by the storm he had done so much to raise.  Again and again during the summer of 1788 he led his bands of wild horsemen on forays against the Cherokee towns, and always with success.  He followed his usual tactics, riding hard and long, pouncing on the Indians in their homes before they suspected his presence, or intercepting and scattering their war parties; and he moved with such rapidity that they could not gather in force sufficient to do him harm.  Not only was the fame of his triumphs spread along the frontier, but vague rumors reached even the old settled States of the seaboard, [Footnote:  Columbian Magazine for 1789, p. 204.  Also letter from French Broad, December 18, 1788.] rumors that told of the slight loss suffered by his followers, of the headlong hurry of his marches, of the fury with which his horsemen charged in the skirmishes, of his successful ambuscades and surprises, and of the heavy toll he took in slain warriors and captive women and children, who were borne homewards to exchange for the wives and little ones of the settlers who had themselves been taken prisoners.

Sevier’s dashing and successful leadership wiped out in the minds of the backwoodsmen the memory of all his shortcomings and misdeeds; even the memory of that unpunished murder of friendly Indians which had so largely provoked the war.  The representatives of the North Carolina Government and his own personal enemies were less forgetful.