Famous Indian Chiefs / Their Battles, Treaties, Sieges, and Struggles with the Whites for the Possession of America

by Charles H. L. Johnston

The fight had now waged from daylight until ten o'clock, and there was a lull in the battle—a lull which allowed Bouquet to perfect a plan for drawing the Indians into an ambuscade, which he hoped would finish the affair. This was: to allow two companies on the centre of the line to fall back and swing around to the left, behind some thick brush where they could not be seen. The place vacated by them was not to be filled up, and thus the British commander hoped to entice the Indians into the gap in his line. When they had come well inside, the two companies which had retreated were to close in upon their rear, and then hem them in so that they could be slaughtered. At the word of command, the two companies fell back and disappeared from view.

When the savages saw this retreat, they were sure that they at last had the British on the run, and so pressed onward with loud and exultant yells of defiance. A thin line of troops had filled up the gap in the line, and these were pushed back towards the interior of the camp, while the Indians seemed to be about to break into the very heart of the circle. With wild, hilarious yelpings they ran headlong into the gap, but, as they did so, the two companies which had retreated broke from the cover of the bushes which had hidden them, and bore down upon their rear with yells as fierce as those of the men of the forest. The Indians faced about with great courage and fired into the oncoming mass of men, but the Highlanders fell upon them with the bayonet. Nothing could stand such an attack; the red warriors broke and fled, while two companies which had advanced from their position in the line and had lain down upon the ground, poured a murderous fire into them as they passed. Numbers fell to the ground in their death agony. The remainder fled precipitously, while the four companies united and chased them furiously through the woods. Seeing which, the remaining Indians gave up all hope of success against the stalwart British, and, with one parting volley and yell of defiance, they, too, melted away into the forest. The fight at Bushy Run was over. About sixty Indian corpses lay upon the ground, among which were those of several chiefs, while eight English officers and one hundred and fifteen men had breathed their last amidst the dark forests of Pennsylvania. Next day the victorious troops marched onward to the relief of Fort Pitt—with their wounded upon litters—and, although frequently attacked by small bands of savages, reached there without further loss or mishap.

At far-away Detroit the siege went merrily on, but a detachment of three hundred regular troops was hastening to its relief. On July the 26th the seasoned veterans of this remarkable siege were overjoyed to see the red coats of their brethren-in-arms as they silently entered the fort, after coming down the river under cover of the night. This was fortunate, for so bold had Pontiac's warriors become that it would have fared ill with them had they advanced by daylight. Commanded by Dalzell, a brave and courageous man, the detachment was composed of seasoned British soldiers and twenty independent forest rangers, who were so anxious to get at the enemy that arrangements were immediately made for an attack upon Pontiac. But by some unknown means this arch-conspirator and Napoleonic designer of the movement against the English learned of the plan, and not only removed the women and children from his camp, but stationed two strong parties of his warriors in an ambuscade, behind piles of cord-wood which lay on either side of the road that the English had to take. Three hundred of the British left the fort about an hour before day, and marched rapidly up the bank of the stream in the direction of the Ottawa camp. They proceeded in silence until they reached a small bridge over a stream called Bloody Run, and were half way across it before they knew that the Indians had the slightest suspicion of their approach. Suddenly terrific yells burst from their front and a roar of musketry sounded in their ears from the high banks on either side. Half the advance party fell in their tracks, while the rest turned to run, but Dalzell raised his voice above the uproar, rushed to the front, sword in hand, and led on his men. They pushed across the bridge, and ran up the banks, but not an Indian was in sight. In vain the British looked for them—they had fled—but in the murk of the early morn their guns flashed from behind outhouses and fences, while fierce war cries rose with vigor and intensity. Again and again the soldiers advanced, but it was useless, and so, abandoning all idea of a successful attack upon Pontiac's camp, they retreated to the stockade at Detroit, fired at all the way and presenting somewhat the same appearance as Lord Percy's troops in the retreat from Lexington some years later, at the outbreak of the American Revolution.

