USA > Texas > Border fights & fighters; stories of the pioneers between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi and in the Texan republic > Part 2
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II
How Bouquet Saved Pennsylvania
as the forest growth permitted, Bouquet charged through the woods with the bayonet. The Indians at once gave way before the onrush of the Highlanders and the light infantry, but when Bouquet halted the charge and re- called his men lest they should become scattered, and he lose control of them, the savages crept back through the trees and resumed the engagement.
As they had done years before to Braddock's men, so now they extended themselves through the wood on either side and endeavored to attack the British on the flanks. But whatever they did the soldiers met them. There was no panic this time on the part of those weak and feeble half-invalid soldiers. Bouquet was an entirely different man from Braddock and he had won the confi- dence of his men. They trusted him entirely and they had seen and heard too much of the Indian customs on their march not to know that to break and run meant destruction.
Bouquet carefully manœuvred his men through the trees, skilfully checking and driving back the advancing Indians from time to time by well-delivered volleys or short rushes with the bayonet. The battle was going favorably when firing in the rear told him that the Indians, who much outnumbered the English, had en- gaged the rear-guard. Still keeping his front to the enemy Bouquet withdrew his troops and posted them around the hill in rear of the first position, thus afford- ing protection to the convoy and the baggage.
It was late in the afternoon now and until night fell the battle was kept up. The Indians surrounded the camp and fought from behind the trees. There was no more volley firing by the British, but they lay on the ground availing themselves of all possible cover, firing
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slowly and endeavoring to make every shot tell. When- ever the impatient Indians, growing bolder as they ap- parently saw their prey within their grasp, left cover and advanced they were driven back to the woods with the deadly bayonet.
Presently the welcome night came and the attack ceased. The situation of the British was indeed deplo- rable. A line of dead men from the first hill where the first onset had been met, back to the camp, showed how faithfully they had fought and how resolutely they had been attacked. There were no wounded out in the forest glades either. The Indians ruthlessly butchered and scalped all who fell. Some sixty of the English had been killed or wounded.
They were surrounded by a large force of savages and it appeared likely that the terrible experiences of the past would be repeated upon them on the morrow. Bou- quet wrote to Amherst that night, commending in brief soldier-like words, the steadiness and valor of his men, but preparing him for the worst possible results of the expected action, which he realized would take place on the morrow. He was too good a soldier not to recog- nize the peril of their situation and too brave a man not to admit it.
With almost any other commander in the English service in a similar situation, the result would have been certain. Bouquet, however, was in himself a host. He knew that his only chance of escaping annihilation would be in bringing the savages to a stand, where he could deliver with his veterans such a decisive blow as would completely defeat them, otherwise he was doomed. The Indians could keep him on that hill picking off his men until they died of hunger or thirst, if nothing else. To retreat was impossible.
How Bouquet Saved Pennsylvania 13
III. The Battle of Bushy Run
There was no sleep for the anxious commander that night. As he walked around the circle among his ex- hausted men lying on their arms, as he passed the heavy cordon of sentries who kept watch over those who sought to snatch a few moments of needed rest, as he thought of the helpless wounded stifling their groans with heroic resolution in the little enclosure on the crest of the hill, as he recalled the wretched women and children, the ter- rified inhabitants of the forts and towns who were look- ing to him for protection, and praying God for the success of his expedition which was the only barrier interposed between them and the red scourge sweeping through the forests from the westward, he sustained a weight of responsibility which would have crushed a man less stout of heart. In his desperation he concocted a plan whereby he fondly hoped he could extricate his forces from their deadly peril, and at the same time de- liver a crushing blow upon the Indians.
It was a plan worthy of the keenest warrior that ever endeavored to conquer his foe by savage subtlety and woodland stratagem. Feverishly he waited for the morning and prayed for a favorable time and opportu- nity to put the plan from which he hoped so much, upon which so much depended, into execution.
The night was marked by one instance of conspicuous heroism. From a little brook hard by the hill, practically gone dry in the summer weather and therefore neglected by the besieging Indians, one of the frontiersmen named Byerly, unobserved by the savages, succeeded in the darkness in bringing in his hat from a hidden pool which
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he had discovered, a few mouthfuls of precious water which was given to the most severely wounded. A slight rain which fell toward morning also refreshed them somewhat, but most of the men suffered greatly from thirst during the night; they had had no water since noon of the day before.
