The British had reports that indicated the French were planning to build forts in Cherokee territory (as they had already done with Ft. Charleville at Great Salt Lick on the Cumberland River); Ft. Toulouse, near present-day Montgomery, Alabama; Ft. Rosalie at Natchez, Mississippi; Ft. St. Pierre at modern day Yazoo, Mississippi; and Ft. Tombeckbe on the Tombigbee River).

Building of the fort began by 120 troops of Sergeant William Gibbs' South Carolina Provincial Militia accompanied by 80 British regulars and was continued by Captain Postell's Company of construction into 1757.

It was sited on the south side of the Little Tennessee River on high ground about five miles below the Cherokee capitol town of Chota.

The elongated diamond-shaped fort was designed by a German engineer, William Gerald de Brahm, who departed before completion on Christmas Day 1756.

In 1759 Captain John Stuart and a reinforcement of 60 or 70 artillerymen[2] of the South Carolina Provincial Regiment, known as the 'Buffs' after their facing colors, arrived bringing supplies of meat, flour, salt, ammunition and clothing.

Some Cherokees, who had not been involved in the treachery, were bitter over this treatment, and raided Virginia's frontier settlements while returning to the Tennessee Valley.

The thirty-two chiefs were taken prisoner, as hostages, and, escorted by the provincial army, were sent[6] to Fort Prince George and held in a tiny room only big enough for six people.

As smallpox broke out among his troops Governor Lyttleton feared the desertion of most of his force and hurried back to Charleston in great disorder.

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

At the commencement of the siege the warriors fired their rifles for a few days at the soldiers in the fort but soon ceased in order to conserve precious ammunition.

[11] Abram made the dangerous and harrowing passage several times and was freed by the South Carolina Commons House in a tax bill in 1761.

[19] 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.

[20] The failure to relieve Fort Loudoun 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 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.

[3] 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.

[25] Stuart would later on January 5, 1762, be appointed Royal Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Districts of North America and hold this office for 18 years.

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 Marion and rangers.

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.

Concerned over this invasion force, the Overhill Cherokee sent Chief Old Hop (Conocotocko) to Long Island of the Holston to seek peace.

At the behest of the Cherokee, Stephen dispatched Lieutenant Henry Timberlake on an expedition to the Overhill country to consolidate peace with the various villages.