Roy Dudley The Appalachian Accord Page 1

Historical Foreword

   This bit of history is a paraphrased rendition of the wilderness areas as described in "Forth to the Wilderness" by Dale Van Every.

   This account of early American History is contained in the first of a six volume series dating from early Colonial times to the early nineteenth century. The series is must reading for any writer of this era of American expansion, even for one writing a humorous novel of the era.

   A peculiar condition of topography and circumstances combined to create a people unique in the annals of the civilized world. These people were the architects of an empire; an empire so vast, that in contrast, some of the ancient empires of Europe paled into insignificance. Such was not their intention at the beginning, nor possibly, would they have been more than passably interested had they understood the consequences of their acts. A more unlikely people could have been chosen to build an empire, nor a people more suited by their peculiar abilities.

   The westward expansion of the Virginia settlers had halted temporarily at the Blue Ridge Mountains. The settlers built to the base of the mountains and were stopped by topography. Always neighbors had been no more than one tract of land behind, and the vanguard of today would find a buffer of neighbors to the west by the morrow. This was no longer possible. The narrow mountain valleys were too isolated, the settlements area limited by terrain. Further settlement must be to the west of the mountains. Of necessity, this would isolate these western settlers from their neighbors to the east, a fact not to be taken lightly in an era of swift and terrible Indian raids where a line of retreat and supply must be kept open at all times.

   To the west of the Blue Ridge Mountains lay the ruggedly parallel ridges of the Appalachian Mountains. Between these two ranges was a fertile valley some two-hundred miles in length, extending roughly from the Potomac River in the north to the Roanoke River in the south. This valley was of varying width, sometimes intruded upon by traverse ridges, but always ruggedly beautiful.

   For some two-hundred years, this valley formed a part of the middle, or neutral ground between warring Indian tribesmen. The Cherokee of the Carolinas used this valley in their long journey north to the Great Lakes area to raid the Iroquois. In turn, the Iroquois used this same path in their wars against the Cherokee. The valley was commonly termed the Cherokee-Iroquois War Road, but was soon renamed as the "The Valley of Virginia" or "The Great Valley" by the settlers.

   Strangely, it was Pennsylvania Germans who first settled in the valley. They entered from the north, passing through Northern Virginia to reach the valley. By 1740, they had settled most of the Shenandoah River Valley. They brought with them a musket peculiar to their people and first manufactured by them. This was commonly termed "The Pennsylvania Rifle" and was of thirty of forty-five caliber, which was small for those times of large caliber smooth bores. It also had other peculiar features. It was rifled, having spiral groves cut inside the barrel to impart a spinning motion to the ball and so stabilize it for greater distance and accuracy. It was longer of barrel with wood from the stock to the end of the barrel. This wood precluded the attachment of a bayonet, a common feature of other muskets. It varied in length to slightly over five feet and weighed from eight to twelve pounds. It was slower in loading and so frowned on by smooth bore enthusiasts whose chief concern was volume of fire. This smooth bore contingent included the majority of the American Colonists.

   The chief advantage of this new weapon was its extreme accuracy in the hands of an expert. The famed Kentucky Rifle of a later era was the Pennsylvania Rifle renamed.

   Scotch-Irish, also from Pennsylvania, leap-frogged the German settlements, spreading down the middle of the valley. They swerved slightly to the east along the James River, then south into North Carolina. Prior to this, settlement had advanced from farm to adjoining farm, but here a distance of twenty to thirty miles in one leap was not unusual. The Scotch-Irish paused to admire the Pennsylvania Rifle, and some to acquire one. The majority of the staid farmers stuck steadfastly to their large bore muskets, although there were those who owned no musket at all and wouldn't have known how to use one.

   The people of the Great Valley were largely isolated from the more prosperous Virginians to the east, thus forcing them to rely on their own initiative and collective action. The Virginia system of designating newly established colonies as counties, with their own government responsible to the governor, taught these people self-Government.

   In addition to this, they were separated from the east by ethnic and religious differences. The Valley population was largely Lutheran or Presbyterian with a few dissidents from Virginia's Anglican Church.

   These settlers were of a vastly different social class from the landed gentry along the coast. A few Virginians trickled west across the Blue Ridge Mountains to add to the population. Some of the better educated of the Virginians emerged as the natural leaders of their communities.

   Before this, all colonists had looked to the east, to the old country and the provincial governor for help, but the Valley was too isolated to expect help from those sources. The colonists began to develop their own brand of rugged independence and self reliance.

   Still, they could not wean themselves entirely from their old habits.

   In times of Indian Wars, they expected the English Army to bear the brunt of the attack as they always had. To the contrary, they stubbornly resisted attempts to place them in a provincial army.

   The French and Indian War gathered on the horizon in 1754, and broke across the Valley in the form of savage raids by the Shawnees.

