USA > Michigan > Hillsdale County > History of Hillsdale county. Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 4
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In vain the British officers, with unquestioned bravery, endeavored to encourage their terrified soldiers; in vain Braddock himself rushed into the thickest of the fire, where five horses were successively shot under him as he tried to form his men in the prim array suited to European warfare ; in vain young Col. Washington rode to and fro, seconding the efforts of his chief with far more wisdom, having like- wise two horses killed under him and his clothes riddled with bullets ; in vain the three companies of Virginia rifle- men, preserving something like composure amid the terrific scene, fought in Indian style from behind the trees; neither valiant example, nor military authority, nor the hope of self- preservation could inspire with courage that demoralized throng.
When it has been impracticable to fight Indians in their own fashion, good commanders have sometimes driven them from their coverts with the bayonet, as the red men generally have a wholesome horror of cold steel. Both Wayne at the Miami and Harrison at Tippecanoe pursued these tactics with great success. But either Braddock did not think of this or his men would not go forward, and the Indians continued to maintain their strong position in the ravines.
At length, after three hours' fighting, after the general had been mortally wounded and borne from the field, after Gage and Gates (the future conqueror of Saratoga) had also been severely wounded, after sixty-three officers out of eighty-six, and over seven hundred men out of twelve hundred, had been killed or wounded, the remainder fled in a rabble rout across the Monongahela, hastened on for several days till they met the rear-guard, and in company with them pursued their course till they reached a safe retreat in Philadelphia.
The French and Indians, who had suffered some loss though it was trifling compared with that of their oppo- nents, only pursued their defeated foes to the river, and then spread themselves over the field to seek for booty and scalps. The Indians fairly went crazy with their fiendish joy. A colonial prisoner previously captured, and held at Fort Duquesne, described them as rivaling Pandemonium itself on their return to that fortress at night. Hardly a warrior but had one or more scalps to adorn his girdle. Most of them had secured articles of clothing or other plunder from the dead or prisoners. All were covered with the blood of their unfortunate victims, and all were shriek- ing, whooping, leaping up and down, and brandishing their weapons in a perfect delirium of triumph.
Here might be scen a stalwart Ottawa, naked as he went forth in the morning, save that upon his head was placed the plumed hat of a British officer ; there strode a haughty Pottawattamie, a red coat, dyed a deeper crimson by the blood of its late owner, buttoned across his brawny breast, a gold watch clutched in his hand to be gazed at with ad-
miring but half-suspicious eyes, while two or three fair- haired scalps, suspended from the ramrod of his rifle, gave fearful evidence of the sorrow which that day had caused in far-off English homes. The glorious tragedy of battle never had a more hideous afterpiece of mingled folly and horror than was presented around Fort Duquesne at sunset on the 9th of July, 1755. Few prisoners were taken, and most of these suffered the awful, the almost indescribable, death at the stake, which Indian vengeance prescribes for their defeated foes.
The defeat of Braddock, and consequent retreat of the whole army, unloosed the passions and dispelled the fears of all the Western Indians,-even of those who had not before taken up arms for the French,-and thousands of tomahawks were grasped in the hope of burying them in the brains of the hated English colonists,-a hope, alas, too often fulfilled by the terrible reality. These predatory excursions constituted the principal part of the warfare waged by the Western Indians during the two succeeding years. A few Pottawattamies probably found their way to the armies of the Marquis de Montcalm, taking part with him in the capture of Oswego, in 1756, and in that of Fort William Henry and subsequent massacre, in 1757; but their numbers were so scant, and the part they played so unimportant, that it is needless to refer to it further here.
In 1758, the Pottawattamies, with the other Western Indians, were again summoned to the defense of Fort Du- quesne, then threatened by the army of Gen. Forbes. . Less than a thousand warriors assembled there; for while a single Indian tribe could keep a thousand miles of frontier in ter- ror, yet, owing to its small numbers and its extremely dem- ocratic organization, it could not, or would not, furnish any large number of men for protracted military operations. They could hardly expect to repeat the surprise which de- stroyed Braddock, and the French commander was fully prepared to retreat if necessary ; yet, nevertheless, they did succeed in inflicting destruction on a considerable por- tion of the invading army.
