USA > Pennsylvania > Greene County > History of Greene County, Pennsylvania > Part 13
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Braddock, though mortally wounded, was still able to give orders. After having brought off the remnant of his force and recrossed the river, he posted his command in an advantageous position and put out sentinels, in the hope of still making a successful advance, when his reinforcements under Dunbar should come up; but before an hour had elapsed most of his men had stolen away, and fled to- wards Fort Cumberland. Indeed, the teamsters had, from the begin- ning of the battle, taken ont the best horses from their teams, and rode away. Seeing that no stand could be made the retreat was con- tinued, and Colonel Gage coming up with eighty men whom he had rallied gave some show of order. Washington was directed to pro- ceed to Dunbar's camp, forty miles away, and order forward trains and supplies for bringing off the wounded. This was executed. At Gist's plantation he met Gage escorting Braddock and a portion of the wounded. At Dunbar's camp a halt of one day was made, when the retreat was resumed, and at the Great Meadows on the night of the 13th Braddock breathed his last. He had been heard to mutter, " Who would have thought it!" and " We shall better know how to deal with them another time," as if he still hoped to rally and fight. Lest the Indians should be watching and know of his death and burial place the ceremony of his interment took place just before dawn in the morning. The chaplain had been wounded, and Wash- ington read the burial service over his grave. He was buried in the road-way, and the trains were driven over the grave, so that the savages should not discover his last resting-place. The grave is a few yards north of the present National Road, between the fifty-third and fifty-fourth mile-stone from Cumberland, and about a mile west of Fort Necessity, at the Great Meadows. "Whatever may have been his [Braddock's ] faults and errors," says Irving, " he, in a man-
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ner, expiated them by the hardest lot that can befall a brave soldier. ambitious of renown-an unhonored grave in a strange land."
Dunbar seems to have been completely cowed by the misfortunes of the day, and the death of his general. He hastily burst all the cannon, burned the baggage and gun earriages, destroyed the ammu- nition and stores, and made a hasty retreat to Fort Cumberland. When all were got together he found he had fifteen hundred troops, a sufficient number to have gone forward and taken the fort. But the war-whoop of the savage seemed to be still ringing in his ears, and the fear of losing his scalp overshadowed all. He continued to fall back and did not seem quite at ease till he had reached Philadel- phia, where the population could afford him entire security. The result of the campaign was humiliating to British arms, and Frank- lin observed in his autobiography, "The whole transaction gave us the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of British regular troops liad not been well founded." Hlad Braddock moved in light march- ing order, using pack-horses for transportation, and. taken only so much baggage as was necessary for a short campaign, or had he when attacked taken shelter and raked the ravines with his artillery, the fort would have been his with scarcely a struggle.
It has since been disclosed with how slender a force Braddock was defeated. "The true reason," says Irving, "why the enemy did not pursue the retreating army was not known until sometime afterwards, and added to the disgrace of the defeat. They were not the main force of the French, but a mere detachment, 72 regulars, 146 Canadians, and 637 Indians, 855 in all, led by Captain de Beaujeu. De Contrecœur, the commander of Fort Duquesne, had received information, through his scouts, that the English, three thousand strong, were within six leagues of his fort. Despairing of making any effectual defence against such a superior force, he was balancing in his mind whether to abandon his fort without awaiting their arrival, or to capitulate on honorable terms. In this dilemma Beaujeu prevailed on him to let him sally forth with a detachment to form an ambush, and give check to the enemy. De Beaujeu was to have taken post at the river, and have disputed the passage at the ford. For that purpose he was hurrying forward when discovered by the pioneers of Gage's advance party. He was a gallant officer and fell at the beginning of the fight. The whole number killed and wounded of French and Indians did not exceed seventy. Such was the scanty force which the imagination of the panie stricken army had magnified into a great host and from which they had fled in breathless terror, abandoning the whole frontier. No one could be more surprised than the French commander himself, when the ambuscading party returned in trinmph with a long train of pack- horses laden with booty, the savages uncouthly elad in the garments
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of the slain,-grenadier caps, officers' gold-laced coats, and glittering epaulettes,-flourishing swords and sabres, or firing off' muskets, and uttering fiend-like yells of victory. But when De Contrecœur was informed of the utter ront and destruction of the much dreaded British army, his joy was complete. Ile ordered the guns of the fort to be fired in triumph, and sent out troops in pursuit of the fugitives."
