History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 6

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here they came to a precipice which it was impossible to descend. Sir Julin St. Clair, with a captain and one hundred mien, some Indian guides, and some light-horse, reconnoitered." The Narrows were de. scribed by the guides to be a narrow pass of about two miles in length, with the river on the left and bigh mountains on the right. With hand labor it could have been made but barely possible for carriages. St. Clair, npon returning, informed the general that he had found a ridge which led the whole way to Duquesne, and which avoided the Narrows and Frazer's, but that some work to be done yet made it impossible to moyo that day. They then encamped there, and the next morning marched about eight miles to the camp at the Monongahela. The following orders are preserved in this diary :

" ORDERS AT MONAKATUCA CAMP.

"If it should be ordered to advance the van or send back the rear- gnani, the advanced parties detached from them are to remain at their posts facing outwards.

" Whenever there is a general halt, half of each of the subaltern's advanced parties are to remain under arms with fixed bayonets facing outwards, and the other half may sit down by their arms."

" ORDERS AT THE CAMP NEAR MONONGAHELA.

" All the men are to draw and clean their pieces, and the whole are to lond to-morrow on the beating of ' the general' with fresh cartridges.

"No tents or baggage are to be taken with Lieut .- Col. Gage's party." 1 Some of these advanced so far as to kill a French officer within half a mile of Fort Duquesue.

It was about noon when the second or main division began to cross after Gage. They were now ahout only ten miles from the fort, and the spirit of the men was at the highest. The trail which they followed coming out of the river led through a gradually rising plain to the hills beyond. This plain, or bottom, some four to six feet above the water of the river, ex- tended from the river about half a mile. Where the route crossing this entered the hills a deep ravine ran along each side, which ravines, running from either side of the rising ground, caine nearly together near the top of the hill like the two sides of a letter " A." The surface beyond the plain was rocky, and upon all sides except that next the river was covered with high grass, bushes, and large forest-trees. In these ravines and along the banks rising irregularly from them the enemy were lying in wait and quietly watching them. At that crossing on the north side was Frazer's trading-house, near the mouth of Turtle Creek, where Washington had stopped on his first journey. Here the troops under Gage who were not employed in making the banks on their side of the river passable for the artillery and beasts, drawn up in order, were waiting for Braddock to come up. As the main body arrived they drew up the artillery and baggage and huddled the cattle and pack-horses along the beach until the opposite bank was cut down. The advance- guard in this way covered the passages of all the streams. About one o'clock the first detachment of the Forty-fourth Regiment, with their pickets, passed over; the artillery-wagons and carrying-horses fol- lowed, then the detachment of the Forty-eighth, with their pickets, who had guarded the heights back of the beach.

At one o'clock all had crossed and the line of march had been arranged again. The advance-guard of some three hundred under Gage took up their march, then followed a column of workmen, two hundred and fifty, under Sir John St. Clair. They were to march on till three o'clock, the general following with the main body, the artillery, and the light baggage. The line began to thread out. Pickets were ordered on either side. While the rear guard were yet shaking the water from their clothes, the advance-guard under Gage had entered the rising hills beyond the plain. Both the advance-guard, under Gage, and the next division, under Halket, were within the inclosure represented by the two sides of the letter " A,"-that is to say, the two ravines rising with the ground and approaching together at the top. On a sudden, a rattling volley of musketry, seemingly out of the earth, as no enemy was to be seen, was poured into the faces of those who were in the lead. The next instant into their right flank came another volley. The firing in the front continued excessive, quick, and heavy. The line was ordered to halt, and Lieut :- Col. Burton was ordered forward with the vanguard of the main division. Thus eight hundred men were detached from the line, and four hundred were left

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BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION.

