FEBRUARY 10, 1780 — First light. I take my quill in hand on this, my twenty-third birthday, to start a record of the great journey I will soon begin. My fingers stiffen and ache from the cold, and I find it difficult to write while I am huddled beneath a buffalo robe. Surrounding me on the river bank are thirty boats, dugouts and canoes that should have left almost seven weeks ago. On December 22, Colonel John Donelson led sixty families cheering and singing down the South Fork of the Holston River, bound for our new life at the French Lick, yet almost immediately we foundered on shoals. As we tended our boats, a further calamity occurred when the ice set in, trapping us with only three miles traveled. Since then we have been forced to wait, and the good Lord knows I was not made for waiting.

I despair in seeing our canoes as useless as jewels, their gunwales strung with icicle fringes. Our flatboats lie paralyzed in drifts of snow, like so many wounded animals. I will not look at them. I also avoid looking in the distance at Fort Patrick Henry, where neighbors have expected our departure for so long. How can they keep from mocking us? Instead I turn my gaze to the sky where the moon droops a thin smile, and to the horizon where mountains wear a crown of blue haze.

When my brother, Jamie, returned from the Cumberland Country last year, he said the new land we seek has mountains too, but will they look like these old friends I have come to love? When I climb those new mountains, will my heart tremble as it does here surveying the gray-green hills? This waiting gives me too much time to think of what I leave behind.

Maybe if I knew exactly where the river will take us, I would have less apprehension,but our party has only a crude map to show how the rivers feed, one into another. The sketch Jamie drew with the help of a friendly Cherokee is a rough drawing and no one can swear to its accuracy. Perhaps this map is a symbol for our whole expedition, an endeavor we must accept with hope and faith.

Some might think my age of twenty-three is young, but I have been a widow for two years and am the sole provider for three daughters. I was a bride the year I turned thirteen, as if I suspected my married life would be cut short, and I needed to make an early start. Even though David and I were wed for eight years, it was too little time. Maybe I could have borne his loss more easily if he had experienced a hero’s death, losing his life while fighting the dreaded Indian Chief, Dragging Canoe. Then I might have seen a reason for his loss. Instead, he was killed in a senseless fashion, crushed beneath a falling oak. I still struggle to see God’s Will in such a tragedy.

In these odd hours when I look back on my marriage, I believe I knew my husband only when the dark shadows of night settled upon us. Chores of survival consumed our days, with evening bringing our sole intimacies. I have no idea if our marital dance was like that of others, but David and I made a good life. Pretty words never passed between us, but we forged our bonds all the same. After his death I felt as empty as a hollow gourd and neither prayer nor fevered activity could dispel the sensation.

I found a way to carry him with me, at least a part of him: the masculine smell of tobacco, leather and sweat. Underneath my mole-gray woolen cloak, I wear his hunting shirt and leggings like a second skin.

My sister-in-law, Charlotte, thinks I have lost my senses, but these garments keep him near. I labored long in tanning the deer skin for his shirt until its touch became as soft as the skin of our children, and I imagine his britches still hold the shape of his strong legs. These clothes suit me well since I must be both father and mother to our daughters who curl against me now like puppies seeking warmth. I have already killed to save their lives, and by Heaven, I’ll do it again if I must.

Jamie gave me this journal before he and my brothers, Mark and John, left in October for the French Lick with the other men. It was his suggestion that I record the wondrous things we will see and do as we travel to the Cumberland. I believe it is equally useful to record my thoughts, for the mind has its own journeys.

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All morning the wind blew steadily, sending the ice sheathed trees into a frenzy of clattering. As an exercise to warm myself, I imagined the trees ripening into spring: lavender petals exploding on the black branches of the red bud trees, patches of white dogwood, delicate as lace, dotting the thicket. I pictured the fruits of summer: ripe purple plums splitting their skins, soft peaches hiding scarlet hearts. The thought of their taste pooled saliva beneath my tongue, and forced me to swallow hard. Better to think only of meat, potatoes and corn pone. Then I will not be disappointed. Betsy interrupted my thoughts, tugging at my shirt with her thick brown mitten. Her cheeks were burnished crimson from the harsh wind, but she was warm beneath the robe, her knitted cap pulled tightly over her ears.

“Mama,” she said in a loud whisper, drawing the word out slowly from her cupid bow mouth.

“Yes, honey,” I replied, centering my finger on her lips, a gesture to speak softly.

“I know God wants us to share,” she began, her blue eyes opening with such righteousness I could tell she hatched a plot. “So if you’re not playing with your birthday doll, may I?”

