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knife of the savage and pitiless Indian, who massacred man, woman, and child alike. All too frequently in the family annals through the generations appears the chilling phrase ?Killed by Indians.?
They were trappers, hunters, farmers ? dependent on the hunt for food and for furs and skins ? the equivalent of currency on the frontier.
The pioneer woman was always an inspiring influence in frontier life, enduring arduous work with patience, bearing loss and disaster without flinching, facing invincibly the Indian ravages, and accepting dangers with heroism.
MILITIA
These ancestors served through the generations variously in the militia of Virginia, the Car-olinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. The militia had call on all able bodied men between 16 and 60, and it was the bulwark against the Indian, the French and the Spanish in the Colonial Wars; against the Indians, the Tories and British regular troops in the Revolution; and against the Indian and the British in the War of 1812.
The frontiersmen brought to the fighting his skills acquired as hunters, the ambush and ?hit-and-run? tactics borrowed from the Indians, and other special talents suited to frontier fighting.
He was astoundingly capable and without peer as a fierce fighter and tireless scout. He was cool and collected in emergencies ? acclimated to danger through Indian fighting.
A vital development, about 1750, was the birth of a new weapon, the so-called ?long-rifle?, a product of a Pennsylvania gunsmith. It had a spiral-grooved and longer barrel that gave deadly accuracy and longer range.
The frontiersman, with life dependent on skill in arms, was quick to adopt, and become an expert marksman with, the new weapon, much superior to the smooth bore musket then in common use.
HOMOGENEOUS PEOPLE
In their migrations, there inevitably came among my wife?s ancestors an intermingling of the several nationalities: the English, the Scot, the German, and the Dutch. Among examples of marriages involving different nationalities, in my wife?s family, are:
Catherine McClammy, the bonnie lassie of Scot descent, who married the steady, dependable boy of German descent, John Christian Heidelberg.
Elizabeth Kuykendall, the fair maid of Dutch descent, with flaxen hair and eyes of deepest blue ? a homemaker and housekeeper beyond compare ? who married the grey-eyed lad of Scot descent, James Armstrong, restless, bold and daring.
Sabra Heidelberg, half Scot, half German, who married the conservative youth of English descent, Matthew Brinson.
And there is an infusion of Indian blood?the native American?through the Holloway family.
So from these constantly multiplying unions among the several nationalities, the crossing and intermingling of their bloods, these new generations in America fused the virtues of all in a new type, a homogenous people, the AMERICAN.
REVOLUTION
The turning point of the Revolution came in the South, where my wife?s ancestors fought.
Although the fighting in the Carolinas and Georgia was of small calibre, with repeated draws and reverses, it was highly successful in harassing the British by intercepting messengers, ambushing scouting parties, capturing supply trains.
The militia members came together quickly from the backwoods and the mountains. Under local leaders like Francis Marion and Elijah Clarke, they excelled in the surprise attack, firing from cover, pressing forward, drawing back, using to best advantage the surrounding trees, underbrush, and rocks. Always deadly marksmen, they habitually picked off the enemy leaders. Then they melted into the woods, scattering and dissolving into farmer, backwoodsman, mountaineer.
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