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In the fall of 1782 General Sevier invaded and destroyed the Chickamauga towns. Dragging Canoe and his followers were forced to abandone their old settlement on Chickamauga Creek, and moved some forty or fifty miles lower down the Tennessee River, where they built the Five Lower Towns.

The massacre that occurred at Nickajack and Running Water on September 13th, 1794 was an extreme act of brutality driven solely by the yonegas unquenchable lust for land. Thomas Jefferson's "...we shall destroy all of them.", was most prophetic as to what happened there. The yonegas accused the Chickamaugans of acts barbarism to justify their murder of women and children and the destruction the Lower Towns. Yet, far more acts of cruelty and deprivity occurred at the hands of the yonegas than the Nations. Settlers supposedly massacred were on lands set aside for the Cherokees and they were there at their own peril and in violation of the Treaty of Hopewell 1785. (SEE TREATIES)

ARTICLE V.

If any citizen of the United States, or other person not being an Indian, shall attempt to settle on any of the lands westward or south-ward of the said boundary which are hereby allotted to the Indians for their hunting grounds, or having already settled and will not remove from the same within six months after the ratification of this treaty, such person shall forfeit the protection of the United States, and the Indians may punish him or not as they please:

None of the lands of the Cumberland Valley were ceded in treaty until the Treaty of Washington, 1805. Fort Blount was built in 1791 to stop white encroachments on Indian lands. Ziegler's Fort was illegally placed on the Nation's land. Also, it is known that some whites, overcome with greed and lust for land, masqueraded as Indians to incite war so the lands could be stolen.

How did the Nations treat war prisoners?

The following is a description of the actions of the Nation after their sucessful campaign at Zeigler's station. "The scarcity of horses also made it necessary for the prisoners to follow their captors on foot; and incidentally revealed a touching act of kindness on the part of the Indians. Until they passed the vicinity of Lebanon, the whites could see the tracks of eight little barefoot children at every muddy place on their path. Then they found numerous scraps of dressed deer skin, scattered around the ashes of a deserted camp fire. The grim warriors had kindled a fire to light their pipes, and under the soothing spell of the circling smoke, had busied themselves in making eight pairs of little moccasins. At the next muddy place the whites were rejoiced to find the prints of the little moccasins that protected the feet of the captive children." A vast difference than how they treated the women and children, and a friendly chief- The Breath, at Running Water and Nickajack.

TENNESSEE, THE VOLUNTEER STATE

How could George Washington condone such actions and how could he label them as 'banditti'? They were fully within their rights as guaranteed in treaty. It appears that as always the only ones who have to comply with treaty conditions is the Indian!

• It had long been apparent that the Chickamauga towns would have to be destroyed. The strength of their position had attracted to them a party of daring young warriors, mostly Cherokees, who wished a stronghold from which they could make sorties upon the frontiers. Moreover, they were situated at the Creek crossing place, on the Tennessee River, and their people fraternized with the Creek war parties, who used them as a base for their operations against the settlers on the Cumberland and in Kentucky. As early as August 13, 1792, President Washington wrote the secretary of war: "if the banditti, which made the successful stroke on the station at Nashville (Zeigler's) could be come at without involving disagreeable consequences with the tribes to which they respectively belong, an attempt to cut them off ought by all means to be encouraged. An enterprise judiciously concerted and spiritedly executed, would be less expensive to the Government than keeping up guards of militia, which will always be eluded in the attack, and never be overtaken [sic] in pursuit."
• Again, soon after the battle of Etowah, General Robertson, in a letter to General Sevier, asked when the Lower towns would get their deserts. He said the governor had hinted that it might be next spring, but he feared that would be too late to save the Cumberland settlements, considering their exposed situation, and the little protection they had. He, therefore, urged General Sevier to carry an expedition of fifteen hundred men into the Cherokee country before the ensuing spring.
• Nothing came of General Robertson's request, and in the meantime The Indian depredations were renewed and prosecuted with great malignancy. The Territorial Assembly which met at Knoxville in August, 1794, adopted a second memorial to Congress on the subject, and appended to it a list of Indian depredations, which showed that they had killed sixty-seven people, wounded ten, captured twenty-five, and had stolen 374 horses, between February 26 and September 6, 1794.
• Many of these depredations were notable. The murder of the Casteel family, near Knoxville, was shocking. About daybreak, April 22, 1794, William Casteel was in his cabin, dressed, and waiting for Anthony Ragan, with whom he was going on a hunt. When Ragan arrived, a few minutes later, he found Casteel 's dead body near the fire, where he had fallen from the stroke of a war club, evident]y taken by surprise. His wife, aroused by the attack on her husband, seems to have made a desperate resistance. A bloody axe found by her side, a broken arm, and a mutilated hand, all testified to her courageous defence. She was finally despatched with a butcher knife. Four small children were knifed and scalped, one of them, a little girl, receiving a stab which pierced through her body and into the bedclothes beneath her. The oldest daughter, Elizabeth, ten years of age, was found weltering in the blood that flowed from six wounds inflicted by a tomahawk. She afterwards showed signs of life, and under Dr. Crosby's treatment finally recovered. Among the killed on the Cumberland were the two young Anthony Bledsoes, sons, respectively, of Cols. Anthony and Isaac Bledsoe. They were killed near Rock Castle, the home of Secretary Daniel Smith, where they were boarding and going to school. The death of the old pioneer, Thomas Sharpe Spencer, has already been noticed. James R. Robertson, a son of Colonel James Robertson, was killed near his father's house on Cumberland River. Maj. George Winchester, a brother of Gen. James Winchester, and a gallant militia officer, was killed on his way to the County Court, of which he was a member.
• The committee of Congress to which the first memorial of the Southwest Territory, adopted February, 1794, was referred, reported to the House of Representatives, April 8, 1794, that the situation of the southwestern frontiers in general, and Mero district in particular, called for the most energetic measures on the part of the Government, and recommended that the President be authorized to carry on offensive operations against any nation or tribe of Indians that might continue hostile. This report, however, was not acted upon, and the secretary of war wrote Governor Blount, July 29, 1794, that,
  "With respect to destroying the Lower towns, however vigorous such a measure might be, or whatever good consequences might result from it, I am instructed specially, by the President, to say that he does not consider himself authorized to direct any such measure, more especially as the whole subject was before the last session of Congress, who did not think proper to authorize or direct offensive operations."

