USA > West Virginia > Barbour County > The history of Barbour County, West Virginia, from its earliest exploration and settlement to the present time > Part 4
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THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
as far as the Wabash, raze Niagara and Crown Point, surrender the Penin- sula of Nova Scotia, and a strip of land sixty miles wide along the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic, and leave the intermediate country as far as the St. Lawrence a neutral desert. France rejected this proposition, and un- derstanding the designs of the English, sent three thousand men to Can- ada. General Braddock was already on his way to America with two regi- ments; yet no war had been declared between England and France. The former announced that it would act only on the defensive, and the latter affirmed its desire for peace.
When General Braddock arrived in America he prepared four expedi- tions against the French, yet still insisting that he was acting only on the defensive. One was against Nova Scotia, one against Niagara, one against Crown Point, and the fourth against the Ohio Valley, to be led by Braddock in person. This last is the only one that immediately concerns West Vir- ginia, and it will be spoken of somewhat at length.
Much was expected of Braddock's campaign. He promised that he would be beyond the Alleghanies by the end of April; and after taking Fort Du- quesne, which he calculated would not detain him above three days, he would invade Canada by ascending the Alleghany River. He expressed no concern from attacks by Indians, and showed contempt for American sold- iers who were in his own ranks. He expected his British regulars to win the battles. Never had a general gone into the field with so little compre- hension of what he was undertaking. He paid for it with his life. He set out upon his march from Alexandria, in Virginia, and in twenty-seven days reached Cumberland with about two thousand men, some of them Virginians. Here Washington joined him as one of his aids. From Cumberland to Fort Duquesne the distance was one hundred and thirty miles. The army could not march five miles a day. Everything went wrong. Wagons broke down, horses and cattle died, Indians harrassed the flanks. On June 19, 1755, the army was divided, and a little more than half of it pushed forward in hope of capturing Fort Duquense before the arrival of re-enforcements from Can- ada. The progress was yet slow, altogether the heaviest baggage had been left with the rear division. Not until July 8 was the Monongahela reached. This river was forded, and marching on its southern bank, Braddock de- cided to strike terror to the hearts of his enemies by a parade. He drew his men up in line and spent an hour marching to and fro, believing that the French were watching his every movement from the bluff beyond the river. He wished to impress them with his power. The distance to Fort Duquesne was less than twelve miles. He recrossed the river at noon. This was July 9. The troops pushed forward toward the fort, and while cutting a road through the woods, were assailed by French and Indians in ambush. The attack was as unexpected as it was violent. It is not neces- sary to enter fully into details of the battle which was disastrous in the extreme. The regular soldiers were panic stricken. They could do nothing against a concealed foe which numbered eight hundred and sixty-seven, of which only two hundred and thirty were French. About the only fighting on the side of the English was done by the Virginians under Washington. They prevented the slaughter of the whole army. Of the three com- panies of the Virginians, scarcely thirty remained alive. The battle con- tinued two hours. Of the eighty-six officers in the army, twenty-six were killed, and thirty-seven were wounded. One-half of the army was killed or wounded. Washington had two horses killed under him and four bullets
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passed through his coat; yet he was not wounded. The regulars, when they had wasted their ammunition in useless firing, broke and ran like sheep, leaving everything to the enemy. The total loss of the English was seven hundred and fourteen killed and wounded. Braddock had five horses shot under him, and was finally mortally wounded and carried from the field.
The battle was over. The English were flying toward Cumberland, throwing away whatever impeded their retreat. The dead and wounded were abandoned on the field. Braddock was borne along in the rout, con- scious that his wound was mortal. He spoke but a few times. Once he said: "Who would have thought it!" and again: "We shall know better how to deal with them another time." He no doubt was thinking of his re- fusal to take Washington's advice as to guarding against ambuscades. Braddock died, and was buried in the night about a mile west of Fort Necessity. Washington read the funeral service at the grave.
