Men, women, and children were killed or captured; outlying cabins were attacked and burned; the husbandman was shot as he worked in the field, and the housewife as she went for water.

The victim was now a militiaman on his way to join his company, now one of a party of immigrants, now a settler on his lonely farm, and now a justice of the peace going to Court, or a Baptist preacher striving to reach the Cumberland country that he might preach the word of God to the people who had among them no religious instructor.

The express messengers and post riders, who went through the wilderness from one commander to the other, always rode at hazard of their lives.

In one of Blount's letters to Robertson he remarks: "Your letter of the 6th of February sent express by James Russell was handed to me, much stained with his blood, by Mr.Shannon, who accompanied him." Russell had been wounded in an ambuscade, and his fifty dollars were dearly earned.

[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, March 8, 1794.