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In September of this year occurred another of those sudden acts of violence which had too frequently marked the history of the Cherokee people during the preceding fifteen years. Superintendent Drew first reported543 to the Indian Office that a mob of one hundred armed men had murdered two unoffending citizens, Andrew and Washington Adair; that not less than two hundred men were in armed resistance to the authorities of the nation, who were unable or disinclined to suppress the insurrection, and that from sixty to one hundred of the best-known friends of the Adairs had been threatened with a fate similar to theirs. The presence and protection of an additional force of United States troops was therefore asked to preserve order in the Cherokee country and to allay the fears of the settlers along the border of Arkansas.

An additional United States force was accordingly dispatched, but the Cherokee authorities found little difficulty in controlling and allaying the excitement and disorder without their aid. In truth, the first report had been in large measure sensational, the facts as reported by Agent Butler some two months later544 being that the murder was occasioned by a purely personal difficulty and had no connection with any of the bitter political animosities that had cursed the nation for so many years. It seems that several years previous to the murder a Cherokee by the name of Proctor and one of the Adairs had a difficulty. Adair's friends took Proctor a prisoner through false pretenses and murdered him while in their hands. Proctor's friends in consequence were much enraged and made violent threats of retaliation. In fact during the period immediately following Proctor's death several other persons had been killed in consequence of the existing feud. The murder of the Adairs was the culmination of their enemies' revenge. The murderers were arrested, tried, and acquitted by the Cherokee courts.545