her door "she dared not open it, for fear of seeing Indians; and when it was open, she dared not shut it, for fear Indians would approach unseen. The settlers could not live all the while in forts, because they must gain subsistence from the land, and they could not live all the while on their farms without imminent danger."(n30) The Continental Congress did not intend to rely on just the militia but authorized the creation of five regiments of full-time continental soldiers, as well as ships and artillery batteries, for the defense of the province. Georgia had such a small population, however, that the recruits for this brigade had to be found elsewhere. Dooly obtained a commission as a captain in the new Georgia Regiment of Continental Horse. With his brothers Thomas Dooly and George Dooly, captain and second lieutenant respectively, as well as brother-in-law Thomas Mitchell, who was first lieutenant in the Third Georgia Continental Battalion, they traveled to Virginia to find recruits using £400 that John had borrowed from Peter Perkins but which he never repaid. In Guilford County, North Carolina, and Pittsylvania County, Virginia, John Dooly and his relations succeeded in enlisting ninety-seven men, including deserters illegally recruited from the local military. Upon returning to Georgia, John went to Savannah to collect his bounty money while his brother Thomas took a company to a post on the frontier. Thomas's Death The consequences of making a commitment into the Revolution now affected John Dooly in a most personal way. On July 22, 1777, Thomas Dooly, with twenty-one men in two companies, set out to return to their post after having recovered some horses stolen by Creek war parties led by Emistisiguo. Some two miles (3 km) from Skull Shoals on the Oconee River, fifty Indians launched an ambush. Thomas Dooly fell with a wound to his heel string. Unable to move, he cried out in vain to his fleeing comrades not to leave him to suffer death at the hands of the Indians. This attack, which ended Thomas Dooly's life, came as part of a massive campaign by British Indian superintendent John Stuart to disrupt the efforts of the Indian trader George Galphin, a former ally of Governor Wright who had reluctantly agreed to serve as Indian commissioner for the Whigs in the South. The Indian commissioner worked to move the tribes to a neutral position. John