Braddock lost all his papers, orders and correspondence, even to his own commission, his military chest containing £25,000 in money, and one hundred beeves. Washington lost his journal and the notes of his campaign to Fort Necesity of the year before. Indeed, with the exception of Orme's journal and a seaman's diary, no papers were saved. In a letter to his brother Angustine, Wash- ington recounted his losses and privations in his several public services, in a repining strain. " I was employed to go a journey in the winter, when I believe few or none would have undertaken it, ,and what did I get by it ?- my expenses borne. I was then ap- pointed, with trifling pay, to conduct a handful of men to the Ohio. What did I get by that? Why, after putting myself to a consider- able expense in equipping and providing necessaries for the cam- paign, I went ont, was soundly beaten, and lost all! Came in and had my commission taken from me; or, in other words my command reduced, under a pretence of an order from home (England). I then went out a volunteer with General Braddock, and lost all iny horses, and many other things. But this being a voluntary act, I ought not to have mentioned it; nor should I have done it, were it not to show that I have been on the losing order ever since I entered the service, which is now nearly two years."
Ah! George, this does look like a sad case to you now! You did lose a few horses with their trappings; you did suffer on a winter tramp through the forest and were fired at by the savage, and hurled into the icy current of the river. You did get entrapped at Fort Necessity, and on Braddock's field innumerable bullets were aimed at you, when pale with sickness yon rode up and down that bloody ground. But, my young friend, did you ever cast up your gains in these campaignings? You did suffer some losses in horses and bridles and the like. But there was not a true breast in all America that did not swell with pride when it knew of the fidelity and reso- Intion you displayed in the trusts imposed upon you, and the gallant manner in which you acted on that fatal field, when all around you seemed stricken with terror and dismay, and your General was bleeding with a mortal hurt. You did indeed lose some sleep, and disease preyed upon your system in consequence of exposure; but there was not an Englishman anywhere in the civilized world who was not touched with some share of your anguish when the story of 7*
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your heroism was rehearsed; not a Christian in all the land who could not join with the President of Princeton College, the Rev. Samuel Davis, who referred in a sermon preached not long after the event to "that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country."
CHAPTER X.
SEVEN YEARS' WAR OPENED-INDIANS INSPIRED BY DEFEAT OF BRAD- DOCK -TERRIBLE WAR UPON SETTLERS-FRENCH OFFER RE- WARDS FOR SCALPS-LINE OF FORTS ALONG THE KITTATINNY HILLS -FRANKLIN IN COMMAND -ARMSTRONG AT KITTANNING -- LORD LOUDON UNSUCCESSFUL --- WILLIAM PITT COMES TO POWER-ABER- CROMBIE AND BOSCAWEN-TICONDEROGA HELD, BUT FRONTENAC LOST BY THE FRENCH -- GENERAL FORBES AT FORT DU QUESNE- MORAVIAN POST SENT TO THE INDIANS-THE VICEGERENT OF THE LORD-INDIANS SUPERSTITIOUS - INDIAN METHODS-FORT DU QUESNE OCCUPIED-AMHERST IN COMMAND-TICONDEROGA AND CROWN POINT AND NIAGARA TAKEN-WOLF ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM -- QUEBEC DEFENDED -- MONTREAL CAPTURED-THIE FRENCH EXPELLED FROM NORTH AMERICA EAST OF THE MISSIS- SIPPI-PITT'S VIGOROUS POLICY EVERYWHERE CROWNED WITH SUCCESS-BUT AT A COST OF 8560,000,000 -- ENGLISH SPEAKING AND NOT FRENCHI.
MIHOUGH some advantages had been gained at Nova Scotia and at 1 Fort William Henry in New York, yet the great disaster to Braddock, on whose success towering hopes had been formed, spread gloom through the colonies and touched the pride of the British nation. Seeing that the claims of the French to the country west of the Alleghany Mountains as well as the northern frontiers of the colo- nies were likely to be vigorously pushed, the English government determined to assert counter claims with even greater vigor. Ac- cordingly war was declared against France on the 17th of May, 1756, and General Abercrombie was sent to take active command in the field in place of Shirley, who had succeeded to the command on the fall of Braddock, and Lord Loudon, who had been appointed Gov- ernor of Virginia, was placed in supreme command of all the armies in America. The plan of campaign of 1756 was a vigorous one.
