Pontiac – 4

The garrison bravely and patiently withstood all assaults and bided the time of rescue.

Continuing Pontiac’s Uprising,
our selection from E.O. Randall. The selection is presented in eight easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in Pontiac’s Uprising.

Time: 1763
Place: Detroit

The garrison bravely and patiently withstood all assaults and bided the time of rescue. By midnight sallies and other expedients they removed all exterior buildings, fences, trees and other obstacles that lay within the range of their guns or that might afford protection to sneaking and stealthy Indians who would crawl snakelike close to the palisade and fire at the sentinels and loop-holes, or shoot their arrows tipped with burning tow upon the roofs of the structures within the Fort. Fortunately the supply of water was inexhaustible; the provisions were wisely husbanded; friendly Canadians across the river, under cover of night, brought supplies.

These Canadian farmers were also subject to tribute to the Indians, who seized their supplies by theft or open violence. They appealed to Pontiac and about the only creditable act recorded of that perfidious chief was his agreement to make restitution to the robbed settlers. Pontiac gave them in payment for their purloined property promissory notes drawn on birch-bark and signed with the figure of an otter — the totem to which he belonged — all of which promises to pay, it is said, were redeemed.

Day after day passed with varying incidents of attack and repulse. The keen-eyed watchfulness of the Indians never for an instant abated; their vigils were tireless and ceaseless; woe to the soldier who ventured without the Fort or even lifted his head above the palisade. Pontiac’s patience was strengthened with the delusive idea that the French were only temporarily defeated and would rally to his assistance. He even dispatched messengers across the interior to the French commandant, Neyon, at Fort Chartres on the Mississippi, requesting that French troops be sent without delay to his aid. Meanwhile Gladwyn had sent one of his schooners to Fort Niagara to hasten promised reinforcements from the British.

Lieutenant Cuyler had already (May 13th) left Niagara with convoy of seven boats, ninety-six men and quantities of supplies and ammunition. This little fleet coasted along the northern shore of Lake Erie until near the mouth of the Detroit River. The force attempted to land, when a band of Wyandot Indians suddenly burst from the woods, seized five of the boats and killed or captured sixty of the soldiers. Cuyler with the remaining men (thirty-six), many of whom were wounded, escaped in the other boats and crossed to Fort Sandusky, which they found had been taken and burned by the Wyandots; the garrison had been slaughtered and Ensign Paully sent prisoner to Pontiac’s camp. Cuyler with his escaping companions slowly wended his way back, where he reported the result of his expedition to the commanding officer, Major Wilkins.

At the same time the Wyandots, with the captured boats and prisoners, proceeded up the Detroit to Pontiac’s quarters, arriving in full sight of the Fort’s garrison, when Gladwyn, of course, learned of the destruction of the Cuyler flotilla. The disappointment to the inmates of the Fort was almost unbearable. Gladwyn’s schooner, however, reached Fort Niagara and returned about July 1st, laden with food, ammunition and reinforcements and the most welcome news of the Treaty of Paris. Pontiac, undismayed, continued his efforts. His forces now numbered, it is recorded, about eight hundred twenty warriors: two hundred fifty Ottawas, his own tribe and under his immediate command; one hundred fifty Pottawottomis, under Ninivay; fifty Wyandots, under Takee; two hundred Ojibwas, under Wasson; and one hundred seventy of the same tribe, under Sekahos.

The two schooners were a serious menace to the movements of the Indians and many desperate attempts were made to burn them by midnight attacks and the floating of fire-rafts down upon them; but all to no avail. Pontiac had the stubborn persistency of a later American general who said he would fight it out on that line if it took all summer. He exerted himself with fresh zeal to gain possession of the Fort. He demanded the surrender of Gladwyn, saying a still greater force of Indians was on the march to swell the army of besiegers. Gladwyn was equally tenacious and unyielding; he proposed to “hold the fort” till the enemy were worn out or reinforcements arrived. Pontiac sought to arouse the active aid of the neighboring Canadians, but the Treaty of Paris had made them British subjects and they dared not war on their conquerors. History scarcely furnishes a like instance of so large an Indian force struggling so long in an attack on a fortified place.

The Wyandots and Pottawottomis, however, never as enthusiastic in this war as the other tribes, late in July decided to withdraw from the besieging confederacy and make peace with the British. They did so and exchanged prisoners with Gladwyn. The Ottawas and Ojibwas, however, still held on, watching the Fort and keeping up a desultory fusillade. The end was drawing nigh. On July 29th, Captain James Dalzell arrived from Niagara with artillery supplies and two hundred eighty men in twenty-two barges. Their approach to the Fort was bravely contested by the combined Indian forces, even the Wyandots and Pottawottomis breaking their treaty and treacherously joining in the assault. Dalzell’s troops entered the Fort and he proposed an immediate sortie. Dalzell was bravery personified and he had fought with Israel Putnam.

On the morning after his arrival (July 31st) at two o’clock, he led a force of two hundred fifty men out of the Fort. They silently in the darkness marched along the river toward the Ottawa village just across Parent’s Creek. The Indians were prepared and had ambuscaded both sides of the road. They were, Indian fashion, secreted behind trees and fences and Canadian houses. Their presence was not discovered till the van of Dalzell’s column reached the bridge over the creek, when a terrible fire was opened upon the soldiers from all sides. It was still dark; the Indians could not be seen.

Continued.

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