As the soldiers were retreating before the warriors of Pontiac, Dalzell used every effort to restore order, and at last succeeded in doing so. The Indians had taken possession of a house, near the road, from the windows of which they fired down upon the English; so some of the rangers broke down the door with an axe, rushed in, and drove the redskins away. A captain was ordered to drive off some braves from behind some neighboring fences, and, as he charged them with his company, he fell, mortally wounded, shouting: "On, on, England forever!" The Indians ran off, but no sooner had the men turned about than the savages came running in upon the flank and rear, cutting down the stragglers with their tomahawks and scalping all who fell. A Sergeant of the 55th Regiment lay helplessly wounded, and realizing that he soon would be scalped, he gazed with a look of despair after his comrades as they made off. This caught the eye of warm-hearted Dalzell. So—with the true spirit of a hero—he ran over to the wounded man to pull him away out of danger, where he could be carried to the fort. But as he leaned over him, a rifle shot sounded through the dense mist which shrouded the battle field, and he fell dead across the body of the disabled private. Few saw him struck, and no one dared to turn back to recover his body, and thus, deserted and alone, the brave Englishman lay upon the field of battle to be scalped and plundered by the exultant savages.

This was the last important event attending the remarkable siege of Detroit. Winter was approaching, the Indians had nothing laid by which could sustain them through the winter, and so they had to repair into the forests in order to trap, hunt, and fish. When spring arrived, the various bands, as they came in to see the great chief Pontiac, told him that they were tired of the war and that they wished for peace. The Hurons and Pottawattamies, who had partly been forced into the war by threats of the followers of Pontiac, withdrew altogether, and thus completely ruined the ambitions of the great Ottawa chief, who had been so sure of success that he had already made arrangements with the French of dividing the conquered territory with them. The garrison at Detroit still watched his movements with anxiety. "'Tis said that Pontiac has gone to the Mississippi, but we don't believe it," wrote one of the soldiers at this time, and so constant watch and guard was kept up within the palisades which had successfully defied the might of the cruel leader of the conspiracy. He was still near by; no one dared to venture far into the wilderness; and there was constant dread of a fresh assault.

But the reign of terror was drawing to its close, and when, in the early summer of 1764, General Bradstreet arrived with a force of three thousand men, all the tribes in the vicinity of Detroit came in and concluded a peace, with the exception of the fierce Delawares and Shawnees, who had so unsuccessfully besieged the ramparts of Fort Pitt. Pontiac, himself, took no part in the council and was no longer seen. He abandoned both the country and his followers, and, according to report, went far to the southwest to the territory of the Illinois. Here, nursing in silence his wrath, resentment, and mortification, he brooded upon his fate, and contemplated a fresh outbreak against the English, trusting that the tribes in the vicinity of the Illinois River—the St. Josephs, the Miamis, the Marcontens, the Pians, and the Illinois—would be sufficiently strong to cope with the force and intelligence of the British. His plot against Detroit had been a complete failure. True—the smaller forts upon the frontier had fallen before the unexpected assaults of his allies—but the great prize, Detroit, had slipped his grasp. Now a large garrison was there, his Indians were starved and awed into submission. Fort Pitt still frowned down from its height in perpetual menace to his allies, and rumors of an advance upon the warlike Delawares and Shawnees filled him with chagrin and mortification. His confederacy was fast breaking.

