North Carolina, and Anthony Bledsoe was appointed Colonel, and Isaac Shelby Lieutenant-Colonel of its military forces. Colonel Isaac Shelby, of whom we have spoken heretofore as the surveyor employed by the Henderson-Hart Company, and who was betrothed to Miss Susan Hart, a celebrated belle of Kentucky, was the Lieutenant-Colonel chosen to aid Bledsoe in these military operations. Colonel Ferguson of the British army was at that time giving the settlement great trouble, sweeping the country near the frontier, gathering in all the loyalists under his standard. When the troops went out against the British under Colonel Ferguson, it was necessary that one of the colonial officers remain behind to protect the inhabitants against the Indians, and as Shelby had no family, he was chosen to lead the forces, and Bledsoe to remain and protect the people against the Indians. Shelby took command of the gallant mountaineers, and gave battle at King's Mountain, on the 7th of October, 1780, considered one of the greatest victories of the frontier army. Colonel Bledsoe, with his brother and kinsman, was almost incessantly engaged with the Indians in his laborious efforts to subdue the forests and convert the wilds into fields of plenty. Mary Bledsoe, the Colonel's wife, was a remarkable woman, filled with knowledge and noted for independence of thought and action, of remarkable courage and never hesitating to expose herself to the greatest dangers. At the close of 1779, Colonel Bledsoe and his brothers crossed the Cumberland mountains and were so delighted with the beautiful country and the delightful climate that, on their return, they induced their friends and neighbors, of east Tennessee, to seek new homes in the Cumberland Valley. Although Colonel Bledsoe did not remove his own family there for three years, he was the originator of the first expedition which established the first colony in that part of the country. The labors of Colonel Bledsoe and his brother were indefatigable in protecting this little
