The morning of the 27th found the whole army early on the march to the town of Etchowee, the nearest of the Cherokee settlements, and eighteen miles distant. When within five miles of the town, the army was attacked in a most advantageous position for the Indians. It was a low valley, in which the bushes were so thick that the soldiers could see scarcely three yards before them; and through this valley flowed a muddy river, with steep clay banks. Captain Morrison, in command of a company of rangers, was in the advance. When he entered the ravine, the Indians emerged from their ambush, and, raising the war-whoop, darted from covert to covert, at the same time firing at the whites. Captain Morrison was immediately shot down, and his men closely engaged. The Highlanders and provincials drove the enemy from their lurking-places, and, returning to their yells three huzzas and three waves of their bonnets and hats, they chased them from height and hollow. The army passed the river at the ford; and, protected by it on their right, and by a flanking party on the left, treading a path, at times so narrow as to be obliged to march in Indian file, fired upon from both front and rear, they were not collected at Etchowee until midnight; after a loss of twenty killed and seventy-six wounded. Of these, the Highlanders had one Serjeant, and six privates killed, and Captain Sutherland, Lieutenants Macmaster and Mackinnon, and Assistant-Surgeon Munro, and one Serjeant, one piper, and twenty-four rank and file wounded.