for defense of the artillery and baggage. The firing continuing, Braddock moved forward, leaving Halket in care of the reserves. The fire was returned by those in front, but with no effect, yet the enemy sus- tained a continuous and murderous discharge. The British could see nothing to shoot at, while their men were falling all round. The advance in great confusion fell back. Braddock and his officers has- tened forward, but they were met by the broken ranks fleeing bleeding towards them. The attack was so sudden and so destructive, and the panic that seized upon these was so terrible, that before they knew it all -artillery, infantry, pioneers, baggage-were in an inextricable mass. As the advance column were driven back the force guarding the baggage in the clearing was attacked. These seeing the rest of the army driven back in terror scattered. Many.of the wagon-drivers and teamsters were killed, many others cutting loose their horses fled on their backs across the river. The cannon did little execution, for the enemy availed themselves of the cover of the heavy woods, in which they were screened and protected. As the British and Americans were on the open place, and the French and Indians in the woods, every good position was speedily taken up by these, not only in the front, but on the sides of the army, and from these positions they fired upon every part, for every part of the army was exposed. But as yet the enemy were not to be seen, nor did they show themselves until the retreat began.

The general was a soldier who did not know fear, and his officers, although not so rash as he, were equally as brave. Once Burton headed, by command of his general, about one hundred royalists of the Forty-eighth, whom he prevailed with to follow him towards a rising ground on the right; but after they had reached the place, he, disabled by wounds, and his men seeing nothing but the prospect of death, turned about and fled. No words, no promises, no threat; could now avail along the line. The noise of the army in that slaughter-pen was so horrific that those who escaped never had the recollection of it driven away. The cries of anguish of the men mingled with the shouts and entreaties of the officers. The shouts and ravings of terror, pain, despair, fear, chagrin, madness, ascended within the circle of red fire, with the howls of the Indians, the clashing of arms, the ir- regular rattling and thudding of musketry and cannon. Thus they stood, the survivors said, for three hours, -but long enough,-huddled together like sheep, sometimes in a mass, sometimes in separate bodies, all the time receiving the fire from the rocks and the trees. In such confusion many were killed by their own men, more indeed than by the enemy. Thus it happened to the provincials whom Washington ordered to fight after the manner of the border war- fare. A brave Virginian, Capt. Waggoner, seeing that if he could secure a certain spot on a rising ground where lay a fallen tree of great thickness, his

command might possibly turn the fortune of the day, with eighty provincials he clambered up to it with the loss of only three, and when by a well-directed fire from such a secure position he was dislodging a body of Indians in the bottom beyond, the British, taking the smoke of his guns for the sign of an enemy, fired upon his company by platoons, and they were compelled to fall back, leaving him and fifty of his eighty men on the ground.

When it was seen to be impossible to make his men advance, Braddock endeavored to get them to retreat in good order, for they now, wild, bewildered, and dazed, were firing their ammunition in the air and turning upon their officers. Two-thirds of the killed and wounded in this fatal action received their shots from the cowardly and panic-stricken royalists.1 It was no longer a battle, it was a butchery. By this time half the army that had crossed the river were killed or wounded, many of the best officers had been cut down, and the general, after having five horses shot under him, received, whether at the hands of friend or foe never to be known, a mortal wound.'

No panic was more complete. The desolate cries of the wounded, exposed to the fire of their own brethren, were as terrible as the unearthly yells of the unleashed savages. The royal regulars, when they had shot away their ammunition, were the first to run. All orders henceforth were either not minded or were disobeyed. All by one consent left the field; many threw away their guns, and disencumbered themselves of their habiliments. Some of the soldiers followed the example of the wagoners, and loosing the horses galloped off on their backs. They, intent on saving their own lives, deserted their comrades, and left all their artillery, stores, and the ammunition in their carriages. With difficulty Washington, his coat full of bullet-holes, covered the retreating army with his provincials. With the utmost difficulty, too, it was that the wounded general and his wounded officers were carried off the field by the few who had not for- saken them. Braddock was carried in his scarf. The road to Col. Dunbar's camp on the top of Laurel Hill,

