The siege of Fort Loudoun was an engagement during the Anglo-Cherokee War fought from February 1760 to August 1760 between the warriors of the Cherokee led by Ostenaco and the garrison of Fort Loudoun (in what is now Tennessee) composed of British and colonial soldiers commanded by Captain Paul Demeré.
During the French and Indian War the Cherokee were sought after as allies by the British and Provincial Colonial Governments to help contest the frontiers against the French and their Indian allies. An alliance was formed and both sides initially fulfilled each other's expectations. The Cherokee provided warriors and in return the British and Provincials provided supplies and protection of the warriors homelands. However, the alliance unravelled and soon incidents by both sides provoked the Anglo-Cherokee War in 1758.
Background
The British had reports that indicated the French were planning to build forts in Cherokee territory (as they had already done with Ft. Charleville at Great Salt Lick on the Cumberland River); Ft. Toulouse, near present-day Montgomery, Alabama; Ft. Rosalie at Natchez, Mississippi; Ft. St. Pierre at modern day Yazoo, Mississippi; and Ft. Tombeckbe on the Tombigbee River). With the Cherokee now their allies, the British hastened to build forts of their own in the Cherokee lands, completing Fort Prince George near Keowee in South Carolina among the Cherokee Lower Towns; and Fort Loudoun in the Overhill towns. Once the forts were built, the Cherokee raised 400 warriors to fight in western Virginia Colony under Ostenaco. Oconostota and Attakullakulla led another large group to attack Fort Toulouse.
Fort Loudoun was built as an outpost of the British and their colony of South Carolina during the French and Indian War as part of an alliance treaty with the Cherokee in return for a field force of Cherokee warriors to help in the campaign against the French at Fort Duquesne. The Virginians in particular were desperate for Cherokee assistance against the French and their Shawnee Indian allies. The fort was to be both a trading post supplying manufactured goods, guns and powder to the Cherokee as well as providing additional defense of the Cherokee Middle Towns as well as a refuge for Cherokee women and children while their warriors were away on campaign.
Building of the fort began by 120 troops of Sergeant William Gibbs' South Carolina Provincial Militia accompanied by 80 British regulars and was continued by Captain Postell's Company of construction into 1757. It was named after General John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, the British Commander in Chief in North America. It was sited on the south side of the Little Tennessee River on high ground about five miles below the Cherokee capitol town of Chota. The elongated diamond-shaped fort was designed by a German engineer, William Gerald de Brahm, who departed before completion on Christmas Day 1756. The earthen walls topped with wooden palisades 15 feet high and 100 feet long on each side and the 4 corners were 2 large and 2 small bastions each mounting 3 small cannon or swivel guns. The moat was some 50 feet wide and there was a ravelin covering the front gate. When completed, operational and garrisoned by 90 regulars and 120 provincial troops in the summer of 1757 the troops families moved to the fort and a small community was started.
The fort remained dependent on white settlements nearly 200 miles east over the Appalachian Mountains for much of their supplies. Fort Loudoun's first commander was Captain Raymond Demeré who was friendly with the Cherokee, he was replaced by his brother, Paul Demeré whose overbearing nature exacerbated bad relations with the Cherokee. In 1759 Captain John Stuart and a reinforcement of 60 or 70 artillerymen of the South Carolina Provincial Regiment, known as the 'Buffs' after their facing colors, arrived bringing supplies of meat, flour, salt, ammunition and clothing.