USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume One > Part 28
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The next day the sailing soldiers saw before them their destination, the stake palisades and wooden bastions of Fort Detroit; "on arrival near the fort we were saluted from thence and the vessels which (cannon salute) was returned from our guns," writes Montresor. Ringing cheers rose from the garrison
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soldiers who crowded the picket ramparts and friendly Indians flocking to see the arrival of their new "fathers," shouted and whooped. The inmates of the beleaguered fort were immediately relieved, and fresh troops substi- tuted in their place. Many were the friendly greetings of the occasion, none more so than that between Major Gladwyn and Colonel Israel Putnam, for they had served together at Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
Pontiac was not one of the Ottawas to shout joy at Bradstreet's entry. His vengeance unslaked, his hostility unabated and his hope unbroken, he had betaken himself to the Maumee country of his nativity and from there hurled back haughty defiance at the English commander, who at once summoned a council of the Detroit tribes. The sittings began the fifth of September, in the open field before the fort. Mon- tresor's journal for that day reads: "Sat this day the Indian council, Present, the Jibbeways, Shawanese, Hurons of Sandusky and the five nations of the Scioto, with all the several nations of friendly Indians ac- companying the army. The Pottawattomies had not yet arrived, Pondiac declined appearing here until his pardon should be granted. * * This day Pon- diac was forgiven in council, who is at present two days march above the Castle on the Miami River called la Roche de But, with a party of sixty or more savages." In addition to those mentioned by Mon- tresor, there were present Sacs, Wyandots, Miamis and later the Pottawattomies. Wasson, chief of the Ojibways, was the prominent orator for the tribes and filled much time with his Indian grandiloquence, asking peace for the red men. This Bradstreet refused
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unless the Indians agree to become "subjects" of the king of England and acknowledge that he held over their country a sovereignty as ample and complete as over any other portion of his dominion. "Noth- ing," pertinently remarks Parkman, "could be more impolitic or absurd than this demand." Without really comprehending Bradstreet's requirement or to what they were committing themselves, the assembled warriors promised thereafter to call the English king "father," the term they had formerly bestowed upon the king of France, while heretofore the English had been only "brothers." What real effect this shifting of title-relationship had upon the status of the "guile- less children of the forest" it would be quite difficult to define.
Some twenty days, Bradstreet's bizarre battalions abided at Detroit, and while the commander was em- ployed with Indian councils and conferences, the energetic engineer Montresor, as we learn from his interesting journal, was kept busy making designs and estimates, building new barracks in the fort for a garrison of four hundred men and a powder magazine, constructing wharves and piers for the better loading and unloading of vessels, repairing the boats, making scows and rafts for the handling of the stone and timber, surveying and marking channels in the river. His journal bristles with the accounts of the hustling activities of his wood-cutters and carpenters. Colonel Israel Putnam had charge of a corps of two hundred tree-fellers who were employed on the Isle au Cochon, cutting timber for the works of the fort. This Isle au Cochon, the field of Putnam's labor, is now the
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beautiful park called Belle Isle. One item in Mon- tresor's journal in connection with the commercial doings at Detroit deserves notice for he reports "All current paper money made by the merchants and others (is) called in to prevent further impositions." It would seem that Pontiac's savage birch bark notes had a better standing. And now while these scenes of Indian diplomacy and military improvements are passing at Detroit, we digress to follow the fortunes of Captain Thomas Morris.
The embassy of Morris is one of the exciting side- features of Bradstreet's expedition. Although at this time, Morris had been in America only five years, he nevertheless had seen service in the late war and had become acquainted with Indian life, as Captain of the garrison at Fort Hendrick, Canajoharie, New York, the home of the famous Mohawk chiefs Hen- drick and Brant. Morris was a military litteratur, who knew the classics, spoke French and wrote books of superior intellectual merit. In short, "Morris was a man of the great world, a fashionable dilettante, dabbling in literature and the dramatic art," for so speaks Thwaites' in his introduction to the reprint of the Journal, kept by Morris on the "Embassy" of which we are to briefly speak. We take our infor- mation solely from the Journal itself, which, with its narrative style, literary touches and delicate humor, is a refreshing contrast to most of the perfunctory diaries with which we have thus far dealt.
