Part 2

General Forbes was detained in Philadelphia by a painful and dangerous malady. Bouquet advanced and encamped at Raystown, now Bedford. Then arose the question of opening a new road through Pennsylvania to Fort Duquesne, or following the old road made by Braddock. Washington, who commanded the Virginians, foretold the ruin of the expedition unless Braddock's road was chosen, but Forbes and Bouquet were firm and it was decided to adopt the new route through Pennsylvania. Forbes was able to reach Carlisle early in July, but his disorder was so increased by the journey that he was not able to leave that place until the 11th of August, and then in a kind of litter swung between two horses. In this way he reached Shippensburg, where he lay helpless until far in September. His plan was to advance slowly, establishing fortified magazines as he went, and at last when within easy distance of the Fort, to advance upon it with all force, as little impeded as possible with wagons and pack-horses. Having secured his magazines at Raystown, and built a fort which he called Fort Bedford in honor of his friend and patron, the Duke of Bedford,[B] Bouquet was sent with his command to forward the heavy work of road making over the main range of the Alleghanies and the Laurel Hills; "hewing, digging, blasting, laying facines and gabions, to support the track along the sides of the steep declivities, or worming their way like moles through the jungle of swamp and forest." As far as the eye or mind could reach a prodigious forest vegetation spread its impervious canopy over hill, valley and plain. His next post was on the Loyalhanna Creek, scarcely fifty miles distant from Fort Duquesne, and here he built a fortification, naming it Fort Ligonier, in honor of Lord Ligonier, commander-in-chief of His Majesty's armies. Forbes had served under Ligonier, and his influence, together with that of the Duke of Bedford, secured to Forbes his appointment.

Now came the difficult and important task of securing Indian allies. Sir William Johnston for the English, and Joncaire for the French, were trying in every way to frighten or cajole them into choosing sides; but that which neither of them could accomplish was done by a devoted Moravian missionary, Christian Frederick Post. Post spoke the Delaware language, had married a converted squaw, and by his simplicity, directness and perfect honesty, had gained their full confidence. He was a plain German, upheld by a sense of duty and single-hearted trust in God. The Moravians were apostles of peace, and they succeeded in a surprising way in weaning their converts from their ferocious instincts and savage practices, while the mission Indians of Canada retained all their native ferocity, and their wigwams were strung with scalps, male and female, adult and infant. These so-called missions were but nests of baptized savages, who wore the crucifix instead of the medicine-bag.

Post accepted the dangerous mission as envoy to the camp of the hostile Indians, and making his way to a Delaware town on Beaver Creek, he was kindly received by the three kings; but when they conducted him to another town he was surrounded by a crowd of warriors, who threatened to kill him. He managed to pacify them, but they insisted that he should go with them to Fort Duquesne. In his Journal he gives thrilling accounts of his escape from dangers threatened by both French and Indians. But he at last succeeded in securing a promise from both Delaware and Shawnees, and other hostile tribes, to meet with the Five Nations, the Governor of Pennsylvania and commissioners from other provinces, in the town of Easton, before the middle of September. The result of this council was that the Indians accepted the White wampum belt of peace, and agreed on a joint message of peace to the tribes of Ohio.

A few weeks before this Col. Bouquet, from his post at Fort Ligonier, forgot his usual prudence, and at his urgent request, allowed Major Grant, commander of the Highlanders, to advance. On the 14th of September, at about 2 A. M., he reached an eminence about half a mile from the Fort. He divided his forces, placing detachments in different positions, being convinced that the enemy was too weak to attack him. Infatuated with this idea, when the fog had cleared away, he ordered the reveille to be sounded. It was as if he put his foot into a hornet's nest. The roll of drums was answered by a burst of war-whoops, while the French came swarming out, many of them in their night shirts, just as they had jumped from their beds. There was a hot fight for about three-quarters of an hour, when the Highlanders broke away in a wild flight. Captain Bullit and his Virginians tried to cover the retreat, and fought until two-thirds of them were killed and Grant taken prisoner. The name of "Grant's Hill" still clings to the much-ambushed "hump" where the Court House now stands.

The French pushed their advantages with spirit, and there were many skirmishes in the forest between Fort Ligonier and Fort Duquesne, but their case was desperate. Their Indian allies had deserted them, and their supplies had been cut off; so Ligneris, who succeeded Contrecoeur, was forced to dismiss the greater part of his force. The English, too, were enduring great hardships. Rain had continued almost without cessation all through September; the newly made road was liquid mud, into which the wagons sunk up to the hubs. In October the rain changed to snow, while all this time Forbes was chained to a sick-bed at Raystown, now Fort Bedford. In the beginning of November he was carried from Fort Bedford to Fort Ligonier in a litter, and a council of officers, then held, decided to attempt nothing more that season, but a few days later a report of the condition of the French was brought in, which led Forbes to give orders for an immediate advance. On November 18, 1758, two thousand five hundred picked men, without tents or baggage, without wagons or artillery except a few light pieces, began their march.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The names of these woodsmen were Barnaby Currin and James MacGuire, Indian Traders; Henry Stewart and William Jenkins; Half King, Monokatoocha, Jeskakake, White Thunder and the Hunter.

