The northern column was composed of backwoodsmen from Virginia and North Carolina, under Colonel William Byrd, an experienced campaigner. Byrd was much hampered for both men and supplies, and accomplished little. He appears to have largely spent his time in making roads and building blockhouses--laborious methods ill-fitted for Indian warfare, and loudly criticized by Waddell, who joined him with a regiment of five hundred North Carolinians, among whom was Daniel Boone, now returned to the Yadkin. Waddell and Boone had experienced the folly of this sort of thing in Braddock's ill-fated campaign. As a result of dissatisfaction, Byrd resigned, and Colonel Stephen succeeded him. The force, now composed of about twelve hundred men, pushed on to the Long Island of Holston River, where they were met by four hundred Cherokees, who, brought to their knees by Grant, likewise sought peace from Stephen. Articles were accordingly signed on the nineteenth of November. The North Carolina men returned home; but a portion of the Virginia regiment remained as a winter garrison for Fort Robinson, as the new fort at Long Island was called. Now that the Yadkin region has, after its sad experience, been blessed with a promise of peace, we may well pause, briefly to consider the ethics of border warfare. This life-history will, to its close, have much to do with Indian forays and white reprisals, and it is well that we should consider them dispassionately. The Cherokees were conducting a warfare in defense of their villages, fields, and hunting-grounds, which were being rapidly destroyed by the inrush of white settlers, who seemed to think that the Indians had no rights worth consideration. Encouraged by the French, who deemed the English intruders on lands which they had first explored, the American aborigines seriously thought that they might stem the tide of English settlement. It was impossible that they should win, for civilization has in such cases ever triumphed over savagery; but that they should make the attempt was to be expected from a high-spirited race trained to war. We can but sympathize with and honor them for making their several stout stands against the European wave which was ultimately to sweep them from their native land.[6] King Philip, Opecancano, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Red Jacket, Sitting Bull, Captain Jack, were types of successive leaders who, at various stages of our growth westward, have stood as bravely as any Spartan hero to contest our all-conquering advance.