And the advance came. The brave and hardy Bouquet with an army of Pennsylvania rangers, Virginia trappers, and regular troops, pushed far into the country of the warlike Delawares in the valley of the Ohio. Reaching a spot in the very heart of the Indian country, he erected a stout palisade, and awaited a deputation from the fierce enemies of the Pennsylvania frontier. All the villages of the Shawnees were within a few days' march, so no choice was left to the Indian warriors but to sue for peace or else battle with a man, who, at the desperate encounter of Bushy Run, had routed their entire force of fighting braves, with an army one-third the size of that which he now had with him. Bouquet meant business, and the Indians knew it. The frontiersmen were tired of scalpings, burnings, and robberies on the border. They had marched out to conclude a treaty of perpetual peace, or to give these wild rangers of the forest such a beating that they would remember it forever. Confident in their strength and the justice of their cause, they awaited the advent of the Indian Chiefs, with rifles loaded, bullet pouches well filled, and spirits fired with hatred for the cruel savages.

When the Indian Chiefs arrived next day, they found a small-sized army of over fifteen hundred fighting men drawn up in battle array. The soldiers were silent, their bright red coats of the Royal Americans shone brightly against the green of the forest, the bayonets flashed; the flags fluttered; and the even ranks of backwoodsmen in fringed hunting-frocks and moccasins had stern determination written upon their weather-beaten countenances. The Highlanders, with bare legs and kilts, leaned carelessly upon their rifles and gazed with indifference at the painted chieftains of the forest, who, seating themselves with sullen dignity, appointed one of their number to deliver a speech. In this the orator promised to give up all the white captives which the Indians held and to make peace. "I am come among you to force you to make atonement for the injuries you have done us," answered the martial Bouquet. "I have brought with me the relatives of those you have murdered. They are eager for vengeance, and nothing restrains them from taking it but my assurance that this army shall not leave your country until you have given them ample satisfaction. You are all in our power, and, if we choose, we can exterminate you from the earth, but the English are a merciful and generous people, adverse to shed the blood even of their greatest enemies; and if it were possible that you could convince us that you sincerely repent of your past perfidy, and that we could depend on your good behavior for the future, you might yet hope for mercy and peace. If I find that you faithfully execute the conditions which I shall prescribe, I will not treat you with the severity which you deserve. I give you twelve days from this date to deliver into my hands all the prisoners in your possession, without exception—Englishmen, Frenchmen, women, and children—whether adopted into your tribes, married, or living among you under any denomination or pretense whatsoever. And you are to furnish these prisoners with clothing, provisions, and horses, to carry them to Fort Pitt. When you have fully complied with these conditions, you shall then know on what terms you may obtain the peace you sue for." This speech had the desired effect; prisoners by the hundreds were soon brought in, and, after forcing the Indians to give him hostages to insure the keeping of peace, Bouquet went back to the settlements with his army, threatening that if the Indians again went upon the war path he would return with a larger force and completely annihilate the warring tribes.

News of this was reported to Pontiac, as he sullenly meditated further plans for revenge in his wigwam among the Illinois. Daily he saw his followers dropping off from him. To hold out longer against the whites was folly. He was surrounded by enemies. In the West were unfriendly Indian tribes; to the South were the hereditary enemies of his people, the Cherokees; in the East were the whites, and to the North a strong and vigorous garrison held the fortress of Detroit. Foiled, defeated, dismayed, he determined to accept that peace which he knew that the English would give, to smoke the calumet (or peace pipe) with his white conquerors, and to wait for some favorable opportunity for revenge. Consequently he attended a council between his tribesmen—the Ottawas—and the English at Detroit, promised allegiance to the British flag, and, requesting that the past be forgotten, threw down a wampum belt upon the floor, saying: "By this belt I remove all evil thoughts from my heart. Let us live together as brothers." In the spring he attended a council at Oswego, New York, presided over by Sir William Johnson, and, being requested for a speech, rose to say: "Father, when our great father of France was in this country, I held him fast by the hand. Now that he is gone, I take you, my English father, by the hand, in the name of all nations, and promise to keep this covenant as long as I live." Here he delivered a belt of wampum. "Father, when you address me, it is the same as if you addressed all the nations of the West. Father, this belt is to cover and strengthen our chain of friendship, and to show you that if any nation shall lift the hatchet against our English brethren we shall be the first to feel and resent it."