DEDICATED ΤΟ THOSE MEN OF PEERLESS MOLD AND RADIANT GENIUS Whose Lives of Patriotism Upon Georgia Soil Have Made an Empire State and Whose Shades of Memory Have Made an Exile Happy INTRODUCTION. From sources widely scattered and some of them obscure, Mr. Knight has, in the work he has accomplished with so much success, covered a field that has hitherto lain almost untrodden. There have been various tentative efforts to enter and cover it, but no one has made as complete a survey as the author of these volumes. He has pursued his chosen work with patience, enthusiasm and skill, qualities that always command success. Those who have written of Georgia, and of the men who have made the State famous, socially and politically, have failed in the very thing which makes Mr. Knight's work so conspicuous; they have failed to strike the keynote of the conditions which have conspired to make Georgia the most democratic State in the Union, socially-conditions which still make the people of the State a little different from the people of other States; not only a little different in their attitude toward the world at large, but almost totally different in the nature and extent of their versatility, their originality, and what may be termed their characteristic individuality. There were large sections of other parts of the country where similar conditions prevailed, but, with respect to the individual, these conditions failed to produce the same or similar results. To the casual observer, these results will frequently seem to be the same, but they are different not only in kind but in degree. To separate one instance from hundreds of its companions, it will be difficult to find a parallel in the revolution ary period of this country to the action of a large body of Georgians, in what was then known as upper Georgia, who, harassed and worried by the British and their Tory allies, moved their families and effects to Kentucky, and then returned to their wrecked and ruined homes to wage a war of extermination against their enemies. The movement into Kentucky was under the leadership of Elijah Clarke, renowned in the revolutionary annals of Georgia. The men of the expedition, on their return as far as Tennessee, came in contact with Sevier and his Tennesseans, who were on their way to intercept a British command. The Georgians joined hands with them, and the result was the battle of King's Mountain, where the liberty boys were victorious. This victory must be regarded as the turningpoint of the Revolution in the South. Another State had its Moll Pitcher, and there were bold and brave women to be found in all the colonies, but where, save in Georgia, will you find a Nancy Hart, who was active in killing and capturing the enemies of liberty? Most of the time she was defenseless and alone, but she stood her ground valiantly, and practically defied the British commander, who was a most cruel and unscrupulous man. The many stories told of Nancy Hart seem to be doubted by sober historians; they can not understand how one woman could have defied such a commander as Colonel Brown, of the British army. Yet every story that is told of her prowess and patriotism has a basis in solid fact. She went through those troubled times unscathed, but tradition, which is often truer than written history, has a very plausible explanation. Tradition says that once upon a time, before the revolutionary spirit had become inflamed in Georgia, General McGillivray, the Creek |