Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 74

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

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slam, or subject to a captivity worse than deatlı ; husbands their wives left mangled in the forest, or forced into the embraces of their savage captors-some with babes at their breast, and some whose offspring would first see the light in the red man's wigwam- and loud were the cries that went up on every side for vengeance.

Bouquet wished to follow up his success, and march at once into the heart of the enemy's country, and wring from the hostile tribes by force of arms a treaty of peace which should forever put an end to these scenes of rapine and murder. But his force was too small to attempt this, while the season was too far advanced to leave time to

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organize another expedition before winter. He therefore determined to remain at the fort till spring, and then assemble an army suffi- ciently large to crush all opposition, and finish what he had so successfully begun.

Acting under instructions, he matured during the winter all his plans, and soon as spring opened set on foot measures by which an army strong enough to render resistance hopeless should be placed under his com- mand.

In the meantime the Indians had obtained powder from the French, and as soon as the snow melted recommenced their ravages along the frontier, killing, scalping, and taking prisoners men, women, and children.

Bouquet could muster scarcely 500 men of the regular army-most of them Highlanders of the Forty-second and Sixtieth regiments- but Pennsylvania, at her own expense, fur- nished 1,000 militia, and Virginia a corps of volunteers. With this imposing force he was directed to march against the Delawares, Mohicans, and Mingoes ; while Col. Brad- street, from Detroit, should advance into the territory of the Wyandots, Ottawas, and Chippewas; and thus, by one great simul- taneous movement, crush those warlike tribes. Bouquet's route, however, was without any water communication whatever, but lay di- rectly through the heart of an unbroken wil- derness. The expedition, from beginning to end, was to be carried on without boats, wagons, or artillery, and without a post to fall back upon in case of disaster. The army was to be an isolated thing, a self-supporting machine.

Although the preparations commenced early in the spring difficulties and delays occurred in carrying them forward, so that the troops that were ordered to assemble at Carlisle did not get ready to march till the 5th of August. Four days after they were drawn up on parade, and addressed in a pa- triotic speech by the governor of the State. This ceremony being finished, they turned their steps toward the wilderness, followed by the cheers of the people. Passing over the bloody field of Bushy Run, which still bore the marks of the sharp conflict that took place there the year before, they pushed on, unmolested by the Indians, and entered Fort Pitt on the 13th of September.

In the meantime a company of Delawares visited the fort, and informed Bouquet that Col. Bradstreet had formed a treaty of peace with them and the Shawnees.

Bouquet gave no credit to the story, and went on with his preparations. To set the matter at rest, however, he offered to send an express to Detroit if they would furnish guides and safe conduct, saying he would give it ten days to go and ten to return.

This they agreed to; but, unwilling to trust their word alone, he retained ten of their number as hostages, whom he declared he would shoot if the express came to any harm. Soon after other Indians arrived, and en- deavored to persuade him not to advance till the express should return. Suspecting that

their motive was to delay him till the season was too far advanced to move at all, he turned a deaf car to their solicitations, saying that the express could meet him on his march ; and, if it was true, as they said, that peace was concluded, they would receive no harm from him. So, on the 3d of October, under a bright autumnal sky, the imposing little army of 1,500 men defiled out of the fort, and taking the great Indian trail westward boldly entered the wilderness. The long train of pack-horses and immense droves of sheep and cattle that accompanied it gave to it the ap- pearance of a huge caravan, slowly threading its way amidst the endless colonnades of the forest. Only one woman was allowed to each corps, and two for general hospital.