Maj. Grant, with a battalion of regulars, was sent for- ward by Gen. Forbes to reconnoitre, and to hold a safe position not far from Fort Duquesne. The major seems to have imbibed the idea that he could capture the fort without assistance, and carry off the honors alone. He accordingly marched up to within a very short distance of the French stronghold. Perhaps his desire was to tempt the enemy from his fastness; if so, he was only too suc- cessful.
Suddenly the whole crowd of Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Shawnees, Delawares, etc., poured yelling from the fortress, supported by the few French and Canadian soldiers present. Hurrying forward, they flung themselves impetuously upon the startled Britons, and succeeded in breaking their ranks. Then swiftly succeeded the scenes of confusion and panic so common when regular soldiers, under an incompetent commander, heard the terrible war-whoop sounding in their ears, and saw the forest flashing fire in every direction, while scarcely a single enemy appeared. Maj. Grant's force was cut off almost to a man, and once more the forest war- riors indulged in a carnival of malignant joy.
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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
But Gen. Forbes was too cautious to be surprised, and his force was too strong to be withstood, and when he ap- proached the fortress, previously so fiercely defended, the French and their Indian allies reluctantly retreated to their fastnesses still deeper in the forest.
The next year, 1759, came the great and practically the final struggle between the French and English in North America. Charles de Langlade, the partisan commander before mentioned, was with Montcalm at Quebec, with a body of Indians from the lake region, among whom were doubtless a band of Pottawattamie warriors, as that tribe was represented at almost every point where there was any fighting going on. The red men took an active part in some of the preliminary struggles around Quebec, but when the audacity and good fortune of Wolfe had placed the English on the open field of the Plains of Abraham there was no chance for Indian tactics, and even the French and Canadian levies were driven back in utter rout before the lead and steel of the British grenadiers.
A few weeks before the fall of Quebec a well-appointed Anglo-American force, accompanied by a large body of Iro- quois warriors, appeared before Fort Niagara, one of the strongest of the French fortresses, and considered the key of the whole Western country. Its commander called on his brethren for relief, and they responded promptly to his appeal. D'Aubry, the senior officer in the West, was at Venango, now in the State of Pennsylvania. With des- perate energy he called together every man he could mus- ter from Le Bœuf, Presque Isle, Detroit, and other French posts on and near Lake Erie. The Western Indians had been in the habit of making these posts their headquarters, but since the fall of Fort Duquesne they had been less en- thusiastic in their devotion to French interests.
Nevertheless, by using all his efforts, D'Aubry succeeded in gathering some six hundred of the Shawnees, Miamis, Pottawattamies, etc., who had so often danced the war- dance and brandished the tomahawk in behalf of France. With these were joined near a thousand French and Cana- dian soldiers, hastily gathered for a final struggle in defense of French supremacy in the West.
It was in the latter part of July that this motley band, in Indian canoes and French bateaux, coasted along the southern shore of Lake Erie, passed on down the Niagara, landed above the great cataract, and marched down to relieve the fort. But Sir William Johnson, who had be- come the commander of the besieging force, was not at all inclined to suffer the fate of Braddock. Well-apprised of the approach of his foe, he left a sufficient number to guard the trenches and marched forth to meet him. Soon the two armies were engaged in deadly conflict.
Seldom has a battle been fought with more picturesque surroundings, or under more romantic circumstances. Beside the field of combat, but a hundred feet below, the mighty Niagara rolled through its darksome gorge, while scarcely out of hearing, to the southward, thundered the avalanche of waters which has made Niagara renowned throughout the world. There was everything to nerve the combatants on both sides to the most desperate struggle. The fate of Canada was still hanging in the balance, but few could doubt that if this stronghold should fall into English hands they
would be able to control the upper lake country, whatever might become of the valley of the St. Lawrence.