Under instructions from Bradstreet, Morris, as he himself relates, "set out in good spirits from Cedar Point, (mouth of Maumee) Lake Erie, on the 26th
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of August, 1764, about four o'clock in the afternoon, at the same time the army proceeded for Detroit. My escort consisted of Godefroi, and another Canadian, two servants, twelve Indians, our allies, and five Mo- hawks, with a boat in which were our provisions, who were to attend us to the swifts of the Miamis River, about ten leagues distant, and then return to the army." He had with him "likewise Warsong, the great Chippeway chief and Attawang an Uttawaw (Ottawa) chief." Godefroi was a French resident of Detroit, and an Indian interpreter. The party proceed- ed up the Maumee to the headquarters of Pontiac, whose "army consisting of six hundred savages, with tomahawks in their hands," surrounded Morris. Pres- ently "came Pondiac and squatted himself after his fashion." "This Indian," says Morris, "has a more extensive power than ever was known among that people; for every chief had command of his own tribe; but eighteen nations, by French intrigues, had been taught to unite, and chose this man for their command- er, after the English had conquered Canada; having been taught to believe that, aided by France, they might make a vigorous push and drive us out of North America." He then reports his conversation with the great chief, and the incidents of a council with the assembled Ottawas, at which gathering the "greater part of the Indians got drunk" and threatened to kill Morris, who escaped by concealing himself first under a mattress, and then in a corn field. After the Ottawas had sobered up, Pontiac permitted the Morris party to resume its journey to the Illinois, accompanied part of the way by Pontiac's nephew and two Ottawas.
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They "arrived at a meadow near the Miami Fort," (now Fort Wayne), where another rabble of Indians "who had brought spears and tomahawks in order to dispatch" Morris, met the embassy. Morris remained in a canoe, by the river bank, in the background, complacently reading "the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra," in a volume of Shakespeare, presented to Morris by an Indian chief, who had undoubtedly looted the masterpiece of English literature from some toma- hawked pale-face. It is doubtful if the works of the Avon Bard were ever perused under circumstances more paradoxical. Meanwhile the escort of Morris pushed ahead and sought to appease the enmity of the Miamis. Then came trouble with and danger from the "Kicca- poos, Mascoutins, and Wiatanons," apparently va- grant bands, on the warpath for the white scalps. A party of Shawnees and Delawares were met, who were stirring up the Miamis to war on Bradstreet, while at the same time their deputies were signing peace articles with him at Detroit.
The journal of Morris is really a state paper, re- vealing the Indian situation in the interior while Bradstreet is being repeatedly deceived by the treach- erous "delegates" he receives on the lake shore. Morris meets many chiefs and through his interpreter Godefroi, tells them the truth about the French defeat and English supremacy. For several days he is in a whirlpool of Indian hostility and duplicity, his life at stake every moment and naught but his coolness, courage and tact enable him to pass unscathed through the hostile villages and reach Detroit, on the 17th
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of September. He expected to there report to Brad- street, but the latter had already set out on his return and was at Sandusky.
Morris, too ill and exhausted from his journey to proceed further, forwarded his journal to Bradstreet, with an additional letter, in which he expresses in no sentimental way, his opinion of the noble redmen by saying "I wish the chiefs were assembled on board the vessel and that she had a hole in her bottom. Treachery should be paid with treachery; and it is more than ordinary pleasure to deceive those who would deceive us." The brief mission of Morris, so delightfully reported, resulted merely in futility, save perhaps its value in producing a priceless contribution to the descriptive literature of the Indian warfare of that period.
Montresor's diary for September 13th reads, "Orders issued for the troops to decamp and embark to-morrow morning for Sandusky." The next day : "At 8 o'clock this morning the whole embarked; saluted by the guns from the fort and the three vessels. Returned by our guns. Our present number of boats, sixty of the long boats and one barge." Sufficient soldiers were left to garrison the fort, "and from the provincial troops thirty artificers for carrying on the work at Detroit." In five days the little fleet entered Sandusky Lake "and arrived in the afternoon where our Old Fort stood that the Indians burnt last year, a bad place for the boats." A good clay beach for an em- campment was found, however, half a mile west of the spot, where sixteen months previous, Pontiac's co-conspirators had butchered the garrison and burned
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the fort. It was at Sandusky that Bradstreet expected to meet the Delawares and Shawnees "in order to treat with us for peace, agreeable to their appointment." But the expected Shawnee and Delaware chiefs failed to appear. On the contrary an Ottawa chief, with twenty young warriors, arrived, who "upbraided the Shawnees and Delawares, for sending him a belt in the Spring (past) to continue the war against the English with the utmost vigor."