I shuddered at the idea of encountering the brutal wind on our way to the boat, just to retrieve a doll and cautioned her to go back to sleep. But she continued, sensing why I was reluctant.“If you give me the key, I can get it all by myself.”

I sighed deeply at the image of Betsy scrambling through the trunks and boxes, creating a veritable avalanche of baggage. It was obvious she could not go alone,and when I considered how small was her request, I relented.

“Well, you’ll have to be very careful with her,” I said, summoning what I hoped was the proper parental tone. “And be very quiet when you get ...”

But she was already out of the covers, moving lithely as a snake, and it was all I could do to catch up with her. The cutting wind made us hunch and duck our heads, so when we reached The Adventure,we headed straight for shelter in the cabin where our goods were stored. Although The Adventure is the largest boat in the flotilla, a good thirty by forty feet, it is barely adequate to accommodate all our luggage, tools and foodstuffs. The cabin was stuffed with a jumble of things: animal traps and fish baskets; kettles and skillets; and an assortment of broad axes, hoes, augers and adzes. Oaken barrels stacked against the wall were filled with meal, corn, salt, flour, bacon and ham. Barrels of cabbages and potatoes nestled beside containers of whiskey. And bags of seed gave promise of crops to come: corn, oats, beans and pumpkins. The sight of such abundance comforted me, that we would not go hungry on our journey to the new land.

I found my walnut trunk with little difficulty for it is as familiar to me as my own hand. David fashioned both the trunk and its iron key which hangs on a thin leather strap around my neck. I opened its solid lid to reveal all the objects of my past. On the very bottom were thick blankets,followed by the quilt my Gower relatives gave me on my wedding day. Next was the red coverlet David and I slept beneath every night of our married lives.On top were my Bible, the pewter plates and cutlery that once belonged to my mother, David’s hunting knife, and a brown straw sewing box with a broken lid. Tucked among these items were dun-colored pouches containing gourd seeds, the maple sugar I saved for the darkest days of the trip, and perhaps the packet I value most: the one with flax seeds that will become material for shirts, sheets, towels and even fine linen. The last item was the little doll whose rough dot eyes gave it a bewildered expression. I handed the doll to Betsy who took it quickly between her mittens.

“You’ll share with the others now,” I reminded her.

She nodded gravely and found a corner of the cabin where she could play with the little doll. Near her was Hagar, the Robertsons’ slave, who had also sought shelter from the wind to protect the sleeping toddler, Charlotte. Hagar’s head was wrapped warmly with a dark red scarf, its fabric decorated with small blue squares. A thick wool cape the color of her skin draped from shoulder to foot. I knew Hagar was as ready as the rest of us to begin our journey, since her husband, Henry, had gone ahead with Jamie and the other men. She slowly rocked the child from side to side,comforting little Charlotte who was often sick during the night.

After I said good morning, Hagar surprised me with an announcement that we would leave this place in two days. I asked her if she had heard the news from Colonel Donelson, but she rested her hand on Charlotte’s forehead, testing for a fever, and replied it had come to her in a dream. The Lord told her He would lead us out of here just as He led the Israelites. Hagar is known to see visions and hear voices inaudible to the rest of us, and I would dismiss her superstitions if they did not so often prove true. So I simply responded that I hoped we wouldn’t have to wander forty years.

“If we behave ourselves,” she said, “it won’t take us nearly so long. But if we don’t . . . well, I guess Captain Robertson will come back to straighten us out.”

“We need more than one Captain Robertson, don’t we Hagar?” I answered, glad to focus on the tangible. “If Jamie were one of a pair of twins like Ephraim and John Peyton, then he could be with us and with the men at the Cumberland too.”

“Just because folks are twins doesn’t mean they’re alike,” she said. “I see a big difference in those Peyton men.Miss Elizabeth picked the wrong one.” Hagar nodded for emphasis.

Admittedly, it took no conjuring to see a difference between John and Ephraim Peyton. It was true that physically they were as alike as two people could be, both fiery-haired, of medium height with slender, wiry bodies. Whereas I have only a few freckles to accompany my red hair, they look as if God fired a shotgun of brown spots to cover their faces as thoroughly as a bad case of hives. Their disparity, however, lies in the expression of their brown eyes .John’s appear clear,as if no secrets reside in his soul, while Ephraim’s eyes have a guarded aspect, an opacity that blocks any revelation of his inner life. I worried that Hagar had some further clue as to Ephraim’s nature, something revealed by her second sight, so asked for any information she might have. But she began chanting to the baby in some unintelligible language, indicating she had revealed all she planned to say. It was with an unsettled heart that I took my leave, gathering Betsy and returning to our campfire where my other two children still slept.

