On Sunday night,[62] about the hour of midnight, while the moon was shining brilliantly, the Indian army under Watts and the Shawnee, advancing in silence, surrounded Buchanan's station. In order to effect an entrance into the fort by a _coup de main_, they sent runners to frighten and drive in the horses and cattle. This was done, and the animals came dashing furiously towards the fort; but the garrison, wrapped in slumber, heeded them not. The watchman, John McCrory, at this instant discovering the savages advancing within fifty yards of the gates, fired upon them. In an instant the mingled yells of the savage columns, the crack of their rifles, and the clatter of their hatchets, as they attempted to cut down the gate, told the little squad of nineteen men and seven women that the fearful war-cloud, which had been rising so long, was about to burst upon their devoted heads! [62] In the autumn of 1792, while the war with the Creeks and Cherokees was raging in the Cumberland valley. Aroused suddenly from deep slumber by the terrible war-whoop, every man and woman felt the horror of their situation. The first impulse with some was to surrender, and it is related of one woman that she instantly gathered her five children and attempted to go with them to the gate to yield themselves to the Indians. Mrs. Buchanan seized her by the shoulder, and asked her where she was going. "To surrender myself and children to the Indians--if I don't they'll kill us, any how," exclaimed the terrified woman. "Come back," said Mrs. Buchanan, "and let us all fight and die together." An old man, who waked up as it were in a dream, seemed paralyzed, and exclaimed, in a plaintive voice--"Oh, we shall all be murdered!" "Get up then and go to fighting!" exclaimed Mrs. Buchanan; "I'd be ashamed to sit crouched up there when any one else is fighting. Better die nobly than live shamefully!"