Elijah Clarke had no choice but to quit the area and move his friends and neighbors to safer territory. The last of September, when those who would follow him mustered, there were three hundred men accompanied by four hundred women and children. (McCall, 1909:490). There was no safe haven in Georgia or South Carolina, but the British had never been able to breach the mountains. In the valleys of what is now eastern Tennessee Clarke had friends. He had recently fought at Musgrove’s Mill with Isaac Shelby and had campaigned against the Indians with John Sevier. Their settlements would be his destination. The area he sought for refuge was two hundred miles from Wilkes County and the fall weather was deteriorating. They had rations for five days and the trip would take longer.
It would be a dangerous trip but with the Indians to their west; Brown, Tories and Indians to the south; and Cruger to the east, they had no choice. Pursued by enemy forces, including a former neighbor Thomas Waters, it was necessary to move rapidly. Waters commanded a group of Tories, Indians and ‘white savages’, men who were white but went to war against their neighbors painted and dressed as Indians. Clarke reported that the stragglers who were captured by Waters were turned over to the Indians to be tortured and killed. Draper supports this claim that thirteen of the prisoners from Augusta were turned over to the Cherokees and killed by tomahawk; others were hanged. (Draper, 1881:200).
When the British learned of the movement of the settlers of Wilkes County, they planned to intercept and capture Elijah Clarke. The officer commissioned to perform this task was Major Patrick Ferguson, a regular officer of the 71st Regiment of Foot, the Frazier’s Highlanders. He had assembled a cadre of Provincial troops from Ninety-Six and recruited about nine hundred Tories. This force, trained and equipped at Ninety-Six, set out to find Clarke. Expecting that Clarke would take the roads through South Carolina, Ferguson moved to that area. Clarke, however, moved his company along the trails just east of the mountains. It was an arduous trip, but would avoid British troops which used the roads.
As Ferguson campaigned along the border between North and South Carolina, he had captured a cousin of Isaac Shelby and sent him with an ultimatum to Shelby. The gist of the message was to come and declare allegiance to the King or Ferguson and his troops would cross the mountains, hang the rebels and lay waste their settlements with fire and sword.
The men who lived beyond the mountains were men of great strength and courage, and were not easily intimidated. When Shelby got the message he was enraged and contacted his friend, Colonel John Sevier, who commanded North Carolina’s Washington County Militia. They agreed that such an ultimatum was a challenge which could not be ignored. At Musgrove’s Mill, the three commanders there, Shelby, Clarke and Williams, had agreed that the way to meet the British force was with massed militia. Shelby and Sevier decided that would be the response to Ferguson. They sent word to militia in Virginia and North Carolina to prepare to move. The initial meeting place was Sycamore Shoals (north of present day Elizabethton, Tennessee).
The militia who assembled at Sycamore Shoals were men who lived on the land as they traveled. They carried dried corn, maple sugar, and little else. They did not need a commissary or a large supply of provisions. They carried their rifles, tomahawks and scalping knives. Their meager food supply could be supplemented with game. They were a self-sufficient unit and were a fearsome group. Proud of the homes they had established in the mountains, they were prepared to protect them. However, they would not fight in their own territory. They would take the war to Ferguson.
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