CHAPTER XIX.

John Forbes and James Grant.

The defeat of Braddock and the flight of Dunbar left all the English frontiers open to the incursions of the Indians in alliance with the French, and most mercilessly they pressed the advantage. Though a chain of forts was built along the the frontiers of Pennsylvania they were inadequate, too few in number and too far apart, hence easily avoided. The Delawares under Shingiss and Capt. Jacobs from Kittanning were the worst, if such could be, of all the demons that ravished the Province. Col. John Armstrong, to punish these miscreants, marched from Fort Shirley, now Shirleysburg, in Huntingdon county, August 29, 1756, and reached Kittanning with his little force of 300 men September 7th at night. The town consisted of forty log cabins. A furious attack was made by Armstrong at daybreak, but the Indians fought with great desperation and maintained their position until Armstrong had the buildings set on fire. The whole town was destroyed and many Indians killed, including Capt. Jacobs and his family, and a large amount of provisions and ammunition furnished by the French was consumed. Eleven English prisoners were released. Armstrong lost sixteen killed, twelve wounded and eighteen missing. Capt. Hugh Mercer was among the wounded and left behind, and as from Braddock's battle was obliged to make his way back to the settlements. He lived to return with Forbes two years later.

Some accounts of these years of terror are to be found in the Pennsylvania Archives and Colonial Records. Thus Rupp gives us this

matter:

At a council held at Carlisle, January 16-19, 1756, attended by Governor Morris, James Hamilton, Wm. Logan, Richard Peters, Joseph Fox, Esq., Commissioners; George Croghan and Conrad Weiser, Interpreters, and the Indians, Belt, Seneca George, New Castle, David, Iagrea, Silver Heels, Isaac and others, Mr. Croghan was called on to make some statements touching his Indian agency.

Mr. Croghan informed the Governor and Council that he had sent a Delaware Indian, called Jo Hickman, to the Ohio for intelligence, who returned to him the day before he came away. That he went to Kittanning, an Indian Delaware town, on the Ohio, (Allegheny) forty miles above Fort Duquesne the residence of Shingass and Capt. Jacobs, where he found one hundred and forty men, chiefly Delawares and Shawanese, who had there with them, above one hundred English prisoners, big and little, taken from Virginia and Pennsylvania.

That then the Beaver, brother of Shingass, told him that the Governor of Fort Duquesne had often offered the French hatchet to the Shawanese and Delawares, who had as often refused it, declaring that they would do as they should be advised by the Six Nations, but that in April or May last (1755) a party of Six Nation warriors in company with some Caghnawagos and Adirondacks, called at the French fort in their going to war against the Southern Indians, and on these the Governor of Fort Duquesne prevailed to offer the French hatchet to the Delawares and Shawanese, who received it from them and went directly against Virginia. That neither Beaver nor several others of the Shawanese and Delawares, approved of this measure, nor had taken up the hatchet; and the Beaver believed some of those who had, were very

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sorry for what they had done; and would be glad to make up the matters with the English.

That from Kittanning he went to Logstown, where he found about one hundred Indians and thirty English prisoners, taken by the Shawnese living at the Lower Shawanese Town, from the western frontier of Virginia, and sent up to Logstown. He was told the same thing by these Shawanese that the Beaver had told him before, respecting their striking the English, by the advice of some of the Six Nations; and further he was informed that the French had solicited them to sell the English prisoners, which they had refused, declaring they would not dispose of them until they should receive advice from the Six Nations, what to do with them. That there are more or less of the Six Nations living with the Shawanese and Delawares in their towns, and these always accompanied them in their excursions upon the English, and took part with them in war. That when at Logstown, which is near Fort Duquesne, on the opposite side of the river, he intended to have gone there to see what the French were doing in that Fort, but could not cross the river for the driving of ice, he was, however, informed that the number of the French did not exceed four hundred. That he returned to Kittanning and there learned that ten Delawares were gone to the Susquehanna, and as he supposed to persuade those Indians to strike the English, who might perhaps be concerned in the mischief lately done in the county of Northampton.

Mr. Croghan said he was well assured, by accounts given him from other Indians, that the Delawares and Shawanese acted in this hostile measure by the advice and concurrence of the Six Nations, and that such of those as lived in the Delaware town, went along with them, and took part in their incursions.1

To quote Bradley here (“Fight with France," etc., pp. 104-105):

There was now a tremendous outcry and a general panic. The Indians, hounded on by the French, and swarming in from the north and west, frequently led, too, by Canadian partisans, threw themselves upon the almost defenceless frontier of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, and rolled it back amid an orgie of blood and fire and tears; while Washington in command of 1,000 ill-disciplined and badly officered militiamen, was set the hopeless task of defending a line of nearly 400 miles in length.