When the fugitives reached the division of the army under Dunbar, which had been left behind and was coming up, the greatest confusion pre- vailed. General Dunbar destroyed military stores to the value of half a million dollars. In his terror he destroyed all he had, and when he recov- ered his senses he was obliged to send to Cumberland for provisions to keep his men alive until he could reach that place. He did not cease to retreat until he reached Philadelphia, where he went into winter quarters. The news of the defeat spread rapidly, and the frontier from New York to North Carolina prepared for defense, for it was well known that the French, now flushed with victory, would arm the Indians and send them against the ex- posed settlements. Even before the defeat of Braddock a taste of Indian warfare was given many outposts. After the repulse of the army there was no protection for the frontiers of Virginia except such as the settlers themselves could provide. One of the first settlements to receive a visit from the savages was in Hampshire County. Braddock's defeated army had scarcely withdrawn before the Indians appeared near the site of Romney and fired at some of the men near the fort, and the fire was returned. One man was wounded, and the Indians, about ten in number, were driven off. Early the next spring a party of fifty Indians, under the leadership of a Frenchman, again invaded the settlements on the Potomac, and Captain Jeremiah Smith, with twenty men, went in pursuit of them. A fight occurred near the source of the Capon, and the Frenchman and five of his savages were killed. Smith lost two men. The Indians fled. A few days later a second party of Indians made their way into the country, and were defeated by Captain Joshua Lewis, with eighteen men. The Indians sep- arated into small parties and continued their depredations for some time, appearing in the vicinity of the Evans fort, two miles from Martinsburg; and later they made an attack on Neally's fort, and in that vicinity commit- ted several murders. A Shawnee chief named Killbuck, whose home was probably in Ohio, invaded what is now Grant and Hardy Counties in the spring of 1756, at the head of sixty or seventy savages. He killed several settlers and made his escape. He appeared again two years later in Pen- dleton County, where he attacked and captured Fort Seybert, twelve miles west of the present town of Franklin, and put to death more than twenty persons who had taken refuge in the fort. The place no doubt could have made a successful resistance had not the inmates trusted to the promise of safety made by the Indians, who thus were admitted into the fort, and at
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once massacred the settlers. In 1758 the Indians again invaded Hampshire County and killed a settler near Forks of Capon. This same year eight Indians came into the country on the South Branch of the Potomac, near the town of Petersburg, and attacked the cabin of a man named Bingaman. They had forced their way into the house at night, and being at too close quarters for shooting, Bingaman clubbed his rifle and beat seven of them to death. The eighth made his escape. In 1759 the Indians committed depredations on the Monongahela River near Morgantown.
The settlement on the Roanoke River in Virginia, between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains, was the theatre of much bloodshed in 1756 by Indians from Ohio who made their way, most probably, up the Kanawha and New River, over the Alleghanies. An expedition against them was organized in the fall of 1756, under Andrew Lewis, who eighteen years later, commanded the Virginians at the battle of Point Pleasant. Not much good came of the expedition which marched, with great hardship, through that part of West Virginia south of the Kanawha, crossed a corner of Kentucky to the Ohio River, where an order came for the troops not to cross the Ohio nor invade the country north of that river. They returned in dead of winter, and suffered extremely from hunger and cold. This is notable from the fact that it was the first military expedition by an English- speaking race to reach the Ohio River south of Pittsburg.
During the three years following Braddock's defeat the frontier was exposed to incessant danger. Virginia appointed George Washington com- mander-in-chief of all forces raised or to be raised in that State. He trav- eled along the frontier of his State, inspecting the forts and trying to bring order out of chaos. His picture of the distress of the people and the hor- rors of the Indian warfare is summed up in these words, addressed to the Governor of Virginia: "The supplicating tears of the women, and the mov- ing petitions of the men, melt me with such deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I would offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people's ease." He found no adequate means of defense. Indians butchered the people and fed. Pursuit was nearly always in vain. Washington insisted at all times that the only radical remedy for Indian depredation was the capture of Fort Duquesne. So long as that rallying point remained the Indians would be armed and would harrass the frontiers. But, in case the reduction of Fort Duquesne could not be undertaken, Washington recommended the erection of a chain of twenty-two forts along the frontier, to be garrisoned by two thousand soldiers.