[B] In recognition of this honor, the Duke of Bedford presented to the fort a large flag of crimson brocade silk. In 1895 this flag was in the possession of Mrs. Moore, of Bedford, who kindly lent it to the Pittsburgh Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, for exhibition at a reception given by them at Mrs. Park Painter's residence, February 15th, 1895.

FORT PITT

French Abandon Fort Duquesne.--Fort Pitt is Built.

On the evening of the 24th they encamped on the hills around Turtle Creek, and at midnight the sentinels heard a heavy boom as if a magazine had exploded. In the morning the march was resumed. After the advance guard came Forbes, carried in a litter, the troops following in three columns, the Highlanders in the center headed by Montgomery, the Royal Americans and Provincials on the right and left under Bouquet and Washington. Slowly they made their way beneath an endless entanglement of bare branches. The Highlanders were goaded to madness by seeing as they approached the Fort the heads of their countrymen, who had fallen when Grant made his rash attack, stuck on poles, around which their plaids had been wrapped in imitation of petticoats. Foaming with rage they rushed forward, abandoning their muskets and drawing their broadswords; but their fury was in vain, for when they reached a point where the Fort should have been in sight, there was nothing between them and the hills on the opposite banks of the Monongahela and Allegheny but a mass of blackened and smouldering ruins. The enemy, after burning the barracks and storehouses, had blown up the fortifications and retreated, some down the Ohio, others overland to Presque Isle, and others up the Allegheny to Venango.

There were two forts, and some idea may be formed of their size, with barracks and storehouses, from the fact that John Haslet writes to the Rev. Dr. Allison, two days after the English took possession, that there were thirty chimney stacks standing.

The troops had no shelter until the first fort was built. Col. Bouquet wrote to Miss Ann Willing from Fort Duquesne, November 25th, 1758, "they have burned and destroyed to the ground their fortifications, houses and magazines, and left us no other cover than the heavens--a very cold one for an army without tents or equipages."

Col. Bouquet in a letter written to Chief Justice Allen of Pennsylvania on November 26th, enumerated the needs of the garrison, which he hopes the Provinces of Pennsylvania and Virginia will immediately supply. He adds: "After God, the success of this expedition is entirely due to the general. He has shown the greatest prudence, firmness and ability. No one is better informed than I am, who had an opportunity to see every step that has been taken from the beginning and every obstacle that was thrown in his way." Forbes' first care was to provide defense and shelter for his troops, and a strong stockade was built around the traders' cabins and soldiers' huts, which he named Pittsburgh, in honor of England's great Minister, William Pitt. Two hundred Virginians under Col. Mercer were left to defend the new fortification, a force wholly inadequate to hold the place if the French chose to return and attempt to take it again. Those who remained must for a time depend largely on stream and forest to supply their needs, while the army, which was to return began their homeward march early in December, with starvation staring them in the face.

No sooner was this work done than Forbes utterly succumbed. He left with the soldiers, and was carried all the way to Philadelphia in a litter, arriving there January 18, 1759. He lingered through the winter, died in March, and was buried in Christ Church, March 14, 1759. Parkman says: "If his achievement was not brilliant, its solid value was above price; it opened the Great West to English enterprise, took from France half her savage allies, and relieved the western borders from the scourge of Indian war. From Southern New York to North Carolina the frontier population had cause to bless the memory of this steadfast and all-enduring soldier."

Just sixty days after the taking of Fort Duquesne, William Pitt wrote a letter, dated Whitehall, January 23, 1759, of which the following extract will show how important this place was considered in Great Britain.

"Sir:--I am now to acquaint you that the King has been pleased immediately upon receiving the news of the success of his armies on the river Ohio, to direct the commander-in-chief of His Majesty's forces in North America, and General Forbes, to lose no time in concerting the properest and speediest means for completely restoring, if possible, the ruined Fort Duquesne to a defensible and respectable state, or for erecting another in the room of it of sufficient strength, and every way adequate to the great importance of the several objects of maintaining His Majesty's subject in the undisputed possession of the Ohio," etc., etc.

In a letter dated Pittsburgh, August 1759, Col. Mercer writes to Gov. Denny: "Capt. Gordon, chief engineer, has arrived with most of the artificers, but does not fix the spot for constructing the Fort till the general comes up. We are preparing the materials for building with what expedition so few men are capable of."

