From Wiki:
At the commencement of the siege [in Jan. 1760] the warriors fired their rifles for a few days at the soldiers in the fort but soon ceased in order to conserve precious ammunition. The Cherokee prevented the soldiers and settlers from leaving the fort to hunt or gather foodstuffs. However, some soldiers were married to Indian women and these women were allowed to come and go because the Cherokee did not wish to start feuds with the women's tribes and families. The women were able to smuggle in some much needed food. However this was not enough to indefinitely sustain the garrison and Demeré had reported to Lyttleton in January that his supplies could only last four months.
The Cherokee cut off the garrison from all other outside aid or communications. When several of Demeré's messengers were either killed or captured and all other white colonists declined to volunteer, Demeré turned to an African-American slave named Abram, to whom he promised freedom as a reward, if he could carry messages through the Indian lines and across the mountains to South Carolina. Abram made the dangerous and harrowing passage several times and was freed by the South Carolina Commons House in a tax bill in 1761.
Governor Lyttleton appealed for help to Jeffrey Amherst, the British commander in North America. Amherst sent Archibald Montgomerie with an army of 1,300 to 1,500 troops including 400 in four companies of the Royal Scots and a 700 man battalion of the Montgomerie's Highlanders to South Carolina in order to mount a second expedition against the Cherokee. His second in command was Major James Grant. The regulars were joined by some 300 mounted Carolina rangers, in seven troops, and 100 militia as well a party of 40 to 50 Catawba warriors.
The two objectives of this second expedition were to subdue the Cherokee by razing their towns and crops, while relieving those posts invested by the Cherokee, in particular, Fort Loudoun.
In late May the British had reached Fort Ninety-Six and Montgomerie's campaign burned some of the Cherokee Lower Towns, including Keowee, Estatoe and Sugar Town, killing or capturing around 100 Indians.
The British advanced on the Cherokee Middle Towns and some five miles from Etchoe, the lowest town in the Cherokee's middle settlements, Montgomerie's advanced guard of a company of Rangers was ambushed in a deep valley. On June 27 the battle of Echoee ensued in which the British advance was halted and the force's wounded, including Montgomerie, were so numerous and seriously hurt that there was no possibility of leaving the wounded behind and continuing to advance. The invading British were compelled to retire and the relief of Fort Loudoun was abandoned.
The siege ground on through June, July and into August with the garrison reduced to eating the horses and getting progressively weaker every day from hunger and sickness. Several soldiers deserted and others threatened to desert.
The siege ground on through June, July and into August with the garrison reduced to eating the horses and getting progressively weaker every day from hunger and sickness. Several soldiers deserted and others threatened to desert.
On August 6 a council of the officers agreed to seek surrender terms. Captain Demeré was refused when he asked to surrender but Captain Stuart, who was well liked by the Indians, reached an agreement with the Cherokee chiefs at Chota.
The failure to relieve Fort Loudon forced the garrison to surrender with Captain Demeré and the garrison allowed to retain their arms and enough ammunition to make the trip back to the colony provided they left the remaining arms and stores of ammunition to the Cherokee led by Ostenaco. The garrison marched out of the fort on August 9 with a Cherokee escort. The Indians entered the fort and found 10 bags of powder and ball buried and the cannon and small arms thrown in the river to keep them from the Cherokee. Some of the Indians, angered by the broken agreement, held a secret council and decided to go after the garrison.
The next morning the garrison's Indian escort had drifted off and the garrison was attacked in the woods by perhaps 700 Indians. Some 22 soldiers, including all the officers except Stuart, equal to the number of Cherokee chief hostages killed at Fort Prince George, and 3 civilians were killed and 120 or more were taken prisoners. Captain Demeré alone was tortured, scalped, made to dance and beaten until he died for betraying the surrender agreement.
Captain Stuart was saved from the initial massacre of the soldiers by the intervention of a Cherokee woman, likely his wife, Susannah, who ran in among the soldiers during the firing to shield him. As commander of the artillery, it was Ostenaco's plan to force Stuart to show the Cherokee how to use the 12 captured cannon against the other British forts. Stuart had a great friend among the Indians, Attakullakulla - the Little Carpenter, who first ransomed and then aided Stuart to escape. Stuart would later in January 5, 1762, be appointed Royal Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Districts of North America and hold this office for 18 years.
