Among the latter were old Squire Boone and his wife, Daniel and Rebecca, with their two sons,[5] and several other families of Bryans and Boones, although some of both names preferred to remain at Fort Dobbs. The fugitives scattered to various parts of Virginia and Maryland--Squire going to Georgetown, now in the District of Columbia, where he lived for three years and then returned to the Yadkin; while Daniel's family went in their two-horse wagon to Culpeper County, in eastern Virginia. The settlers there employed him with his wagon in hauling tobacco to Fredericksburg, the nearest market-town.
The April forays created almost as much consternation at Charleston as on the Yadkin. Governor Lyttleton, of South Carolina, sent out fifteen hundred men to overcome the Cherokees, who now pretended to be grieved at the acts of their young hot-bloods and patched up a peace. Fur-traders, eager to renew their profitable barter, hastened back into the western forests. But very soon their confidence was shattered, for the Indians again dug up the tomahawk. Their war-parties infested every road and trail; most of the traders, with trains of packhorses to carry their goods and furs, fell an easy prey to their forest customers; and Forts Loudon, Dobbs, and Prince George were besieged. By January (1760) the entire southwest border was once more a scene of carnage.
Captain Waddell, our old friend of Braddock's campaign, commanded at Fort Dobbs, with several Bryans and Boones in his little garrison. Here the Cherokees were repulsed with great loss. At Fort Prince George the country round about was sadly harried by the enemy, who finally withdrew. Fort Loudon, however, had one of the saddest experiences in the thrilling annals of the frontier.
In April General Amherst, of the British Army, sent Colonel Montgomery against the Cherokees with a formidable column composed of twelve hundred regular troops--among them six hundred kilted Highlanders--to whom were attached seven hundred Carolina backwoods rangers under Waddell, with some Catawba allies. They laid waste with fire and sword all the Cherokee villages on the Keowee and Tennessee Rivers, including the growing crops and magazines of corn. The soldiers killed seventy Indians, captured forty prisoners, and reduced the greater part of the tribe to the verge of starvation.