On either side were regular soldiers of the two greatest nations of the world, colonial levies of rude appearance, but skilled in all the mysteries of forest warfare, and naked Indians ready to split open each other's heads for the benefit of the European intruders. Here, while Englishmen were crossing bayonets with Frenchmen, and Canadians and New Yorkers were aiming their fatal weapons at each other's breasts, Shawnees and Mohawks were also to be seen en- gaged in deadly conflict, the Onondaga fought hand to hand with the Ottawa, and the tomahawk of the brawny Potta- wattamie from the banks of the St. Joseph beat down the knife of the scowling Cayuga from the shores of the pel- lucid lake which still perpetuates his memory.
The contest was brief and decisive. The French and their red allies were utterly defeated, and chased for several miles through the woods ; their commander was wounded and taken prisoner, and a large portion of the whole force was either slain or captured. The fall of Fort Niagara speedily followed. The Indians who escaped returned in sorrow to their wigwams in the wilds of Ohio and Michigan, and gloomily awaited the result.
The next year the final blows were struck. Three armies were concentrated on Montreal, and the Marquis de Vau- dreuil, the governor-general of Canada, surrendered that province and all its dependencies to the English, including all the posts on the upper lakes and in the surrounding country. This was the formal act which made Michigan British territory, though the cause of the transfer is to be sought where Wolfe snatched victory from the grasp of death, on the Plains of Abraham.
Maj. Robert Rogers, a celebrated New Hampshire parti- san, was selected by the British general to lead a body of his rangers to take possession of Detroit, the same au- tumn. Arrived at that post, he found a band of Potta- wattamies just below the fort on the western side of the river, while the villages of the Wyandots were to be seen opposite, and those of the Ottawas farther up, on what is now the American side. The fort was surrendered on presentation of a letter from the governor-general announ- cing the capitulation. All the warriors hailed the descent of the French flag with yells which might have been in- spired by anger, but were quite likely to have indicated only excitement over the change.
The next year (1761), the posts at Michillimacinac, Saut Sainte Marie, Green Bay, and St. Joseph (where the St. Joseph River enters Lake Michigan) were also surrendered to the English. This practically consummated the transfer of Michigan to British rule.
But the Indians of that territory were from the first ex- tremely restive at the presence of the red-coats, and even the Iroquois began to think, when too late, that it would have been better to aid the French, and thus balance the greater power of the English. In July, 1761, a council was held near Detroit, at which the chiefs of the Ottawas, Chippewas, Wyandots, and Pottawattamies met with dele- gates from the Six Nations, or at least a part of them, and at which it was half agreed to endeavor to surprise Detroit, Fort Pitt, and all the other posts. The plot was discovered,
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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
however, before any conclusion was reached. It was ex- plained away as well as possible by the Indians, and the English paid very little attention to it.
The ill-will among the Indians still continued. The change was great from the subtle complaisance of the French, who veiled even acts of aggression with plausible pretexts and flattering words, to the bluff and contemptuous bearing of the English, who offended even when granting a favor. The French traders, voyageurs, and coureurs de bois, who feared the rivalry of the English in their occupations, fanned the rising hatred of the red men by a thousand wild stories regarding the intention of the British to destroy them, and the certainty that the French king would again send an army to drive out the intruders.
It was at this time that the celebrated Ottawa chief, Pontiac, conceived the idea of the great conspiracy with which his name has been permanently associated by the genius of Parkman, and in which the Pottawattamie tribe bore a prominent part. Near the close of 1762, he sent ambassadors among all the tribes, from the great lakes to the far south, to rouse them to united action against the English. But again the British got an inkling of the de- sign, and the plot was postponed.
In February, 1763, a treaty of peace was finally signed between Great Britain and France, the latter confirming the transfer to England of Canada, including Michigan and the Northwest, which had already been brought about by the force of arms. The news of this event, however, did not reach Detroit until the following summer. By the opening of spring, Pontiac had nearly perfected his arrangements. The tribes of Indians living eastward, at a given time, were to assail all the posts from the head of Lake Erie to Fort Niagara; the Chippewas were to carry Michillimacinac and Saut Ste. Marie, while Pontiac reserved to himself, with his Ottawas and Pottawattamies, the attack upon Detroit. To the Pottawattamies was also assigned the capture of Fort St. Joseph.