In 1756 and again in 1757 propositions were laid before the Government of Virginia, and also before the commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, by Washington for the destruction of Fort Duquesne. But in neither of these years was his proposition acted upon. However, the British were waging a successful war against the French in Canada, and by this were indirectly contributing to the conquest of the Ohio Valley. In 1758 all was in readiness for striking a blow at Fort Duquesne with the earnest hope that it would be captured and that rallying point for savages ulti- mately destroyed. The settlements in the eastern part of West Virginia were nearly broken up. Only two frontier forts west of Winchester held out, exclusive of military posts. Both were in Hampshire County, one at Romney, the other on Capon. The savages swarmed over the Blue Ridge and spread destruction in the Valley of Virginia.
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THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
General Joseph Forbes was given command of the army destined for the expedition against Fort Duquesne. This was early in 1758. He had . twelve hundred Highlanders; two thousand seven hundred Pennsyl- vanians; nineteen hundred Virginians, and enough others to bring the total to about six thousand men. Washington was leader of the Virginians. Without him, General Forbes never would have seen the Ohio. The old General was sick, and his progress was so slow that but for the efforts of Washington in pushing forward, the army could not have reached Duquesne that year. A new road was constructed from Cumberland, intended as a permanent highway to the West. When the main army had advanced about half the distance from Cumberland to Fort Duquesne, Major Grant with eight hundred Highlanders and Virginians, went forward to reconnoitre. Intelligence had been received that the garrison numbered only eight hundred, of whom three hundred were Indians. But a re-inforce- ment of four hundred men from Illinois had arrived unknown to Major Grant, and he was attacked and defeated with heavy loss within a short distance of the Fort. Nearly three hundred of his men were killed or wounded, and Major Grant was taken prisoner.
On November 5, 1758, General Forbes arrived at Hannastown and decided to advance no further that year; but seven days later it was learned that the garrison of Fort Duquesne was in no condition for resistance. Washington and twenty-five hundred men were sent forward to attack it. General Forbes, with six thousand men, had spent fifty days in opening fifty miles of road, and fifty miles remained to be opened. Washington's men, in five days from the advance from Hannastown, were within seven- teen miles of the Ohio. On November 25 the fort was reached. The French gave it up without a fight, set fire to it and fled down the Ohio.
The power of the French in the Ohio Valley was broken. When the despairing garrison applied the match which blew up the magazine of Fort Duquesne, they razed their last stronghold in the Valley of the West. The war was not over; the Indians remained hostile, but the danger that the country west of the Alleghanies would fall into the hands of France had passed. Civilization, progress and religious liberty were safe. The gate- way to the great West was secured to the English race, and from that day there was no pause until the western border of the United States was washed by the waters of the Pacific. West Virginia's fate hung in the balance until Fort Duquesne fell. The way was then cleared for coloniza- tion, which speedily followed. Had the territory fallen into the hands of France, the character of the inhabitants would have been different, and the whole future history of that part of the country would have been changed. A fort was at once erected on the site of that destroyed by the French, and in honor of William Pitt was named Fort Pitt. The city of Pittsburg has grown up around the site. The territory now embraced in West Virginia was not at once freed from Indian attacks, but the danger was greatly lessened after the rendezvous of Fort Duquesne was broken up. The sub- sequent occurrences of the French and Indian War, and Pontiac's War, as they affected West Virginia, remain to be given.
The French and Indian War closed in 1761, but the Pontiac War soon followed. The French had lost Canada and the Ohio Valley and the English had secured whatever real or imaginary right the French ever had in the country. But the Indians rebelled against the English, who had speedily taken possession of the territory acquired from France. There is no evi-
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THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
dence that the French gave assistance to the Indians in this war; but much proof that more than one effort was made by the French to restrain the savages. Nor is the charge that the French supplied the Indians with ammunition well founded. The savages bought their ammunition from traders, and these traders were French, English and American. In Novem- ber, 1760, Rogers, an English officer, sailed over Lake Erie to occupy French posts further west. While sailing on the Lake he was waited upon by Pontiac, who may be regarded as the ablest Indian encountered by the English in America. He was a Delaware captive who had been adopted by the Ottawas, and became their chief. He hailed Rogers and informed him that the country belonged neither to the French nor English, but to the Indians, and told him to go back. This Rogers refused to do, and Pontiac set to work forming a confederacy of all the Indians between Canada on the north, Tennessee on the south, the Mississippi on the west and the Allegha- nies on the east. His object was to expell the English from the country west of the Alleghany mountains.
