In September, 1774, Logan, the Mingo Chieftain, and a band of his Indians raided the Clinch-Holston frontier, remaining for several days in the area, spreading terror by killing and capturing settlers and destroying livestock.
     Their first attack came on Friday, September 23rd at Blackmore's Fort, where they captured two of Captain John Blackmore's slaves and Logan was in pursuit of a third who was saved by the timely interference of Captain Blackmore himself. Here, also, they killed much livestock which was a hard blow to the inmates of the fort.
     After leaving Blackmore's Fort, Logan and his followers crossed through Moccasin Gap to the vicinity of King's mill, near the present Kingsport, where on Saturday, September 24th they fell upon the house of John Roberts, killing him, his wife, four children, and taking the fifth, a boy of about ten years, a prisoner, who was later returned.
     John Anderson, a brother-in-law of Roberts, who lived nearby, left an unpublished Memoir in which he says that neighbors who went to the Roberts's home the next morning found them all tomahawked, scalped and dead, except one boy who later died. Speaking of this same boy, Col. Arthur Campbell in a letter to Col. William Preston on October 6th, states: "The boy that was scalped is dead. He was an extraordinary example of patience and resolution to his last, frequently lamenting that he was not able to fight enough to save his mammy."
     Five days after the cruel murder of the Roberts family, Logan and his blood-thirsty warriors got their next victim. Secretly lying in wait outside of Moore's Fort, at Castlewood, on the evening of September 29th, three men
went out from the fort to visit a pigeon trap and were fired on by the Indians. John Duncan, who along with his brother, Raleigh Duncan, had settled just below Hunter's Ford (Dungannon) in 1773, was killed on the spot, the other two men whose names are not known, made their escape.
     At this time Daniel Boone was in command of Moore's Fort, but at the time Duncan was killed it was too dark for Boone and his men to follow the Indians and the next day they could not find them.
     After the killing of John Duncan, at Moore's Fort, Logan undoubtedly split his raiding party, for they struck on both the Clinch and Holston Rivers on the same day and about the same time.
     One party struck in the vicinity of Gen. Evan Shelby's Fort at the present site of Bristol. General Shelby, at the time being away on the Point Pleasant campaign. Col. Arthur Campbell, in a letter dated October 9th, gives the details in this manner:
     "On last Thursday evening, ye 6th instant, the Indians took a Negro wench prisoner, belonging to Captain Evan Shelby, within 300 yards of his house. After they took her some distance, they examined her, asking how many guns were in the fort and other questions relative to the place. They asked her if the store was kept there now. After they had carried her off about a mile, they saw or heard a boy coming from the mill. They immediately tied the wench and went off to catch the boy. While they were gone the wench luckily got loose and made her
escape. She says they knocked her down twice when she refused to tell in what situation the fort was, and she says one was a large man, whiter than the rest, and talked good English. It was the same kind of person Mr. Blackmore saw in pursuit of the Negro he relieved."
     On the Clinch the other raiding party made a second attack on Blackmore's Fort. At the time it seems most of the men of the fort were sitting on some logs outside the stockade, and the Indians crawling along under the river bank got within 75 yards of the fort before being seen. They were screened from the men sitting outside by the river bank and a fringe of brush, and the Indians seeing all the men outside probably intended to storm the fort and enter the gates before the surprised men could enter and close the gates. They were spotted by Dale Carter who was said to have been about fifty steps from the fort, and who hallowed to warn the men. Upon hearing Carter's alarm the men dashed into the fort and closed the gates ahead of the Indians. Frustrated in their plan of storming the fort the Indians turned on Carter. One shot at him and missed, and another shot him in the thigh, inflicting an injury which rendered him too lame to run. Another Indian ran up to Carter, tomahawked and scalped him.
     A frontier short on both ammunition and food, and beset with Indian raids is pointed up to Col. William Preston in a letter from Col. Arthur Campbell, dated October 12, 1774:
     "It is remarkable that Capt. Shelby's wench was taken the same day, and about the same time of day, that this affair happened on Clinch. So many attacks in so short a time, give the inhabitants very alarming apprehensions. Want of ammunition and scarcity of provisions are again become the general cry. Since I began this I am mortified by a family flying by. If ammunition does not come soon, I will have no argument that will have any force to detain them; and if our army is not able to keep a garrison at the Falls (Louisville, KY) the ensuing
winter, I expect we shall be troubled with similar visits the greater part of the coming season."