  But the mild tone of the secretary's letter, the well known attitude of President Washington, and the great anxiety of Governor Blount for the relief of the frontier; made it manifest that an unauthorized expedition against the Chickamauga towns, if judiciously concerted and spiritedly executed, would not seriously offend either the Government of the United States or of the Southwest Territory.

• Early in August, General Robertson received two dispatches from the Chickasaws, one by Thomas Brown, a man of veracity, and the other by a common runner, bringing information that the Creeks and Chickamaugans were "embodying" in large numbers for the purpose of invading Mero District about the 2nd of the month. Afterwards he received from some confidential Chickasaws and from Dr. R. J. Waters, of New Madrid, the further intelligence that two attacks would be made simultaneously, one by a party of 100 Creeks, who would drop down the Tennessee River in canoes and fall upon the lower settlements, while a larger force, consisting of three or four hundred Creeks, were to pass through the Chickamauga towns, receive reinforcements from them, and march against Nashville.
• The Creek campaign was launched in accordance with the plan outlined. A small party proceeded by river to Mero District, and invaded the lower settlements around Clarksville. The main body also marched, near the time appointed; but the action of Hanging Maw and the friendly Cherokees of the upper towns, in killing two Creeks, and delivering a third over to the territorial authorities, who tried and executed him, August 4, 1794, caused such confusion in the Creek and Chickamauga ranks, that this branch of their expedition was abandoned, only a few small war parties reaching the Cumberland. There were at least three such parties operating in the district about the middle of September, one in Tennessee, one in Sumner, and one in Davidson County.
• As soon as General Robertson heard of the purposed Creek-Chickamauga invasion he began active preparations for an offensive campaign, of which every one seemed to be aware, but no one took official cognizance. After despatching Sampson Williams, the old scout, to Col. William Whitley, at Crab Orchard, in Lincoln County, Kentucky, who was expected to take part in the expedition, he proceeded to organize and equip the local militia. Col. James Ford raised a company around Port Royal, which he put under command of Capt. William Miles; Col. John Montgomery raised another in the neighborhood of Clarksville, which he commanded in person; and General Robertson himself enlisted volunteers in tile country adjacent to Nashville. They rendezvoused at Brown's Blockhouse, September 6, 1794, and numbered about three hundred and eighty men.
• Governor Blount may have received intelligence of the Creek invasion at the same time it was communicated to General Robertson, which induced him to order Maj. James Ore, with his command of about seventy men, to Mero District. Major Ore's orders, which were received August 19, 1794, directed him to range the Cumberland Mountains in search of hostile Indians, but somehow he marched direct to the place of rendezvous at Nashville, and although Governor Blount had reason to anticipate Colonel Whitley's movements and to apprehend their effect on the border people, he "forgot," Haywood says, to give Major Ore any directions on the subject. In the meantime Colonel Whitley, with about one hundred men, arrived from Kentucky. He set out August 20, 1794, a day made memorable by the victory of General Wayne over the Indians of the Northwest; and if he followed a party of Indians who had been committing depredations on the frontiers of Lincoln County, as reported to General Robertson, it was an opportune coincidence. It happened, therefore, that Major Ore's United States troops, General Robertson's Mero militia, and Colonel Whitley's Kentucky volunteers, all met at Brown's Blockhouse, forming an army of resolute backwoodsmen 550 strong.
  (Since when do vigilantes, backwoodsmen, become an army?)
  The chief command was entrusted to Maj. James Ore, who commanded the only troops in the expedition levied by public authority; thus giving color to the claim of the troops for pay, which was subsequently allowed by the Federal Government. The territorial troops had been strictly forbidden to carry on offensive operations against the Indians, but evading this prohibition, on the ground that it could not be considered otherwise than defensive to strike the first blow, General Robertson ordered Major Ore to march against the Creeks and Chickamaugas who were threatening Mero District, and, if he should not meet with them before he arrived at the Tennessee River, to pass it and destroy the Lower Cherokee towns. Col. John Montgomery was given command of the territorial forces, Col. William Whitley commanded the Kentucky contingent, and Richard Findleston, the friendly half-breed who warned General Robertson of Watts' invasion in 1792, who acted as guide for General Sevier at Etowah in 1793, was engaged to pilot the expedition.