Panic and consternation reigned in Charleston at the news of the fall of the fort. A truce of six months was agreed to during which peace attempts failed. After a difficult winter for the Cherokee due to the loss of the Lower Towns' harvest and shortage of ammunition for hunting, as well as disease, Cherokee morale still remained high. In a goodwill gesture, the Cherokee allowed Fort Prince George to receive a limited amount of supplies and even though it was almost as vulnerable as Fort Loudoun had been the Cherokee did not put it under close siege.
Amherst subsequently determined to launch a third and greater invasion of the Cherokee lands "to chastise the Cherokees [and] reduce them to the absolute necessity of suing for pardon,". James Grant was now in command with more regulars: the 1st, 17th and 22nd Regiments, a war-party of Mohawks and Stockbridge Indian scouts, Catawba and Chickasaw warriors; a large number of provincials under Colonel Middleton that included several who would gain fame during the American Revolution: William Moultrie, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Francis Marionand rangers. His force was more than 2,800 strong.[27] Grant would be met by 1,000 Cherokee warriors on June 10, 1761 near the site of the previous battle of Echoee. The Cherokee fought until their limited ammunition was exhausted and then withdrew.
Grant's force then proceeded to burn the fifteen Middle Towns and all the crops. Grant expressly ordered the troops to summarily execute any Indian man, woman or child they captured. Although, by July, Grant had marched his men to exhaustion with 300 too sick to walk, he had wrecked the Cherokee economy and made 4,000 inhabitants of the Middle Towns homeless and starving. In August 1761 the Cherokee sued for peace.
The failure to relieve Fort Loudon forced the garrison to surrender with Captain Demeré and the garrison allowed to retain their arms and enough ammunition to make the trip back to the colony provided they left the remaining arms and stores of ammunition to the Cherokee led by Ostenaco. The garrison marched out of the fort on August 9 with a Cherokee escort. The Indians entered the fort and found 10 bags of powder and ball buried and the cannon and small arms thrown in the river to keep them from the Cherokee. Some of the Indians, angered by the broken agreement, held a secret council and decided to go after the garrison.
The next morning the garrison's Indian escort had drifted off and the garrison was attacked in the woods by perhaps 700 Indians. Some 22 soldiers, including all the officers except Stuart, equal to the number of Cherokee chief hostages killed at Fort Prince George, and 3 civilians were killed and 120 or more were taken prisoners. Captain Demeré alone was tortured, scalped, made to dance and beaten until he died for betraying the surrender agreement.
Captain Stuart was saved from the initial massacre of the soldiers by the intervention of a Cherokee woman, likely his wife, Susannah, who ran in among the soldiers during the firing to shield him. As commander of the artillery, it was Ostenaco's plan to force Stuart to show the Cherokee how to use the 12 captured cannon against the other British forts. Stuart had a great friend among the Indians, Attakullakulla - the Little Carpenter, who first ransomed and then aided Stuart to escape. Stuart would later in January 5, 1762, be appointed Royal Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Districts of North America and hold this office for 18 years.
Panic and consternation reigned in Charleston at the news of the fall of the fort. A truce of six months was agreed to during which peace attempts failed. After a difficult winter for the Cherokee due to the loss of the Lower Towns' harvest and shortage of ammunition for hunting, as well as disease, Cherokee morale still remained high. In a goodwill gesture, the Cherokee allowed Fort Prince George to receive a limited amount of supplies and even though it was almost as vulnerable as Fort Loudoun had been the Cherokee did not put it under close siege.
Amherst subsequently determined to launch a third and greater invasion of the Cherokee lands "to chastise the Cherokees [and] reduce them to the absolute necessity of suing for pardon,". James Grant was now in command with more regulars: the 1st, 17th and 22nd Regiments, a war-party of Mohawks and Stockbridge Indian scouts, Catawba and Chickasaw warriors; a large number of provincials under Colonel Middleton that included several who would gain fame during the American Revolution: William Moultrie, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Francis Marionand rangers. His force was more than 2,800 strong.[27] Grant would be met by 1,000 Cherokee warriors on June 10, 1761 near the site of the previous battle of Echoee. The Cherokee fought until their limited ammunition was exhausted and then withdrew.
Grant's force then proceeded to burn the fifteen Middle Towns and all the crops. Grant expressly ordered the troops to summarily execute any Indian man, woman or child they captured. Although, by July, Grant had marched his men to exhaustion with 300 too sick to walk, he had wrecked the Cherokee economy and made 4,000 inhabitants of the Middle Towns homeless and starving. In August 1761 the Cherokee sued for peace.
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