It is with real reluctance that I speak thus of Mr.Kirke's books.

He has done good service in popularizing the study of early western history, and especially in calling attention to the wonderful careers of Sevier and Robertson.

Had he laid no claim to historic accuracy I should have been tempted to let his books pass unnoticed; but in the preface to his "John Sevier" he especially asserts that his writings "may be safely accepted as authentic history." On first reading his book I was surprised and pleased at the information it contained; when I came to study the subject I was still more surprised and much less pleased at discovering such wholesale inaccuracy--to be perfectly just I should be obliged to use a stronger term.

Even a popular history ought to pay at least some little regard to truth.] Very few Indians were killed, and apparently none of Sevier's people; a tory, an ex-British sergeant, then living with an Indian squaw, was among the slain.
This foray brought but a short relief to the settlements.

On Christmas day three men were killed on the Clinch; and it was so unusual a season for the war parties to be abroad that the attack caused widespread alarm.