Some  comparison  of  the  principal  authorities  consulted,
which  appear  more  or  less  contradictory  in  their  character,
ma}'  not  inappropriately  be  made  in  concluding  this  chap-
ter. Dawson,  vaguely  referring  to  the  Shelby  statements,
says  they  "differ  so  much  from  the  contemporary  reports,
that  I  have  not  noticed  them."  Colonel  Shelby  was  in
every  sense  a  real  hero  in  war,  and  the  details  he  furnishes
are  no  doubt  reliable.  But  in  after  life,  he  appears,  perhaps
imperceptibly,  little  b}'  little,  to  have  magnified  the  num-
bers, losses  and  prisoners  in  some  of  the  contests  in  which
he  was  engaged — notably  so  of  the  Musgrove  affair.  The
venerable  historian  of  Tennessee,  Dr.  J.  G.  M.  Ramsey,
states  in  a  letter  before  the  writer,  that  he  closely  followed
a  manuscript  narrative  of  Governor  Shelby  in  what  he
records  of  the  battle  at  Musgrove's — the  same  that  Hay-
wood had  used  before  him  ;  in  which  the  British  force  is
given  as  four  or  five  hundred,  reinforced  by  six  hundred
under  Colonel  Innes  from  Ninety  Six,  not,  however,  stating
the  strength  of  the  Whigs  ;  that  more  than  two  hundred
prisoners  were  taken,  with  a  loss  on  the  part  of  the  victors  of
only  six  or  seven  killed.     In  his  statement  to  Hardin,  Colonel

*  Correspondence  of  Cornwallis,  i,  58-59.
