THE ADVANCE-GUARD OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Description

Gilmore, James R.
THE ADVANCE-GUARD OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.
Orig. pub. New York 1888. Reprinted 1974. Print on Demand Edition 2015.
ISBN: 978-0-87152-156-9. LC 73-23068 (ii), xvi, 344 pp., map, index.  [133]
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In his trilogy about the men who settled the Old Southwest, the author develops the thesis that these men, under the leadership of John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, and James Robertson, not only planted a civilization beyond the Alleghenies but exerted an important influence in shaping the ultimate destinies of this country. Two of these men, Sevier and Shelby, during the Revolution helped thwart the British plan to envelop and crush the Southern Colonies and then helped turn the tide of the Revolution at the Battle of King's Mountain. Acting together after the Revolution, the three men frustrated Spain's design to weaken the Union by creating a separate republic between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River. Had that plan been successful, it would have kept the vast region beyond the Mississippi a Spanish province.
This work is the third and concluding volume of Gilmore's trilogy about the early settlers who crossed the Alleghenies and settled in what is now Tennessee. It deals mainly with James Robertson as a leader of the men who settled the district along the Cumberland River and the settlement of Nashville in 1780. Robertson was prominent in Tennessee history negotiating the Watauga Agreement and being involved in Transylvania proceedings. Much is discussed of his involvement in stopping Spain's attempt to create a separate republic in the area between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi River thereby keeping the region beyond the Mississippi open for settlement.