With his wounds still festering and realizing that he was the only one who knew the best routes to the Watauga Valley, Clarke decided to continue with his group. They were no longer threatened by British troops, so he decided to dispatch Captain William Candler and thirty men, all on horseback, to join the Over Mountain men. Lieutenant Ethan Pratt immediately volunteered to be included in the group. He had performed well during the brief siege of Augusta and was ready for his first taste of actual combat against British regulars since the rout at Savannah, and it would be a relief to be out from under Clarke’s direct command. Having spent several hours with the Georgians, Captain Hampton was eager to proceed without delay, so Ethan asked one of the remaining militiamen to inform Epsey that he was leaving.

After having traveled eleven days and two hundred miles, Clarke led the women and children across the mountain range through Sam’s Gap and they finally saw the peaceful and fertile valley. Epsey and some of the other women insisted on pausing for a prayer of thanksgiving before they proceeded on to the banks of the Nolichucky River and were taken in by the host families. Shacks and tents were erected quickly for those who could not find shelter in existing homes. They were to remain there until peace returned to their north Georgia homeland. The escorting men planned to stay for two weeks to help with the housing arrangements, and then to join the Over Mountain militia in their western Carolina forays.

•  •  •

Colonels Brown and Grierson, who had been at least slightly restrained in their previous behavior, were now free to carry out their total domination of north Georgia. The only exception was the Quakers residing in the town of Wrightsborough, still protected by direct orders from the governor. As Indian superintendent and undisputed military commander of the region, Brown ordered the countryside to be ravaged, burning all the still unharvested fields on more than a hundred plantations owned by the men who were believed to have attacked Augusta. The buildings, land, harvested crops, and livestock were officially confiscated and given to his Rangers, stretching a somewhat equivocal order that had been issued by Cornwallis concerning a few special landholdings in the immediate vicinity of Charles Town. Rangers executed three militiamen who were captured, and the Indians were free to scalp and desecrate their bodies without restraint.

Now with strong support from all British officials in the southeast, Brown received another adequate storehouse of gifts for the Indians, who streamed into Augusta, and he gave supplies to his own supporters to rebuild and furnish their newly acquired property. He had undisputed control over the expanding force of Rangers and Indians, and relished his vast communications system, which was still expanding in geographical range and effectiveness.

CHAPTER 47

The Over Mountain Men

SEPTEMBER 1780