The History of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, Part 26

Author: Warner, Beers & Co.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1017

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"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 organize another expedition before winter. He therefore determined to remain at the fort till spring, and then assemble an army sufficiently large to crush all opposition, and finish what he bad 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 command. 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."

Gen. Thomas Gage, who was in command of the British forces in America, in the spring of 1764 resolved to send two expeditions into the heart of the enemy's country, one by way of the lakes, and Bouquet's from Fort Pitt. The former, under command of Col. John Bradstreet, was first on the way, and formed a treaty, and thinking he had made a binding treaty with the Ohio tribes, on the 14th of August he wrote to Col. Bouquet, then making prep- arations to proceed, requesting him to withdraw his troops, but Col. Bouquet, perceiving that the Delawares and Shawnees continued their depredations, de- clined to comply, and in this determination he was applauded by Gen. Gage. .

Though the important and successful march of Col. Henry Bouquet into the Indian country in 1764 did not terminate in Tuscarawas County, and though the accomplishment of its object was not wholly effected here, yet on the soil of Tuscarawas the terms of the bloodless victory were dictated to the assembled haughty but humbled savage chieftains by the commander in the expedition, and by them accepted. And in consequence, the history of the campaign deserves space in this volume.

Great delays ensued in fitting out the force, and it was not until October 3 that the line of march was commenced from Fort Pitt. Bouquet's army comprised about 500 men of the regular army, most of them Highlanders of the Fourth and Sixth Regiments, 1,000 Pennsylvania Militia, and a Virginian corps of volunteers. "The long train of pack-horses and immense droves of sheep and cattle that accompanied it, gave to it the appearance of a huge caravan. The expedition was in truth a novel one. It struck directly into the trackless forest, with no definite point of view and no fixed limit to its advance. It was intended to overawe by its magnitude, to move, as an exhibition of awful power, into the very heart of the red man's dominion.

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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." Its march was necessarily slow. A corps of Virginia volunteers advanced in front, detaching three scouting parties; one of them, preceded by a guide, marched in the center path which the army was to follow. The other two extended themselves in a line abreast, on the right and left, to scour the woods on the flanks. Under cover of this advance guard, the axmen and two companies of infantry followed in three divisions to clear the side paths and cut a road in which the main army and the convoy marched. In the center path the soldiers marched in column two deep, and in the side paths single file. The pack-horses, with baggage and tents, followed by the sheep and cat- tle, came after in the center road. A company of light horse walked slowly after these, and the rear guard closed the long array. No music was allowed, and the strictest silence was enjoined.' By marching in this order, if the sig- nal of attack sounded, a hollow square could easily be formed, with the cattle, baggage, provisions and ammunition in the center. Thus the unwieldy cara- van advanced slowly through the forest. There was a large number of men in the army who had wives, children and friends prisoners among the Indians, and who accompanied the expedition for the purpose of recovering them.

The first day the army made only three miles. It followed an Indian trail to a point in what is now the southern part of Columbiana County, where the trail divided; the trees here were covered with hieroglyphics, descriptive of battles, victories, and pale faces slain and scalped. One branch of the trail took a general direction northwest toward Sandusky; the other, which was followed, was southwesterly in direction.

On Saturday, the 13th of October, the Tuscarawas was reached, in Law- rence Township. Col. Bouquet's journal for that day reads as follows: " Crossed Nenenchelus [Nimishillen] Creek, about fifty feet wide, a little above where it empties itself into a branch [Sandy Creek] of the Muskingum [Tuscarawas]. The crossing place was near Sandyville. A little further, came to another small stream, which was crossed about fifty perches above where it empties into the said Muskingum [in Pike Township, Stark County]. Here a high ridge on the right and a creek close on the left forms a narrow defile about seventy perches long. Passing over a very rich bottom, came to the main branch of the Muskingum, about seventy yards wide, with a good ford a little below, and a little above is Tuscarawas, a place exceedingly beautiful in sit- uation, the lands rich on both sides of the river, the country on the northwest side being an entire plain, upward of five miles in circumference [about Boli- var], and, from the ruined houses here appearing, the Indians, who inhabited the place, and are now with the Delawares, are supposed to be about one hundred and fifty warriors." The next day, Sunday, the army remained in camp, and the men and cattle received a day of rest from the wearisome march. During the day, two messengers who had been dispatched with let- ters, returned, and reported that within a few miles of this place they had been made prisoners by the Delawares, and carried to one of their towns sixteen