The superiority of Pontiac as an organizer was seen, not so much in his success in forming a confederacy as in keeping it secret. He struck in a moment, and the blow fell almost simultaneously from Illinois to the frontier of Virginia. In almost every case the forts were taken by surprise. Detroit, Fort Pitt and Fort Ligonier were almost the only survivors of the fearful onset of the savages. Detroit had warning from an Indian girl who betrayed the plans of the savages; and when Pontiac, with hundreds of his warriors, appeared in person and attempted to take the Fort by surprise, he found the English ready for him. He besieged the post nearly a year. The siege began May 9, 1763, and the rapidity with which blows were struck over a wide expanse of country shows how thorough were his arrangements, and how well the secret had been kept. Fort Sandusky, near Lake Erie, was surprised and captured May 16, seven days after Detroit was besieged. Nine days later the Fort at the mouth of St. Joseph's was taken; two days later Fort Miami, on the Maumee river, fell, also taken by surprise. On June 1 Fort Ouatamon in Indiana, was surprised and captured. Machili- mackinac, far north in Michigan, fell also. This was on June 2. Venango in Pennsylvania, near Lake Erie, was captured, and not one of the garrison escaped to tell the tale. Fort Le Boeuf, in the same part of the country, fell June 18. On June 22 Presque Isle, now Erie, Pennsylvania, shared the
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fate of the rest.
On June 21 Fort Ligonier was attacked and the siege was prosecuted with vigor, but the place held out. It was situated on the road between Fort Pitt and Cumberland. On June 22 the savages appeared before the walls of Fort Pitt, but were unable to take the place by surprise, although it was in poor condition for defense. The fortifications had never been finished, and a flood had opened three sides. The commandant raised a rampart of logs round the Fort and prepared to fight till the last. The garrison numbered three hundred and thirty menl. More than two hundred women and children from the frontiers had taken refuge there.
Despairing of taking the Fort by force, the savages tried treachery, and asked for a parley. When it was granted, the chief told the commandant of the Fort that resistance was useless; that all the forts in the North and West had been taken, and that a large Indian army was on its march to Fort Pitt, which must fall. But, said the chief, if the English would aban- don the Fort and retire east of the Alleghanies, they would be permitted to depart in peace, provided they would set out at once. The reply given by
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THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
the commandant was, that he intended to stay where he was, and that he had provisions and ammunition sufficient to enable him to hold out against all the savages in the woods for three years, and that English armies were at that moment on their march to exterminate the Indians. This answer apparently discouraged the savages, and they did not push the siege vigorously. But in July the attack was renewed with great fury. The savages made numerous efforts to set the Fort on fire by discharging burning arrows against it; but they did not succeed. They made holes in the river bank and from that hiding place kept up an incessant fire, but the Fort was too strong for them. On the last day of July, 1763, the Indians raised the siege and disappeared. It was soon learned what had caused them to depart so suddenly. General Bouquet was at that time marching to the relief of Fort Pitt, with five hundred men and a large train of sup- plies. The Indians had gone to meet him and give battle. As Bouquet marched west from Cumberland he found the settlements broken up, the houses burned, the grain unharvested, and desolation on every hand, show- ing how relentless the savages had been in their determination to break up the settlements west of the Alleghanies.
On August 2, 1763, General Bouquet arrived at Fort Ligonier, which had been besieged, but the Indians had departed. He left part of his stores there, and hastened forward toward Fort Pitt. On August 5 the Indians who had been besieging Fort Pitt attacked the troops at Bushy Run. A desperate battle ensued. The troops kept the Indians off by using the bayonet, but the loss was heavy. The next day the fight was resumed, the Indians completely surrounding the English. The battle was brought to a close by Bouquet's stratagem. He set an ambuscade and then feigned retreat. The Indians fell into the trap and were routed. Bouquet had lost one-fourth of his men in killed and wounded; and so many of his pack horses had been killed that he was obliged to destroy a large part of his stores because he could not move them. After a march of four days the army reached Fort Pitt.
