MySource:Quolla6/Pendleton, 1920:298-299

From Source:Pendleton, 1920:298-299

The following seems to be based primarily on Source:Thwaites and Kellogg, 1905, and specifically the letter Source:Campbell to Preston, October 1 1774

On Thursday, September 29th, [1774] a very bold attack was made upon three men by the Indians within 300 yards of Moore's Fort on the Clinch, six miles below Castle's Woods. The attack was made between sunset and dark, and the Indians fired at the men from ambush, instantly killing a man named John Duncan. Though a party of men rushed from the fort and ran to the spot as soon as the guns were fired, the Indians succeeded in scalping Duncan and made their escape. Night came on and prevented any pursuit until the following morning, when it was too late to overhaul the savages. Daniel Boone was then in charge of the fort at Moore's and was supervising all the forts on the Clinch below Elk Garden. Although he was one of the most accomplished of the woodsmen and Indian fighters on the border, he was supported by such small and indifferent squads of men stationed at the several forts that he was unable to cope successfully with the wiley red men, who in most instances were being directed by the daring and intelligent John Logan. oone sent an express messenger to Major Campbell on the 30th of September, to inform him of the killing of Duncan, and also told him that the Indians were still lurking about Fort Blackmore, where the two negroes had recently been captured and "coursed" in front of the fort; and that Captain Looney, who was in charge of the fort, had only eleven men and could not venture to attack or pursue the enemy. The situation at Russell's fort, at Castle's Woods, was also so serious that the people there were crying for help. Captain Dan Smith, on the 4th, of September, wrote to Colonel William Preston, saying: "The late Invasions of the Indians hath so much alarm'd the Inhabitants of this River that without more men come to their assistance from other parts, some of the most timorous among us will remove to a place of Safety, and when once the example is set I fear it will be followed by many. By what I can learn the terror is as great on Holston, so that we've no room to hope for assistance from that quarter. * * * * I am just going to the assistance of the Castle's Woods men with what force could be spared from this upper district." At the foot of the letter, Captain Smith made a list of the men he was taking with him to assist the alarmed garrison at Castle's Woods. They were: Vincent Hobbs Wm. McaDoo Thos. Shannon John Mares (Marrs) Robert Brown Joseph Mares (Marrs) Saul Cecil David Pattorn (Patton) John .Smith Isracl Harmon Wm. Baylstone Thos. Maxwell Holton Money (Mooney) Joseph Turner Samll. Money (Mooney) Wm. Magee From an inspection of the above list it seems that the inhabitants of the headwaters of the Clinch and Bluestone were taking pretty good care of themselves, and were willing and able to help protect their more "timorous" neighbors lower down on the Clinch. Nearly every man on this roll was from the Upper Clinch section, now in Tazewell County, and a number of the names are still represented in the county—among them Marrs, Brown, Cecil, Patton, Maxwell, Shannon and Harman. Three months previous to using the Tazewell men for relief of the garrison at Castle's Woods, Captain Smith had written Colonel Preston, preferring charges against Thomas Maxwell and Isracl Harmon for neglect of duty as scouts at the head of Sandy Creek. He accused them of cowardice, because they were removing their families from the head of the north fork of Clinch and Bluestone and taking them to places of safety; and Smith was asking that Thomas Maxwell be court-martialed. Captain Smith, evidently, had found that he had made a grievous mistake as to the courage of Maxwell and Harmon; and was trying to make amends for the wrong he had done them, by selecting them to become protectors of the "timorous" inhabitants living in his own section of the Clinch Valley.