1 Washington's letter to Governor Dinwiddie .- Sparks, vol. ii. p. 88. " The stories of particular persons having shot Braddock are not of Inte origin. We do not credit the Fayette County " Fancet" story. The same kind of a story was related by a Mr. Daniel Adams, of Newbury, who was regarded as a good authority, and who in the Newburyport Herold of 1843 told what he had heard from a Capt. Illabury, who was with Sir William Johnson. This captain had become acquainted with a man who had served under Braddock, who had told him that a captain in that expedition, after many others had done the same thing, appealed to Braddock advising him to retreat, and that Braddock immediately shot him down. This captain had a brother who was a lieutenant, and who was near at the time, and who saw his brother fall; that this lieutenant raised his carbine and shot Bnuldock ; this occurrence several *w, but none told ; that Braddock wore a coat of mail in front, and only a ball from behind could have killed him. This narrative was believed and credited as authentic for a long time, and even inserted into creditable histories; this, too, in the face of the Inharmonious narrative, egre- giously lame, to wit, that the same Freund officer (Dieskau) who com- manded against Johnson had the year Prolong defeated Braddock. We place the Stewart-Faucet story in the na

category. This narrative I

have taken from an old paper into what no the original was copied.

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

thirty-six miles away, was strewn with accoutrements. I The enemy that emerged from Fort Duquesne were French, Canadians, and Indians, under command of The dead and the dying, all baggage, the money client, the cattle, and the small-arms were left to the enemy, , Capt. Beaujeu.' It appears that the commander of who, emerging from their hiding-places, took posses- sion of the field. A small body of Indians dogged

the French was kept well informed by his Indian spies of all the movements of the British, and that the rear of the retreating army down to the river- ' it was his intention to await them at the fort. But bank, and killed and wounded some as they were in this Cupt. Beaujeu, the commandant of Duquesne, begged permission to march out and surprise his en- the water, but further they did not pursue or harass the terrified fugitives on the road. Nevertheless their ; emy when they were not expecting it. He was sec- victory was complete.

An attempt was made on the south side of the river to stop the disordered men and form some of the sol- diers into a force to cover the retreat. Braddock and some other wounded officers remained there a con- siderable time, indeed until the rest had all gone by. He still gave his orders from his litter, and directed Washington to speed to Dunbar with orders to send aid for the wounded, and with a small force to meet him on the way. At this side of the first crossing of the Monongahela he was joined by Gage, who had rallied a company. This was all of the army left; the rest were lying on the battle-field, or were along the road. These marched all night and the next day, and on the following night at about ten o'clock came to Gist'a, where they halted to dress the wounded and refresh the men.

When the army was collected at the station of Col. Dunbar it was in numbers still formidable; but its spirit was broken, and no attempt was again made to march into the enemy's country or to retrieve their lost fortunes. The panic was infectious, and all discipline was forgotten among even those who had not been engaged in the battle. They hid their heavy cannon in holes in the ground, and made no effort to maintain that post. They did not rest easily till they got back to Fort Cumberland.

The ball that met Braddock penetrated through his arm and lung. He lived four days after he was wounded. During this time when he was talked to he gave orders, but he rapidly sank into a stupor, and his thoughts and expressions were mostly wan- dering. In the night-time, after a long silence, he said, audible to those around, although in a medi- tating manner and as speaking with himself, " Who would have thought it! Who would have thought it !" He remained silent again, or at most talked incoherently. On the fourth day, immediately before he died, he said, " We shall better know how to deal with them another time." On the next day, the 14th of July, the second day after the army had left Dunbar's, he was buried in the middle of the road, and they marched and drove their wagons over his grave to make it indistinguishable. Some say that he was buried in the darkness of the early morning.1

onded by the entreaties of Capt. Dumas and Capt. Lignery and about a dozen subalterns. His force was about six hundred Indians and several detached com- panies of French and Canadians, in numbers above two hundred. They had great trouble to get the In- dians to accompany them, and to do so had to give them much strong drink and offer many promises. They marched out of the fort in the early morning of the 9th of July, and intended to resist Braddock while he was crossing the river. They did not arrive in time for this, for the army was preparing to cross when they came to the hills. They there lay in am- bush. At the first regular fire of the British the commander, Beaujeu, was killed. His followers showed signs of fear and confusion. This occasioned the first and only lull in the firing of the French which was noticed by the British. This was the moment, the Americans say, that Braddock or Gage should have taken to push onward to the enemy. But the opportune moment was lost ; hence some said Brad- dock acted as one who had lost his reason. Dumas, however, took the command in place of Beaujeu, and showed the coolness and the skill of a veteran officer. His orders were obeyed, and while he remained with his regular French in the front, his officers deployed the Indians on either flank of the British.