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1
Ten thousand men were to attack Crown Point, six thousand were to advance upon Niagara, three thousand were to constitute the column to move against Fort du Quesne, and two. thousand were to descend from the Kennebec upon the French upon the Chaudiere River. But before any movement could be made, the French, under Mont- calm, crossed Lake Ontario, captured Fort Ontario, killing the com- mander, Colonel Mercer, took fourteen hundred prisoners, a quantity of arms and stores, and several vessels, and having destroyed the forts. returned to Canada without serions loss. This threw the whole frontier of New York and the Six Nations, who had remained loyal to the English, open to the French.
Previous to the expedition of Braddock. the Indians along the upper Ohio, the Shawneese and Delawares, had been kept by frequent friendly messages from their Fathers, the Governors of the colonies, but more by high piled up presents, true to their allegiance to the English. Indeed so much confidence had the friendship of the tribes inspired that several families had settled along the valley of the Monongahela, in Pennsylvania. But the coming of a detachment of the French army with their great guns, dressed in showy uniforms, the officers bedecked with gold lace and nodding plumes, and taking possession unopposed of the strong fort the English were building, changed all this. They concluded that the French had established themselves permanently here, and consequently they were easily won over, and induced to fight with what they judged was the stronger party. When Braddock came they were seized with fear at the ap- pearance of strength, and were with great difficulty induced to go ont with Beanjen to offer fight. But when they found how easily this great force of English was overcome, and what a harvest of scalps and booty they gathered with little loss to themselves, they were inspired with great contempt for the red coats, and a corres- ponding admiration for the French. That battle aroused all the bloody instincts that are common to the savage breast. So confident did the French become that they could hold the country by the aid of the natives, that instead of reinforcing the fort with additional troops, they actually sent away a portion of those who were there to Venango and other posts beyond.
When, therefore, Braddock's column retreated out of the Monon- gahela valley, the settlers, knowing their insecurity, fled to the nearest forts for safety. The savages had now the taste of blood, and like wild beasts would not be satisfied until they were gorged. Not two months from the time when the English retired, the warrior chieftain, Shingiss, with a band of warriors from the Delawares and Shawneese, had moved out to the Alleghanies and crossed the sum- mits. Being now upon the war-path, with stealthy step he came npon the unsuspecting settler, and his stony heart was untouched by
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the cries for pity. The tender infant and trembling age were mercilessly tomahawked and scalped, and their cabins burned. On the 4th of October, wrote to Col. Burd: "Last night came to the Mill at Wolgomoth's, an Express going on to the Governor of Mary- land with an account of the inhabitants being out on Patterson's Creek; and about the fort the express says, there is forty killed and taken, and that one whole family was burned to death in a house. The Indians destroyed all before them, firing Houses, Barnes, Stack- yards and everything that will burn." Governor Sharpe, of Mary- land, writes a few days later to the Governor of Pennsylvania, "I have received several letters advising me that the Indians have since the 1st inst. (Oct.) ent off a great many families who lived near Fort Cumberland, and on both sides of Potowmack some miles east- ward of the fort. It is supposed that near one hundred persons have been murdered, or carried away prisoners by these barbarians, who have burnt the houses, and ravaged all the plantations. Parties of the enemy appear within sight of Fort Cumberland every day, and frequently in greater numbers than the garrison consists of. As F presume it will not be long before these people pay a visit to your borders. I take this opportunity of intimating what I think may be expected."
And now the torch of savage warfare lighted up all the border. and even penetrated far into the older settled portions of the country. Weiser, the Indian trader, sent word to Governor Morris of a mas- sacre which had taken place on John Penn's Creek, which flows into the Susquehanna five miles above the confluence of the North and West branches. "Several people have been found scalped and twenty- eight are missing; the people are in great consternation, and are coming down leaving their plantations and corn behind them." A party who had been to Shamokin to ascertain where the enemy had come from who had perpetrated the outrages on Penn's Creek, were fired on by lurking savages on their return, and four were killed and four drowned in attempting to cross the river.
Warned of their danger, the settlements for fifty miles along the river Susquehanna were abandoned. "The people." says Governor Morris to the Gov- ernor of Virginia, " are mostly without arms, and struck with such a panick that they flee as fast as they can from their habitations."