The wind had lifted the blue haze from the mountains,exposing their dark outline etched against the milky sky. I kissed each of my sleeping girls on the forehead,and Betsy joined the wake-up ceremony by crying, “Look what I’ve got,” sweeping the doll tauntingly over their heads. After they were thoroughly awake,I noticed Major Cockrill already working at the fire he shared with Hugh Rogan, so I hurried my daughters to play with Charlotte’s children, and went to join him,thinking it might be a good time to talk about teaching supplies.

Major Cockrill is not what I’d call a handsome man. His features are too irregular for such a description. His nose is a bit prominent on an angular face and thick eyelids shelve his deep brown eyes. But the corners of his mouth turn up in a pleasant way, and years of being a blacksmith have left him with broad shoulders and a deep, thick chest. Under his sweeping cape he wore leggings of beige linsey-woolsey and a loose hunting shirt tied in back with a sash. On his head sat a floppy rust-colored hat. He was pouring melted lead from a heavy iron saucepan into bullet molds when I arrived, and I took a moment to appreciate the extent of his equipment: a small bellows, anvil, tongs, screw plates and files for fixing guns.

“Morning Mrs. Johnson,” he said, attempting to wipe the black iron scale from his hands.

“Morning Major Cockrill.” I answered stiffly. I’m afraid I have little facility for trivial talk, and went right to the subject, saying I needed to ask a favor. He thought I needed my rifle repaired, but I explained that Charlotte wanted me to set up a school, and I came to see if he might construct a slate of some kind. He gazed at the fire in contemplation but said nothing.

“I know you’re busy,” I added, wondering if he thought the request a frivolous one. After all, he had no children of his own, but he surprised me by changing the subject entirely. He said he had seen me once before, three years earlier. At that time, he had come with Colonel Christian to save Fort Caswell from an Indian attack, but when they arrived he heard the story of how I had already saved the fort.

Well, I confess that this turn in the conversation made me uncomfortable. I didn’t think of myself as a heroine. I had only done what was necessary with much help from others, so I returned to the subject of teaching tools. But he added not another word, only continued to stare into the fire.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you, Major,” I finally concluded, exasperated at his lack of response. “I’ll be on my way.”

“I’ll think on the problem, Mrs.Johnson,” he said, kneeling to resume his bullet making.

So much for Charlotte’s suggestion that he would be useful. It appeared he had no understanding that the children’s education was important. I returned to The Adventure,already in a disgruntled mood, only to find Charlotte deep in conversation with Colonel Donelson. I listened with annoyance to the Colonel’s lofty tone of voice and wondered if he thought himself better than the rest of us since he had once served in the House of Burgesses. I tried to imagine him in dignified surroundings with Governor Jefferson, but there was nothing particularly elegant in his fleshy demeanor. He was a man of medium height, with square shoulders and a slightly curving spine. His gray hair was rather sparse and the skin gathered around his eyes like crushed fabric. Those dark eyes might have seen grandeur in the past, but it was well known that he had fallen on hard times of late and was staking his family’s future on land speculation in Kentucky. He was accompanied by his wife, son Severn and daughter Rachel, as well as two married children, John Junior and Mary Caffrey ...enough to make a settlement of his own.

“Ah, Mrs. Johnson,” the Colonel said. “I was just telling Mrs. Robertson that I’ve had good news from Hugh Rogan. He and my man, Somerset, have been scouting the river, and Rogan says the ice is breaking up along the banks for several miles. We’ll be able to set sail in a day or so.”

“Good news indeed!” I put my arm around Charlotte. “I was afraid I’d have to raise my children right here on Reedy Creek.”

Charlotte arched her brows,giving me a look of reproof.

“I hope I can count on you to rally the troops, Mrs.Johnson,” added Donelson, determined to maintain a cheerful manner. “Everyone looks up to you,and there’s much you can accomplish to keep up their spirits.”

“What a nice compliment,”said Charlotte,looking at me as if to say “I told you so.”

But I didn’t believe it was a compliment, only a move worthy of the politician he was, shifting focus of the conversation from his own failure. “We’re hoping Ann will be our school teacher,” added Charlotte, eager to maintain a pleasant conversation.

“Have you spoken with Major Cockrill about the supplies?”

