self to Arkansas in 1836, with the Ridge party, and died there in November, 1839.141 Colonel George Colbert, who was hardly less prominent than his brother William, owned and lived at the celebrated ferry on the Tennessee River which still bears his name. He had two wives, both daughters of the bloody Cherokee chief, Doublehead. He possessed a strong mind and a dictatorial spirit. Levi Colbert, on the contrary, is said to have been mild, amiable, liberal, and generous. He lived on Bear Creek, in Colbert County, Alabama, which was so named to perpetuate the memory of himself and his brother George, and was the principal chief of the Nation at the time of their removal to the west. The youngest of the four brothers was Major James Colbert, at one time interpreter for the nation, who also lived in Alabama, some forty miles south of Levi and George.142 They were all constant and active friends of the United States. William Colbert was the friend and follower, as well as the successor, of Piomingo. The following incident will illustrate their relations. In the fall of 1792 Piomingo, with a company of Chickasaws, went to Philadelphia after goods for their tribe, who were to meet him at Mussel Shoals on his return. Being delayed beyond the appointed time, the Chickasaws feared that some accident had happened to him. Their foreboding was strengthened by a report circulated by the Creeks, that the Cherokees had killed him and all his party. This report so exasperated them that William and George Colbert collected a party of Chickasaws on either side of the Tennessee, for the purpose of cutting off six canoes of Cherokees, who were moving down the river, but Levi Colbert and some others prevailed on them to desist until their information could be confirmed. Shortly after these canoes went by another appeared, loaded with corn, and having on board one man, two women, and two children. William Colbert hailed them, and ordered them to come ashore. They disregarded his order and kept on their way, which he construed into a confession of guilt, and gave chase. The canoe paddled to the shore, the man landed and hid himself in the bushes, and the others continued down the river, but were soon overhauled and brought back. William Colbert found the man, tomahawked and scalped him.143 Piomingo was the great war chief of the Chickasaws before William Colbert had won his spurs. He proposed peace to Kentucky and Cumberland in 1782; he fought with the Ameri 141Drake's Indians of North America, pp. 401, 689. 142 Brewer's Alabama, p. 189; Rev. Jacob Young, quoted in McFerrin's History of Methodism in Tennessee, Vol. 2, p. 95. 143 American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. 1, pp. 539-540. cans under St. Clair; Dragging Canoe spent the last effort of his life vainly trying to induce Piomingo to join the confederacy of southern Indians against the United States, while they were engaged in a momentous struggle with the Indians of the Northwest; when the Spaniards of Louisiana made large offers to the Chickasaws if they would forsake the Americans in 1793, Piomingo treated the offer with contempt. He was a true and good man, had great natural ability, and possessed in a high degree the fundamental elements of statesmanship.1** He merits a high place among the great chiefs of his Nation, and deserves to be remembered by the Americans for his unfaltering devotion to their cause, after the treaty of French Lick on the Cumberland, November 12, 1783. 144 John Carr's Narrative, Southwestern Monthly, Vol. 2, p. 198. The Chickamaugas harass Cumberland; surprise the harvesters at Clover Bottom; outlying stations abandoned, and inhabitants concentrated at the Bluff, Freeland's, and Eaton's; large force of Indians invade the settlement; battle of the Bluff. 1780-1781. During the Chickasaw invasion of the Cumberland extending from the summer of 1780 until the beginning of the year 1781, the Chickamaugas were not idle. The destruction of their towns, and the capture of the British goods stored in them, by Colonels Shelby and Montgomery in 1779, made it impracticable for them to join the British forces in the Northwest, had not the capture of Governor Hamilton already rendered abortive his daring scheme against the western frontiers. These events restricted the operation of the Chickamaugas to the nearby settlements on the Holston and Cumberland. Fortunately for the Cumberland, their first organized movement was against the Holston; had it been against them it would have proven disastrous to their infant settlement. As it was, they were greatly harassed and weakened by a constant and destructive guerrilla warfare. Between thirty and forty of their small company were killed by the Indians— Chickamaugas, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Delawares during the year 1780. Before the end of the year every outlying station in the district was abandoned, the Bluff, Eaton's, and Freeland's alone holding out. In the spring John Millikin was killed on Richland Creek, and Joseph Hay in Sulphur Bottom. These were the first men killed on the Cumberland. From that time the settlers were picked off here and there, their horses stolen, and their cattle killed or mutilated, by skulking bands of Indians, who escaped without difficulty through the thick canebrakes and tangled undergrowth that surrounded their small clearings. Larg er parties were less difficult to punish. In the summer Colonel Robertson, with a company of nineteen men, pursued a considerable party of Cherokees who had been depredating in the neighborhood of Freeland's Station, and overtook them on Duck River about forty miles south of the Bluff. Robertson's men