In May 1776, Cherokee chiefs, alarmed by the expansion of white settlers onto their land, gave the Wataugans twenty days to leave or face war. The Wataugans asked for more time and built Fort Watauga, also called Fort Caswell, near a spring in a bottom one-half miles northeast of the mouth of Gap Creek. Anger among the Cherokee, who had allied themselves with the British, increased when they learned of the stockade. In mid July, Old Abram of Chilowee led 300 warriors against Fort Watauga, while Dragging Canoe and The Raven of Chote, with 400 men, attacked the Holston and Carter's Valley settlements. Warned by Nancy Ward, a Cherokee woman married to a white man, the Watauga and Nolichucky settlers fled to Fort Watauga and sent warnings to other settlements. At daybreak on July 21, Old Abram attacked, surprising several women outside milking, but their screams alerted the defenders. All of the women reached safety, with John Sevier pulling Catherine Sherrill over the wall. Captain James Robertson commanded only 75 men, boys, and Negroes fit to bear arms and had just six pounds of powder, yet the defenders repulsed the Cherokee after a three-hour battle. The Cherokee then began a loose siege, and an attempt to burn the fort failed when Anne Robertson poured boiling water on the torchbearers. In early August, after Old Abram learned that the Holston settlers had defeated Dragging Canoe at the Battle of Long Island Flats on July 20, the Cherokee retreated. The fighting began an Indian war that lasted until 1794. At least 225 men, women, and children took refuge inside the fort, where crowded conditions soon became squalid and caused considerable sickness and suffering.