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miles distant, where they were kept until the savages, knowing of the arrival of the army here, set them at liberty, ordering them to acquaint Col. Bouquet that the head men of the Delawares and Shawnees were coming as soon as possible to treat for peace with him.

On Monday, the 15th, the army moved two miles and forty perches farther down the Tuscarawas to Camp No. 13, situated on a high bank, with the river, which was 300 feet in width, directly at the foot of it. A fine level country stretched away to some distance from the banks of the river, covered with a growth of majestic forest trees, free from underwood and affording an abun- dance of food for the cattle. Here the army remained in camp about a week. On Tuesday, "six Indians came to inform the Colonel that all their chiefs had assembled about eight miles from the camp, and were ready to treat with him of peace, which they were earnestly desirons of obtaining. He returned for answer that he would meet them next day in a bower at some distance from camp. In the meantime he ordered a small stockaded fort to be built to hold provisions for the troops on their return, and to lighten their convoy, as sev- eral large bodies of Indians were within a few miles of the camp, whose former instances of treachery-although they now declared they came for peace- made it prudent to trust nothing to their intentions."

This bower in which the congress was held was probably located in or near the edge of Dover plains. Camp No. 12 was near the site of Bolivar, and Camp 13 more than two miles below it. The bower was some distance from it. The important results obtained by the conference held here, effecting the restoration of all white prisoners held by the Delawares and other tribes of Ohio, makes the event one of marked prominence in Indian history.

" Wednesday, October 17, 1764, the Colonel, with most of the regular troops, Virginia volunteers and Light-horse, marched from the camp to the bower erected for the congress, and soon after the troops were stationed so as to appear to the best advantage. The Indians arrived and were conducted to the bower. Being seated, they began in a short time to smoke their pipes- the calumet-agreeably to their custom. This ceremony over, they laid down their pipes and opened their pouches, wherein were their strings and belts of wampum." The Indians present were Kiyashuta, chief of the Senacas, ac- companied by fifteen warriors; Custologa, chief of the Wolf tribe, and Beaver, chief of the Turkey tribe of Delawares, accompanied by twenty warriors; Keissinautchtha, a chief of the Shawanees, with six warriors. Keyashuta, Turtle Heart, Custaloga and Beaver were the chief speakers. They made long addresses, profuse in expressions of friendship, laying the whole blame of the war on the young men, whom they said they could not control, and on the na- tions living to the westward of thein, and suing for peace in the most abject manner. Bouquet, not wishing to appear eager to arrive at a settlement, re. plied that he would give his answer the next day, and the council broke up. The next day, however, a drenching rain descended and a meeting was not held until the 20th. Col. Bouquet's answer was long, bold and severe, but conciliatory. He offered peace on one condition only, that the Indians

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should give up within twelve days, at Wakatomika, an Indian village a short distance below the mouth of the Tuscarawas, all their prisoners without ex- ception, Englishmen and Frenchmen, women and children, whether adopted or not, as well as all negroes, furnishing at the same time, clothing, provis- ions and horses sufficient for their journey to Fort Pitt.

The Delawares at the close of their speeches on the 17th, had delivered eighteen white prisoners and eighty-three small sticks, expressing the number of captives yet to be delivered. The Shawanees deputy in the absence of the chiefs of that tribe, sullenly assented to the terms prescribed. Kiyashuta ex- horted the several tribes to comply faithfully with the engagements that they might wipe away the reproach of their former breach of faith, and convince the English that they could speak the truth, adding that he would conduct the army to the place appointed for receiving the prisoners.