This expedition, even in early history, was a novel one ; for, following no water-course, it struck directly into the trackless forest, with no definite point in view and no fixed limit to its advance. It was intended to over- awe by its magnitude ; to move as an exhibi- tion of awful power into the very heart of the red man's dominions. Expecting to be shut up in the forest at least a month, and receive in that time no supplies from without, it had to carry along an immense quantity of pro- visions. Meat, of course, could not be pre- served, and so the frontier settlements were exhausted of sheep and oxen to move on with it for its support. These necessarily caused its march to be slow and methodical. A corps of Virginia volunteers went in advance, preceded by three scouting parties, one of which kept the path, while the other two moved in a line abreast on either side to ex- plore the woods. Under cover of these the axe companies, guarded by two companies of light infantry, cut two parallel paths, one each side of the main path, for the troops, pack- horses, and cattle that were to follow. First marched the Highlanders, in column two deep in the centre path, and in the side paths in single file abreast, the men six feet apart ; and behind them the corps of reserve and the second battalion of Pennsylvania militia. Then came the officers and pack-horses, fol- lowed by the vast droves of cattle, filling the forest with their loud complainings. A com- pany of light horse walked slowly after these, and the rear guard closed the long array. No talking was allowed, and no music cheered the way. When the order to halt passed along the line the whole were to face outward, and the moment the signal of attack sounded to form a hollow square, into the centre of which pack-horses, ammunition, and cattle were to be hurried, followed by the light horse.

In this order the unwieldy caravan strug- gled on through the forest, neither extremity of which could be seen from the centre, it being lost amidst the thickly clustering trunks and foliage in the distance.

The first day the expedition made only three miles. The next, after marching two miles, it came to the Ohio, and moved down its gravelly beach six miles and a half, when it again struck into the forest, and, making

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seven miles, encamped. The sheep and cat- tle, which kept up an incessant bleating and lowing that could be heard more than a mile, were placed far in the rear at night and strongly guarded.

Tuesday, October 5, the march led across a level country, covered with stately timber and with but little underbrush, so that paths were easily cut, and the army made ten miles before camping. The next day it again struck the Ohio, but followed it only half a mile when it turned abruptly off, and cross- ing a high ridge over which the cattle were urged with great difficulty, found itself on the banks of Big Beaver creek. The stream was deep for fording, with a rough, rocky bottom, and high, steep banks. The current was, moreover, strong and rapid; so that, although the soldiers waded across without material difficulty, they had great trouble in getting the cattle safely over. The sheep were com- pelled to swim, and being borne down by the rapid current landed, bleating, in scattered squads along the steep banks, and were col- lected together again only after a long effort. Keeping down the stream they at length reached its mouth, where they found some deserted Indian huts, which the Indians with them said had been abandoned the year before, after the battle of Bushy Run. Two miles further on they came upon the skull of a child stuck upon a pole.

There was a large number of men in the army who had wives, children, and friends prisoners among the Indians, and who had accompanied the expedition for the purpose of recovering them. To these the skull of this little child brought sad reflections. Some one among them was perhaps its father, while the thought that it might stand as an index to tell the fate of all that had been captured made each one shudder. As they looked on it, bleached by the winds and rain, the anxious heart asked questions it dared not answer.

The next day was Sunday, but the camp broke up at the usual hour, and the army re- sumed its slow march. During the day it crossed a high ridge, from the top of which one of those wondrous scenes found nowhere but in the American wilderness burst on their view. A limitless expanse of forest stretched away till it met the western heavens, broken only here or there by a dark gash or seam, showing where, deep down amidst the trees, a river was pursuing its solitary way to the Ohio, or an occasional glimpse of the Ohio itself, as in its winding course it came in line of vision. In one direction the tree-tops would extend, miles upon miles, a vast floor- ing of foliage, level as the bosom of a lake, and then break into green billows, that went rolling gently against the cloudless horizon. In another lofty ridges rose, crowned with majestic trees, at the base of which swamps of dark fir trees, refusing the bright beams of the October sun, that flooded the rest of the wilderness, made a pleasing contrast of light and shade. The magnificent scene was new to officers and men, and they gazed on it in rapture and wonder.

Keeping on their course they came, two days after, to à point where the Indian path they had been following so long divided-the two branches leading off at a wide angle. The trees at the forks were covered with hieroglyphics, describing the various battles the Indians had fought, and telling the num- ber of scalps they had taken, etc.

This point was in the southern part of the present county of Columbiana. The trails were both plainly marked and much trav- elled.

