THE REAR-GUARD OF THE REVOLUTION

Orig. pub. New York 1886. Reprinted 1974 from 1903 ed.. Print on Demand Edition 2015. (iv), xviii, 324 pp., map, index

In his trilogy about the men who settled the Old Southwest, the author develops the thesis that these men, under the leadership of John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, and James Robertson, not only planted a civilization beyond the Alleghenies but exerted an important influence in shaping the ultimate destinies of this country. Two of these men, Sevier and Shelby, during the Revolution helped thwart the British plan to envelop and crush the Southern Colonies and then helped turn the tide of the Revolution at the Battle of King's Mountain. Acting together after the Revolution, the three men frustrated Spain's design to weaken the Union by creating a separate republic in the country between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River. Had that plan been successful, it would have kept the vast region beyond the Mississippi a Spanish province.

This first volume of the trilogy, The Rear-Guard of the Revolution, covers the years from Daniel Boone's first excursion in 1760 to the close of the Revolution. It includes a description of the country west of the Alleghenies; an account of the Indians; the Watauga settlement; temporary peace and prosperity; Boone's purchase of Kentucky for the Transylvania Company; the outbreak of the Revolution; the Indian Wars; life of the Watauga colony in Tennessee; participation in the Battle of King's Mountain; the defeat of the Indians; and the final conflicts of the Revolution.