Dunbar conducted the army to Philadelphia, but Washington was the good genius of the retreat. It may be doubted that Washington ever, in defeat or victory, was more impassably himself than in this campaign. What might not be expected from so young a man, who, not expecting anything but vic- tory, should appear to greater advantage when he marched from defeat? In such a school was the man taught who bore the weight of a country for seven restless years.

The completeness of this victory and defeat, al- though felt, was not fully seen till the detachment

1 In 1802 the remains were reinterred at the foot of a white oak-tree, and the place suitably marked. This is at Mount Braddock, Fayette Co., some of Braddock's bones, however, passed into the possession of Peale, the great showman, in whose museum in Philadelphia they were ex- bibited as relics until the destruction of the building by fire.

? "The name in full of Beanjeu was Daniel Hyacinthe Marie Lienard de Beaujeu. He was the second son of Louis Lienard Sieur de Beanjeu and Therese Mijean de Braussac, his wife, born in Montreal, Aug. 17, 1711. The family was originally from Dauphine, France. Beaujeu bad commanded at Detroit and Niagara." (William M. Darlington, E-q, in "Centenary Memorial," p. 263.) See record of his death and burial in the chapter on the religious history in this book.

Mr. Darlington mys that " Beaujeu seems to have succeeded Contre- cœur at Fort Duquesne," and in this statement he follows various other authors. But Sparks, citing the best authorities (the French "Arcliives"), says that Contreconr was commander of Fort Duquesne, and Bancroft (" History of the United States") follows him. Contrecoeur was "conI- mander" of all the French in those parts, and all orders came from him. Beaujeu was " commandant" ut the fort.

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ARMSTRONG'S EXPEDITION, 1756-BOUQUET AT LIGONIER, 1758.

sent out by Forbes, when he took possession of the fort, three years after this, came upon the battle-field to pay the last rites to the mangled bodies of their former companions in arms. They gave a pathetic account of their sorrowful duties, and many have since rewritten it. No words, however, can tell the deso- lation which they felt, and the devastation which they saw. Nothing before or since in the warful an- nals of America can be compared with this. The dead had been left to lie as they fell. They saw where the wounded had died uncared for, and found among brush and rocks the skeletons of those who had per- ished by the tomahawk or through hunger and thirst. The birds and wild beasts had plucked off the naked flesh of the desecrated victims. Blackened ashes told where heathen vengeance had been gratified. Some were lying in heaps; others had dragged themselves in their torments to a distance. Some were found sit- ting on the trunks of fallen trees and on rocks; others were lying side by side in the embrace of death. A few were identified, and these were interred sepa- rately ; the bones of many were collected together and buried in one common grave.

The loss of the French and their allies, according to their own report, which may be taken with allow- ance, was only about thirty, and the most of these met death by accident from the falling timbers in the woods cut by the cannon-balls. Of the British, sixty- four out of eighty-five officers, and about one-half the privates, or about seven hundred, were killed or wounded. Every field or horseback officer except Washington was carried off the field, and he had two horses killed under him.

The Indians may claim the glory of this' victory. Those engaged were confederates who were not con- fined to the tribes about the Ohio, for all under the control of the French throughout the West were brought to the fort. The Wyandots and Southern Ohio tribes were represented, and Pontiac, then a young warrior, headed some of his Ottawas from the Western lakes. Cornplanter was there, too, with the Senecas, and many others since known to fame. As to the exact number of those with the French who fought on that dreadful day we have no authentic ac- count. The number currently reported are as we give them, but it is almost certain there were many more.

