Leaving the prisoners in the hands of the lowland militia, the mountaineers returned to their secure fastnesses in the high hill-valleys of the Holston, the Watauga, and the Nollchucky. They had marched well and fought valiantly, and they had gained a great victory; all the little stockaded forts, all the rough log-cabins on the scattered clearings, were jubilant over the triumph. From that moment their three leaders were men of renown. The legislatures of their respective states thanked them publicly and voted them swords for their services. Campbell, next year, went down to join Greene's army, did gallant work at Guilford Courthouse, and then died of camp-fever. Sevier and Shelby had long lives before them. [Footnote: Thirty years after the battle, when Campbell had long been dead, Shelby and Sevier started a most unfortunate controversy as to his conduct in the battle. They insisted that he had flinched, and that victory was mainly due to them. Doubtless they firmly believed what they said; for as already stated, the jealousies and rivalries among the backwoods leaders were very strong; but the burden of proof, after thirty years' silence, rested on them, and they failed to make their statements good--nor was their act a very gracious one. Shelby bore the chief part in the quarrel, Campbell's surviving relatives, of course, defending the dead chieftain. I have carefully examined all the papers in the case, in the Tenn. Historical Society, the Shelby, MSS., and the Campbell MSS., besides the files of the _Richmond Enquirer_, etc.; and it is evident that the accusation was wholly groundless.
1st, on their memory, thirty years after the event, of some remarks of Campbell to them in private after the close of the battle, which they construed as acknowledgments of bad conduct. Against these memories of old men it is safe to set Shelby's explicit testimony, in a letter written six days after the battle (see _Virginia Argus_, Oct. 26, 1810), to the good-conduct of the "gallant commander" (Campbell).
2d, on the fact that Campbell was seen on a black horse in the rear during the fighting; but a number of men of his regiment swore that he had given his black horse to a servant who sat in the rear, while he himself rode a bay horse in the battle. See their affidavits in the _Enquirer_.