“Charlotte thinks the Major can print readers overnight,” I said. “But all he did when I asked for help was say he’d think about it.”

“Major Cockrill has been quite helpful in repairing our boats, and no doubt he can help us in this matter as well,” said Charlotte. “Wouldn’t you agree,Colonel?”

“I believe, Mrs. Robertson,” said Colonel Donelson, “you are as correct as ever. And if you will excuse me.”At this point the Colonel took his leave, happy to withdraw.

I was sorry to see him depart so abruptly, only because I wanted to add a few more complaints, but I knew my energies would best be spent on analyzing how to teach the children. First I should canvas the group to see what books were available. Almost everyone had a copy of the Bible, but surely other books existed too. Hymn books. Nothing helped to lift the spirits and invigorate the body so much as the healthy singing of a hymn. I began to warm to the idea; Charlotte was right,as usual. Being the school teacher was the perfect activity for me, and I vowed to start that very afternoon.

It was almost three o’clock when the children sat in a half circle around a fire that burned near The Adventure. The black smoke from the flickering flames drifted occasionally into one face and then another. My own children, Polly, Betsy, and Charity, sat beside Charlotte’s little ones: Randolph, Delilah, Peyton and little Charlotte cradled in her mother’s lap. I marched back and forth in front of the children to capture their attention,counting my footsteps loudly, trying to compete with the distant pounding of Major Cockrill’s hammer and the distracting aroma of baking corn bread. A few dogs barked in the distance,but Bruno lay stretched beside the children,as if he too had come to study.

I was ready to start their lesson, when the children began with questions about the day I saved the fort, begging for the story. Although I knew they had heard the tale many times,I thought it might be fitting to repeat it once again before we began a journey that might well bring perils of its own… to reinforce the importance of vigilance where Indians are concerned. And so I began.

To provide a background for that day’s events, I started with the tale of what happened five years ago in March of 1775 at Sycamore Shoals just outside Fort Caswell, when Colonel Richard Henderson bought the very lands we plan to inhabit. At the time, it seemed that nothing could interfere with the treaty’s success because no Indians of any tribe actually lived in that territory, and the Cherokees had indicated they were willing to trade. A rumor spread that the land was not the Cherokees to sell, but no one took it seriously. We eagerly waited for the great party of Cherokee Indians, led by Chief Attakullakulla, to come and exchange their land for the fine goods that Henderson had brought in six enormous wagons across the mountains. And what riches they heaved from those wagons and stored in huts built just for the purpose of displaying them. I thought we needed the guns and ammunition for ourselves, but I forced myself to remember that the knives, axes, hoes and rum were buying us land for the future. Actually buying it outright so we would never again have to worry about giving it back to the Indians. The land would belong to us and our children forever.

The Indians were excited about the treasure too. They started gathering at Fort Caswell two months before the treaty was to be signed, bringing their wives with them. It was the first time I had seen so many Cherokee women, and I watched carefully as they bent their slim and graceful bodies to study the bolts of bright cloth spread upon the ground. Many of them dressed in leather skirts with leather capes about their shoulders, but some dressed just the way we women at Fort Caswell did, except I must admit they were taller and more beautiful than we. As I observed a Cherokee woman string bracelets on her long, slender arm, I’d never seen anyone more elegant,not even on the other side of the mountains.

When it was time to begin the negotiations, our men turned out in their best clothes to impress the Indians during the talks. Jamie wore a dark blue waistcoat that Charlotte had made, and knee breeches with silver buckles. Colonel Henderson, being a judge, wore a tall powdered wig and black leather military boots. But they couldn’t compare to the clothes Lieutenant John Sevier wore, a scarlet jacket and silk stockings, with elaborately chased silver buckles glistening on his shoes.

The Indians were dressed in their finery as well. For the first time I saw old Chief Attakullakulla himself, sitting still as death on a huge pile of thick furs: fox and beaver spread around him. From his ears hung a pyramid of silver spangles dropping almost to his shoulders and feathers crowned his gray head. He carried the signs of his fierce culture in the deep slashes that decorated his cheeks. Jamie had told me the reason the Chief was willing to make a treaty with us was to encourage our move to the West so we would leave his Cherokee Overhill settlement alone. He understood our land hunger and was trying to do the best for his people. So the talks began,with both sides sitting in one circle.

