Note 238 — II—HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHEROKEE

As is usual where Indians have acted as auxiliaries of white troops, it is difficult to get an accurate statement of the number of Cherokee engaged in this war or to apportion the credit among the various leaders. Coffee’s official report states that five hundred Cherokee were engaged in the last great battle, and from incidental hints it seems probable that others were employed elsewhere, on garrison duty or otherwise, at the same time. McKenney and Hall state that Ridge recruited eight hundred warriors for Jackson,238 and this may be near the truth, as the tribe had then at least six times as many fighting men. On account of the general looseness of Indian organization we commonly find the credit claimed for whichever chief may be best known to the chronicler. Thus, McKenney and Hall make Major Ridge the hero of the war, especially of the Horseshoe fight, although he is not mentioned in the official reports. Jackson speaks particularly of the Cherokee in that battle as being “headed by their gallant chieftain, Colonel Richard Brown, and conducted by the brave Colonel Morgan.” Coffee says that Colonel Gideon Morgan “commanded the Cherokees,” and it is Morgan who makes the official report of their part in the battle. In a Washington newspaper notice of the treaty delegation of 1816 the six signers are mentioned as Colonel [John] Lowrey, Major [John] Walker, Major Ridge, Captain [Richard] Taylor, Adjutant [John] Ross, and Kunnesee (Tsi′yu-gûnsi′nĭ, Cheucunsene) and are described as men of cultivation, nearly all of whom had served as officers of the Cherokee forces with Jackson and distinguished themselves as well by their bravery as by their attachment to the United States.239 Among the East Cherokee in Carolina the only name still remembered is that of their old chief, Junaluska (Tsunu′lahuñ′skĭ), who said afterward: “If I had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes I would have killed him that day at the Horseshoe.”