When the day broke over the haggard but desperate and determined band, the Indians resumed the attack. As soon as it was light enough to see, the firing began again. Steadily the men fought on, lying crouched behind such shelter or cover as they were able to come by, while the slow hours of the hot morning dragged away. The Indians, having learned by the experience of the preced- ing day, at first took great care not to expose themselves and the British sustained their fire as best they could. The savage warriors at once marked their commander from his brilliant uniform, and fired at him so constantly that upon the insistence of his officers he changed his clothing to render himself less conspicuous. The small tree behind which he took shelter while he did this was hit by no less than fourteen bullets during the time.
Many of the soldiers were struck down, and of the pack-horses numbers were killed and others broke through the lines, plunging upon the men, especially the wounded, and creating wild confusion in the camp. Their drivers as a rule proved cowardly and left the terri- fied animals to their own devices. Still Bouquet did not dare to drive the horses away. He would need them when he had won the battle.
So he clung tenaciously to his position and his heroic men fought on uncomplainingly while he waited for the favorable opportunity to display the stratagem he had planned. For four hours the men lay on that open hill
How Bouquet Saved Pennsylvania 15
in the hot sun of August, without food or water, and kept up the engagement. The Indians, as Bouquet had foreseen, grew bolder from their immunity, being adepts at fighting under cover, and as the certainty of success grew upon them, they began creeping nearer and fight-
I. GRENADIERS.
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3. BATTALION MEN.
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4. RANGERS.
LARGE
5. CATTLE.
SWAMP
6. HORSES.
7. INTRENCHMENTS OF
BAGS FOR WOUNDED.
8.FIRST POSITION OF TROOPS.
9. GRAVES ON HILLOCK.
8
2
RO
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Plan of the Battle of Bushy Run.
ing more recklessly. At last the colonel determined that the moment for striking had arrived.
Fortunately one side of the hill was cleft by a ravine which gave entrance upon the surrounding valley. The front of the English line where the main attack was
PART OF BUSHY RUN
9.
2.LICHT INFANTRY.
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Border Fights and Fighters
being made, was held by two companies of the High- landers. Explaining clearly to all his men what he pro- posed doing, and why, so there would be no panic and they would carry out his orders intelligently, Bouquet ordered these two companies suddenly to withdraw from the line and retreat rapidly across the hill until they reached the ravine, which they were to enter, advance down it, and hold themselves in readiness to attack from it. At the same time the companies on either side of the gap they left were ordered to extend across it in open order to keep the circle intact.
At the word, the Highlanders immediately ran to the rear and plunged into the ravine, where their movements were sheltered from the view of the Indians by its depth and by the bushes growing on its edge. The movement was carried out perfectly. As the Scots rushed away from the field the men of the companies to the right and left closed the opening.
The Indians of course saw the manœuvre. Imagin- ing, naturally, that it was the beginning of a retreat, they abandoned their cover and came swarming out into the open. Pouring a furious fire upon the weakened line, with most unusual courage they charged deliber- ately at it, tomahawk and scalping-knife in hand. The thin line of soldiers could not stand the massed onset of the horde of the braves, and, although they fought hero- ically hand to hand for a moment, they were about to give way. In the very nick of time the Highlanders in the ravine, came running out into the open. As they appeared on the right flank of the Indians, without halt- ing they poured in a volley at point-blank range. Though they were greatly surprised by this unexpected dis- charge, the savages, who displayed the most astonishing
How Bouquet Saved Pennsylvania 17
resolution in this battle, at once faced about and returned the fire, but when they saw through the smoke the fierce Highlanders springing upon them, bayonet in hand, revenge and triumph in their stern faces, they gave way and fled.
" For life ! For life ! they plight their ply- And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry,
And plaids and bonnets waving high, And broadswords flashing to the sky, Are maddening in the rear !"