Bradstreet still expecting the Indians for a council, to arrive from up the river, according to Montresor, "embarked and proceeded and encamped one mile below the Rapids (of the Sandusky River) in order to meet them one day sooner and also be so much nearer to attack their villages on the Ohio should they fail to comply with any article alluded to in the Treaty of Peace." Here Montresor notes that the "left of our encampment is contiguous to the remains of an old fort where the Delawares and some of the western Indians took post to shelter themselves against the Iroquois near one hundred years ago." The earth- en entrenchments of this old fort were still discernible, "constructed in the form of a circle three hundred yards in circumference."
These defensive remains of the old Iroquois war days were on the site of the present city of Fremont. They were the "remains" of the habitation of the Neutral Nation, alluded to by General Lewis Cass in his memorable address (1829)-heretofore mentioned -before the Michigan Historical Society. General Cass after speaking of the conquests of the Iroquois and the dispersion of the Wyandot nation then con-
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tinues: "Upon the Sandusky River and near where the town of Lower Sandusky [Fremont] now stands, lived a band of the Wyandots, called the Neutral Nation. They occupied two villages, which were cities, of refuge, where those who sought safety never failed to find it. During the long and disastrous contests, which preceded and followed the arrival of the Euro- peans, and in which the Iroquois contended for victory, and their enemies for existence, this little band pre- served the integrity of their territories and the sacred character of peace makers. More fortunate than the English monarch, who seated upon the shore of the ocean, commanded its waves to come no further, they stayed the troubled waters, which flowed around but not over them. All who met upon their threshold, met as friends, for the ground on which they stood was holy. It was a beautiful institution, a calm and peaceful island, looking out upon a world of waves and tempests."
General Cass, a diligent student of Indian lore and a trustworthy writer, in making the above interesting statement, in his address published (1834) in the "Historical and Scientific Sketches of Michigan," gives no authority but an anonymous annotator of the address states : "the Wyandot tradition represents them as having separated from the parent stock, during the bloody wars between their own tribe and the Iro- quois, and having fled to the Sandusky River for safety."
It was on this historic ground that Bradstreet en- camped. Some Indians arrived to "treat" with Brad- street but no definite results were reached. On the
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24th Bradstreet's forces returned down the river and encamped three quarters of a mile "above where the French Fort stood on the carrying-place between Lakes Sandusky and Erie." Here a working party "set to work immediately in clearing the ground to construct a fort on." Putnam's men began cutting trenches and felling timbers for the stockade, etc. Meanwhile the dilatory and fruitless parleyings with the Indians continued. Rumors of all sorts were brought to camp by the deputies of and stragglers from the various tribes. Rumors that the tribes west and south were uniting and preparing to move on Sandusky and attack Bradstreet; rumors that the leading tribes thereabout were coming to secure peace. Bradstreet's Sandusky encampment was a scene of great Indian activity, negotiation, diplomacy, and more than all else, du- plicity. Many great chiefs came and departed, among them Assarrigoa, chief of the Caughnawagas, Kilbuck of the Delawares, Manitou of the Ottawas, and Captain Thomas King of the Oneidas. Tribesmen from far and near frequented the quarters of the camp and pretended peace, while plotting war, deceived the whites and accused each other of the deception. It was a hot-bed of intrigue with which Bradstreet had neither the courage nor shrewdness to deal. General Gage sent peremptory orders to Bradstreet to proceed in an attack on the Indians upon the Scioto Plains and then march on and meet Bouquet who was on his way from Fort Pitt.
