"About this time Joe Horn and Dave Calhoun went to their clearings to plant corn, very imprudently taking their wives and children with them, who camped in the field. Being both off hunting one day, the prowling savages made a clean sweep of these two families. The poor, heart-stricken husbands, almost crazy, returned to the fort, and the whole night was passed by all of us in lamentations and vows of vengeance. "For several months after this, we were not troubled, and my brother and myself were boarded about ten miles off, at Halbert McClure's, to go to school. Returning, one morning, from a visit home, we fell in with old Mr. Bush, of Castlewood Fort, who informed us that he saw Shawnee 'signs' about, and that we must go back to Glade Hollow, and give the alarm. Unfortunately, father had left, the day before, for the salt works, on Holton river, and mother and the children were alone. About nine at night, we saw two Indians approaching. Mother immediately threw a bucket full of water on the fire, to prevent their seeing us, made us lie on the floor, bolted and barred the door, and posted herself there with an ax and a rifle. We never knew why they desisted from an attack, or how father escaped, who rode up three hours afterward. "In two or three days all of us set out for Clinch Mountain, to the wedding of Hoppy Kincaid, a clever young fellow from Holston, and Sally McClure, a fine, bouncing girl of seventeen, modest and pretty, yet fearless and free. We knew the Shawnees were about—that our fort and household effects must be left unguarded, and might probably be destroyed—that we incurred the risk of a fight, or an ambuscade, capture, or even death, on the road; but in those days, in that wild country, folks did not calculate consequences closely, and the temptation to a frolic, a feast, a wedding, a dance till daylight, and often for several days together, was not to be resisted, and off we went. "In half an hour we fell in with Captain Barnett, and twenty men from Holston, who warned us that Indians were about, and that he was scouting for them. Father, ever eager for a fight, joined this company, and we trudged on to Clinch Mountain. Instead of the bridal party, the well-spread table, the ringing laughter, and the sounding feet of buxom dancers, we found a pile of ashes and six or seven ghastly corpses, tomahawked and scalped! Poor Hardy McClure was dead; several others lay around. One daughter was still breathing, but soon expired. Mrs. McClure, her infant, and three other children, including Sally, the intended bride, had been carried off by the savages. They soon tore the poor infant from its mother's arms, and killed it, that she might travel faster.