Sir William Johnson, who about this period made a careful estimate of the numbers of all the tribes of the north, fixed the number of Pottawattamie warriors in Michigan at three hundred and fifty, one hundred and fifty being temporarily located at Detroit and two hundred being in the St. Joseph Valley. It is probable, however, that the number of the latter portion was somewhat larger, as Sir William had no chance to examine them, and the maps of the period show the valley to have been the principal home of the tribe. Doubtless it seems as if three hundred and fifty warriors or even three times as many were a very small number to write a long chapter about, yet a few hun- dred Indians can make a terrible commotion. The Mohawks, one of the most warlike of the Six Nations, of whom the celebrated Brant was the chief, had no more, and that whole remarkable confederacy, the renown of which filled two continents, could muster but two thousand fighting men. And at the very time of which we are writing, the deeds of those few hundred Pottawattamies, and of three or four other tribes scarcely stronger than themselves, were destined to terrify half the people of North America, and to startle the ministry of triumphant Britain with portents of incal- culable disaster.
On the 27th of May, 1763, a council of Ottawas, Potta- wattamies, and Wyandots, the nucleus of the conspiring league, was held at the River Ecorces, near Detroit, at which Pontiac, with his wild eloquence, fired the hearts of his hearers, and prepared them for the deadly work before them. It was arranged that on the 2d of May he should gain ad- mittance to the fort with a party of warriors, on pretense of dancing the calumet dance, should carefully observe its strength, and call another council to make final preparations. This was accordingly done without exciting suspicion. A few days later Pontiac called the chiefs to another meeting in a large bark council-house, in the Pottawattamie village. Here, after again exciting their passions by a fervid recital of their wrongs, he proposed that on the seventh of that month he and the principal chiefs would gain admittance to the fort on pretense of holding a council with the com- mandant, all apparently unarmed, but all with weapons con- cealed under their blankets. At a given motion of the great chief, the officers assembled at the council were to be butchered, and the scalp-yells of the victors were to be the signal for a united attack by a host of warriors outside on the surprised and leaderless garrison. The plan was eagerly adopted by the chiefs.
At this time Detroit was defended by a hundred and twenty soldiers under Major Gladwyn, of the British army. There were also some employees, both English and French, within the fort. Outside, on both sides of the Detroit River, were several hundred families of French Canadians, who lived partly by agriculture, and partly by hunting, trapping, and trading with the Indians. They were on ex- cellent terms with Pontiac and his warriors, and probably many of them were quite willing that the hated English should be destroyed, no matter by what means. Yet they were not foolish enough to suppose that two or three thou- sand Indians could destroy the British power in North America, and were not at all disposed to subject themselves to a terrible retribution by aiding the conspirators.
Some of them, who were friendly to the English, saw that something unusual was going on among the warriors, and warned Maj. Gladwyn that there was danger in the air, but he, with the usual British-officer mixture of cour- age and dullness, paid no attention to their suggestions. Yet somchow, on the eve of the attack, he did receive a warning which he heeded. A score of different stories are preserved by tradition regarding the source of the informa- tion ; stories which only agree in declaring that the plot was betrayed by one of the Indians or squaws, probably one of the latter. The common account, probably adopted only because it has a spice of romance in it, is that in the Pottawattamie village dwelt an Ojibwa damsel who had become the mistress of Gladwyn. The day before the in- tended massacre slie sought an audience of her lover, and informed him of the whole plot in language so simple and earnest that he could not but believe it.
The next day, the 7th of May, sixty stalwart chieftains, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, and Wyandots, with the grim Pontiac at their head, marched in " Indian file" into the fort, to hold a council with their white father. Besides these, some two hundred and fifty other warriors had gained admittance on various pretexts, for Gladwyn, with bravery
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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
amounting to rashness, had allowed all to enter. But as Pontiac passed through the gate he saw the whole garrison as well as the employees of the fur-traders under arms, and knew that so far as a surprise was concerned his plot had failed. His warriors were all armed with knives and toma- hawks, and many of them had guns which had been filed off short, hidden under their blankets. Had they boldly attacked the garrison and been assisted by their comrades outside, they might very probably have succeeded in their attempt. But the Indian, though brave enough in his own way, will seldom engage in a square fight with the Cauca- sian unless he has a great advantage in numbers.
