river, is accused of inefficiency; and it turned out that Colonel Read "has no influence but in his own county." By the date of this letter, the writer had changed his mind about the forts. He thought as many as three unnecessary, and the one Hogg was then building, enough. "Dickinson," adds, the Governor, "is now here, and says he was sent for to the general muster when his fort was attacked. I told him he had no call to be there when he otherways was on duty, and he confesses his errors, but says he constantly kept centries and scouting parties from the fort for some months" [or miles] "round, and those that went after the Indians, he says, were militia under different officers, that he could not command them; that he had 120 pounds of powder and 200 pounds of lead when attacked. In short, I am of opinion, if there had been proper conduct they might have destroyed some of the enemy."
Here again we are ignorant of details. Dickinson's fort was on the Cowpasture river, some four miles below Millborough. Withers says [Border Warfare, page 75] the garrison was so careless that several children playing under the walls outside the fort were run down and caught by the Indians, who were not discovered till they arrived at the gate. He states that the circumstance occurred in 1755, but was no doubt mistaken in regard to the date. He, moreover, is silent as to an assault upon the fort; but in addition to the Governor's reference to one, there is a reliable tradition of an assault, during which a young girl aided in moulding bullets for the men. This young girl was the grandmother of Judge William McLaughlin. The incident mentioned of her may, however, have occurred in 1757, when Dickinson's fort was assailed again. Tradition also informs us that at one time, when a party of hostile Indians was believed to be at hand, a married woman, hastening with her family and neighbors to take shelter in Dickinson's fort, was seized with the pains of child-birth on the way, and was detained in the forest till her agony was over.
In September, 1756, the number of Indian allies expected by the Governor had grown to four hundred, and he was correspondingly elated. The Cherokees were highly pleased with their fort, but desired a small garrison of white men to hold it during the absence of their warriors. Captain Overton, with most of the