Staking everything on this manœuvre, Bouquet, when he saw the Highlanders advance, broke his line again and threw two companies of Light Infantry out of the circle on the other flank. The flying Indians ran right into them and a final volley swept them from the field. The Indians in the rear of the camp had advanced to attack at the same time those in the front had endeavored to break the weakened line, but, witnessing the repulse of those in front, they gave way on all sides before a general advance and abandoned the field.
More than sixty dead Indians lay upon the ground where the Highlanders and Light Infantry had charged, and bloody trails through the woods in the direction of their retreat, showed how many men had been wounded. They had been beaten by an inferior force in a pitched battle, in a fair field and an open fight. On the English side the loss had been very heavy. One hundred and fifteen, or nearly one fourth of the troops, had been killed or wounded. The loss of the Indians was probably equally as great, if not greater. But one Indian prisoner was taken and the men, with the memory of the scenes through which they had passed to animate them, shot him to death as he had been a mad dog.
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Tactically this engagement, called the Battle of Bushy Run, was one of the most brilliant fights against Indians which ever took place on the continent, and it was ren- dered memorable by the fact that the savages had ex- hibited a willingness to join in hand to hand fighting which was as remarkable as it was unusual. During Forsyth's defence of the Arickaree in western Kansas, a hundred years later, the Indians there made a charge in the open and endeavored by close fighting to win the day, but that is about the only similar instance I recall.
The expedition had been saved from destruction by Bouquet's brilliant tactics alone. The English were still, however, in a desperate state. Many of the pack- horses had been shot and most of the precious supplies had to be destroyed or abandoned. It was with the greatest difficulty that the wounded could be transported, yet Bouquet, making such dispositions for their comfort as he could, resumed their march. Camped on the bank of Little Turtle Creek that same evening, they were again attacked, but the Indians manifested little diposi- tion to fight after the decisive and costly defeat they had sustained in the morning, and they were easily driven away.
On account of the condition of his men it took Bouquet five days to march the twenty miles between him and Fort Pitt. He reached it, at last, however, and relieved the garrison. The Indians crushed and broken by their defeat and seeing no prospect of making head against the combined forces, withdrew from that section of Penn- sylvania. As the various posts were re-established and garrisoned when re-enforcements were forwarded from the east, many of the old settlers, and some new ones, reoccupied their deserted clearings.
How Bouquet Saved Pennsylvania 19
IV. The End of Bouquet
The Indians were eventually defeated everywhere in the general conflict which was raging through the north- west; and the year after his splendid fight, Bouquet led a brilliantly successful expedition through the country west of the Ohio, which brought about their complete submission and which resulted in the restoration of hun- dreds of captives to those who thought they had lost them forever .*
For his extraordinary skill and courage and for the success of his expedition, Bouquet was thanked by the king and promoted to be brigadier-general. He died in the service at Pensacola three years afterward while still in the prime of life. In addition to his other claims upon our consideration, romance appropriates him, since he was the victim of an unrequited passion for a beauti- ful Philadelphian. Anne Willing refused to accept him because he was a soldier, and she married another and less noted man! Poor, lonely Henry Bouquet, it almost broke his heart.
It seems a heartless thing to say, but the bullet that struck down Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, and the, fever that carried Bouquet away at Pensacola, did good
* There is a touching little story of a mother with this expedition whose child had forgotten her and who had vainly endeavored to awaken her recol- lection, which illustrates one phase of Bouquet's character. "Sing her the song with which you put her to sleep as a baby," he said to the agonized woman, with a touch of inspiration. And the woman sang this hymn :-
" Alone yet not alone am I Though in this solitude so drear, I feel my Saviour always nigh, He comes my weary hours to cheer."
When the little girl heard the familiar strain of her infancy, memory came back to her with the first verse, and at last she knew her mother.
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service to the country destined to become the United States of America; for they were such accomplished sol- diers, men of such talent and genius, that had they been in command of the British forces in the War of the Revo- lution, that struggle might have been shorter and its results possibly vastly different. They were both young enough men when they died to have been available for service in 1775.
We do not find such another Indian fighter as this gallant Swiss in the colonial records, and it is noteworthy that the same sort of troops as were found entirely inade- quate to the situation when led by Braddock, proved themselves heroes indeed when under the command of a greater and abler man.