Pontiac and his chiefs held the proposed council with Gladwyn and his officers, but he made no signal and all passed off quietly. A dramatic account has frequently been published stating how, as Pontiac was raising his belt of wampum to give the fatal signal, Maj. Gladwyn anticipated him, when " the drums at the door of the council-house rolled to the charge, the guards presented their pieces, and the British officers drew their swords from the scabbards," and how the major immediately stepped forward, drew aside the chieftain's blanket, and disclosed the shortened musket beneath. But Gladwyn's letter, published by Parkman, declares distinctly that he did not intimate his suspicions of their intentions, and apparently negatives even the at- tempted signal and the rolling of the drums; it certainly negatives the traditional uncovering of the shortened mus- kets.
The Indians retired but did not yet throw off the mask. The next day, after another attempt to lull the suspicions of the British, Pontiac spent the afternoon in the Potta- wattamie village consulting with the chiefs.
On the ninth Pontiac made still another request for ad- mission with a large band, but Maj. Gladwyn refused entrance to any but the chief himself. Then at last the latter unloosed the rage of his followers, which he had held so long in the leash. With fiendish yells they threw them- selves upon a few wretched English who lived outside the walls, and the waving of the scalps of these unfortunates constituted their ghastly declaration of war. The Ottawa village was quickly moved to the west side of the river, and the same night a band of Ojibwas came down from Lake Huron.
At dawn, the morning of the tenth of May, the attack began. At the pealing of the war-whoop on every side the soldiers rushed to their posts. "And truly," says Park- man, " it was time; for not the Ottawas alone but the whole barbarian swarm- Wyandots, Pottawattamies, and Ojibwas-were upon them, and bullets rapped hard and fast against the palisades." Yet, though their numbers were estimated at from one to two thousand, they did not attempt to charge the walls, but with the usual Indian strategy sheltered themselves behind barns, outhouses, and bushes, keeping up an incessant fire at the loop-holes of the fort. The conflict was maintained for half the day, when the baffled savages gradually retired, neither side having suffered heavy loss. The attack had failed, and those who knew the Indian character might naturally expect that, having been repulsed on their first spring, they would soon slink away into the woods. It was a remarkable evidence
of the command obtained by Pontiac over these wild war- riors, that he was able to retain them as long as he did in the uncongenial duties of a siege.
But Pontiac, unused as he was to regular operations, had conceived the idea of starving out the garrison, and indeed there was considerable danger that he would do so. The supply of provisions was small, the French inhabitants were unwilling to brave the wrath of the savages, and, though communication with the East was open by the river and lake, the chances of receiving succor in time was very dis- couraging. Pontiac made such arrangements as his crude ideas of war suggested. He placed a band of Pottawatta- mies along the river below the fort to cut off any who might approach, while another band of the same tribe was con- cealed near the fort to shoot any one who might be seen. After another long fusillade, Pontiac sent a Canadian to demand a surrender of the post, which was promptly re- fused.
For over a month the siege was closely continued, the Indians preventing every one from going out, but seldom coming within gun-shot of the walls. There were two small English vessels in the river, and the garrison might easily have escaped, as indeed some of the officers thought was best, but Gladwyn peremptorily declined. Their scanty supplies were eked out by those surreptitiously brought across the river by the Canadians, and as long as this was the case the soldiers could hope to hold out till Sir Jeffrey Amherst could send relief, in response to the message which Gladwyn had managed to dispatch as early as the 14th of May.
In fact one detachment had left Fort Niagara on the 13th with supplies for Detroit, but this was cut off on the way, and when the soldiers crowded to the river-side to welcome a long line of boats, which they saw approaching under the English flag, they were inexpressibly disappointed to find them filled only with naked savages and their unfortunate captives. News of disaster now came thick and fast. One after another the garrison learned of the capture of the various little posts transferred to the English by the French, and the slaughter or captivity of their defenders. Of the twelve posts attacked during the wide-spread " Con- spiracy of Pontiac," all fell into the hands of the savages, save Detroit, Fort Pitt, and Fort Niagara.
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