More Skaggs and the Chickamauga Expedition of 1779

A while back I wrote a post about the Chickamauga Expedition of 1779. Basically, it was a water-borne attack on hostile Cherokees by the Virginia militia.  We know from his pension deposition that William Skaggs was a part of the expedition. Some family historians believe that kidnapped white Virginians were rescued from captivity, perhaps even Ruth Skaggs and daughters Rachel Skaggs and Darky Gothrin.  Now we have evidence that the Skaggs Long Hunters, John, Aaron and James Jr. were junior officers or non-commissioned officers under Captain Thomas Mastin on this expedition.

A Revolutionary War veteran, Moses Moss, filed a pension application in 1835 saying he was a soldier under Captain Thomas Mastin's command on the Chickamauga Expedition:

He enlisted for one year, under Captain Thomas Mastin – John, Aaron and James Scaggs were all subaltern or noncommissioned officers in said Mastin's Company. Shadrach White, Enos Johnson1 & Lisle Asberry were in the same mess with him in the company – he marched in said Maston's [sic] Company to the long Islands of Holston [River] where the forces of Colonels Robinson & Shelby [probably Isaac Shelby of North Carolina, now Tennessee] rendezvoused, – and he with Captain Maston was attached to Colonel Shelby's Regiment and marched down to the Chickamauga nation of Indians – from which Indians was recovered about 100 horses – about 300 cattle and a Negro boy or man – Thence back to Clinch River and up to the Fort where he had first enlisted, and there remained keeping century and doing Garrison duty, till the expiration of a year from the time of his enlistment – and was discharged by Captain Mastin.

Moses Moss' testimony states that John, Aaron and James Scaggs were all officers or NCOs under Thomas Mastin's command.  This is the first evidence I can find that Scaggs soldiers other than William were involved in this battle with the Indians.  Moses Moss also describes his enlistment:

...he entered the service of the United States as a soldier – (he knows not whether in the Continental or Virginia line) at a place called Scaggs' (or Skaggs') fort or Station upon the main fork of Clinch River, below a place called the Crab Orchard on that River – early in the spring the same year that Cornwallis with the British Army were in possession of Charlestown [May 12, 1780] – but having very little knowledge of figures or dates is unable to say what year it was.

It appears he was slightly mistaken.  The year would have been 1779, the year prior to the British occupation of Charleston, South Carolina.  Skaggs Station would have been in the Baptist Valley of what would soon become Tazewell County, Virginia.  Also, the reference to Aaron Skaggs with the known Long Hunters John and James Jr. would seem to give more credence to the theory that Aaron was also a brother of the Long Hunters who died at a young enough age to not have been referred to in the Moses Skaggs estate case many years later.