PART I PENNSYLVANIA
II Captain Samuel Brady, Chief of the Rangers
CAPTAIN SAMUEL BRADY, CHIEF OF THE RANGERS
I. A Family of Fighters
A S a typical pioneer and Indian fighter I have chosen to include in this series some account of a few of the exploits and adventures of Captain Samuel Brady, whose name for cool daring, unremitting vigilance, unsparing energy, fertility of resource, and suc- cessful enterprise, was a household word in western Pennsylvania during the beginnings of the nation.
Few families among our early settlers contributed more generously and freely of their best to the service of their country than that from which Brady sprang. His father, Captain John Brady - son of Hugh, the Præpositus of the family in America, who was descended from that famous Irish family of which the noted versifier of the Psalms was a member - like Washington and George Rogers Clark, was a surveyor.
He was commissioned captain in the 2nd Pennsylvania Battalion in 1764 in Bouquet's expedition. He was a noted frontiersman prior to the Revolution, and when that war broke out was appointed a captain in the 12th Pennsylvania Continental Line. At the Battle of the Brandywine his regiment was cut to pieces in the des- perate fighting near the Birmingham Meeting House. He was badly wounded and his son John, a lad of fifteen
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Border Fights and Fighters
who had come like David of old with supplies for the camp, and had remained for the battle, was also wounded, and only saved from capture by the act of his colonel in throwing the boy upon a horse when the troops re- treated. So fierce was the fighting that every officer in Captain Brady's company was killed or wounded, to- gether with most of his men.
In 1778, Captain Brady was ordered to Fort Pitt and attached to the regiment of Colonel Brodhead, who was charged by Washington personally with the duty of pro- tecting the western Pennsylvania frontier from the in- cursions of the savages. It is estimated that there were at one time or another more than twelve thousand Indians in arms in the pay of the British. Campbell states that four hundred Seneca warriors in three years on the border, took more than one thousand scalps, two hundred and ninety-nine of them having belonged to women and twenty-nine to children! They were sent by the Indians to the Governor of Canada, to be by him sent as a present to the King of England.
As most of the able-bodied men west of the moun- tains had enlisted in the Continental Line the valleys were without protection until Washington sent Brodhead thither. One of the frontier posts by which it was hoped to protect the country was located near Muncy and called Fort Brady in honor of its commander.
James Brady, Captain John's second son, who was himself a militia captain, was killed near there by the Indians. A small party of men were reaping in one of the fields a short distance from Loyalsock, in the fall of 1778. Captain James Brady was in command of them. Four men watched while the others worked. A large party of the Indians stole upon them unperceived
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Brady, Chief of the Rangers
and opened fire, whereupon the most of them fled. Captain Brady ran for his gun. According to one ac- count, he secured it, shot one of the Indians dead, seized another gun, was shot himself, then stabbed by a spear, tomahawked, and scalped. He had long red hair. It is related that one of his frontier friends a week before his death, watching him dress and plait it in the queue, which was the fashion of the day, remarked to him:
" Jim, the Indians will get that red scalp of yours yet."
The young captain, who was only twenty at the time, laughingly replied that if they did they would have something to lighten their darkness for them! The red hair was characteristic of the family and has persisted in many members to the present day. Young Brady sur- vived his frightful wound for five days and died at Fort Brady in the arms of his mother, an heroic pioneer woman.
A year after this, Captain John was shot and instantly killed by Indians, who fled from the scene of the murder with such precipitation that they did not scalp him, and his body with his watch, seals, and weapons, was re- covered intact. His son, Hugh, too young to fight in the Revolution, rose to be a Major-General in the United States Army. As commander of the 22nd Infantry, he was shot through the body in the first charge at Lundy's Lane. A letter from Hugh's nephew, Captain John's grandson, who was an officer in his uncle's regiment, tells how the general fell and fainted from loss of blood but was lifted to his horse and continued in command until nearly the close of the action. He had two horses killed under him in this battle and only gave up the command when he was unable to sit or stand from loss
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Border Fights and Fighters
of blood .* Another of Captain John's grandsons, Will- iam, volunteered for service in Perry's squadron and fought in the Battle of Lake Erie.