Believing that the presence of his army was the best security for a compli- ance with his requisitions, and determined to enforce his demands without delay, Col. Bouquet set out on his march still further into the enemy's country. On Monday, October 22, he left Camp 13. He had been informed that several marauding bands of savages were lying along the river valley, and would probably ambuscade him if he marched down the river valley past Three Legs Town, at the mouth of Stillwater and Newcomerstown. In con- sequence he proceeded, attended by the Indian deputations, by a shorter though more laborious route. The first day's march, says Mitchener in his Ohio an- nals, was in a southwest direction from near the site of Fort Laurens to Mar. gret's Creek, now Sugar Creek, about fifty feet wide, which was crossed in the vicinity of the mouth of what is known as Broad Run, about a mile south of the village of Strasburg, thence up the valley of the latter stream to the place of encampment, which was in the vicinity of the present village of Win- field, in the northwestern part of Dover Township. The distance traveled was nine miles.

On Tuesday, the 23d, the army marched sixteen miles to Camp No. 15, and halted there one day. This march carried the army into Coshocton County. The route, continues our former authority, was up the Broad Run Valley to the head of that stream, where a dividing ridge was crossed in Section 4, Range 3, in Sugar Creek Township, bringing the army again into the Sugar Creek Valley; thence south along the east side of Sugar Creek, through Au- burn and Bucks Townships, passing near to the present site of Rogersville. In the southwestern part of Bucks Township, crossed Sugar Creek; thence over the dividing ridge between the waters of that stream and White Eyes Creek; thence down the valley of White Eyes Creek to a point south of the village of Chili, where Camp 15 was located.

Another day's march brought the army to near the site of Coshocton. This place was fixed upon instead of Wakatomika for receiving prisoners, in- asmuch as it was more centrally located in the enemy's country. A strong stockade was erected, and suitable buildings for storehouses, for the accommo- dation of prisoners, etc. In the space of two weeks, 206 prisoners were re-

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ceived in camp, most of them women and children. To recount the scenes of intense excitement that were witnessed here during this time, the expectation and the bitterness of disappointment, or the joy of meeting long-lost friends and relatives, does not come within the province of this volume. Many of the prisoners had become accustomed and attached to the wild and roving life of the red men, and were loath to leave it. The joy of others was unbounded. On the 18th of November, the army broke up its cantonment, retraced its steps, and in ten days reached Fort Pitt. But one man was killed on the expedition; he was shot and scalped by a hostile Indian, when separated from camp, bear Coshocton. For his success, Col. Bouquet received a Brigadier General's com- mission. He died soon after, of fever, at Pensacola.

FORT LAURENS.

While the American armies were battling for freedom with the English forces in the Eastern States during the Revolutionary struggle, the pioneers on the western borders of Pennsylvania and Virginia were engaged in a fierce and bloody warfare with the hostile Indians, who were instigated in their dep- redations by British emissaries. England's success with the Indians was so marked that Congress determined to strike an effective blow against the allies. Early in the spring of 1778, preparations were commenced to take the British post at Detroit; 3,000 troops were to be raised for this purpose; 1,500 men were to assemble at Fort Pitt and descend the Ohio at Fort Randolph at the junction of the Big Kenawha River with the Ohio, and there meet 1,500 Vir- ginian troops who were to descend the Big Kenawha. From Fort Randolph the united forces were to strike the Indian towns and capture Detroit. The latter detachment was never levied, probably on account of the urgent need of troops in the East. Gen. Lachlan McIntosh was placed in command of the expedition, and with 500 men he crossed the mountains and reached Fort Pitt in the spring of 1778. Thence he advanced twenty-eight miles below Pitts- burgh and erected Fort McIntosh near the mouth of Big Beaver. The sum- mer was spent in this work, in opening roads, etc., and at a council with the Delawares, held at Pittsburgh, consent was obtained to march through their country. On the 4th of November, the General received intelligence that the savages would oppose his progress to Detroit at Sugar Creek, a few miles be- low Tuscarawas. The design on Detroit had been relinquished by this time, and an attack upon the Wyandots and other Indians at Sandusky contemplated. Gen. McIntosh, early in November, 1778, set out upon the march from Fort McIntosh with 1,000 men. At the end of two weeks, he reached the Tuscara- was, a distance of seventy miles, and was there met only by some friendly Goschachgunk Delawares and Moravian Indians, who informed him that the Chippewas and Ottawas had refused to join the other Indians, and the threat- ened opposition of the leagued Indians at this point had been abandoned. Soon after a letter reached Gen. McIntosh from Col. Campbell, who had been left in command of Fort McIntosh, with the information that the supplies confidently expected had not yet arrived, and that there was little to expect

