To the shrewd diplomacy of Joseph Martin, who held the Cherokees in check during the period of the King's Mountain campaign, the settlers in the valleys of the Watauga and the Holston owed their temporary immunity from Indian attack. But no sooner did Sevier and his over-mountain men return from the battle-field of King's Mountain than they were called upon to join in an expedition against the Cherokees, who had again gone on the war-path at the instigation of the British. After Sevier with his command had defeated a small party of Indians at Boyd's Creek in December, the entire force of seven hundred riflemen, under the command of Colonel Arthur Campbell, with Major Joseph Martin as subordinate, penetrated to the heart of the Indian country, burned Echota, Chilhowee, Settiquo, Hiawassee, and seven other principal villages, and destroyed an immense amount of property and supplies. In March, suspecting that the arch-conspirators against the white settlers were the Cherokees at the head waters of the Little Tennessee, Sevier led one hundred and fifty horsemen through the devious mountain defiles and struck the Indians a swift and unexpected blow at Tuckasegee, near the present Webster, North Carolina. In this extraordinarily daring raid, one of his most brilliant feats of arms, Sevier lost only one man killed and one wounded; while upon the enemy he inflicted the loss of thirty killed, took many more prisoners, burned six Indian towns, and captured many horses and supplies. Once his deadly work was done, Sevier with his bold cavaliers silently plunged again into the forest whence he had so suddenly emerged, and returned in triumph to the settlements. Disheartened though the Indians were to see the smoke of their burning towns, they sullenly remained averse to peace; and they did not keep the treaty made at Long Island in July, 1781. The Indians suffered from very real grievances at the hands of the lawless white settlers who persisted in encroaching upon the Indian lands. When the Indian ravages were resumed, Sevier and Anderson, the latter from Sullivan County, led a punitive expedition of two hundred riflemen against the Creeks and the Chickamaugas; and employing the customary tactics of laying waste the Indian towns, administered stern and salutary chastisement to the copper-colored marauders.