There were thirteen children born to this old Pioneer Captain, of whom five were girls. Two boys died in infancy and another just before the War of 1812. The other five fought in every war which took place while they were alive.
The most distinguished of them all, however, unless it be General Hugh, was the oldest, Captain Samuel Brady, Chief of the Rangers. On August 3rd, 1775, he enlisted, being then only nineteen years of age, as a private soldier, and was ordered to Massachusetts. He participated in the operations around Boston, and in the Battle of Long Island, where he so distinguished himself for bravery that he was promoted to a lieutenancy, skip- ping the grade of ensign. He fought at White Plains and was one of that ragged starved little band of men who clung to Washington and with which he made that desperate strike back at Trenton and Princeton in the darkest hour of the Revolution.+ As one of Hand's riflemen at Princeton, he barely escaped capture on ac- count of his impetuous gallantry.
He was brevetted a captain for gallant service at the Brandywine and Germantown. At the Massacre of Paoli, he was surrounded, pursued, and narrowly escaped with his life. So close were the British to him that as he leaped a fence they pinned him to it by thrusting bayonets through his blanket-coat. He tore himself away, shot dead a cavalryman who had overtaken him
* See my book American Fights and Fighters. Niagara Campaign.
+ See my book American Fights and Fighters. Washington's Greatest Campaign.
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Brady, Chief of the Rangers
and ordered him to surrender, found safety in a swamp, where he gathered up some fifty-five men who had escaped and led them safely to the army in the morning.
He, too, was ordered to western Pennsylvania with his regiment, in which he appears at first as a captain- lieutenant. He was borne on the rolls successively of the Third, Sixth, and Eighth Pennsylvania Line until the termination of the Revolution.
II. The First of the Borderers
It was his services as a borderer, however, that espe- cially entitle him to attention. What Boone was to Kentucky and Kenton to Ohio, that Sam Brady was to western Pennsylvania. His services were so great that Colonel Brodhead successfully urged his promotion to a full captaincy and commended him specifically in a personal letter to General Washington. Indeed, on more than one occasion, he was selected by Washing- ton, through Colonel Brodhead, for certain specific and important duties; and there is a letter of Colonel Brod- head's extant, which is published in the Pennsylvania archives, in which the colonel states that he has just received a special letter of commendation for Captain Brady from the great Commander-in-Chief himself. Al- though he was only twenty-seven years old when the war closed he was by universal consent regarded as the chief ranger, hunter, scout, and frontiersman on the Pennsylvania border.
The Allegheny and Ohio rivers constituted the west- ern and northern boundaries of the colonies. George Rogers Clark, Boone, and others ranged over the north- ern Kentucky line to protect the settlements, Poe and
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Border Fights and Fighters
Wetzel around Wheeling, and Brady and his men from Fort Pitt to Lake Erie. His services were well-nigh continuous. He was always in the woods. No enter- prise was too dangerous for him to undertake. No danger was so great as to deter him. He was constantly employed until the war was over, and when General Wayne mustered an army to avenge St. Clair's defeat and crush the Indians, Brady was given command of all his scouts, rangers, and pioneers.
Captain Brady died on Christmas Day, 1795, leaving a name which is still remembered in western Pennsyl- vania, and which has been much referred to by those who have written the annals of the west. Indeed the old settlers in their letters, reminiscences, and early records, do not hesitate to compare him-and not to his disadvantage-to the great Daniel Boone himself.
Partly from these records and partly from family tra- ditions and old letters, some of his exploits have been preserved. I shall not attempt to give them in chrono- logical order. Indeed it is impossible to date some of them. Like every other famous borderer he has been made the subject of myth and legend, and heroic tale has grown about him, but there is good authority for the adventures here set down.
III. The Adventure at Bloody Spring
On one occasion he was ordered by Colonel Brodhead upon a scouting expedition. He took with him two tried comrades named Biggs and Bevington. Ranging northward from Fort Pitt, at a place above the mouth of the Beaver, near the present village of Fallston, where there was a clearing, they came upon the ruins of the
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