The effect of this sudden and disastrous war was wide-spread. The settlers fled for protection from the frontiers to the forts and towns. The settlements on the Greenbrier were deserted. The colonists hurried east of the Alleghanies. Indians prowled through all the settled portions of West Virginia, extending their raids to the South Branch of the Potomac. More than five hundred families from the frontiers took refuge at Winchester. Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, was enraged when he learned of the destruction wrought by the Indians. He offered a reward of five hundred dollars to any person who would kill Pontiac, and he caused the offer of the reward to be proclaimed at Detroit. "As to accommodation with these savages," said he, "I will have none until they have felt our just revenge." He urged every measure which could assist in the destruction of the savages. He classed the Indians as "the vilest race of beings that ever infested the earth, and whose riddance from it must be esteemed a meritorious act for the good of mankind." He declared them not only unfit for allies, but unworthy of being respected as enemies. He sent orders to the officers on the frontiers to take no prisoners, but kill all who could be caught.
Bouquet's force was not large enough to enable him to invade the Indian country in Ohio at that time; but he collected about two thousand men, and the next summer carried the war into the enemy's country, and struck
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directly at the Indian towns, assured that by no other means could the sav- ages be brought to terms. The army had not advanced far west of Pitts- burg when the tribes of Ohio became aware of the invasion and resorted to various devices to retard its advance and thwart its purposes. But General Bouquet proceeded rapidly, and with such caution and in such force, that no attack was made on him by the Indians. The alarm among them was great. They foresaw the destruction of their towns; and when all other resources had failed, they sent a delegation to Bouquet to ask for peace. He signified his willingness to negotiate peace on condition that the Indians surrender all white prisoners in their hands. He did not halt however in his advance to wait for a reply The Indians saw that the terms must be accepted and be complied with without delay if they would save their towns. The army was now within striking distance. The terms were therefore accepted, and more than two hundred prisoners, a large number of whom were women and children, were given up. Other prisoners remained with the Indians in remote places, but the most of them were sent to Fort Pitt the next spring, according to promise. Thus closed Pontiac's War.
An agency had been at work for some time to bring about peace, but unknown to the English. It was the French, and without their co-opera- tion and assistance it is probable the Indians would not have consented to the peace. DeNeyon, the French officer at Fort Chartres, wrote a letter to Pontiac advising him to make peace with the English, as the war be- tween the French and English was over and there was no use of further bloodshed. This letter reached Pontiac in November while he was con- ducting the siege of Detroit, and its contents becoming known to his Indian allies, greatly discouraged them; for it seems that up to that time they believed they were helping the French and that the French would soon appear in force and fight as of old. When the Indians discovered that no help from France was to be expected, they became willing to make peace with Bouquet, and for ten years the western frontiers enjoyed immunity from war.
CHAPTER IV,
:0:
THE DUNMORE WAR.
The progress of the settlement of West Virginia from 1764 to 1774 has been noticed elsewhere in this volume. There were ten years of peace; but in the year 1774 war with the Indians broke out again. Peace was restored before the close of the year. The trouble of 1774 is usually known as Dun- more's War, so called from Lord Dunmore who was at that time Governor of Virginia, and who took personal charge of a portion of the army operat- ing against the Indians. There has been much controversy as to the origin or cause of hostilities, and the matter has never been settled satis- factorily to all. It has been charged that emissaries of Great Britain incited the Indians to take up arms, and that Dunmore was one of the moving spirits in this disgraceful conspiracy against the colony of Vir- ginia. It is further charged that Dunmore hoped to see the army under General Andrew Lewis defeated and destroyed at Point Pleasant, and that Dunmore's failure to form a junction with the army under Lewis according to agreement, was intentional, premeditated and in the hope that the southern division of the army would be crushed.
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