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Every German family that came to America -- the Cobles, Albrights, Holts, Amicks and countless others -- took the same route, but their stories differ. This is about one German family, the Clapps. When we last saw the Clapps, they had helped create a German-speaking community on the eastern fringe of Guilford County on the eve of the American Revolution.

Johan Ludwig Clapp was old and dying when his sons marched off to war. It had been nearly half a century since he had stood on the deck of the James Goodwill in the English harbor of Plymouth and gaped at the vast western ocean before him.

Since that time, he'd had 49 years to figure out what lay on the once-distant shores of America. And now, during the early summer of 1776, as the Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence, his sons Ludwig and Jacob joined the local militia and headed west into the mysterious North Carolina mountains in search of the Cherokee.

Being killed by Indians was perhaps the most primal and universal fear of frontier settlers in the colonial backcountry. In July 1776, the Cherokee killed about 30 colonists in western North Carolina.

Why did the Cherokee attack? Because the colonial government took hundreds of thousands of acres of land from the Cherokee, when they signed the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in March 1775 -- and still settlers continued to encroach. There seemed to be no end to the rapacious nature of white expansion. Many of the Cherokee believed the time for treaties was over and that the time for fighting had come.

In late May 1776, Cherokee leaders warned frontier settlers to get off their land within three weeks if they wanted to survive. Emboldened by the promise of a British alliance, the Cherokee prepared to attack but ultimately waited nearly two months before they did so.

The response by backcountry Patriots was swift and overwhelming. More than 2,500 militia members from throughout western North Carolina joined under the command of Griffith Rutherford, the brigadier general of the Salisbury District militia. Many of the soldiers came from Guilford County. Three of those soldiers were members of the Clapp family, including brothers Jacob and Ludwig, and their second cousin, Adam Clapp.

Lt. Jacob Clapp, 28, left behind his wife Barbara Foust, his 3-year-old daughter, Anna Catherine, his 1-year-old son, John, and his 4-month-old daughter, Anna Barbara. His older brother Ludwig, 34, parted with his wife, Sophia, and their 4-year-old son, John Ludwig, on their farm in eastern Guilford County.

The Clapp brothers proceeded to the muster grounds at Bruce's Crossroads, along with their second cousin, Adam, 22, and their neighbors George Neese, William Albright, Mattias Swing and John McBride, under the command of their fellow Lutheran neighbor, Capt. Henry Weitzell. There they joined Col. James Martin and the rest of the Guilford County Militia before marching on to Salisbury.

At Salisbury the Clapps met their expedition commander, Griffith Rutherford, and other soldiers from Rowan, Mecklenburg, Tryon and other backcountry counties. Once assembled, the troops began the long haul toward the headwaters of the Catawba River. They encamped "near a small stream" next to Cathy's Fort before moving on to the south-southwest, where they waited on a flat stretch of ground known as Pleasant Gardens. Here they drilled and occasionally wandered off to inspect the surrounding hills for nearly a month before the rest of Rutherford's expedition arrived.

While they waited, they prepared to fight an enemy they believed to be barbaric. The militia intended to retaliate against the terror of the Cherokee attacks by bringing fire and sword but no mercy to any enemy they felt to be subhuman. The Rutherford Expedition sought to end the Cherokee threat by killing their warriors, burning their homes and laying waste their crops and stores of food.

Despite this campaign of destruction, the state of North Carolina asked Rutherford to spare women and children whenever possible.

The monthlong wait fueled the hyperactive imaginations of the soldiers and gave their apprehensions time to fester. Their interminable delay made each day more distressing than the last, and the mounting fear of Cherokee attack brought the already jittery soldiers to the edge of mutiny.

The failure of the Cherokee to appear only heightened the militia members' fears that they were being watched from the dark, forested tops of surrounding hills.

Finally, on Sept. 1, Jacob, Ludwig, and the rest of the expedition stowed their possessions in their haversacks as they took their first steps into the unknown forest to the southwest. Then they climbed the nearby ridges and began their monthlong march of devastation.

Brent Brackett is curator of Tannenbaum Historic Park. Contact him at Brent.Brackett @greensboro-nc.gov or 545-5315.