List of Illustrations.
| A Map of the Country on the Ohio & Muskingum Rivers Shewing the Situation of the Indian Towns with respect to the Army under the Command of Colonel Bouquet By Tho.s Hutchins Afs. Engineer. | [419] |
| A Plan of the several Villages in the Illinois Country, with Part of the River Mississippi &c. | [455] |
Chapter XVIII.
1763.
FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS.
We have followed the war to its farthest confines, and watched it in its remotest operations; not because there is any thing especially worthy to be chronicled in the capture of a backwoods fort, and the slaughter of a few soldiers, but because these acts exhibit some of the characteristic traits of the actors. It was along the line of the British frontier that the war raged with its most destructive violence. To destroy the garrisons, and then turn upon the settlements, had been the original plan of the Indians; and while Pontiac was pushing the siege of Detroit, and the smaller interior posts were treacherously assailed, the tempest was gathering which was soon to burst along the whole frontier.
In 1763, the British settlements did not extend beyond the Alleghanies. In the province of New York, they reached no farther than the German Flats, on the Mohawk. In Pennsylvania, the town of Bedford might be regarded as the extreme verge of the frontier, while the settlements of Virginia extended to a corresponding distance. Through the adjacent wilderness ran various lines of military posts, to make good the communication from point to point. One of the most important among these passed through the country of the Six Nations, and guarded the route between the northern colonies and Lake Ontario. This communication was formed by the Hudson, the Mohawk, Wood Creek, the Oneida Lake, and the River Oswego. It was defended by Forts Stanwix, Brewerton, Oswego, and two or three smaller posts. Near the western extremity of Lake Ontario stood Fort Niagara, at the mouth of the river whence it derived its name. It was a strong and extensive work, guarding the access to the whole interior country, both by way of the Oswego communication just mentioned, and by that of Canada and the St. Lawrence. From Fort Niagara the route lay by a portage beside the great falls to Presqu’ Isle, on Lake Erie, where the town of Erie now stands. Thence the traveller could pass, by a short overland
passage, to Fort Le Bœuf, on a branch of the Alleghany; thence, by water, to Venango; and thence, down the Alleghany, to Fort Pitt. This last-mentioned post stood on the present site of Pittsburg—the point of land formed by the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela. Its position was as captivating to the eye of an artist as it was commanding in a military point of view. On the left, the Monongahela descended through a woody valley of singular beauty; on the right, flowed the Alleghany, beneath steep and lofty banks; and both united, in front, to form the broad Ohio, which, flanked by picturesque hills and declivities, began at this point its progress towards the Mississippi. The place already had its historic associations, though, as yet, their roughness was unmellowed by the lapse of time. It was here that the French had erected Fort du Quesne. Within a few miles, Braddock encountered his disastrous overthrow; and on the hill behind the fort, Grant’s Highlanders and Lewis’s Virginians had been surrounded and captured, though not without a stout resistance on the part of the latter.
Fort Pitt was built by General Stanwix, in the year 1759, upon the ruins of Fort du Quesne, destroyed by General Forbes. It was a strong fortification, with ramparts of earth, faced with brick on the side looking down the Ohio. Its walls have long since been levelled to the ground, and over their ruins have risen warehouses, and forges with countless chimneys, rolling up their black volumes of smoke. Where once the bark canoe lay on the strand, a throng of steamers now lie moored along the crowded levee.