He was only three and twenty, but was regarded as the natural protector of the colonies now threatened, and his letters from the western settlements of Virginia throughout this autumn, winter and spring give a harrowing picture of the Indian terror that he was endeavoring to combat. From the thrifty settlements of the Scotch Irishmen, and the more adventurous among the Germans which were thickly sprinkled along the eastern trough of the Alleghenies, came flying in crowds, horse, foot and wagons, through the mountain passes. "They came through by the fifties at a time," writes Washington, "and talk of surrendering to the French if no help comes from below." Braddock's road from the Ohio he speaks of as being beaten hard with moccasined feet, as if an army had been over it, while all the Western forests were alive with Indians. In Maryland, a little later, he counted 300 wagons in three days hurrying from the wasted settlements. From North Carolina to Western New York men were scalped and murdered by hundreds, and women and children in still greater numbers either treated in like fashion or driven into captivity behind the Alleghenies. The tears and supplications of the refugees were a daily torment to this at once tender and brave-hearted young leader of men, who chafed at the impotence to which he was consigned by bad and inefficient soldiers, worse officers, and a lack of everything but scurrilous abuse.

Regarding the question of precedence, Irving states in his "Life of Washington," Knickerbocker Edn., Vol. I, pp. 287-288:

February 4, 1756, Washington set out for Boston, to consult with Major-general Shirley, who had succeeded Braddock in the general command of the colonies. In those days the conveniences of traveling, even between our main cities, were few, and the roads execrable. The party, therefore, traveled in Virginia style, on horesback,

1"History Western Pennsylvania and West;" pages 116-117.

attended by their black servants in livery. In this way they accomplished a journey of five hundred miles in the depth of winter, stopping for some days at Philadelphia and New York. Those cities were then comparatively small, and the arrival of a party of young Southern officers attracted attention. The last disastrous battle was still the theme of every tongue, and the honorable way in which these young officers had acquitted themselves in it made them objects of universal interest. Washington's fame, especially, had gone before him, having been spread by the officers who had served with him, and by the public honors decreed him by the Virginia Legislature. "Your name," wrote his former fellow-campaigner, Gist, in a letter dated in the preceding autumn, "is more talked of in Philadelphia than that of any other person in the army, and everybody seems willing to venture under your command."

Ford says:

Washington remained ten days in Boston, attending, with great interest the meetings of the Massachusetts Legislature, in which the plan of military operations was ably discussed. After receiving the most hospitable attentions from the polite and intelligent society of the place, he returned to Virginia, for the French had made another sortie from Fort Duquesne, accompanied by a band of savages, and were spreading terror and desolation through the country. Horrors accumulated at Winchester. Every hour brought its tale of terror, true or false, of houses burnt, families massacred, or beleaguered and famishing in stockade forts. The danger approached. A scouting party had been attacked in the Warm Spring Mountain, about twenty miles distant, by a large body of French and Indians, mostly on horseback. The captain of the scouting party and several of his men had been slain, and the rest put to flight.

An attack on Winchester was apprehended, and the terrors of the people rose to agony. They turned to Washington as their main hope. The women surrounded him, holding up their children, and imploring him with tears and cries to save them from the savages. The youthful commander looked around on the suppliant crowd with a countenance beaming with pity, and a heart wrung with anguish. A letter to Governor Dinwiddie shows the conflict of his feelings.

"I am too little acquainted with pathetic language to attempt a description of these people's distresses. But what can I do? I see their situation; I know their danger, and participate in their sufferings, without having it in my power to give them further relief than uncertain promises." "The supplicating tears of the women, and moving petitions of the men, melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy provided that would contribute to the people's ease."2

The unstudied eloquence of this letter drew from the governor an instant order for a militia force from the upper countries to his assistance. The Legislature, too, began, at length to act, but timidly and inefficiently. "The country knows her danger," writes one of the members, “but such is her parsimony that she is willing to wait for the rains to wet the powder, and the rats to eat the bowstrings of the enemy, rather than attempt to drive them from her frontiers."8

The historian Bradley draws a sorry picture of the indifference of the aristocracy of Virginia and the character of the troops recruited for border service. The utter apathy of the landed gentry was appalling. The region about Fort Duquesne was claimed by Virginia. The incursions of the red marauders began at that French fort and extended to the Carolinas. The scenes of horror depicted in the accounts were the same on all parts of the frontier. The French while in control of the Upper Ohio region brought as great horrors upon Virginia as Pennsylvania. The four years of French control were absolutely years of horror. One may quote the incisive Bradley again:

2"Writings of George Washington;" W. C. Ford, Vol. I, p. 248. 8"Life of Washington;" Irving, Vol. I, pp. 226-229.

