period, the garrison planted of crops. Life at the fort was generally routine. A changing of the guard took place several times per day. At night, five large guard dogs roamed the fort's exterior. The fort's blacksmith spent much of his time mending Cherokee guns and tools. The garrison provided most of its own food through hunting, fishing and farming. Some food was acquired from the Cherokee (and some soldiers had Cherokee wives). Sixty women and children, dependents of the soldiers, lived in the fort. In June 1757, a 36-man contingent of the garrison, led by Lieutenant James Adamson and Ensign Richard Coytmore, attacked a band of hostile Indians who were threatening the Cherokee at Great Tellico. Three of the intruders were killed, and the rest were driven out. In September 1757, Paul Demeré attended the Cherokees' Green Corn Dance, and spent the subsequent months encouraging the Cherokee to launch attacks against the French and their Indian allies. He convinced a number of Cherokee, including Attakullakulla, to join the Forbes Expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758 (Attakullakulla would eventually abandon the expedition in disgust over Forbes' delays). William Richardson, a Presbyterian missionary (and uncle of future North Carolina governor William Richardson Davie), arrived at Fort Loudoun in late 1758. He baptized a child of one of the soldiers, and delivered sermons on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. He reported the Little Tennessee River had frozen over on December 19, and noted a persistent rumor of an impending French attack. Richardson said that the Cherokee were heavy drinkers who were not interested in his message about the Gospel. Frustrated, he left the fort on February 6, 1759. Anglo-Cherokee War Relations between the Cherokee and the British began to decline in late 1758. During the Forbes Expedition, a group of Cherokee warriors, who had been tasked with fighting northern Indians who were allied with the French, scalped and killed one or more white settlers. They paraded the scalps before the British, deceptively claiming they belonged to their enemies in order to receive a promised bounty. Suspicious, the British soldiers disarmed Attakullakulla and other warriors, none of whom had been involved, and briefly detained them. Although Governor Fauquier of Virginia managed to placate Attakullakulla, some Cherokee warriors, still bitter over this treatment, raided Virginia's frontier settlements while returning to the Tennessee Valley. In response, the settlers killed several Cherokee, and the situation quickly