Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

378 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
to $1,800 these were so expensive that they were soon abandoned for
the common wooden screw, now in general use on plantations. His
invention of the perpendicular saw gin was—there seems to be no doubt
—independent of Whitney's, though posterior to it, the latter having
come into operation in 1793. Thus, though Eli Whitney failed to
realize the profits of his invention, it seems clear that he must be left in
undisputed possession of at least the barren honors."
Cotton in 1800 brought 24 cents per pound. There was a great
fever among the upland farmers for experimenting with the new plant.
It was found that most of the land in. the rich Georgia midlands was
admirably adapted to the cultivation of the short-staple cotton. All who
could afford to do so began to purchase additional slaves and to acquire
new lands. Thus an increased impetus was given to the state's develop
ment. Prior to the advent of the cotton gin, slavery had come to be
burdensome but the enlarged area of planting operations now endowed
it with fresh vitality and made its continuance essential. Whitney's
invention wrought a wonderfully stimulating effect upon the industrial
growth of the South, especially in the cotton-producing states. It caused
new towns and cities to leap into life, as if by magic, galvanized those
already in existence, called for more negro labor in the fields, started
New England to building factories, and enlarged the princely holdings
of the southern planter, making his fertile acres baronial in extent; but
it committed the South to the ruinous policy of cultivating a single
crop; it put an end to diversification; and eventually it riveted upon the
South an institution destined within a half century to precipitate a
revolution and to rend a continent—the institution of slavery.
WHERE AN IMPORTANT BATTLE WAS FOUGHT.—On October 17, 1793, the last
engagement between the Chcrokees and the whites in Upper Georgia occurred near
the forks where the Oostanaula and the Etowah rivers meet at Home. Human bones
have been found in large numbers on this old battle-field. The fight here was occa
sioned by an attack of the Ghero'kee Indians upon Knoxville. General Sevier pursued
the savages across the Tennessee line in Georgia, destroying numerous towns and
villages along the way and finally engaging them in desperate battle near the site
of the present city of Borne. • So panie-stricken became the Indians, under the galling
fire of the American guns, that they are said to have dug holes in the river bank, in
which to secrete themselves. But they could not elude the wily Tennesseean; and
these places of refuge became little more than catacombs, in which the fugitive
Indian .found only a grave for his bones. General Sevier was supported in this
expedition by Col. John Lowry, who was wounded in the arm while watering his horses
at the ford of the Coiosawattee. Hugh L. White, afterwards a senator from Tennessee
and a candidate for President of the United States, was in this engagement.—L. L. K.