The right-hand trail took a general course northwest toward Sandusky, and led to that place and on to Detroit ; the course of the left-hand trail was generally southwest, and passed through the counties of Carroll and Tuscarawas, striking the Tuscarawas river in the latter county, down which it followed, on the south side, to Coshocton, and crossing the Muskingum a few miles below the site of Coshocton continued down the west side of the Muskingum at Dresden, where it crossed the Wakatomika and entered Licking county ; passing across that county to the present reservoir continued on southwest to the In- dian towns on the Scioto.

Col. Bouquet took the right-hand trail, which he followed until he reached the Tusca- rawas river, when he left it and turned south- ward along that stream.

The path selected by the army was so over- grown with bushes that every foot of the way had to be cleared with the axe. It led through low, soft ground, and was frequently crossed by narrow, sluggish rivulets, so deep and miry that the pack-horses could not be forced across them. After several attempts to do so, in which the animals became so thoroughly imbedded in the mud that they had to be lifted out with main force, they halted, while the artificers cut down trees and poles and made bridges. This was the hardest day's toil to which they had been subjected, and with their utmost efforts they were able to accomplish but five miles.

On Thurday, the 11th, the forest was open, and so clear of undergrowth that they made seventeen miles. Friday, the 12th, the path led along the banks of Yellow Creek, through a beautiful country of rich bottom land on which the Pennsylvanians and Virginians looked with covetous eyes, and made a note for future reference. The next day they crossed it, and ascending a swell of land marched two miles in view of one of the loveliest prospects the sun ever shone upon. There had been two or three frosty nights, which had changed the whole aspect of the forest. Where, a few days before, an ocean of green had rolled away, there now was spread a boundless carpet, decorated with an endless variety of the gayest colors, and lighted up by the mellow rays of an October sun.

Long strips of yellow, vast masses of green, waving lines of red, wandering away and los- ing themselves in the blue of the distant sky -immense spaces sprinkled with every im- aginable hue, now separated elear and distinct

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as if by a painter's brush, and now shading gradually into each other, or mingling in inextricable beautiful confusion, combined to formu a scene that appeared more like a won- drous vision suddenly unrolled before them than this dull earth. A cloudless sky and the dreamy haze of Indian summer, overarch- ing and enrobing all this beauty and splendor, completed the picture and left nothing for the imagination to suggest.

At length they descended to a small river, which they followed till it joined the main branch of the Muskingum (Tuscarawas), where a scene of a very different character greeted them. A little below and above the forks the shores had been cultivated and lined with Indian houses. The place was called "Tuscaroras," and for beauty of situa- tion could not well be surpassed. The high, luxuriant banks, the placid rivers meeting and flowing on together, the green fields springled with huts and bordered with the rich autumnnal foliage, all basking in the mellow October light, and so out of the way there in the wilderness, combined to form a sweet picture, and was doubly lovely to them after having been so long shut up in the forest.

They reached this beautiful spot Saturday afternoon, October 13, and the next day being Sunday they remained in camp, and men and cattle were allowed a day of rest. The latter revived under the smell of green grass once more, and roaming over the fields gave a still more civilized aspect to the quiet scene.

During the day the two messengers that had been sent to Detroit came into camp, accompanied by their Indian guides. The report they brought showed the wisdom of Bouquet in refusing to delay his march until their return. They had not been allowed to pursue their journey, but were held close prisoners by the Delawares until the arrival of the army, when, alarmed for their own safety, they released them and made them bearers of a petition for peace.

The next day, Monday, the army moved two miles farther down the Tuscarawas, and encamped on a high bank, where the stream was 300 feet wide, within the present limits of Tuscarawas county, where it remained in camp about a week. On Tuesday six chiefs came into camp, saying that all the rest were eight miles off waiting to make peace. Bouquet told them he would be ready to re- ceive them the next day. In the meantime he ordered a large bower to be built a short distance from the camp, while sentinels were posted in every direction to prevent surprise, in case treachery was meditated.

