American Revolution soldier Elijah Pugh, born in Guilford Co., N.C. in 1760, joined a patriot band led by Col. Elijah Clarke at the end of 1778 when he was 18 and fought for three years, most notably at Kettle Creek in Georgia, where a pewter flask on his body deflected a bullet and spared his life. In 1784, he married Ruth Julian, a fellow patriot who as a teenager carried messages between the rebels, and they had seven children: Issac, Rezin, Miriam, Jesse, Achsah, Alviah, and Stephen. His son Issac Pugh, born March 9, 1785 in Wilkes Co., Ga., came to the Mississippi Territory in 1810 and settled in an area soon to become Clarke Co., where he lived for a year with the Choctaw Indians and became a friend of Pushmataha, the tribe's paramount chief. In 1811, Issac brought his wife, Hannah Baskin, whom he had married in 1809, along with his parents and siblings to the area. During the Creek War, the southern campaign of the War of 1812, he fought in the Battle of Burnt Corn and was later chosen by Pushmataha to train 3,000 warriors.