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that winter. Further penetration into the Indian country was thus rendered impossible, and in preference to returning to the Ohio without having accom- plished anything, Gen. McIntosh built Fort Laurens on the Tuscarawas (named in honor of the then President of Congress, Henry Laurens), about a mile south of the present village of Bolivar, and after its completion left a garrison of 150 men under Col. John Gibson, to hold it until the next season, and serve to check Indian expeditions to the frontier, and with the main body of the troops he returned to Fort McIntosh. The garrison was as great as the almost exhausted supplies of the army would permit.

The Indians soon became aware of the existence of Fort Laurens, and in- vested it, though for a time unseen and unknown to the soldiers. Their first hostile demonstration " was executed with cunning and success," says Col. Stone in his life of Brant. "The horses of the garrison were allowed to forage for themselves upon herbage among the prairie grass in the immediate vicinity of the fort, wearing bells, that they might be the more easily found if straying too far. It happened one morning in January that the horses had all disappeared, but the bells were heard at no great distance. They had been stolen by the Indians and conveyed away. The bells, however, had been taken off and jingled as a decoy, the Indians forming an ambuscade in the tall prairie grass. Sixteen men were sent in pursuit of the horses, and fourteen were killed and two taken prisoners; of these latter, one returned at the end of the war, the other was never heard of." Gen. Benjamin Biggs, a Captain in the fort, being Officer of the Day, had requested leave to go out with the fatigue party which fell into the ambuscade, but fortunately Col. Gibson re- fused the permission, his duties requiring his presence in the fort.

Rev. Philip Doddridge, in his " Notes," gives perhaps the most satisfactory of several accounts of the siege of Fort Laurens, and, after relating the above surprise and slaughter, continues:

"In the evening of the day of the ambuscade, the whole Indian army, in full war dress and paint, marched in single file through a prairie in view of the fort. Their number as counted from one of the bastions was 847." They then took up their encampment on an elevated piece of ground at a small dis- tance from the fort, on the opposite side of the river. From this camp they frequently held conversations with the people of our garrison. In these con- versations they seemed to deplore the long continuance of the war and hoped for peace, but were much exasperated at the Americans for attempting to pen- etrate so far into their country. This great body of Indians continued the in- vestment of the fort as long as they could obtain subsistence, which was about six weeks.

"An old Indian of the name of John Thompson, who was with the Ameri- can army in the fort, frequently went out among the Indians during their stay at their encampment, with the mutual consent of both parties. A short time

* Col. Morgan, Indian agent in 1779, was told by Delaware chiefs that the Indian army investing Fort Laurens in January, 1779, numbered but 180, composed of Wyandots, Shawanees, Mingoes and Munceya, and four (scalawag) Delawares, with John Montour and his brother. De Schweinitz says in his "Life of Zeisburg- er" that in the beginning of 1779 an army of several hundred Shawanees, Wyandots and Mingoes passed through Lichtenaw on their way to besiege Fort Laurens.

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before the Indians left the place, they sent word to Col. Gibson by the Indian that they were desirous of peace, and if he would send them a barrel of flour they would send in their proposals the next day, but, although the Colonel complied with their request, they marched off without fulfilling their engage- ment.

