They eventually took part in campaigns against the French-held Fort Duquesne (present day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and their allies the Shawnee of the Ohio Country.

[4] Ostenaco, a Cherokee leader, took 100 warriors in the depths of winter in February 1756 to join Major Andrew Lewis, who commanded 200 Virginia Provincial troops.

Virginia settlers got angry and banded together, pursuing the Cherokee, attacking them and killing, scalping and mutilating 20 of the Indians.

The situation worsened, as 14 Cherokee hostages were killed at Fort Prince George near Keowee by the garrison during a failed attempt to move them.

The Cherokee sought allies among the other Indian tribes and help from the French, but they received no practical aid and faced the British colonials alone.

Desperate for ammunition for their fall and winter hunts, which sustained their survival, the Cherokee sent a peace delegation of moderate chiefs to negotiate.

They besieged Fort Loudoun; and several lesser posts in the South Carolina back-country quickly fell to Cherokee raids.

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, longtime competitors with the Cherokee.

He had to leave behind his wagon transport, which could not move beyond the Lower Towns, and use improvised panniers and packsaddles for the horses of the baggage train.

At 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.

The Rangers especially performed badly, with Lieutenant Grant reporting that some fifty deserted before the march, and the rest ran off when Morrison was killed.

[15] He had to abandon the advance, along with a large quantity of supplies, in order to provide pack horses to transport the wounded to safety.

When the Cherokee entered the fort, they found 10 bags of powder and ball buried, and the cannon and small arms thrown in the river to prevent their use.

After a difficult winter, due to the loss of the Lower Towns' harvest and shortage of ammunition for hunting, as well as disease, Cherokee morale still remained high.

James Grant commanded more regulars: the 1st, 17th and 22nd Regiments, a war-party of Mohawk and Stockbridge Indian scouts, Catawba and Chickasaw warriors; a large number of provincials under Colonel Middleton, and rangers.

The provincials included men who would gain fame during the American Revolution: William Moultrie, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Francis Marion (known as the Swamp Fox).

[18] They were prepared for an extended campaign in the mountain and forest terrain, having a supply train a mile long, made up of 600 packhorses carrying a month's provisions, and a large herd of cattle managed by a few score enslaved African Americans.

[citation needed] Grant encountered 1,000 Cherokee warriors on June 10, 1761, near the site of the previous battle of Echoee.

Grant expressly ordered the troops to summarily execute any Indian man, woman or child they captured.