After all the houses had been burned, and some six thousand bushels of corn, besides peas and beans, destroyed, Williamson returned to his camp.

Next day he renewed his advance, and sent out detachments against all the other lower towns, utterly destroying every one by the middle of August, although not without one or two smart skirmishes.[55] His troops were very much elated, and only the lack of provisions prevented his marching against the middle towns.

As it was, he retired to refit, leaving a garrison of six hundred men at Eseneka, which he christened Fort Rutledge.

This ended the first stage of the retaliatory campaign, undertaken by the whites in revenge for the outbreak.

The South Carolinians, assisted slightly by a small independent command of Georgians, who acted separately, had destroyed the lower Cherokee towns, at the same time that the Watauga people repulsed the attack of the Overhill warriors.
The second and most important movement was to be made by South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia jointly, each sending a column of two thousand men,[56] the two former against the middle and valley, the latter against the Overhill towns.