The next day, the 17th, he paraded the Highlanders and Virginian volunteers, and, escorted by the light horse, led them to the bower, where he disposed them in the most imposing manner, so as to impress the chiefs in the approaching interview. The latter, as they emerged from the forest, were con- ducted with great ceremony to the bower, which they entered with their accustomed

gravity ; and without saying a word quietly seated themselves and commenced smoking. When they had finished they laid aside their pipes, and drew from their pouches strings of wampum. The council being thus opened they made a long address, laying the whole blame of the war on the young men, whom they said they could not control. Bouquet, not wishing to appear eager to come to a set- tlement, replied that he would give his answer the next day ; and the council broke up. The next day, however, a pouring storm pre- vented the meeting of council until the day following. Bouquet's answer was long and conciliatory, but the gist of it was he would make peace on one condition and no other -- that the Indians should give up all the pris- oners in their possession within ten days.

The Indians present at this council were Ki-yash-uta, chief of the Senecas, with fifteen warriors ; Custaloga, chief of the Wolf tribe of Delawares, and Beaver, chief of the Tur- key tribe of the Delawares, with twenty war- riors ; and Keissi-nautchtha, as chief of the Shawnees, with six warriors.

Monday, October 22, the army, accom- panied by the Indian deputies, recommenced its march, as Bouquet wished to show that he was determined to enforce his demands. They marched nine miles down the Tusca- rawas and went into camp. This was their fourteenth camp since leaving Fort Pitt, and was within a few miles of the east line of Coshocton county. The next day (October 23) the army crossed the present boundaries of this county, marching sixteen miles and camping seven miles east of the present site of the town. This camp must have been in Lafayette township, very near the line between it and Oxford. Here Bouquet remained until the 25th, when he continued his march a little more than six miles, camping within a mile of the forks of the Muskingum.

Judging this to be as central a position as he could find, he resolved to fix himself here until the object of his mission could be ac- complished. He ordered four redoubts to be built, erected several storehouses, a mess house, a large number of ovens and various other buildings for the reception of the cap- tives, which, with the white tents scattered up and down the banks of the river, made a large settlement in the wilderness and filled the Indians with alarm. A town with nearly two thousand inhabitants, well supplied with horses, cattle and sheep, and ample means of defence, was well calculated to awaken the gloomiest anticipations.

The steady sound of the axe day after day, the lowing of the cattle, and all the sounds of civilization echoing along the banks of the Tuscarawas within the very heart of their territory, was more alarming than the resist- less march of a victorious army, and anxious to get rid of such unwelcome companions, they made every effort to collect the prisoners scattered among the various tribes.

The American wilderness never presented such a spectacle as was here exhibited on the banks of the Muskingum. It was no longer

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a hostile camp, but a stage on which human nature was displaying its most attractive and noble traits ; or rather a sublime poem, en- acted there in the bosom of the wilderness, whose burden was human affection and whose great argument the common brotherhood of mankind.

Bouquet and his officers were deeply im- pressed and could hardly believe their senses when they saw young warriors, whose deeds of daring and savage ferocity had made their names a terror on the frontier, weeping like children over their bereavement.

A treaty of peace having been concluded with the various tribes, Bouquet, taking hostages to secure their good behavior and the return of the remaining prisoners, broke up his camp on the 18th of November and began to retrace his steps toward Fort Pitt. The leafless forest rocked and roared above the little army as it once more entered its gloomy recesses, and that lovely spot on the Tuscarawas, on which snch strange scenes had been witnessed, lapsed again into solitude and silence. The Indians gazed with various and conflicting emotions on the lessening files- some with grief and desolation of heart be- cause they bore away the objects of their deep affection, others with savage hate, for they went as conquerors.

In ten days the army again drew up in a little clearing in front of Fort Pitt and were welcomed with loud shouts. The war was over, and the troubled frontier rested once more in peace.

As a perusal of the details of this interest- ing expedition may have created a desire to know more of the man who conducted it, it is thought best to add the following personal sketch of COL. HENRY BOUQUET :

He was born in Rolle, on che northern bor- der of Lake Geneva, in the canton of Berne,

Switzerland, in 1719. At the age of seven- teen he was received as a cadet in the regi- ment of Constant in the service of the States General of Holland, and two years later ob- tained the commission of ensign in the same regiment. Subsequently he entered the ser- vice of the king of Sardinia, and distinguished himself first as a lieutenant and afterward as adjutant in the campaigns conducted by that prince against the combined forces of France and Spain. He acquitted himself with much credit, and his ability and courage coming to the knowledge of the Prince of Orange, he engaged Bouquet in the service of the Re- public. He hield rank here as Lieutenant- Colonel in the Swiss Guards, formed at The Hague in 1748.