In addition to Montresor's journal, we have an interesting letter written October 7th, by Israel Putnam to Major Drake of Norwich, Connecticut, which letter
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was printed in the Boston Gazette of December 24, 1764. In this letter, which thoroughly reveals Putnam as a spicy and veracious correspondent, the colonel at some length relates the doings of the commander of the expedition, the condition of his soldiers and the movements of the Indians during the delayed encamp- ment of the vacillating and intimidated Bradstreet. Among other incidents, Putnam tells of the visit to their quarters of Captain Thomas King from the Oneida Castle and the mission of that chief to Pontiac in the cause of peace. Putnam says that King reported Pontiac as saying, "the English are so exhausted they can do no more and one year's war, well pushed, will drive them into the sea." The closing line of Putnam's frank letter is, "and here we are, and for what I know not, nor when we are to leave it." The desultory work of erecting a fort was discontinued before the defenses were completed. Bradstreet conjured up many excuses for not moving offensively on the Indians; indeed enraged at being censured by General Gage for his manner of making treaties, Bradstreet was in no mood to obey orders to attack the Indians on the Plains of the Scioto. Finally, declaring the season too late and the risks too great to carry out Gage's in- structions and also that it was useless to proceed further in building the fort at Sandusky carrying-place, Brad- street decided to set out for home with his army without delay. It was October 18th when Montresor says, "This morning at half-past eight o'clock the whole decamped and embarked for Niagara, consisting of four- teen hundred men besides one hundred and fifty Indians fifty nine long boats, one barge and nine birch canoes."
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Later on the embarking force was joined by a detach- ment of one hundred and fifty Light Infantry under Major Daly, who had left Sandusky before the main army had gotten away. The fleet followed along the route it had come, hugging close to shore, the troops en- camping nights at the mouth of some river. When three days out, in order to lighten the crowded and water- dipping boats a hundred of the Indians and a "strong detachment of the troops" were put ashore to march along by land. It was a two weeks' voyage. The lake was stormy and dangerous, and the boats were wrenched and damaged, and even destroyed, and many soldiers in them, including Colonel Putnam, nearly lost their lives. The troops on shore were poorly fed and tented and proceeded amid privations and hazards not unequal to the sea-faring portion of the expedition. On the 4th of November, seventeen days out of Sandusky, the main body of the little army arrived in safety at Niagara; and the whole reembarking on Lake Ontario proceeded towards Oswego. Albany was reached on the 19th and Bradstreet's expedition "against the western Indians" was a closed episode; a large undertaking with small success. Indeed it was not unsimilar to the famous campaign in which the "King of France with forty thousand men marched up the hill and then marched down again." Parkman sums up the results thus: "The Indians at Detroit had been brought to reason and for the present, at least, would probably remain tranquil; while the re- establishment of the posts on the Upper Lakes must necessarily have great effect upon the natives of that region. At Sandusky, on the other hand, the work
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had been but half done. The tribes of that place felt no respect for the English; while those to the south- ward and westward had been left in a state of turbu- lence, which promised an abundant harvest of future mischief."
CHAPTER XVIII. BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION
1
BOUQUET'S MAP.
Map of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers country-pre- senting the territory and route by Bouquet in his Expedi- tion in 1764. From a photograph of the old print which appeared with the original publication of the account written by William Smith and published in Philadelphia in 1765.
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Scale of Ables.
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of the COUNTRY on the
Ohio & Muflongum Rivers
VIRGINIA
ofthe INIMANTAWNs with
mesurein the Irony underthe l'aimant /'''olonel Bouquet
-- By . The Hutchins. the Engine
W HILE the half-land, half-lake transported army of Bradstreet was pursuing its course along northern Ohio to relieve Detroit and the lake posts, and to "chastise" the Ohio Indians, Bouquet with his armament was moving "across lots, " so to speak, from Fort Pitt to the Shaw- nee towns. We have already met Bouquet and learned something of his straightforwardness, his intrepidity and his resourcefulness and sagacity in dealing with the Indians. In many respects his characteristics were in striking contrast to those of Bradstreet. The results of their respective expeditions into Ohio, were as equally at variance as the natures of the two com- manders, and therefore much to the greater renown of the hero of the battle of Bushy Run, whose victory on that occasion had already given him a reputation for cunning, calmness and courage that forebode no gentle treatment of the hostile tribesmen.
For some twenty-eight years, since he was seventeen, Bouquet had been a professional soldier and a student of military science, serving as an officer of the Swiss Guards in the campaigns of the Dutch Republic and other continental countries. As already noted Bouquet was sent by the English government, in whose service he had entered, to the colonies, and became a colonel of the Royal American Regiment, in the French and Indian War.
