Rutherford's Campaign

Rutherford's Campaign
Part of the Cherokee–American wars and the American Revolutionary War
Date September 1–early October 1776 Location Cherokee Middle Towns and Valley Towns, present-day western North Carolina Result American victory; 36 Cherokee towns destroyed
Belligerents
North Carolina militia South Carolina militia	Cherokee
Commanders and leaders
Griffith Rutherford Andrew Williamson
Strength
~2,400–2,500 North Carolina[a] ~1,100–1,800 South Carolina[b]
Casualties and losses
Minimal	12 killed 9 captured

Rutherford's Campaign (also known as the Rutherford Expedition) was a militia expedition conducted in September–October 1776 against the Cherokee Middle Towns and Valley Towns in present-day western North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War. Under Brigadier General Griffith Rutherford, about 2,400 North Carolina militiamen burned 36 Cherokee towns, destroyed crops and food stores, and took an unknown number of captives.^[1]

The North Carolina campaign was one of four coordinated campaigns against the Cherokee Nation. While Rutherford's forces destroyed the Middle and Valley Towns in present-day western North Carolina, Virginia forces under Colonel William Christian destroyed the Overhill Towns to the north and South Carolina forces under Colonel Andrew Williamson attacked the Lower Towns to the south.^[1] Together, the campaigns devastated the Cherokee Nation, reduced survivors to subsisting on wild game through the winter of 1776–77, and pressured Cherokee leaders to sign treaties ceding large amounts of land in 1777.^[2]

By the 1770s, the Cherokee population had been reduced by disease, warfare, and land cessions to about 7,000 from an estimated 36,000 in the early 18th century. European settlers, most of them recent immigrants or first-generation colonists, were encroaching on lands that had been previously reserved as Cherokee by earlier treaty. The Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in 1775 opened most of present-day Kentucky to white settlement, further escalating pressure for additional Cherokee land cessions.^[3]

At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Cherokee leaders were faced with a strategic choice. The British, with whom the Cherokee had long been trading partners, promised to keep their land safe from settler encroachment in exchange for military alliance. Younger Cherokee warriors under Dragging Canoe viewed the Revolution as an opportunity to reclaim their ancestral lands. In May 1776, Cherokee leaders sent an ultimatum to the settlers demanding that they vacate the western settlements within twenty days. When the deadline passed with no response, Cherokee warriors struck frontier settlements across the region in June and July 1776.^[4]

British agents John Stuart and Alexander Cameron tried to convince the Cherokee to hold off for further military support that could be coordinated with the arrival of regular British forces, but without success.^[1]

In response to the Cherokee attacks, colonial leaders in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia discussed plans for a counter-offensive. On June 5, 1776, Brigadier General Griffith Rutherford, the commander of the Salisbury District militia, wrote a letter to the North Carolina Council of Safety requesting permission to strike deeply into Cherokee country and at the same time suggesting that South Carolina and Virginia take part in the attack.^[1]

At the same time, General Charles Lee, the commander of the Continental troops in the South, and John Rutledge, the president of the South Carolina Council of Safety, were both independently urging North Carolina and Virginia to participate in such a campaign.^[1]

Rutherford's force assembled at Davidson's Fort (now Old Fort) at the head of the Catawba River. His command included militia from Rowan, Guilford, and Surry Counties. He led a force of approximately 2,400–2,500 men with forty days' supplies in the field.^[4] He left about 400 men to garrison forts in Tryon, Rowan, and Surry Counties.^[1]

Rutherford's army marched west from Davidson's Fort on September 1, 1776, through the Swannanoa Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains.^[1] The army proceeded along the Swannanoa River, crossed the French Broad River at Warrior Ford, then followed Hominy Creek westward, crossed the Pigeon River, and passed through Richland Creek near present-day Waynesville, North Carolina.^[5]

The expedition had encountered no Cherokee until it reached Scott's Creek on September 6. That day, the Reverend James Hall, chaplain of the expedition, shot and killed a man enslaved by the trader John Scott after a dispute, having mistaken the man for a Cherokee.^[1]

Near Cowee Gap, Rutherford's force was involved in a small engagement with a band of Cherokee, in which one militiaman was wounded.^[1] The militia found the settlements of the Cherokee almost completely abandoned, as the inhabitants had received advance warning of the expedition.^[4]

Rutherford's policy was to leave no vestige of Cherokee civilization in his path, a scorched-earth campaign meant to end Cherokee power before they could act in concert with British regulars. The militia burned every building in the towns they reached, destroyed crops and food stores, killed livestock, and took a number of Cherokee captives.^[3]

The destruction of Cowee ended the commercial and political center of the Middle Towns.^[3] Other towns destroyed in the campaign included Nikwasi, Oconaluftee, and Watauga.^[1][5]

