He Came Of A Valiant Race

Source

...leaving Fort Peyton on the 7th inst., and proceeding south....

Fort Peyton (Florida) LOC 1839 Map

...a large Seminole villae, near Mosquito Inlet, was reached, and, after surrounding it, at dawn of day on the 10th the dragoons, under McNeil and May, charged the enemy... .  Our loss was the gallant McNeil, who received a mortal wound while leading his men.  This officer--one of the youngest in service--was deeply regretted, both on account of personal and professional worth; he came of a valiant race--son of General John McNeil, late of the army, and grandson of General Benjamin Pierce,* of New Hampshire, a hero of the Revolution.

*Father of McNeil's mother, Elizabeth Andrews Pierce McNeil, and President Franklin Pierce

 

Stationed At Larkinville

An excerpt from Miss Priscilla Larkin: The Civil War Diary of a Southern Belle:

"A portion of Buell's Army were stationed at Larkinville a day or two.  Two of them came out here, made a more favorable impression than Michell division, because they conducted themselves better..". (July, 1862)

Michigan Historical Collections - Regarding The Michigan Thirteenth

Larkinsville, Alabama (LOC)

Vacationing At Avon Springs

Cyrus and Nettie McCormick's vacation:

"The next summer included a stay at Avon Springs, New York, known to both, since there in his bachelor days...

Avon Twp., Livingston County, New York - LOC Map

...Mr. McCormick had drunk the waters and Nettie Fowler had more than once visited this town while she was in school at near-by Lima. Both had at least slight sentimental associations with the place." [Source]

Enroute To Illinois

The Life and Adventures of Capt. Robert W. Andrews, of Sumter, South ..., By Robert W. Andrews:

"...I met Mr Middleton Brooks, who kept the tavern in Statesburg, who offered me three hundred and fifty dollars and expenses to go to Vandalia, in the State of Illinois, for his father. I had then a 'trotting horse,' which I sold and bought one more fitted for the trip. I left my men in charge of my carpentering business, and, on June 5th, 1825, started for Illinois, passing through Camblin and

Salisbury On A North Carolina Map At LOC

Lancaster, South Carolina and Charlottetown and Salsbury, North Carolina, through Brunswick County, across the Blue Ridge mountains, by the Swannana Gap, into Tennesee; passed through that State and Kentucky, to the Ohio river, which I reached at Hudson's Ferry."

Boarded At Mrs. Bradford's

From Miss Priscilla Larkin: The Civil War Diary of a Southern Belle:

"'twas rumored over the river, That I and a Yanky Capt. were married, I have not been as angry before since the 31st of January, when I was at Mrs. Bradfords...".

1871 Huntsville, Alabama (LOC) - Randolph Street - Female College - Far Right

"In January 1862, Priscilla was a student at Huntsville Female College and boarded at the home of  *Mrs. J. B. Bradford on Randolph Avenue in Huntsville, Alabama." [Source]  *Probably Mrs. Joseph Bennett Bradford / (Martha (Patton) Smith Bradford)

Early Tennessee Exploration By Dr. Walker

Source

THE UPPER CUMBERLAND OF PIONEER TIMES, By Alvin B. Wirt:

"In 1750 Dr. Thomas Walker heading an exploration party in the employ of the Loyal Land Company, came into the upper part of this valley over the old Indian trail and gave the English name 'Cumberland' to the Ouasioto Mountains, as well as to the gap in those mountains through which the path passed into Kentucky, and to the Shawnee River in the valley beyond."

"The Cumberland River, which flows through this section, was first known as the “Ouasioto,” but early French explorers gave it the name “Shavanon,” or Shawnee, because they found a few Indians of the Shawnee tribe living in the lower part of the valley."

The 10th Wisconsin In Alabama

From the diary of Miss Priscilla Larkin...:

"The 10th Wisconsin Regiment are at last stationed, in our little village, We received intelligence to day of a glorious victory at Richmond...".

Source - Map of middle and east Tennessee and parts of Alabama and Georgia

The 10th Wisconsin Infantry History:

"...the Tenth Regiment as rear guard, brought through the last trains from Huntsville to Stevenson.
We find the following in the table of casualties prepared by Adjutant General Gaylord:

Killed.—At Mud Creek, Ala., August 22.— Company J—Privates Thos. Denlan, G. W. Hancock and Henry Reed.  At Larkinsville, Ala.—Company F— Private Theo. Helgus.

At Stevenson, the rebels attempted to prevent the leaving of the trains; the Tenth Regiment bringing up the rear, secured the final departure of the troops, and arrived at Nashville on the 5th September.

Folks Outside

Map Of Philadelphia - Library Of Congress

...to think of folks outside going their ownways, some in comfort and peace and even richness, deciding things in Williamsburg and Fort Pitt and Philadelphia, and even over in London, that would make things harder or easier for us here in the western country. (Source - The Kentuckians)

The Well-Known Flotilla

1794 Map Of Kentucky And Adjoining Territories (LOC)
Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers Are Shown

FLOWERING of the CUMBERLAND by Harriette Simpson Arnow:

April 24, 1780, the well known flotilla, headed by John Donelson in his boat the Adventure, reached French Lick after a hazardous trip from Reedy Creek of the Holston on down the Tennessee and up the Ohio and the Cumberland.

Fort Levis

Source

Fort Levis (Fort William Augustus)

1768 Map With Fort Levy Now F. William Augustus (LOC)

Hugh McGary's Encounters With Famous People

Excerpts from THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE The Story of the Natchez Trace, by Nathan Daniels:

1763 Map Of Louisiana, Natchez, And The Missippi River (LOC)

(After they were married, Andrew and Rachel Jackson traveled in a large group from Bayou Pierre in Sept 1791) "Yet only the names of three of its members (of the traveling party) are known: Andrew and Rachel, and a dangerous, swashbuckling, Virginia-born Kentuckian, one Hugh McGary."  "The Jacksons had no reason to fear him."  "McGary's brother [Martin] had married Jackson's cousin [Bettie Crawford]."

"...Marquis James described McGary as a famous 'frontier soldier and Indian fighter." (Jackson's biographer)

Displayed At Harrodstown, Kentucky

"Nine years before he rode up the[Natchez] Trace with the Jacksons, McGary had a similar argument with Daniel Boone about an Indian fight in Kentucky."  Then Kentuckians were pursuing a body of Indians and Canadians who had struck at Bryant's Station.....  (McGary challenged Boone and the reluctant settlers to follow him)  "Many did."  "And in the Battle of Blue Licks, August 19, 1782, one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on the frontier, many died, too..."

Plaque (Partial) At Harrodstown, Kentucky

"Even before that McGary had quarrled with James Harrod over an Indian attack."

Rechristened Fort Rosalie

Source (Fort Rosalie And Vicinity)

"1763 rule of the Mississippi Valley passed from Louis XV to George III  By proclamation George III's government made the Natchez District...the only British area open to settlement west of the Appalachians."'

"...patriot James Willing circa 1777 ...was made a captain in the Navy...to make prize of all British Property on the Mississippi. However...when a party of  Americans did arrive, the Natchez settlers (many if not most of the Tory persuasion) gave it a violent reception.  Once more the British flag flew over Fort Panmure, as the British had rechristened Fort Rosalie.  It was not to stay there long.  Fort Panmure capitulated (to Spain) on October 5, 1779. 

Flotilla Got Past The Guards

Heights (or Plains) Of Abraham And Quebec City  Illustrated on Map (Partial Section - Map Source LOC)

From The Plains of Abraham:

"As it came level with the batteries of Sillery and Samos, the flotilla had reached its crucial danger point. The French had posts passed without incident, but at the second a guard sighted the leading boats and immediately challenged them."

"Invisible in the dark hour before the dawn, his sharp Qui vive? came as an unwelcome shock. A quick-witted officer of the Fraser Highlanders, Captain Donald McDonald, who in his time had served the Jacobite cause in France and spoke the language perfectly, answered in a low voice, "La France!" The sentry was insistent:  "A quel regiment," he demanded--"De la Reine," McDonald ventured, knowing that part of this battalion was with Bougainville. The sentry, apparently satisfied, did not ask for the password."

"A little further on, under the Samos battery, another sentry repeated the challenge and he could just be seen running down to the water within pistol shot. What are you speaking so quietly for, he wanted to know. Provision boats, replied McDonald. Don't make noise or the English will hear us. Again the sentry let them pass."

To The Memory Of The Pioneers

Source

Source

Redstone And Union Town In Asbury's Journal

Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury: Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal ...:

11 August 1803

"I dined with the aforesaid Colonel Mason [Isaac Meason],
one of the great men of the west."

"I believe God will yet work in the Redstone settlement; he has already begun amongst the Presbyterians."

1792 Map Of Pennsylvania (Including Union Town) Held At The Library of Congress 

"Next day I came to Union Town...".

The Fort

Source: LOC of Penobscot Bay (Maine) Map

A quote from The Fort; A Novel of the Revolutionary War by Bernard Cornwell; the subject was the Siege of Penobscot Bay, then part of Massachusetts, from July 24, 1779 to August 14, 1779):

We have received intelligence...from patriots in the Penobscot region.  We know for certain that a considerable force of the enemy has landed, that they are guarded by three sloops-of-war, and that they are commanded by Brigadier-General Francis McLean.  ...an experienced soldier.  Most of his service was in the Portuguese employment. (Page 96)

An authentic document that included a real-life character of The Fort:

Dr. Califf, affiant, was also a charachter in the book The Fort.

"Dr. Califf thinks that Matthew Lymburner cannot return to Penobscott.  he was taken prisoner by the Rebels during the Siege of Penobscott and cruelly treated but was liberated when the Rebel Fleet was drove a shore." [Source Audit Office: AO 12. Claims, American Loyalists...]

General McLean was also mentioned in the "Claims."

Extended From The River Tweed

Partial Map Of Scotland (1806) With Tweed River In Lower Right Corner (LOC)

Source

"Caledonia, in its most extensive acceptation, extended from the rivers Tweed and Eden on the south...".

Sir William Johnson Came To Detroit In 1761

(Partial) Carte des possessions françoises et angloises dans le Canada, et partie de la Louisiane, 1756.
Map Held At The Library Of Congress
(Fort de Detroit Is On This Part Of The Map)

Source

Beyond The Appalachians

Near Cumberland Gap

At the opening of the eighteenth century the image of the West beyond the Appalachian Mountains was very dim in the minds of those subjects of the British crown who inhabited the fringe of colonies along the Atlantic coast.  The unsettled forest no longer seemed, as it had to Michael Wigglesworth in 1662, a 'Devils den,'.....  Yet few English-speaking colonists had reliable knowledge of the interior of the continent.

Source - Routes Of Early French Explorations

In so far as the West had come under European control at all, it was French.  The English colonists had been engaged in war against this enemy as early as the 1690's, but not even the boldest prophet could imagine a day when the English power would extend over the unmeasured expanse of the Mississippi Valley.  The imperial development of Britain was moving in another direction, toward dominion over the seven seas rather than toward the blank and remote hinterland of North America. [Source - VIRGIN LAND] 

Thomas Walker's Birthplace

1757 Virginia Map (Showing Portion of King and Queen County) at the LOC

"Thomas Walker was born in King and Queen County, Virginia, on the 15th day of January 1715. He was married in 1741, at the age of twenty-six years, to a young widow six years younger than himself,--Mrs Nicholas Meriwether, whose maiden name was Mildred Thornton. She was the cousin of George Washington, whose elder brother, Samuel, had married one of her near relatives; and in this way Thomas Walker became closely and doubly connected with the Washington family. Through this marriage he came into possession of fifteen thousand acres of land in a beautiful, well-wooded and well-watered region of Piedmont Virginia... ." [Source]