Siege of Fort Loudoun

Background

The British, worried about French forts being built in Cherokee territory, moved quickly to construct their own strongholds after securing the Cherokee as allies. They built Fort Prince George near Keowee in South Carolina and Fort Loudoun in the Overhill towns. In return, the Cherokee sent 400 warriors under Ostenaco to fight in western Virginia, while Oconostota and Attakullakulla led another force against Fort Toulouse. Fort Loudoun was part of a treaty where the Cherokee provided warriors for a campaign against the French at Fort Duquesne, a deal the Virginians desperately needed to counter the French and their Shawnee allies.

The fort was meant to serve as a trading post offering manufactured goods, guns, and powder to the Cherokee, while also defending the Cherokee Middle Towns and sheltering women and children during campaigns. Construction began with 120 troops from Sergeant William Gibbs' South Carolina Provincial Militia and 80 British regulars, later continued by Captain Postell's Company. Named for General John Campbell, the 4th Earl of Loudoun, it sat on high ground along the south side of the Little Tennessee River, about five miles below the Cherokee capital of Chota.

German engineer William Gerald de Brahm designed the elongated diamond shape, but left before it was finished on Christmas Day 1756. The fort had earthen walls topped with 15-foot-high wooden palisades, each side 100 feet long, with two large and two small bastions at the corners, each mounting three small cannon or swivel guns. A 50-foot-wide moat surrounded it, and a ravelin protected the front gate. By summer 1757, the fort was operational, garrisoned by 90 regulars and 120 provincial troops, and families moved in to start a small community.

Siege

At the start of the siege, Cherokee warriors fired rifles at the fort for a few days but soon stopped to conserve ammunition. They prevented soldiers and settlers from leaving to hunt or gather food, though some soldiers married to Indian women were allowed to come and go because the Cherokee did not wish to start feuds with the women's tribes. These women smuggled in some food, but it was insufficient.

Captain Demeré reported to Governor Lyttleton in January that his supplies could last only four months. The Cherokee cut off all outside aid and communications. After several messengers were killed or captured and white colonists declined to volunteer, Demeré turned to an African-American slave named Abram, promising him freedom if he could carry messages through Indian lines to South Carolina. Abram made the dangerous passage several times and was freed by the South Carolina Commons House in a tax bill in 1761.

Governor Lyttleton appealed to Jeffrey Amherst, who sent Archibald Montgomerie with an army of 1,300 to 1,500 troops, including 400 in four companies of the Royal Scots and a 700-man battalion of Montgomerie's Highlanders, to South Carolina for a second expedition against the Cherokee. Major James Grant served as second in command. The regulars were joined by about 300 mounted Carolina rangers, 100 militia, and 40 to 50 Catawba warriors.

Aftermath

The garrison at Fort Loudoun surrendered after relief efforts failed. Captain Demeré and his men were permitted to keep their personal weapons and just enough gunpowder and shot to reach the colony, on the condition that all other arms and ammunition be handed over to the Cherokee force led by Ostenaco. On August 9, the soldiers marched out of the fort with a Cherokee escort. Once inside, the Cherokee discovered ten bags of gunpowder and ball that had been buried, along with cannons and muskets thrown into the river to prevent capture.

Enraged by this breach of the agreement, some Cherokee held a secret council and decided to pursue the garrison. The next morning, the escort had vanished, and roughly 700 Cherokee attacked the column in the woods. Twenty-two soldiers—including every officer except Captain Stuart—and three civilians were killed, a number roughly matching the Cherokee chiefs killed earlier at Fort Prince George.

Over 120 people were taken prisoner. Demeré was tortured, scalped, forced to dance, and beaten to death for violating the surrender terms. Stuart survived the initial attack because a Cherokee woman, likely his wife Susannah, ran into the gunfire to shield him. Ostenaco planned to force Stuart to teach the Cherokee how to operate the twelve captured cannons against other British forts.

Stuart’s close friend Attakullakulla, known as the Little Carpenter, ransomed him and later helped him escape. Stuart went on to become Royal Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Districts on January 5, 1762, a post he held for eighteen years. News of the fort’s fall caused panic in Charleston.

A six-month truce was arranged, but peace talks failed. The Cherokee endured a harsh winter because the Lower Towns had lost their harvest and lacked ammunition for hunting, and disease also struck. Despite this, Cherokee morale stayed strong. As a goodwill gesture, the Cherokee allowed Fort Prince George to receive limited supplies and did not place it under a tight siege, even though it was nearly as exposed as Fort Loudoun had been.