Pontiac – 7

Fort Pitt was the British military headquarters of the Western frontier. It was the Gibraltar of defense, protecting the Eastern colonies from invasion by the Western Indians.

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

Fort Pitt was the British military headquarters of the Western frontier. It was the Gibraltar of defense, protecting the Eastern colonies from invasion by the Western Indians. The consummation of Pontiac’s gigantic scheme depended upon the capture of Fort Pitt. It was a strong fortification at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Its northern ramparts were faced with brick on the side looking down the Ohio. Fort Pitt stood “far aloof in the forest and one might journey eastward full two hundred miles before the English settlements began to thicken.” The garrison consisted of three hundred thirty soldiers, traders and backwoodsmen, besides about one hundred women and a greater number of children. Captain Simeon Ecuyer, a brave Swiss officer, was in command. Every preparation was made for the expected attack. All houses and cabins outside the palisade were levelled to the ground. A rude fire-engine was constructed to extinguish any flames that might be kindled by the burning arrows of the Indians.

In the latter part of May the hostile savages began to approach the vicinity of the fort. On June 22d they opened fire “upon every side at once.” The garrison replied by a discharge of howitzers, the shells of which, bursting in the midst of the Indians, greatly amazed and disconcerted them. The Indians then boldly demanded a surrender of the fort, saying vast numbers of braves were on the way to destroy it. Ecuyer displayed equal bravado and replied that several thousand British soldiers were on the way to punish the tribes for their uprising. The fort was now in a state of siege. For about a month “nothing occurred except a series of petty and futile attacks,” in which the Indians, mostly Ottawas, Ojibwas and Delawares, did small damage. On July 26th, under a flag of truce, the besiegers again demanded surrender. It was refused and Ecuyer told the savages that if they again showed themselves near the Fort he would throw “bombshells” among them and “blow them to atoms.” The assault was continued with renewed fury.

Meanwhile Sir Jeffrey Amherst, the commander-in-chief of the British forces, awakening to the gravity of the situation, ordered Colonel Bouquet, a brave and able officer in his majesty’s service, to take command of certain specified forces and proceed as rapidly as possible to the relief of Fort Pitt and then make aggressive warfare on the Western tribes. Bouquet, leaving his head-quarters at Philadelphia, reached Carlisle late in June, where he heard for the first time of the calamities at Presqu’île, Le Boeuf and Venango. He left Carlisle with a force of five hundred men, some of them the pick of the British regulars, but many of them aged veterans enfeebled by disease and long, severe exposure. Bouquet had seen considerable service in Indian warfare. He was not likely to be caught napping. He marched slowly along the Cumberland Valley and crept cautiously over the mountains, passing Forts Loudon and Bedford, the latter surrounded with Indians, to Fort Ligonier, which, as noted above, had been blockaded for weeks by the savages who, as at Bedford, fled at Bouquet’s approach.

On August 5th the little army, footsore and tired and half-famished, reached a small stream within twenty-five miles of Fort Pitt, known as Bushy Run. Here in the afternoon they were suddenly and fiercely fired upon by a superior number of Indians. A terrific contest ensued, only ended by the darkness of night. The encounter was resumed next day; the odds were against the British, who were surrounded and were being cut down in great numbers by the Indians who skulked behind trees and logs and in the grass and declivities. Bouquet resorted to a ruse which was signally successful. He formed his men in a wide semicircle and from the center advanced a company toward the enemy; the advancing company then made a feint of retreat, the deceived Indians followed close after and fell into the ambuscade. The outwitted savages were completely routed and fled in hopeless confusion. Bouquet had won one of the greatest victories in Western Indian warfare. His loss was about one hundred fifty men, nearly a third of his army. The loss of the Indians was not so great.

As rapidly as possible Bouquet pushed on to Fort Pitt, which he entered without molestation on August 25th. The extent and the end of Pontiac’s conspiracy had at last been reached. The Pennsylvania Assembly and King George, even, formally thanked Bouquet.

Forts Detroit and Pitt, as has been seen, proved impregnable; neither the evil cunning nor the persistent bravery of the savage could dislodge the occupants of those important posts. The siege of Detroit had been abandoned by the combined forces of Pontiac, but the country round about continued to be infested with the hostile Indians, who kept up a sort of petty bushwhacking campaign that compelled the soldiers and traders of the fort, for safety, to remain “in doors” during the winter of 1763-1764. Bouquet, on gaining Fort Pitt, desired to pursue the marauding and murderous savages to their forest retreats and drive them hence, but he was unable to accomplish anything until the following year.

In the spring of 1764 Sir Jeffrey Amherst resigned his office and General Thomas Gage succeeded him as commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, with head-quarters in Boston. Shortly after assuming office, General Gage determined to send two armies from different points into the heart of the Indian country. The first, under Bouquet, was to advance from Fort Pitt into the midst of the Delaware and Shawano settlements of the Ohio Valley; and the other, under Bradstreet, was to pass from Fort Niagara up the Lakes and force the tribes of Detroit and the region round about to unconditional submission.

Colonel John Bradstreet left Fort Niagara in July, 1764, with the formidable force of over a thousand soldiers. In canoes and bateaux this imposing army of British regulars coasted along the shore of Lake Erie, stopping at various points to meet and treat with the Indians, who, realizing their inability to cope with so powerful an antagonist, made terms of peace or went through the pretense of so doing. At Sandusky (Fort), particularly, Bradstreet accepted the false promises of the Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, Delawares and Shawanoes. On August 26th he arrived at Detroit, to the great joy and relief of the garrison, which now, for more than a year, had been “cut off from all communication with their race” and had been virtually prisoners confined within the walls of their stockade. Bradstreet forwarded small detachments to restore or retake, as the case might be, the farther western British posts, which had fallen into the hands of Pontiac’s wily and exultant warriors.

Continued.

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