charged and fired upon the Indians, several of whom were killed or wounded, and the remainder fled, abandoning their stolen property to the whites, who returned in triumph without the loss of a man. This was the first pursuit made by the settlers. Among the pioneers who settled a plantation and planted a crop in the spring of 1780 was Colonel John Donelson, the distinguished commander of the flotilla that had just successfully completed the extraordinary voyage from Fort Patrick Henry to the French Salt Lick. He selected a splendid tract of land on the west bank of Stone's River, not far from the Hermitage. It contained a broad and beautiful river bottom, to which the rich upland gently descended. Both bottom and upland were covered with cane and timber, except a few open spots in the bottom, which were carpeted with a luxuriant growth of white clover. The place has since been known as Clover Bottom, and was once awarded a premium as the best farm in Tennessee. Here Colonel Donelson erected a halffaced camp for his family and servants, known as Stone's River, or Donelson's Station. Having planted his corn in the bottom on the west side of the river, he planted a small patch of cotton on the east side, where the situation and soil seemed better adapted to its growth. Colonel Donelson knew the Indians had killed a number of settlers lower down the Cumberland; that they had broken up Renfroe's Station; but as they had not yet appeared in his neighborhood he hoped to escape their depredations. Soon after the Renfroe massacre, however, Colonel Henderson's negro, Jim, and a young man who had been left in charge of Henderson's half-faced camp near Clover Bottom, were killed. Being unprepared to defend his position against an attack from the Indians, which now appeared imminent, Donelson abandoned his station and retired with his family to Mansker's Station. His crop, in the meantime, came to maturity without serious injury, either from the floods, the Indians, or the wild beasts. In November, 1780, he prepared to gather his crop. It was recognized as a dangerous enterprise, on account of the increasing number of Indian depredations committed in the settlement. In addition to his own force, therefore, he engaged a company from the Bluff to assist him, on shares. They were to take their boat at the Bluff and ascend the Cumberland to the mouth of Stone's River, where they would meet the Donelson party, who were to drop down the Cumberland from the mouth of Mansker's Creek. Colonel Donelson's boat was in charge of his son, Captain John Donelson, and contained a horse, intended for use in hauling corn to the boat, and also in towing the boat up the river when loaded. The boat from the Bluff was commanded by Captain Abel Gower, who was a leader in the famous voyage to the Cumberland, and father of the heroic girl, Nancy Gower, who was wounded by the Indians at Lookout Mountain. His crew consisted of seven or eight men, black and white. The two parties, having reached —3— Clover Bottom, as agreed, they fastened their boats to the bank near the present turnpike bridge and commenced pulling corn, which they conveyed to the boats in bags and baskets, and also on a one-horse "slide," which was the only carriage then known on the Cumberland. They were thus engaged for several days, and it was observed that on each night, and especially on the last night, their dogs kept up a furious barking, which suggested Indians to them, but they tried to explain the excitement of the dogs on other grounds, and manifested their anxiety only by hastening the completion of their work. Early on the last morning Captain Donelson pushed his boat across to the east side of the river, and commenced gathering cotton. This, he thought, would cause but a short delay, and he expected the other boat to join in the picking and share the cotton with him also. But when Captain Gower's party had finished their breakfast they launched their boat out into the stream and began its descent. Donelson hailed them from the bank and desired them to come over and help him. Gower replied that it was getting late, and as he wished to reach the Bluff before night they would have to move on. Donelson remonstrated, but determined to finish gathering his cotton before he returned. While they were yet parleying Captain Gower's boat reached the narrow channel between a small island and the west bank. In the meantime a large party of Chickamaugas had concealed themselves on the west bank opposite this island, and as Captain Gower's boat passed them, they poured a destructive fire down upon him. Four or five of his party were killed at the first fire; the others jumped overboard into the shallow water. A white man and a negro escaped into the woods, and ultimately found their way back to the Bluff. Jack Civil, a free negro, being slightly wounded, surrendered and was carried to the Chickamauga towns, where he was so well satisfied that he remained with them and adopted their life. Among the killed were Captain Abel Gower and his son, Abel Gower, Jr., and James Randolph Robertson, the eldest son of Colonel James Robertson, a youth of much promise. Their boat drifted safely down the river, and was recovered with the dead still on board, and undisturbed except by the hungry dogs that had escaped the Indian fusillade. Captain Donelson witnessed the attack from the opposite shore, ran down to his boat and secured his rifle, fired across the river at the Indians, then hastened to join his own party. They had fled into the cane when the firing and yelling of the Indians began, and were collected together with some difficulty. It being necessary for the party to separate to pre |