This politic invention of the three armies had an excellent effect, and so startled the Indians, that, on the next day, most of them withdrew from the neighborhood, and went to meet a great body of warriors, who were advancing from the westward to attack the fort. On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, a soldier named Gray, belonging to the garrison of Presqu’ Isle, came in with the report that, more than a week before, that little post had been furiously attacked by upwards of two hundred Indians from Detroit, that they had assailed it for three days, repeatedly setting it on fire, and had at length undermined it so completely, that the garrison was forced to capitulate, on condition of being allowed to retire in safety to
Fort Pitt. No sooner, however, had they left their shelter, than the Indians fell upon them, and, as Gray declared, butchered them all, except himself and one other man, who darted into the woods, and escaped amid the confusion, hearing behind them, as they fled, the screams of their murdered comrades. This account proved erroneous, as the garrison were carried by their captors in safety to Detroit. Some time after this event, Captain Dalzell’s detachment, on their way to Detroit, stopped at the place, and found, close to the ruined fort, the hair of several of the men, which had been shorn off, as a preliminary step in the process of painting and bedecking them like Indian warriors. From this it appears that some of the unfortunate soldiers were adopted on the spot into the tribes of their conquerors. In a previous chapter, a detailed account has been given of the defence of Presqu’ Isle, and its capture.
Gray informed Captain Ecuyer that, a few days before the attack on the garrison, they had seen a schooner on the lake, approaching from the westward. She had sent a boat to shore with the tidings that Detroit had been beleaguered, for more than six weeks, by many hundred Indians, and that a detachment of ninety-six men had been attacked near that place, of whom only about thirty had escaped, the rest being either killed on the spot or put to death by slow torture. The panic-stricken soldier, in his flight from Presqu’ Isle, had passed the spots where lately had stood the little forts of Le Bœuf and Venango. Both were burnt to the ground, and he surmised that the whole of their wretched garrisons had fallen victims.[285] The disaster proved less fatal than his fears led him to suspect; for, on the same day on which he arrived, Ensign Price, the officer commanding at Le Bœuf, was seen approaching along the bank of the Alleghany, followed by seven haggard and half-famished soldiers.[286] He and his men told the following story:-
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The available defences of Fort Le Bœuf consisted, at the time, of a single ill-constructed blockhouse, occupied by the ensign, with two corporals and eleven privates. They had only about twenty rounds of ammunition each; and the powder, moreover, was in a damaged condition. At nine or ten o’clock, on the morning of the eighteenth of June, a soldier told Price that he saw Indians approaching from the direction of Presqu’ Isle. Price ran to the door, and, looking out, saw one of his men, apparently much frightened, shaking hands with five Indians. He held open the door till the man had entered, the five Indians following close, after having, in obedience to a sign from Price, left their weapons behind. They declared that they were going to fight the Cherokees, and begged for powder and ball. This being refused, they asked leave to sleep on the ground before the blockhouse. Price assented, on which one of them went off, but very soon returned with thirty more, who crowded before the window of the blockhouse, and begged for a kettle to cook their food. Price tried to give them one through the window, but the aperture proved too narrow, and they grew clamorous that he should open the door again. This he refused. They then went to a neighboring storehouse, pulled out some of the foundation
stones, and got into the cellar; whence, by knocking away one or two planks immediately above the sill of the building, they could fire on the garrison in perfect safety, being below the range of shot from the loopholes of the blockhouse, which was not ten yards distant. Here they remained some hours, making their preparations, while the garrison waited in suspense, cooped up in their wooden citadel. Towards evening, they opened fire, and shot such a number of burning arrows against the side and roof of the blockhouse, that three times it was in flames. But the men worked desperately, and each time the fire was extinguished. A fourth time the alarm was given; and now the men on the roof came down in despair, crying out that they could not extinguish it, and calling on their officer for God’s sake to let them leave the building, or they should all be burnt alive. Price behaved with great spirit. “We must fight as long as we can, and then die together,” was his answer to the entreaties of his disheartened men.[287] But he could not revive their drooping courage, and meanwhile the fire spread beyond all hope of mastering it. They implored him to let them go, and at length the brave young officer told them to save themselves if they could. It was time, for they were suffocating in their burning prison. There was a narrow window in the back of the blockhouse, through which, with the help of axes, they all got out; and, favored by the darkness,—for night had closed in,—escaped to the neighboring pine-swamp, while the Indians, to make assurance doubly sure, were still showering fire-arrows against the front of the blazing building. As the fugitives groped their way, in pitchy darkness, through the tangled intricacies of the swamp, they saw the sky behind them lurid with flames, and heard the reports of the Indians’ guns, as these painted demons were leaping and yelling in front of the flaming blockhouse, firing into the loopholes, and exulting in the thought that their enemies were suffering the agonies of death within.
Presqu’ Isle was but fifteen miles distant; but, from the direction in which his assailants had come, Price rightly judged
that it had been captured, and therefore resolved to make his way, if possible, to Venango, and reinforce Lieutenant Gordon, who commanded there. A soldier named John Dortinger, who had been sixteen months at Le Bœuf, thought that he could guide the party, but lost the way in the darkness; so that, after struggling all night through swamps and forests, they found themselves at daybreak only two miles from their point of departure. Just before dawn, several of the men became separated from the rest. Price and those with him waited for some time, whistling, coughing, and making such other signals as they dared, to attract their attention, but without success, and they were forced to proceed without them. Their only provisions were three biscuits to a man. They pushed on all day, and reached Venango at one o’clock of the following night. Nothing remained but piles of smouldering embers, among which lay the half-burned bodies of its hapless garrison. They now continued their journey down the Alleghany. On the third night their last biscuit was consumed, and they were half dead with hunger and exhaustion before their eyes were gladdened at length by the friendly walls of Fort Pitt. Of those who had straggled from the party, all eventually appeared but two, who, spent with starvation, had been left behind, and no doubt perished.[288]