note: Sevier, who afterward became governor of
Tennessee; Shelby, who afterward became gov-
ernor of Kentucky; and Campbell, the Virginian,
who died in the Revolutionary War. Sevier had
given a great barbecue, where oxen and deer
were roasted whole, while horse-races were run,
and the backwoodsmen tried their skill as marks-
men and wrestlers. In the midst of the feasting
Shelby appeared, hot with hard riding, to tell of
the approach of Ferguson and the British. Im-
mediately the feasting was stopped, and the
feasters made ready for war. Sevier and Shelby
sent word to Campbell to rouse the men of his
own district and come without delay, and they
sent messengers to and fro in their own neigh-
borhood to summon the settlers from their log
huts on the stump-dotted clearings and the hunters
from their smoky cabins in the deep woods.
The meeting-place was at the Sycamore Shoals. On the appointed day the backwoodsmen gathered sixteen hundred strong, each man carrying a long rifle, and mounted on a tough, shaggy horse. They were a wild and fierce people, accustomed to the chase and to warfare with the Indians. Their hunting-shirts of buckskin or homespun were girded in by bead-worked belts, and the trappings of their horses were stained red and yellow. At the gathering there was black-frocked Presbyterian preacher, and before