The Battle Of Boyds Creek

On 16 December 1780 John Sevier's militia met a Cherokee force on Boyds Creek, west of what is now Sevierville, and won the fight with a trick. The Cherokee had struck the settlements that autumn while Sevier's men were away at Kings Mountain, and he came back after them with something under three hundred mounted militia. Finding the Cherokee formed in a half-moon and lying concealed in the grass, Sevier sent an advance guard under Captain James Stinson forward with orders to fire once and fall back. The feigned retreat worked, and the Cherokee came on after them into the main line, which was waiting for them in three divisions, drawn up across the creek bottom and waiting to close on both of their flanks at once. Sevier had drawn up three divisions, his own in the centre, Major Jesse Walton's on the right and Major Jonathan Tipton's on the left, meaning to close on both flanks at once. Walton's wing wheeled sharply. Tipton's came round with less speed, and the gap that left was enough. The Cherokee escaped through it into a swamp. Twenty-eight were killed on the ground and more wounded were carried away; no militiaman was killed and three were badly hurt, Tipton among them. One early account traces the long feud between Sevier and Tipton to that morning. Sevier went on with Arthur Campbell and Joseph Martin into the Overhill towns, burning seventeen of them over the fortnight that followed. A granite shaft raised in 1927 by a Tennessee society of Revolutionary War descendants stands beside Boyds Creek Highway, which is State Route 338. The battle line itself has never been precisely located, so the monument marks the fight rather than the ground it was fought on.