The work of coming to an agreement went on for days, and Chief Attakullakulla was almost ready to sign the treaty when his son,Dragging Canoe, rose to address the entire group. He is tall for an Indian, almost six feet, and his face is fearfully pitted with smallpox scars that must remind him of the pain our diseases have brought to his people. He told everyone at the meeting how the Indian nations “have melted away like balls of snow before the sun,” and he warned that the white man would never be satisfied until we had taken everything. In front of the whole company he pointed to the very land we’ll cross when our boats start again, saying,“A dark cloud hangs over the land known as ‘The Bloody Ground.’”And with that message, Dragging Canoe split with his father forever and is no longer a Cherokee, but has formed his own renegade tribe, the deadly Chickamaugas. He does not accept the terms of our treaty, and the fear of him lies at the center of all our hearts. He left the treaty talks to meet with the British in faraway Florida and brought back sixty horses loaded with guns and ammunition he later used to fight us.

Over a year later when the word came down to Fort Caswell that an attack was imminent, people from nearby Fort Lee joined us, since their fort wasn’t strong enough to stand against the Indians.Two hundred of us jammed together, many of the new arrivals with no beds or any possessions other than what they could bring on the run.

We had to put our cows outside the walls because we were so crowded, but we depended on them for milk. At daybreak on the morning of July 21, several of us women took our milking stools and left the fort early.Jamie and Lieutenant Sevier watched over us that morning as we took a few dogs who were trained to bark at the sight or sound of Indians. The grass was wet and my cow, Miss Priss,kept nuzzling after the fresh blades as I tried to milk her.Even though the air was cool, sweat strung across my upper lip, and when I lifted my sleeve to wipe it off, the first dogs barked. I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t five seconds later that we heard shrill screams as the savages rose up from the forest like bats flying up at twilight. They rushed across the clearing, some shooting arrows and guns, others running wildly with their tomahawks raised, all painted black in the most grotesque fashion. We leapt from our milking stools and ran toward the fort.

Once inside, we slammed and barred the gate, only to hear more cries coming from the distance. Much to our horror, Kate Sherrill was still outside. Lieutenant Sevier and I climbed the ramparts to see Kate coming, just in front of an Indian who held his tomahawk high. With one hand the Lieutenant shot at the Indian and with the other he reached toward her with a shout, ‘Jump Kate!’ The bullets and arrows poured like hail and she knew she had to jump or die, so jump she did, and Sevier pulled her safely over the stockade walls. Her clothes were ripped and her body scraped by the sharp points of the stakes, but she was alive.

All of us were spared for the present, huddled together inside the fort, but the Indians wouldn’t go away.On some days they fired at us repeatedly and on other days there was no shooting, and we thought perhaps they had left. On one of those quiet days when we thought it safe to carry on our chores, the real battle began. Most of the men, including my husband David, had gone to get more ammunition and supplies, leaving only a few to stand guard. Since it was my turn to be in charge of wash duty, I organized the fire builders, and soon we had our kettles boiling for the piles of laundry we’d assembled. Perhaps because I was so busy with my own fire, I didn’t notice what was going on outside the fort walls. Not until I heard someone scream,“Fire! Oh,Lord help us! They’re burning the fort!”

I rushed to the ramparts with one of the men. “Do something!” I cried, but the Indians were so close to the fort it was impossible for him to aim his rifle downward and catch them in its sight. The overhang of the palisades interfered. The Indians who set fire to the walls were joined by others who shot from a distance. All I could think was that I must save my daughters. I cried to the women at the wash pots, “Make a line! We’re going to put out this fire.” They brought me the first pot ,a huge iron vessel I could barely lift by gripping each of the handles with my doubled-over apron. Just as I spilled the first pot over the stockade and heard the fire’s hiss, I felt an arrow enter my arm, a little below the shoulder. I called for another pot and emptied the scalding rain upon the Indians’ backs. Once again I felt the sting of a wound, this time a shot.But I kept to my post until the fire was out ,and the Indians retreated. I later counted many wounds on my body, and regretted not a one. It was an honor to defend my family and my country. When I had finished the story, even though it was not new to the children, they stared at me in awe, their eyes open wide and spiked with fear.

“You weren’t afraid?”Polly finally asked,breaking the gripping silence.

“Of course I was,” I answered. “An Indian attack is something to fear, but I wanted to do my best,and I’m proud as any soldier that I did.” I added an even more important message. “But remember, I couldn’t have done it myself. Every last woman in the fort helped me lift those pots.”

I studied their young faces and prayed that none would ever witness such terrible events. But if they did, I hoped the impulse to fight together would be as instinctual as breath itself.