Before dismissing this subject we cannot but call attention to, first, the remarkable proportion of offi- cers killed to the number engaged ; and, second, to the noticeable distinction to which many of the sur- vivors arrived, from which an idea of the composition of this army may be obtained. Gage became the commander of the British armies at Boston in the be- ginning of the Revolution ; Washington, commander- in-chief of the American army; Horatio Gates, after- wards a major-general in the American army, com- manded a company of independent troops from New York ; Col. Daniel Morgan, the hero of the Cowpens, drove a wagon of his own, for he was originally a

teamster. Among the many others were the Lewises of Virginia, afterwards distinguished and gallant off- cers, and Col. Hugh Mercer, who died with glory at Princeton.

CHAPTER IV.

ARMSTRONG'S EXPEDITION, 1756-BOUQUET AT LIGONIER, 1758.

The Country overrun by Indians and French after Braddock's Defrat- Settlers flee to the East of the Mountains-Forts and Block-Houses on the Pennsylvania Frontier-Cul. Julin Armstrong's Expedition in 1756 against the Kittanning Town-The Town taken and destroyed, and Capt. Jacobs reported killed-The Tramping-Ground of these Warriors-The French and Indian War carried ou under William Pitt -Jolin Forbes commands the New Expedition from Philadelphia against Fort Duquesne-His command-Col. Bouquet brings the Vau- guard of the Army across Laurel Hill to the Loyalhanna, where he erects a Stockarle, and awaits on the rest of the Army under Washing- ton and Forbes, who were to unite at Raystown, or Bedford.

THE disastrous effect of Braddock's defeat was more sensibly felt in our colony than even in Virginia. An undisturbed peace had existed between the Indians and the Pennsylvania colonists till the war broke out between the two European mother-countries in 1754. One reason which augmented the distress was that, as a general thing, the colonists were averse to war, and had always favored a pacific policy. Some of the citizens, from their religious perceptions, were opposed to warfare on any pretense whatever. Now the whole frontier of the colony was left open to the free ingress of the savages. The frontier county was Cumber- land, which extended no farther than the Juniata. Numerous acts of hostility were committed on these settlements. Detached bands of exasperated and bloodthirsty barbarians attacked the stations, and marauding-parties preyed upon the isolated settlers. The Indian nature after being long restrained was let loose. Like the beasts which had got used to living on the flesh of the dead that Braddock left, they thought they had a right to kill all they met. They murdered the men and women, and burnt their pitiful cabins to the ground, so that the harvests were un- gathered, and such as had timely warning had to flee for life through a wide stretch of hostile country. During the fall and winter of 1755 the settlements of Great Cove and Conococheague in Cumberland County were overrun and the inhabitants slaughtered. All the settlements surrounding were in great com- motion. Many were scattered with their families to all the neighboring places of safety ; many were taken in captivity to the depots of the French in Canada. In short, all the horrors of an Indian war were expe- rienced. The authorities were clamored to for relief. It became evident that a long line of block-houses with garrisons would have to be established at the public expense for the prote ion of the inhabitants

who were unable to protect th the war from the hearths 0 And, indeed, if

mselves, and thus keep

" all.

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

timely efforts had not been made to put a stop to this , Virginia were taken. Speaking in the forms of their warfare the whole of the frontier to the west of the own language, they with the Shawanese had taken the hatchet against Braddock which was offered them by the French, and went directly to war with whom they called the Virginians, which also of course included the Pennsylvanians. They, however, were influenced to this probably more by the Six Nations, come of whoin lived among them.' Susquehanna would have been deserted. It has been estimated that in 1755 this section possessed three thousand fighting-men, and that in the next year, 1756, outside the provincial forces, there were not one hundred. These terrible times continued, with some intermission, till the Indians were partly conciliated by a treaty at Easton in 1758. But now it was evi- While the general-in-chief of the. British forces in America, Gen. Shirley the succewor of Braddock, and the Governors of the northern provinces were preparing an aggressive campaign with new levies to reduce the posts held by the French immediately after dent that what had been reclaimed from nature would have to be protected by the force of arms. The claims of our own colony were not to be despised, for al- though she had been profuse and liberal both in men and money in the assistance of her sister colonies, . the unsuccessful campaigns of the year previous, by her own borders were left open to fire and murder.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 6

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: