Captain Jacobs was shot as he attempted to get out of an upper window. Armstrong’s soldiers identified the powder horn and pouch he wore as one he had lately received from a French officer in exchange for Lieutenant Edward Armstrong’s boots, which he carried from Fort Granville, where the lieutenant was killed.
The soldiers got the scalp of the great Indian chief, as they also did of his squaw and a young Indian, called the “King’s Son.”
Before this time Captain Hugh Mercer had been severely wounded in the arm and was carried to the top of the hill above the town, where a number of the wounded men gathered. These soon discovered from their elevated position that Indians were passing the river and taking to the hills, they thought with the intention of surrounding and cutting off the troops from any possible retreat. Colonel Armstrong would not believe this their design, but sent men in every direction to keep him posted upon the enemy’s movements. The Indians in their hasty retreat left behind a number of English scalps and not a few white prisoners.
Instead of cutting down the cornfield, the colonel immediately assembled the wounded and loaded them upon the few Indian horses which they had collected.
The return march was slow and tedious, made so by the many wounded and the constant watch necessary to prevent a surprise attack from ambush. Captain Mercer was carried by some of his men over a different road and Colonel Armstrong was alarmed for his safety.
Colonel Armstrong in his report of the action at Kittanning said he could not estimate the loss of the enemy, as many were burned in the buildings, but he could account for thirty or forty killed. They brought back a dozen scalps and eleven English prisoners.
The loss sustained by the provincial forces was seventeen killed, thirteen wounded and nineteen missing. All the wounded recovered and all but two of the missing reached their homes.
In speaking of the horrible Indian massacres which followed Braddock’s defeat, Drake in his Indian history, says:
“Shingas and Captain Jacobs were supposed to have been the principal instigators of them, and a reward of $700 was offered for their heads.“
King Shingas was the greatest Delaware warrior at that time. Heckwelder, who knew him personally, says: