Four Men Taken Prisoner from Fort Blackmore

By Emory L. Hamilton

From the unpublished manuscript, Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and Holston Rivers, page 90.

Col. Arthur Campbell wrote to Governor Thomas Jefferson, again on February 2, 1781, telling him of four men being taken prisoner from Fort Blackmore on Clinch River in now Scott Co., but again did not name the four who were taken. The letter reads:

This moment I have the intelligence that a body of Indians, supposed to be Cherokee, attacked Blackmore's Fort, on Clinch, took four men prisoners and carried off a considerable number of horses. I must entreat the speedy attention of the Executive to my former proposal of a garrison in Powell Valley; and on the banks of the Tennessee, as absolutely necessary for the preservation of the southwest frontier, and keeping up the communication to Kentucky... (VA State Papers, Vol. 1, page 484).

In a follow up letter, written by Campbell to Governor Jefferson, on February 7, 1781, he adds: It now appears that the Indians that attacked Blackmore's Fort, as mentioned in my last, were a small party of Shawnees, headed by our noted enemy Logan... (VA State Papers, Vol. 1, page 494).

Who were the four men who were taken prisoner from Blackmore's is still a mystery, as is any knowledge of their eventual fate.



This file contributed by: Rhonda Robertson


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