ROCKBRIDGE NOTEBOOK
BY: George West Diehl
"Capt. John Lyle of Rockbridge" Chapter III
In the first battalion was a militia company under the command of Capt. John Lyle. William
McCutchan was the lieutenant and Joseph Long, the ensign. Both had served at Point
Pleasant with Lyle. The complete roster of the company has never been
found, but it is known that among the men in the ranks were William Miller, Joseph Bell,
and William Willson. Miller and Wilson were volunteers, but Bell was drafted. The company
assembled at Isaac Campbell's well known home on the "Great Road."
Campbell had received the property from his father, Gilbert Campbell, by will sixteen
years before. The place became the site of the new town of Lexington in 1778. "The
Cherokee Expedition," as the movement became known, has been treated
in detail by some historians, merely cited by others, and completely ignored by some. The
difficulties of equipping the militia with powder and lead, when it was finally assembled,
delayed the advance and it was not until the first of October that Christian's army
reached the Long Island, on the upper Holston River. Advancing from this point deep into
the Indian territory, the army was involved with raiding the Cherokee towns, plundering
their fields, and having an occasional skirmish. Chota, where Nancy Ward, the beloved
woman of the tribe and a friend of the white man, had her home, was the only Cherokee town
not given to the torch. The punitive work was done by Christian with the loss of one
soldier, a man named Duncan who was killed in a skirmish, but the loss to the Cherokee was
heavy. Upon his return to Long Island, Christian reorganized his little army for further
action. Then following instructions, Christian placed Col. Evan Shelby and Major Anthony
Bledsoe in com!
mand of a detail of six hundred militiamen to remain at Long Island as a vanguard. In a
parley with some of the Chiefs, who had come to plead for peace, he informed them that
their petition would be granted the following May, but, in the meantime, all hostilities
would cease. This closed the expedition and the militia was ordered to return home. The
long trek back up the "Great Road," or "Warrior's Path" was made
and, in late December, Lyle's company was back home. With the passing of the winter of
1778-79, Captain Lyle was turning his eyes and heart toward new lands. It was time when
there was a restlessness among the people and, for some reason, a longing for seeking new
homes, Would it be North Carolina, perhaps in the beautiful valley's of the Holston,
or the Tennessee, or the French Broad? Or, would it be the bluegrass lands of Kentucky?
Apparently, it was difficult for Lyle to decide. James McDowell, a neighbor-boy, son of
Judge Samuel McDowell and his wife the for!
mer Mary McClung, had enlisted in the Continental Line as a private wh
en only sixteen years old; he remained in the service through Yorktown, coming out an
ensign. In 1779, after the strain of Valley Forge, he was home on furlough. He and Mary
Paxton Lyle, the only daughter of Capt. John Lyle by his first wife, had been childhood
sweethearts. Learning that Mary's father was talking of removing to North Carolina, he
pressed his courtship--Mary consented to become his wife. The year 1780 was momentous in
the Lyle household. The 431 acres of the farm which Captain Lyle had received from his
father was divided into two portions. One, the larger portion of 351 acres, was sold to
Alexander Campbell and the lesser, being 100 acres, was deeded to James Defrees. Then, on
Sept. 21, Mary Paxton Lyle became the bride of James McDowell. Captain Lyle, having
decided to migrate to Kentucky, led his family down the "Great Road," then over
the "Wilderness Road," through Cumberland Gap into the blue grass country of
Kentucky.
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~Wehali Usdi~<Look not at the Eyes but at the Soul>