He had now been over two years at the frontier village of Winchester, in the valley of Virginia, eating his heart out in vain endeavors to stem the hordes of Indians led by Frenchmen, who swarmed across the stricken borders of the middle colonies. "I have been posted," he wrote in the preceding spring, "for more than twenty months on our cold and barren frontiers to perform, I think I may say, an impossibility; that is, to protect from the cruel incursions of a crafty savage enemy, a line of inhabitants more than three hundred and fifty miles in extent, with a force inadequate to the task." He was still only twenty-five, but a head and shoulders above any colonial soldier outside of New England. He had no chance of gain or glory with his thousand or so "poor whites," ill-paid and discontented, and recruited with infinite difficulty. His officers were often of no better discipline. One of them, he tells us, sent word on being ordered to his post, that he could not come as his wife, his family and his corn crop, all required his attention." "Such," says Washington, "such the behavior of the men, and upon such circumstances the safety of this country depends." Three colonies, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, with some half-million whites, to say nothing of rude and populous North Carolina, could only wring from this large population a wretched, halfhearted militia of 2,000 men, recruited largely from the burnt-out victims of the frontier. Where, one may well ask, were the squires of Virginia and Maryland, who swarmed along the eastern counties of both provinces, and whose comfortable homesteads reached to within a hundred miles of the scene of this bloody war, of their fellow-countrymen's long agony, and of the impudent invasion of their country? To mention a dozen or two young men of this class who rallied to Washington, would only be to aggravate the case, if such were possible, in the face of these statistics. Men of substance and education, accustomed to horse and gun, "outdoor" men in fact or nothing, were quietly staying at home by the thousands, unstirred by feelings of patriotism or vengeance, and apparently untouched by the clash of arms and the ordinary martial instincts of youth. Their grandfathers had fought; their sons were to fight; their descendants were in the last civil war to be among the bravest of the brave. What was this generation doing at such a moment? Washington whose local patriotism no one will dispute and whose example shone like a beacon light amid the gloom, cursed them often and soundly in his letters for doing nothing. It was fortunate for these colonies that Pitt came forward to save them.

Washington was giving up a life of ease and comfort, neglecting an estate to whose management he was greatly attached, and those field sports, which, next to fighting, were the passion of his life. Here, however, on this shaggy blood-stained frontier, without means to fight effectively, neither glory nor even thanks were to be gained. He lost his temper more than once, and wrote incontrovertible but imprudent letters to the Virginia authorities at Williamsburg, falling thereby into the bad books of the gentlemen who regarded the State of the frontier with such prodigious equanimity.4

The groundwork for the account of Forbes' expedition that follows will be found in that admirable work of Francis Parkman to which reference may be had.

The plans of Pitt to drive the French from their American possessions designed to capture Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, Forts Ticonderoga and Duquesne. Louisburg fell, Ticonderoga was saved by the skill of Montcalm. Frontenac, however, fell also, and with its fall Duquesne was untenable. Far off in the wilderness it was cut off from its base of supplies and the garrison could not live off the country. Forbes found that out later.

As to Forbes, properly a few words of biography are in order. He was born in Pittincrief, Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1710. He was educated for a physician, but preferring a military life entered the British army, and in 1745 had advanced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, serving in

4"Fight With France for North America;" pp. 203-206.

the Scot's Greys. He served under the Duke of Cumberland as acting quartermaster-general and late in 1757 came to America a brigadiergeneral. He had seen hard service in the continental wars. April, 1758, found Forbes still in Philadelphia, as yet without an army. The provincials were yet to be enlisted and the Highlanders had not arrived. It was about this time that the general was attacked with the painful and dangerous malady which would have disabled a less resolute man, and which ultimately caused his death.

The forces as made up for Forbes' little army consisted of provincials from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, the Highlanders, 1,200 in number, and a detachment of Royal Americans, amounting in all, says Parkman, to between 6,000 and 7,000 men. Other historians estimate the force at 8,000 men. Parkman's estimate includes the wagoners and camp followers.

These were crude material, unruly and recalcitrant to discipline. They brought a mass of worthless stuff to the rendezvous at Carlisle. Old provincial muskets, the locks of many tied on with strings, fowling pieces, now known as shot guns; some carried only walking sticks, and not a few had never fired a gun in their lives.

Except a few of the officers, and these of the higher ranks, Forbes characterized the whole body of officers to Pitt as "an extremely bad collection of broken innkeepers, horse jockeys and Indian traders." Forbes was no more flattering toward the men. It was a strangely heterogeneous body that came under his command; but in the end "they were moulded into an efficient organization."5

One can read with tender feeling the extracts from Forbes' letters en route. Restoring order at Carlisle, in suffering he writes: "I have been and still am poorly, today with a cursed flux, but shall move day after tomorrow." But he did not. It was August 9th when he wrote again: "I am now able to write after three weeks of the most violent and tormenting distemper, which, thank God, seems now abated as to pain, but has left me as weak as a new-born infant. However, I hope to have strength enough to set out from this place on Friday next."

Forbes' malady was an inflammation of the stomach, involving other vital organs. When Forbes should have been in bed with complete. repose, he was disturbed, yea, distressed, with the details and worries of an extremely arduous campaign for which he was in no wise physically competent.

The delays and vexations that wearied the staunch Scotch commander have taken up pages of history. Indeed, the whole story of Forbes' expedition has had adequate treatment by able writers. Francis Parkman, John Fiske, Justin Winsor, Isaac D. Rupp, Albert Bushnell Hart-what historian has not been impressed with the story of the "Head of Iron" and the capture of Fort Duquesne without a blow?

One thing commendable in Forbes was his method of marchingnot encumbered like Braddock with immense trains in the wilderness.

"See "Expedition of Gen. Forbes Against Fort Duquesne;" Publications Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, 1908, and "Letters of Gen. Forbes;" Ibid., Feb.-May, 1909.