At the breaking out of the war between France and England, in 1754, he accepted a commission in the Royal American, or Six- tieth British, Regiment as lieutenant-colonel, and embarked for America.

His operations from this time to the date of his expedition against the Indians are in- volved in obscurity, little or nothing having been preserved, except the fact that he was a subordinate in the Forbes expedition against Fort Du Quesne (Fort Pitt) in 1758.

After his successful Indian campaign in 1764 he went to Philadelphia, where he was received with distinguished kindness and warmly welcomed, especially by those whose friends he had rescued from the Indians. The Assembly voted him a complimentary address, while the home government, as a re- ward for his services, promoted him to the rank of brigadier-general and placed him in command of the Southern Department of North America. He did not live long, how- ever, to enjoy his honors, for, in the latter part of the year 1765, he died of a fever in Pensacola.

Hutchins gives in detail the conference between Col. Bouquet and the chiefs of the different tribes. The quaint simplicity of his narrative is charming. We here quote from him, giving some of the incidents of the conference between Bouquet and the Shawnees :

" The Shawnees still remained to be treated with, and though this nation saw themselves under the necessity of yielding to the same conditions with the other tribes, yet there had appeared a dilatoriness and sullen haughtiness in all their conduct which rendered it very suspicious.

The 12th of November was appointed for the conference with them, which was arranged on their part by Kissinautchtha and Nimwha, their chiefs, with the Red Hawke, Lavissimo, Bensivasica, Eweecunwe, Keigleighque and forty warriors. The Caughnawaga, Seneca and Delaware chiefs, with about sixty warriors, being also present.

The Red Hawke was their speaker, and as he delivered himself with a strange mixture of fierce pride and humble submission, I shall add a passage or two from his speech.

"Brother: You will listen to us your younger brother, and as we discover some- thing in your eyes that looks like dissatis- faction with us, we now wipe away every- thing bad between us that you may clearly see. You have heard many bad stories of

us. We clean your ears that you may hear. We remove everything bad from your heart that it may be like the heart of your ances- tors when they thought of nothing but good. (Here he gave a string.)

"Brother : When we saw you coming this

The Indians giving a Talk to Colonel Bouquetina Conferenceat a Council Bienesche Componthe Banks of Muskingum in Nord America int at gás.

The Indians deliveringup the English Captives to glond Bouquet manhis bonyseth Jones of Mantinguin North America in Mostybs.

THE INDIANS AND BOUQUET IN COUNCIL.

SURRENDER OF THE CAPTIVES.

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road you advanced towards us with a toma- hawk in your hand ; but we, your younger brothers, take it out of your hands and throw it up to God to dispose of as he pleases, by which means we hope never to see it more." Their usual figure of speech is "burying the hatchet," but as such hatchets may be dug up again, perhaps he thought this new expression of "sending it up to God," or the "Great Spirit," a much stronger emblem of the permanency and steadfastness of the peace now to be made. "And now, brother, we beg leave that yon who are a warrior will take hold of this chain (giving a string) of friendship and re- ceive it from us, who are also warriors, and let us think no more of war, in pity to our old men, women and children." Intimating

by this last expression that it was mere com- passion to them and not inability to nght that made their nation desire peace.

He then produced a treaty held with the government of Pennsylvania, 1701, and three messages or letters from that government of different dates, and concluded thus :

"Now, brother, I beg we who are warriors may forget our disputes and renew the friend- ship which appears by these papers to have subsisted between our fathers." He prom- ised, in behalf of the rest of their nation who had gone to a great distance to hunt and - could not have notice to attend the treaty, that they should certainly come to Fort Pitt in the spring and bring the remainder of the prisoners with them.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 74

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006