• Marching from Brown's Blockhouse, September 8, 1794, the army(?) proceeded along Taylor's trace, by way of the present towns of Murfreesboro and Manchester, to the Cumberland Mountain, crossing which, they reached the Tennessee River about three miles below the mouth of Sequatchie, after dark on the evening of September 12th. Here Findleston volunteered to swim the river, which was about three-quarters of a mile wide, and build a fire on the southern bank to guide the men in crossing. Daniel 0. Brown, the brother of Col. Joseph Brown, and William Topp, joined them, and the trio safely made the landing. Then the soldiers began swimming the river, the least expert availing themselves of whatever assistance they could contrive, such as bundles of dry cane and small pieces of wood, and in this way about two hundred and sixty-five men crossed over, without an accident. The others remained on the north side of the river in charge of the horses and impedimenta of the camp. For the purpose of transporting their arms and clothing, they had provided two boats made of ox-hides, to which were added some light rafts, which the men, in their impatience, improvised to expedite their passage. The boats were kept plying back and forth all night, and it was after sunrise on the morning of September 13, 1794, before the troops could again be got in motion.
• Having crossed the river, they found themselves between the small Village of Long Island, on the west, and Nickajack, on the east. Nickajack was situated on the east bank of Nickajack Creek, a short distance above its mouth, and contained about two hundred houses, mostly built of round logs, and covered with boards and bark. Protected on the south by picturesque and rugged mountains, it was surrounded by fields of potatoes and corn, peach orchards, and melon patches, and back of these was a thick growth of cane. Five miles east of Nickajack, nestled in a beautiful little valley, encompassed by friendly heights, lay the Town of Running Water, the most important of the Chickamauga towns. It had been their capital in the time of Dragging Canoe, and contained a council house, sixty or seventy feet in diameter, with a conical roof, covered with bark. The road from Nickajack to Running Water passed a point called the narrows, between the Tennessee River and the overhanging cliffs that jutted down from the mountain, and formed a defile of great strategic strength.
• The army, having been formed on the south bank of the river, marched southward up the mountain, intending to get in behind the Town of Nickajack, and strike it from the rear. When they reached the field back of the town, the men were formed into line of battle among the cane, Colonel Whitley commanding the right wing and Colonel Montgomery the left. The two wings were ordered to march so as to strike the river above and below the town. Joseph Brown, one time prisoner in the town, being entirely familiar with the surroundings, was sent with twenty men to guard the mouth of Nickajack Creek below the town, and cut off the retreat of any Indians who might seek to escape in that direction.
• Colonel Montgomery's division first sighted the enemy. He discovered two houses standing out in the field, about two hundred and fifty yards from the town. He left a detachment of fifteen men to watch these houses until the firing should begin in the town; and lest the Indians in them should discover the approach of the troops and give the alarm, he ordered his main force to push on with all speed. The corn was growing close around the houses, and concealed their movement from the enemy. Firing commenced near a house on the left of the town, and was returned by the Indians, one of whom was killed. The troops then dashed. into the town, but found the houses all vacant and their doors open.
• While these movements were taking place, the guard left to watch the houses in the field saw a lithe and graceful Indian maiden pounding hominy in a mortar outside the cabin. In a few moments she was joined by a young warrior who passed his arms around her waist, playfully swung her about, and then assisted her with the pestle. While engaged in this delightful dalliance the firing began in the town, then the crack of a rifle was beard in the cornfield, and the young girl's lover fell dead at her feet, The doors were instantly closed, portholes opened, and the men in the houses prepared to make a desperate defense. The girl undertook to make her escape by fight, but was pursued and captured by the guard, who deeming it unwise to continue the contest, retired with their prisoner, and rejoined the main force in the town. The girl was put into a canoe with the other prisoners, and while she was being rowed down the river towards the crossing place, she sprang head foremost into the river, disengaging herself artfully from her clothing, which was left floating on the water. She swam superbly, and was fast making her escape. Someone shouted "shoot her, shoot her." But the more gallant spirits, admiring her agility, beauty and boldness, intervened, and allowed the young heroine to escape.