He was chosen by General Gage to conduct this expedition which was to be contemporaneous and co- operative with that of Colonel Bradstreet. We shall follow the course of Bouquet's campaign, relying almost wholly upon the account written, it is now
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
unquestionably believed, by Dr. William Smith, Pro- vost of the College of Philadelphia, from papers furnish- ed immediately after the expedition, by Bouquet him- self. This account, from the pen of Smith, was pub- lished at Philadelphia in 1765, and reprinted in London the following year.
Bradstreet's corps of troops was to proceed against the Wyandots, Ottawas, Chippewas and other nations, living upon or near the lakes; while Bouquet's detach- ment was instructed to invade the interior and attack the Delawares, Shawnees, Mingoes, Mohicans and other tribes between the Ohio and the lakes. We have witnessed the perils encountered by the soldiers of Bradstreet. Bouquet's expedition was attended with even greater difficulties and dangers because his soldiers were "to penetrate through a continual depth of woods, and a savage unexplored country; without roads, with- out posts and without a retreat, if he failed of success."
The rendezvous was Carlisle, Pennsylvania, one hundred and eighteen miles west of Philadelphia. Parts of the 42d and 60th regular regiments were desig- nated for the expedition, to which two hundred friendly Indians were to be added but they were never in evidence. Trouble was also had in securing the pro- vincial requisition. Upon his reaching Fort Pitt, a delegation of Ohio Indians met Bouquet, desiring a conference, in which they attempted the ruse, so suc- cessfully worked upon Bradstreet, to the effect that they, the tribesmen, wished peace and would submit to Bouquet's terms, release all prisoners, "bury the hatchet" and acknowledge English supremacy, if Bouquet would desist from further hostile advances.
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The undeceived colonel boldly told the Delawares and Shawnees, he could not depend upon their promises. He was determined to move on to the Muskingum, "where, if they had anything to say, he would hear them." Indeed Bouquet was no more easily beguiled by Indian attempts at deception than he had been mis- led by the silly dispatches, already received, from Bradstreet, that Bouquet might abandon his campaign and return home with his troops as he (Bradstreet) had concluded a treaty with these same tribes.
On the 2d of October, Bouquet was ready to depart from Fort Pitt, with about fifteen hundred men, regu- lars and provincials from Pennsylvania and Virginia. The Virginia volunteers, hardy, fearless fighters and seasoned backwoodsmen, led the advance. Every precaution was taken to guard against surprise and ambuscade. Following the scouts and road-makers, the troops marched in separated, parallel columns, forming a sort of elongated hollow square. A party of light horsemen marched behind the rear-face of the square, followed by a corps of Virginia volunteers. Within the lines forming this square were the baggage wagons and live stock, the droves of oxen and sheep, for thus the meat substance for the expedition had to be provided and transported. The march was slow and tedious, averaging between eight and nine miles a day, encampments being made each night.
Accompanying Smith's account of the expedition is a map by Thomas Hutchins, the official engineer, of the country on the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, with a "survey of the Indian country through which Colonel Bouquet marched" in this campaign. The
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first edition of this map bears date of 1763, and is one of the earliest standard maps of the Ohio country.
Bouquet's route lay along the north bank of the Ohio through "Logs Town" to Old Town, mouth of Big Beaver Creek. Thence the march was west, across Little Beaver and Yellow Creek streams. At one point, reads the Account, "in the forks of the path stand several trees painted by the Indians, in a hiero- glyphic manner, denoting the number of wars in which they have been engaged, and the particulars of their success in prisoners and scalps." The twelfth encamp- ment was made near Beaver Town on the headwaters of the Muskingum, near the Tuscarawas, "a place exceedingly beautiful by situation; from the ruined houses appearing here, the Indians who inhabited the place and are now with the Delawares, are supposed to have had about one hundred and fifty warriors." Here Bouquet received word that the "headmen of the Delawares and Shawnees were coming as soon as possible to treat of peace with him." The line of advance was now southwest along the west bank of the Muskingum. At camp No. 13, "situated on a very high bank, with the river at the foot of it," the colonel was informed that "several large bodies of Indians with their chiefs were approaching for a conference." The colonel had "returned for answer that he would meet them next day in a bower at some distance from the camp."
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