   The settlers recoiled in panic, waiting for the Army, but stubbornly returned to their burned out cabins. They buried their mutilated dead and resumed farming at each Indian retreat.

   There gradually developed a special breed of man, variously called a frontiersman, a borderer, a hunter, a trapper, and later, a long hunter. Most of these men were second and third generation Americans.

   They learned the forests as only Indians had known them. They were as keen as Indians on a trail, learned to live off the land as Indians lived, and became as ferocious as their red foe. Almost without exception, they turned to the Pennsylvania or long rifle. They became the bulwarks of their communities in Indian attacks, affording early warning of attack, deadly accuracy with their long rifles, and a calm island in the storm.

   These borderers were more hunter than farmer and were a lonely breed of men. They disappeared for weeks at a time, usually alone, on extended hunts and journeys of exploration. They fought the Indian in his home grounds, giving him a grudging respect that was absent from the attitude of the average settler. They knew the country intimately for miles in any direction and were the logical leaders in any migration west.

   The Valley settlers clung grimly to their land. They shot Indians on sight, even their Cherokee Allies who used the Valley in their journey against the common foe. This finally angered the great Cherokee Chieftain, Little Carpenter, who attacked his former allies on the very evening of the English victory against the French. In 1759, the Cherokees hit the settlements and were not defeated until 1761.

   The French and Indian Wars ended officially with the Treaty of Paris in 1763, but Pontiac's War had already broken in the spring of the same year. Again the settlements were hit by Shawnees, Delawares, Mingos, and northern tribes, including the Senecas, but excluding the other five nations of the Iroquois Confederation.

   Hardened by ten years of continuous warfare, isolated and no longer expecting much help from the King's Army, a stirring rippled through the Valley. They groped for an identity as a people apart. The farmers learned from the hunters to fight as Indians fought. The feeling was tentative and little understood at first, but gradually strengthened.

   First, Colonel Bouquet of the English Regulars led a motley army across the Appalachian Mountains to defeat the Senecas and Delawares in the Battle of Bushy Run in August, 1763. He moved north from there to relieve Fort Pitt, which had been invested and surrounded since early spring. This army included a smattering of frontiersmen.

   Again, in 1764, Bouquet led an army of regulars and a force of one thousand frontiersmen over the mountains against the combined forces of the Shawnees, Delawares and Mingos. The frontiersmen provided such an effective screening force that the Indians were never able to come to grips with the main body of regulars. The borderers beat the Indians at their own game. In November, 1764, the Indians surrendered on the Muskingum River when their winter's food supply was threatened, this without putting up an effective resistance.

   Thereafter, the frontiersman come into his own. The Valley furnished more than their share of these people, and at no place was the frontier atmosphere more prevalent. The settlers no longer relied on the Army to furnish their defenses; they were intolerant of provincial governments and the British King alike; they no longer turned their eyes to the east, but looked to the west. They had seen the lands beyond the mountains and were determined to have them.

   In 1763, King George III of England issued a proclamation declaring the ridge of the Appalachians the natural boundary between the American settlers and the Indians. British Troops were ordered to throw trespassers back, bodily if necessary.

   Pontiac's War ended officially in 1765. Already hunters were spreading across the mountains contrary to the article of the proclamation. In 1766, setters pushed across the Appalachian Divide.

   British Troops burned their cabins and removed them bodily. They returned to another creek and built another cabin.

   The borderer no longer resembled his eastern cousins. Ten years of constant warfare had toughened and brutalized him, made him unreasonable and uncontrollable. He viewed the Demarcation Line as a challenge to his ability and manhood. As a group, they were rude, vulgar and remorseless. They shot an Indian on sight and actively sought an Indian War. They were supremely confident, independent and proud. They considered themselves the epitome of manhood, hated any sign of effeminacy, and were intolerant of any control. They were a far cry from the settlers who, at one time, cowered behind the British Army.

   These border settlers were the edge of the blade that blazed settlements west to the wilderness, but the long hunter was the point of the lance that prepared the way. These people were to keep the frontiers in a constant state of Indian warfare for thirty-eight years.

   It was they who took and held the western lands for America during the Revolution. Their presence west of the Alleghenies guaranteed American possession after the war. Without their presence, England might yet rule all the land west of the Appalachian Divide. It was their progeny that swept across the Mississippi River, provided the mountain men for the fur trade, and again inexorably swept westward.

   It is at the time of the first tentative breaches of the Demarcation Line in 1765, that this story takes place.

   The hero is one of the hunters, a peculiar breed at best, but he is also one of even less numerous men, one who besides being a natural woodsman, is also a leader of men. These men were relatively rare, but their influence far outweighed their numbers.


63,880 Words

Copyright ©, Nov., 1997