Inflamed by hatred and the thirst for vengeance, they would probably have put to death some of their prisoners in any event; but all doubt was at an end when on their return march they were joined by an officer who had escaped from before Augusta, and who brought word that Cruger's victorious loyalists had hung a dozen of the captured patriots.

[Footnote: Shelby MS.] This news settled the doom of some of the tory prisoners.

A week after the battle a number of them were tried, and thirty were condemned to death.

Nine, including the only tory colonel who had survived the battle, were hung; then Sevier and Shelby, men of bold, frank nature, could no longer stand the butchery, and peremptorily interfered, saving the remainder.

[Footnote: _Do._] Of the men who were hung, doubtless some were murderers and marauders, who deserved their fate; others, including the unfortunate colonel, were honorable men, executed only because they had taken arms for the cause they deemed right.
Leaving the prisoners in the hands of the lowland militia, the mountaineers returned to their secure fastnesses in the high hill-valleys of the Holston, the Watauga, and the Nollchucky.