The siege of Fort Loudon was now pushed by the Cherokees with vigor. It had already withstood several desperate and protracted assaults. But the garrison contrived to exist for several months, almost wholly upon the active sympathy of several Indian women who were married to frontiersmen shut up within the walls. The dusky wives frequently contrived to smuggle food into the fort despite the protests of the Indian leaders. Women, however, despite popular notions to the contrary, have a powerful influence in Indian camps; and they but laughed the chiefs to scorn, saying that they would suffer death rather than refuse assistance to their white husbands.

This relief, however, furnished but a precarious existence. Receiving no help from the settlements, which were cut off from communication with them, and weak from irregular 47 food, the garrison finally surrendered on promise of a safe-conduct to their fellows in the East. Early in the morning of August ninth they marched out—men, women, and children to the number of several hundred—leaving behind them their cannon, ammunition, and spare arms. The next day, upon their sorry march, they were set upon by a bloodthirsty mob of seven hundred Cherokees. Many were killed outright, others surrendered merely to meet torture and death. Finally, after several hours of horror, a friendly chief succeeded, by browbeating his people and by subterfuge, in saving the lives of about two hundred persons, who in due time and after great su