John Sevier as a Commonwealth-Builder; A Sequel to the Rear-Guard of the Revolution (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1887. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIII. CLOSING YEAES. I Am not writing a history of Tennessee. The aim of this volume, and of the one which has preceded it, has been to recount the career of the remarkable man who was the founder and builder of that Commonwealth; and I have related the early history of the State only for the reason that his life was so interwoven with its early life that one can not be told without relating the other. The same remark applies to Sevier's subsequent career, for to the very last he was the soul of the Commonwealth he had created. But we have now arrived at a period in his life, and in that of the State, when to both may be applied the saying, "Happy are the people whose annals are vacant." To this man, whose career had been until now one long struggle, and to this State, which was cradled in the midst of perils, nurtured amid external and internal strife, and time and again had been saved from destruction only by the single hand and brain of this one man, had come a season of repose--an unbroken period of peace and prosperity, barren of incident, and unruffled by a single one of those striking events which form the staple of most histories. To the State it was peace, and such prosperity as was then unknown to any of the sixteen States, except the neighboring one of Kentucky; and to Sevier it was peace and such abounding honor, both at home and abroad, as was accorded to but few of the men of his generation. We have seen that, when but recently an outlaw, he was given by Washington sole command of the men of Watauga; so now, in 1798, on the recommendation of Washington, he was appointed by President Adams a brigadier-general in the army that was forming to resist the arrogant encroachments of France. But the war-cloud passed away, and left Sevier s...