The portents of Indian depredations now thickened on every side, and no doubt exaggerated reports of the coming of the French and In- dians helped to swell the consternation. The settlement at Great Cove, in Cumberland County, was attacked on Sunday morning, Nov. 2d, when six were killed and seventeen borne away into a captivity more terrible than death. The town of Little Cove and Conoloways. on the following day were attacked, and the sheriff of the county, Mr. Potter, reported "that of ninety-three families which were settled in
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the two Coves and the Conoloways, forty-seven were either killed or taken and the rest deserted." Encouraged by their successes gained over defenseless settlers whom they stole upon and murdered, the Indians pushed on into Berks County, and on the 18th of November the Governor informed the Mayor of Philadelphia, "that the Indians have fallen upon the settlements of Tulpehoscon; that they had slaughtered many of the inhabitants, and laid waste the country, and were moving towards the town of Reading, which is within sixty miles of this city. The Moravian settlement on the Lehigh was attacked, and their meeting-house, dwelling houses, barns, in which were hay, horses, and forty head of fat cattle, were destroyed.
The Indians had now compassed the whole frontier east of the mountains, stretching from the Delaware Water Gap to the Potomac waters, a distance of 150 miles, and a breadth of twenty to thirty miles. In a report to the Council made on the 29th of November. the Secretary said, the frontier " has been entirely deserted, the houses and improvements reduced to ashes, the cattle, horses, grain, goods, and effects of the inhabitants either destroyed, burned, or carried off by the Indians. All our accounts agree in this, that the French since the defeat of Gen. Braddock, have gained over to their interest the Delawares, Shawanees, and many other Indian nations formerly in our alliance, and on whom. through fear and their large promises of rewards for scalps, and assurances of reinstating them in the possession of the lands they have sold to the English, they have prevailed to take up arms against us, and to join heartily with . them in the execution of the ground they have been long med- itating, the possession of all the country between the river Ohio and the river Susquehanna, and to secure that possession by building a strong fort at Shamokin, which, by its so advantageous situation at the conflux of the two main branches of Susquehanna, one whereof interlocks with the waters of the Ohio, and the other heads in the center of the country of the Six Nations, will command and make the French entire masters of all that extensive, rich and fertile country, and of all the trade with the Indians, and from whence they can at pleasure enter and annoy our territories, and put an effectual stop to the future extension of our settlement on that quarter, not to mention the many other obvious mischiefs and fatal consequences that must at- tend their having a fort at Shamokin."
So deadly had the Indian incursions become and so threatening to the peace and safety of the colony, that the Governor, on the 14th of April, issued his proclamation declaring war against the Dela- wares, and offering a reward for Indian scalps and prisoners. In Virginia the enemy showed a like activity hovering about the fort at Mills Creek, and even pushing forward till they had actually reached and invested the town of Winchester. Whereupon the Gor-
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ernor called ont the militia of the eleven contiguous counties. But the campaign undertaken was fruitless, for when the Indians perceived a competent force opposed to them, dispersed and disappeared, or lured their pursuers on to destruction.
To check the progress of these savage inroads upon the settle- ments troops were raised in Pennsylvania through the influence of Franklin, and a line of forts was erected along the Kittatinny Hills, extending from the Delaware to the Patomac, at a cost of £85,000; those on the east bank of the Susquehanna being Depui, Lehigh, Allen, Everitt, Williams, Henry, Swatara, Hunter, Halifax and Augusta, and those on the west bank Louther, Morris, Franklin, Granville, Shirley, Lyttleton and Loudonn. Much difficulty was experienced in overcoming the scruples of the Quakers; but Frank- lin issned and circulated a dialogue answering the objections to a legalized militia, and at the earnest solicitation of the Governor, he was put in command of the troops raised. As soon, however, as he had the requisite force and saw the work of locating and building the forts well under way he retired to take his seat in the assembly, and Colonel Clapham was left in command.