Rutherford was scheduled to link up with Colonel Andrew Williamson and his South Carolina militiamen at the Middle Towns in mid-September. On September 19, Williamson's force was ambushed by Cherokee warriors at Wayah Gap; American casualties ran to between 12 and 17 killed and 20 to 31 wounded, with 14 Cherokee warriors killed in the fighting.^[6] Williamson did not reach Rutherford until September 26, when the two forces met at the Hiwassee River.^[1]

The two armies divided the following day to continue the destruction of Cherokee settlements. The combined Carolina forces of Rutherford and Williamson went on to destroy 36 Cherokee villages, leaving no houses, crops, or livestock.^[3]

After completing the destruction of the Middle Towns, Rutherford called for 1,000 volunteers among the most able-bodied of his men for an advance to the Valley Towns, about sixty miles further west. He left a garrison with the baggage and provisions at the Middle Towns and led the volunteer force onward.^[1] The militia found most of the settlements in the Valley Towns to be abandoned, and the few Cherokee who were encountered were taken prisoner.^{[1][better source needed]}

Rutherford completed his campaign in early October 1776 and turned back eastward.^[4]

The Rutherford and Williamson expeditions took twelve Cherokee killed and nine Cherokee taken prisoner, and found seven white men and four enslaved people held captive in the Cherokee towns and liberated them. The militia also seized horses, livestock, and a large amount of plunder which included an estimated £2,500 worth of deerskins, gunpowder, and lead.^[1]

The campaign against the Middle Towns and Valley Towns killed relatively few Cherokee people, but devastated the Cherokee Nation. Survivors faced starvation as winter approached, forced to subsist on wild game, nuts, and fruits with their crops and food stores destroyed.^[4] Many refugees from the Middle Towns fled to the Overhill Towns in present-day Tennessee, which were soon overburdened with refugees. Many more Cherokee fled to the Creek Nation, and as many as 500 may have traveled as far away as Florida.^[1]

In mid-October 1776, Virginia forces under Colonel William Christian brought the war to the Overhill settlements that had previously escaped Rutherford's campaign. The Virginians burned five towns and then negotiated a peace before returning home.^[1]

Starved and reduced to desperate circumstances, Cherokee representatives signed the Treaty of DeWitt's Corner with South Carolina in May 1777, and the Treaty of Long Island of the Holston with Virginia and North Carolina in July 1777. The treaties ceded large amounts of Cherokee territory and in effect ended large-scale Cherokee resistance east of the mountains.^[1]

Dragging Canoe and his followers refused to be bound by the treaties. He and his followers withdrew to the Chickamauga towns at Chickamauga Creek and continued resistance against American settlers until 1794.^[3]

The defeat of the Cherokee in 1776 sharply reduced the threat of Native American retaliation against settlement on the North Carolina frontier and in the other southern states. Historian William S. Powell has argued that "had the Cherokee been able to mount a serious attack on the frontier country in 1780 and 1781, the outcome of the British Southern Campaign and the American Revolution itself might have been different."^[2]

The trail Rutherford's army cut through the mountains, later known as Rutherford's Trace, became the primary route into western North Carolina for later settlers. Multiple North Carolina historical markers commemorate portions of the Trace in Buncombe, Jackson, and other western counties.^[4]

Later that month, Rutherford authorized the Rutherford Light Horse expedition, a cavalry force under the command of Captain William Moore, to carry out further punitive expeditions against the Middle Towns.^[1]

• Cherokee–American wars
• Griffith Rutherford
• Andrew Williamson
• Chickamauga Cherokee
• Dragging Canoe

• "Rutherford's Campaign". NCpedia. State Library of North Carolina. 2006. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
• "The Rutherford Expedition". NCpedia ANCHOR. North Carolina Office of Archives and History. 2009. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
• "Rutherford Trace (Q-43)". NC Highway Historical Marker Program. North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. 2024. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
• Powell, William S. (2006). "Rutherford's Campaign". Encyclopedia of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3071-0. OCLC 65105244.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Moore, Mark A. (2006). "Rutherford Trace: Local historians examine the legacy of a shock-and-awe Revolutionary War campaign against the Cherokee". Smoky Mountain News. Retrieved February 23, 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Lewis, J.D. (2024). "The American Revolution in North Carolina – Cherokee Expedition 1776". Carolana. Retrieved February 23, 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

• Dickens, Roy S. Jr. (1967). "The Route of the Expedition against the North Carolina Cherokees". Southern Indian Studies. 19: 3–24. ISSN 0038-4127. OCLC 1765809.
• Mooney, James (1900). Myths of the Cherokee. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. LCCN 02014165. OCLC 697177573. Incorporates "History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas".
• O'Donnell, James H. III (1973). Southern Indians in the American Revolution. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-87049-131-3. LCCN 72091963. OCLC 589156.
• Hamer, Philip M. (January 1931). "The Wataugans and the Cherokee Indians in 1776". East Tennessee Historical Society Publications (3): 108–126. OCLC 1567341.