"The commander, supposing the whole number of Indians had gone off, gave permission to Col. Clark, of the Pennsylvania line, to escort the invalids, to the number of eleven or twelve, to Fort McIntosh. The whole number of this detachment was tifteen. The wary Indians had left a party behind for the purpose of doing mischief. These attacked this party of invalids and their escort about three miles from the fort, and killed the whole of them, with the exception of four, among whom was the Captain, who ran back to the fort. On the same day, a detachment went out from the fort, brought in the dead and buried them with the honors of war in front of the fort gate.

"In three or four days after this disaster, a relief of 700 men, under Gen. McIntosh, arrived at the fort with a supply of provisions, a great part of which was lost by an untoward accident. When the relief had reached within a hundred yards of the fort, the garrison gave them a salute of a general dis- charge of musketry, at the report of which the pack-borses took fright, broke loose, and scattered the provisions in every direction through the woods, so that the greater part of it could never be recovered.

" Among other transactions which took place about this time was that of gathering up the remains of the fourteen men who had fallen in the ambus- · cade during the winter, for interment, and which could not be done during the investment of the place by the Indians. They were found mostly devoured by the wolves. The fatigue party dug a pit large enough to contain the re- mains of all of them, and, after depositing them in the pit, merely covering them with a little earth, with a view to have revenge on the wolves for devour- ing their companions, they covered the pit with slender sticks, rotten wood and bits of bark, not of sufficient strength to bear the weight of a wolf. On the top of this covering they placed a piece of meat as a bait for the wolves. The next morning seven of them were found in the pit; they were shot, and the pit filled up.

"For about two weeks before the relief arrived, the garrison had been put on the short allowance of half a pound of sour flour and an equal weight of offensive meat for every two days. The greater part of the last week they had nothing to subsist on but snch roots as they could find in the woods and prai- ries, and raw hides. Two men lost their lives by eating wild parsnip roots by mistake. Four more nearly shared the same fate, but were saved by medical aid.

"On the evening of the arrival of the relief, two days' rations were issued to each man in the fort. These rations were intended as their allow- ance during their march to Fort McIntosh, but many of the men, supposing them to have been back rations, ate up the whole of their allowance before the next morning. In consequence of this imprudence in eating immoderately,

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after such extreme starvation from the want of provisions, about forty of the men became faint and sick during the first day's march. On the second day, however, the sufferers were met by a great number of their friends from the settlements to which they belonged, by whom they were amply supplied with provisions."

Another account of the first ambuscade, quoted by Dr. S. P. Hildreth in Silliman's journal, is as follows : " During the cold weather, while the Indians were lying about the fort, although none had been seen for a few days, a party of seventeen men went out for the purpose of carrying in fire- wood, which the army had cut before they left the place, about forty or fifty rods from the fort. Near the bank of the river was an ancient mound, behind which lay a quan- tity of wood. A party had been out for several preceding mornings and brought in wood, supposing the Indians would not be watching the fort in such cold weather. But on that fatal morning the Indians had concealed themselves behind the mound, and as the soldiers passed round on one side of the mound a party of the Indians came round on the other, and inclosed the wood party so that not one escaped."

Maj. Frederick Varnum succeeded Col. Gibson in command of Fort Lau- rens, and so remained until the abandonment of the works. Gen. McIntosh was succeeded by Col. Gibson, and he in turn by Col. Brodhead. The sup- plies left at Fort Laurens did not last long, and the garrison under Maj. Var- num soon experienced the pangs of hunger. Col. Brodhead wrote to Gen. George Morgan, May 22, 1779, that he "had got a small supply of salt meat at Carlisle, and sent it to Fort Laurens, otherwise the fort would have had to be abandoned at once." May 30, following, he wrote "that Moses Killbuck had · just come in from Fort Laurens and told him that the garrison was without food, and the men so low from starvation that many could not keep their feet."

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The History of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, Part 26

Author: Warner, Beers & Co. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1017

Author: Warner, Beers & Co.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1017