Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 6).djvu/152

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152
BOONE'S WILDERNESS ROAD

the Virginia border to look well to their homes—never even asking that assistance be sent to the much more feeble and vastly more endangered Watauga settlement on the Kentucky road.

Elsewhere the border warfare was being waged with varying fortune; a small band of Georgian frontiersmen invaded the Cherokee country[1]* in the hope of capturing a notorious British agent, Cameron; it suffered heavily through the faithlessness of the Cherokees. The whole southern frontier was aroused, and plans for dashes into the Cherokee country were made but could not be forwarded simultaneously. Yet Cameron and his Tories and Indians acted in unison and brought sudden desolation into South Carolina. The force of the blow was broken by the brave Colonel Andrew Williamson, who, gathering over a thousand volunteers near the end of July began the first important invasion of the Cherokee country. Near Eseneka, the Cherokee town, the Carolinians found Cameron and won a costly victory. After some internal dissensions the little army

  1. *See Historic Highways of America, vol. ii, note 32.