In July, 1756, King Shingiss, with a hostile band, appeared be- fore Fort Granville, now Lewistown, and finding it feebly manned, carried it by storm, killing some of its defenders, and carrying away captives a considerable number of inmates. The home of this form- idable chief was Kittanning, on the banks of the Allegheny River. Ilere he had quite a town, and here dwelt Captain Jacobs, chief of the Delawares. The French supplied them with arms and ammuni- tion and needed supplies, which were floated down the Venango and Allegheny Rivers. At the time of this attack upon the fort at Lewistown, Colonel John Armstrong was in command of the Second regiment of Pennsylvania troops, stationed west of the Susquehanna, and it was determined to send him in pursuit of these dusky warriors. Cautiously pushing forward from the point of rendeznons at Fort Shirley, now Huntingdon County, with a force of some three hun- dred men, sending forward scouting parties to prevent discovery, he fortunately came in close upon the town without discovery. From his official report dated at Fort Lyttleton (Bedford), September 14, he says: We lost much time " from the ignorance of our pilots, who neither knew the true situation of the town, nor the best paths that led thereto; by which means after crossing a number of hills and valleys our front reached the river Allegheny about one hundred perches below the main body of the town a little before the setting of the moon, to which place, rather than by pilots, we were guided by the beating of the drum, and the whooping of the warriors at their dances. It then became us to make the best use of our moon- light; but we were aware an Indian whistled in a very singular
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manner, about thirty perches from our front in the foot of a corn- field, upon which we immediately sat down, and after passing silence to the rear, I asked one Baker, a soldier, who was our best assistant, whether that was not a signal to their warriors of our approach. He answered, "no;" and said it was the manner of a young fellow call- ing a squaw, after he had done his dance, who, accordingly kindled a fire, cleaned his gun, and shot it off before he went to sleep."
The night was warm and the Indians prepared to sleep in differ- ent parts of the corn field, building some light fires to drive away gnats. Sending a part of his force along the hills to the right to cut off retreat in that direction, he himself led the larger part below and opposite the corn field where he supposed the warriors lay. At break of day the attack was made, advancing rapidly through the corn and sending a detachment to advance upon the houses. " Cap- tain Jacobs then gave the warwhoop, and with sundry other Indians, as the English prisoners afterwards told us, cried, the white men were at last come, they would have scalps enough,' but at the same time ordered the squaws and children to flee to the woods." The fire in the corn field was brisk, and from the houses, which were built of logs and loopholed, the Indians did some execution without expos- ing themselves. Accordingly the order was given to fire the houses, and as the flanies spread the Indians were summoned to surrender, but one of them said: " I am a man, and will not be a prisoner." Hle was told that he would be burned. To this he replied that he did not care for he would kill four or five before he died. "As the fire began to approach, and the smoke grow thick, one of the Indian fellows to show his manhood began to sing. A squaw in the same house, and at the same time, was heard to cry and make a noise; but for so doing was severely rebuked by the men; but, by and by, the fire being too hot for them, two Indian fellows and a squaw sprang out and made for the corn field, who were immediately shot down; then surrounding the houses, it was thought Captain Jacobs tumbled himself out at the garret or cockloft window at which he was shot-our prisoners offering to be qualified to the powder-horn and pouch, there taken off him, which they say he had lately got from a French officer, in exchange for Lieutenant Armstrong's boots, which he carried from Fort Greenville, where the Lieutenant was killed. The same prisoners say they are perfectly assured of his scalp, as no other Indians there wore their hair in the same manner. They also say they know the squaw's scalp by a particular bob, and also know the scalp of a young Indian called the King's Son. Be- fore this time, Captain Hugh Mucer, who early in the action was wounded in the arm, had been taken to the top of the hill above the town, to where a number of the men and some of the officers were gathered."
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When all the houses had been fired Colonel Armstrong deter- inined to take to the hills before destroying the corn and beating up the savages probably lurking there, for fear of being surrounded and cut off by reinforcements from Du Quesne, or French coming down the river, as Indians had been seen crossing the river from above. "During the burning of the houses," says Colonel Armstrong, " which were nearly thirty in number, we were agreeably entertained with a quick succession of charged guns gradually firing off, as they were reached by the fire; but more so with the vast explosion of sundry bags and large kegs of gun powder, where with almost every house abounded. The prisoners afterwards informed us that the Indians had frequently said they had a sufficient stock of ammuni- tion for ten years, to war with the English. With the roof of Cap- tain Jacob's house, when the powder blew up, was thrown the leg and thigh of an Indian, with a child of three or four years old, such a height that they appeared as nothing, and fell into the adjacent corn field. There was also a great quantity of goods burnt, which the Indians had received but ten days before from the French."
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