There was no attempt made to restore the old fortifications, but about a year afterwards work was begun on a new fort. Gen. John Stanwix, who succeeded Gen. Forbes, is said to have been a man of high military standing, with a liberal and generous spirit. In 1760, he appeared on the Ohio at the head of an army, and with full power to build a large fort where Fort Duquesne had stood. The exact date of his arrival and the day when work was commenced is not known, but the work must have been begun the last of August or the first of September, 1759. A letter dated September 24, 1759, gives the following account: "It is now near a month since the army has been employed in erecting a most formidable fortification, such a one as will to latest posterity secure the British Empire on the Ohio. There is no need to enumerate the abilities of the chief engineer nor the spirit shown by the troops in executing the important task; the fort will soon be a lasting monument of both."

The fort was built near the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela unite their waters, but a little farther inland than the site of Fort Duquesne. It stood on the present site of the Duquesne Freight Station, while all the ground from the Point to Third Street and from Liberty Street to the Allegheny River was enclosed in a stockade and surrounded by a moat. It was a solid and substantial building, constructed at an enormous expense to the English Government.[C] It was five-sided, two sides facing the land of brick, the others stockade. The earth around was thrown up so all was enclosed by a rampart of earth, supported on the land side by a perpendicular wall of brick; on the other sides a line of pickets was fixed on the outside of the slope, and a moat encompassed the entire work. Casemates, barracks and store houses were completed for a garrison of one thousand men and officers, and eighteen pieces of artillery mounted on the bastions. This strong fortification was thought to establish the British dominion of the Ohio. The exact date of its completion is not known, but on March 21, 1760, Maj. Gen. Stanwix, having finished his work, set out on his return journey to Philadelphia.

Conspiracy of Pontiac and Col. Bouquet.

The effect of this stronghold was soon apparent in the return of about four thousand settlers to their lands on the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, from which they had been driven by their savage enemies, and the brisk trade which at once began to be carried on with the now, to all appearance, friendly Indians. However, this security was not of long duration. The definite treaty of peace between England, Spain and France was signed February 10, 1763, but before that time, Pontiac, the great chief of the Ottawas, was planning his great conspiracy, which carried death and desolation throughout the frontier.

The French had always tried to ingratiate themselves with the Indians. When their warriors came to French forts they were hospitably welcomed and liberally supplied with guns, ammunition and clothing, until the weapons and garments of their forefathers were forgotten. The English, on the contrary, either gave reluctantly or did not give at all. Many of the English traders were of the coarsest stamp, who vied with each other in rapacity and violence. When an Indian warrior came to an English fort, instead of the kindly welcome he had been accustomed to receive from the French, he got nothing but oaths, and menaces, and blows, sometimes being assisted to leave the premises by the butt of a sentinel's musket. But above and beyond all, they watched with wrath and fear the progress of the white man into their best hunting grounds, for as the English colonist advanced their beloved forests disappeared under the strokes of the axe. The French did all in their power to augment this discontent.

In this spirit of revenge and hatred a powerful confederacy was formed, including all the western tribes, under the command of Pontiac, alike renowned for his war like spirit, his wisdom and his bravery, and whose name was a terror to the entire region of the lakes. The blow was to be struck in the month of May, 1763. The tribes were to rise simultaneously and attack the English garrisons. Thus a sudden attack was made on all the western posts. Detroit was saved after a long and close siege. Forts Pitt and Niagara narrowly escaped, while Le Boeuf, Venango, Presqu' Isle, Miamis, St. Joseph, Quachtanon, Sandusky and Michillimackinac all fell into the hands of the Indians. Their garrisons were either butchered on the spot, or carried off to be tortured for the amusement of their cruel captors.

The savages swept over the surrounding country, carrying death and destruction wherever they went. Hundreds of traders were slaughtered without mercy, while their wives and children, if not murdered, were carried off captives. The property destroyed or stolen amounted, it is said to five hundred thousand pounds. Attacks were made on Forts Bedford and Ligonier, but without success. Fort Ligonier was under siege for two months. The preservation of this post was of the utmost importance, and Lieut. Blaine, by his courage and good conduct, managed to hold it until August 2, 1763, when Col. Bouquet arrived with his little army.

In the meantime, every preparation was made at Fort Pitt for an attack. The garrison at that post numbered three hundred and thirty, commanded by Capt. Simeon Ecuyer, a brave Swiss. The fortifications having been badly damaged by floods, were with great labor repaired. The barracks were made shot-proof to protect the women and children, and as the buildings inside were all of wood, a rude fire-engine was constructed to extinguish any flames kindled by the fire-arrows of the Indians. All the houses and cabins outside the walls were leveled to the ground. The fort was so crowded by the families of the settlers who had taken refuge there, that Ecuyer wrote to Col. Bouquet, "We are so crowded in the fort that I fear disease, for in spite of every care I cannot keep the place as clean as I should like. Besides, the smallpox is among us, and I have therefore caused a hospital to be built under the drawbridge."

