He gave us every information we wished, and further informed us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio, for the use of the Cumberland settlement.

We are now without bread, and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve life .-- John Donelson: Journal of a Voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good boat Adventure, from Fort Patrick Henry, on Holston River, to the French Salt Springs on Cumberland River.
To the settlements in Tennessee and Kentucky, which they had seized and occupied, the pioneers held on with a tenacious grip which never relaxed.

From these strongholds, won through sullen and desperate strokes, they pushed deeper into the wilderness, once again to meet with undimmed courage the bitter onslaughts of their resentful foes.

The crushing of the Cherokees in 1776 relieved the pressure upon the Tennessee settlers, enabling them to strengthen their hold and prepare effectively for future eventualities; the possession of the gateway to Kentucky kept free the passage for Western settlement; Watauga and its defenders continued to offer a formidable barrier to British invasion of the East from Kentucky and the Northwest during the Revolution; while these Tennessee frontiersmen were destined soon to set forth again to invade a new wilderness and at frightful cost to colonize the Cumberland.
The little chain of stockades along the farflung frontier of Kentucky was tenaciously held by the bravest of the race, grimly resolved that this chain must not break.

The Revolution precipitated against this chain wave after wave of formidable Indian foes from the Northwest under British leadership.