A Spectre of Power by Mary Noailles Murfree

THE method in which Lieutenant Everard had compassed his retreat from the Cherokee country gave rise to much discussion in that day, especially among military and _quasi_ military men. Particularly was this of interest at those remote and feeble posts at which small detachments were stationed on the verge of the Indian country and among conditions likely at any time to duplicate his dilemma. It was variously contended that he should have stood his ground even had his heart been cut out still pulsating, and _per contra_ that his course was amply justified, -- nay, that the obligation to save the civilian commissioners as well as the men of his command was imperative, and that it would have been criminal folly to fail to take advantage of the opportunity to make off thus with something less than the full honors of war, more especially as the expedition was not of a strictly military character.

The licensed British traders, plying their vocation among the Catawbas, Creeks, and Chickasaws, entertained the high and sanguinary view of Lieutenant Everard's duty in the premises, seeming to think that blood spilled in their interest was well spent, and to resent any precautionary measures that tended to hoard it. Whereas the officers of the little flimsy forts believed the effort to protect the mercantile monopoly of the Indian trade by the British government was not worth the sacrifice of life and the effusion of blood when it came to the hopeless odds of a thousand to some threescore.