Several weeks, however, elapsed before there was any determined attack from the enemy. On July 26th some chiefs asked for a parley with Capt. Ecuyer, which was granted. They demanded that he and all in the fort should leave immediately or it and they would all be destroyed. He replied that they would not go, closing his speech with these words: "Therefore, my brother, I will advise you to go home, * * * Moreover, I tell you if any of you appear again about this fort, I will throw bomb-shells which will burst and blow you to atoms, and fire cannon upon you loaded with a whole bag full of bullets. Take care, therefore, for I don't want to hurt you." On the night succeeding this parley the Indians approached in great numbers, crawling under the banks of the two rivers digging holes with their knives, in which they were completely sheltered from the fire of the fort. On one side the entire bank was lined with these burrows, from which they shot volleys or bullets, arrows and fire-arrows into the fort. The yelling was terrific, and the women and children in the crowded barracks clung to each other in abject terror. This attack lasted five days. On August 1st the Indians heard the rumor of Col. Bouquet's approach, which caused them to move on, and so the tired garrison was relieved.

When the news of this Indian uprising reached Gen. Amhurst, he ordered Col. Bouquet to march with a detachment of five hundred men to the relief of the besieged forts. The force was composed of companies from the Forty-second Highlanders and Seventy-seventh Regulars, to which were added six companies of Rangers. Bouquet established his camp in Carlisle at the end of June. Here he found every building, every house, every barn, every hovel, crowded with refugees. He writes to Gen. Amherst on July 13th, as follows: "The list of people known to be killed increases every day. The desolation of so many families, reduced to the last extreme of want and misery; the despair of those who have lost their parents; relations and friends, with the cries of distracted women and children who fill the streets, form a scene painful to humanity and impossible to describe."

Strange as it may seem, the Province of Pennsylvania would do nothing to aid the troops who gathered for its defense. The Quakers, who had a majority in the Assembly, were non-combatants from principle and practice; and the Swiss and German Mennonites, who were numerous in Lancaster County, professed, like the Quakers, the principle of non-resistance, and refused to bear arms. Wagons and horses had been promised, but promises were broken. Bouquet writes again to Amherst: "I hope we shall be able to save that infatuated people from destruction, notwithstanding all their endeavors to defeat your vigorous measures." While Bouquet harassed and exasperated, labored on at his difficult task, the terror of the country people increased, until at last finding that they could hope for but little aid from the Government, they bestirred themselves with admirable spirit in their own defense. They raised small bodies of riflemen, who scoured the woods in front of the settlements, and succeeded in driving the enemy back. In some instances these men dressed themselves as Indian warriors, painted their faces red and black, and adopted the savage mode of warfare.

On the 3rd of July a courier from Fort Bedford rode into Carlisle, and as he stopped to water his horse he was immediately surrounded by an anxious crowd, to whom he told his tale of woe, adding, as he mounted his horse to ride on to Bouquet's tent, "The Indians will soon be here." Terror and excitement spread everywhere, messengers were dispatched in every direction to give the alarm, and the reports, harrowing as they had been, were fully confirmed by the fugitives who were met on every road and by-path hurrying to Carlisle for refuge. A party armed themselves and went out to warn the living and bury the dead. They found death and desolation everywhere, and sickened with horror at seeing groups of hogs tearing and devouring the bodies of the dead.

After a delay of eighteen days, having secured enough wagons, horses and oxen, Bouquet began his perilous march, with a force much smaller than Braddock's, to encounter a foe far more formidable. But Bouquet, the man of iron will and iron hand, had served seven years in America, and understood his work.

On July 25th he reached Fort Bedford, when he was fortunate in securing thirty backwoodsmen to go with him. This little army toiled on through the blazing heat of July over the Alleghanies, and reached Fort Ligonier, August 2nd, the Indians, who had besieged the fort for two months, disappearing at the approach of the troops. Here Bouquet left his oxen and wagons and resumed his march on the 4th. On the 5th, about noon, he encountered the enemy at Bushy Run. The battle raged for two days, and ended in a total route of the savages. The loss of the British was one hundred and fifteen and eight officers. The distance to Fort Pitt was twenty-five miles, which place was reached on the 10th. The enemy had abandoned the siege and marched to unite their forces with those which attacked Col. Bouquet at Bushy Run. The savages continued their hasty retreat, but Col. Bouquet's force was not sufficient to enable him to pursue the enemy beyond the Ohio, and he was obliged to content himself with supplying Fort Pitt and other forts with provisions, ammunition and stores.

It was at this time that Col. Bouquet built the little Redoubt which is now not only all that remains of Fort Pitt, but the only existing monument of British occupancy in this region.