• The Indians in the town were taken completely by surprise. (Of course, since they were legally free from invasion by treaty) Years of security having given them faith in their fastness, they believed their town inaccessible, and when the whites suddenly appeared among them they wondered whether they had fallen down from the clouds, or sprung up out of the earth. As soon as the alarm was given they gathered up such of their effects as they could carry, and fled to the river, hoping to escape in their canoes. When Colonel Montgomery's men, who pressed closely upon them, reached the scene they discovered five or six large canoes in the river, fined with Indians and their goods, while twenty-five or thirty warriors still stood upon the shore. They at once opened fire upon them. By this time Colonel Whitley's division had swept down from the east, cutting off retreat in that direction. Having the Indians now surrounded, the engagement became little better than a slaughter, and hardly a soul on shore escaped.
• A few of the Indians in the canoes succeeded in getting away, but many of them fell victims to the deadly aim of the rifle, some of them in their canoes, and others in the waters of their beloved river. Several men tried to kill an Indian who was lying nearly flat in his canoe, only his arms showing as he paddled for his life. Having failed to hit him, Colonel Whitley, who came up at the moment, asked them to let him try. He took deliberate aim, and when he pulled the trigger, the blood was seen to spout from the Indian's shoulder. Joseph Brown, who had been left with twenty men to guard the mouth of Nickajack Creek, heard the firing commence rushed forward, and, after some fighting in the canebrake, rejoined the main body of the troops. Seeing a canoe floating down the river, he swam out to it, and finding in it the Indian Colonel Whitley had shot, turned him over to ascertain whether he was yet alive, when the Indian seized him and tried to throw him overboard. After a hard struggle, in which the Indian was nearly scalped, he cried, "Enough!" but Brown, in his "wrath," declared it was not enough, and throwing him into the river, one of the men shot him from the shore.
• The carnage was awful. No quarter was given to the men, who were killed wherever found. The Breath, whom we have already noticed as the kindly chief of the town, and somewhere between fifty and seventy of his people-some of them, unfortunately, women and children-perished, either on the river bank, in the water or at their cabins. Nineteen women and children were taken prisoners, among whom were the wife and child of Richard Findleston, the guide. A search of the town disclosed two fresh scalps lately taken on the Cumberland, one by a nephew of the Fool Warrior and the other by a Creek, and a number of old ones, which hung as trophies in the homes of the warriors who had taken them. They also found a quantity of powder and lead, lately arrived from the Spanish Government, and a commission for The Breath. In making the search a Kentucky soldier witnessed a pathetic scene. Entering one of the cabins, he saw an infant, ten or twelve months old, with its bowels protruding from a wound in its abdomen, crawling over the body of its mother, who lay dead upon the floor. He was horrified at the sight, and as an act of mercy, put his rifle to its bead and blew out its brains.
• Having burned the Town of Nickajack, Major Ore immediately set out with his forces for Running Water, but news of their presence preceded them, and the Warriors of that town made a stand at the narrows, already mentioned. They were advantageously posted behind rocks on the mountain side, but demoralized by the panic-stricken fugitives that fled from Nickajack, they gave way after the exchange of a few rounds, abandoned their town to its fate, and fled to the woods with their wives and children. At the narrows three white men were wounded, Luke Anderson and Severn Donelson, slightly, and Joshua Thomas, mortally. These were the only casualties of the campaign. Major Ore continued on to Running Water, which with all the effects found in it, was burned, and the troops returned to the river, which they recrossed the same day, and joined their comrades on the opposite shore. Having completed their work in a single day, on the following morning they took up the line of march for Nashville, which they reached on the 17th, and were disbanded.

Tennessee, the Volunteer State
Moore and Foster, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1923

The Snake Doctor