canoes down the Holston and Tennessee rivers. Captain John Donelson was in command, a man of rare courage and judgment. His handsome young daughter, Rachel, one of the voyagers, afterwards became mistress of the White House as the wife of President Jackson.
They left Fort Patrick Henry on the Holston River, December 27, 1779. The distance by water around the long, winding circuit of the Holston, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Cumberland up to the Cumberland Bluffs was more than a thousand miles. Captain Donelson's interesting journal, kept during the four-months' journey and still preserved among the treasures of the Tennessee Historical Society, recounts in plain and modest words a story of heroism, of thrilling adventures, of singular pathos, scarcely equaled in the annals of our American frontier. It was a midwinter journey. The voyagers were attacked by the savage Chickamauga Indians. Their frail boats were swept through unknown rapids and floods. They had to force their way up the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. Many of the party perished, some were shot down by the Indians, others were wounded and ill; but
