In the meantime Dinwiddie had gone, a new governor was in his place, while in the plans of Pitt the capture of Fort Duquesne held an important place. Brigadier General John Forbes was charged with it. He was Scotch by birth, a well bred man of the world, and unlike Braddock, by his conduct toward the provincial troops, commanded both the respect and affection of the colonists. He only resembled Braddock in his determined resolution, but he did not hesitate to embrace modes of warfare that Braddock would have scorned. He wrote to Bouquet: "I have been long of your opinion of equipping numbers of our men like the savages, and I fancy Col. Burd of Virginia has most of his men equipped in that manner. In this country we must learn our art of war from the Indians, or any one else who has carried it on here." He arrived in Philadelphia in April 1758, but it was the end of June before his troops were ready to march. His force consisted of Montgomery's Highlanders, twelve hundred strong; Provincials from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and a detachment of Royal Americans: amounting to about six or seven thousand men. The Royal Americans were Germans from Pennsylvania, the Colonel-in-Chief being Lord Amhurst, Colonel Commandant Frederick Haldimand, and conspicuous among them was Lieutenant Colonel Henry Bouquet, a brave and accomplished Swiss, who commanded one of the four battalions of which the regiment was composed.
General Forbes was detained in Philadelphia by a painful and dangerous malady. Bouquet advanced and encamped at Raystown, now Bedford. Then arose the question of opening a new road through Pennsylvania to Fort Duquesne, or following the old road made by Braddock. Washington, who commanded the Virginians, foretold the ruin of the expedition unless Braddock's road was chosen, but Forbes and Bouquet were firm and it was decided to adopt the new route through Pennsylvania. Forbes was able to reach Carlisle early in July, but his disorder was so increased by the journey that he was not able to leave that place until the 11th of August, and then in a kind of litter swung between two horses. In this way he reached Shippensburg, where he lay helpless until far in September. His plan was to advance slowly, establishing fortified magazines as he went, and at last when within easy distance of the Fort, to advance upon it with all force, as little impeded as possible with wagons and pack-horses. Having secured his magazines at Raystown, and built a fort which he called Fort Bedford in honor of his friend and patron, the Duke of Bedford,[B] Bouquet was sent with his command to forward the heavy work of road making over the main range of the Alleghanies and the Laurel Hills; "hewing, digging, blasting, laying facines and gabions, to support the track along the sides of the steep declivities, or worming their way like moles through the jungle of swamp and forest." As far as the eye or mind could reach a prodigious forest vegetation spread its impervious canopy over hill, valley and plain. His next post was on the Loyalhanna Creek, scarcely fifty miles distant from Fort Duquesne, and here he built a fortification, naming it Fort Ligonier, in honor of Lord Ligonier, commander-in-chief of His Majesty's armies. Forbes had served under Ligonier, and his influence, together with that of the Duke of Bedford, secured to Forbes his appointment.
Now came the difficult and important task of securing Indian allies. Sir William Johnston for the English, and Joncaire for the French, were trying in every way to frighten or cajole them into choosing sides; but that which neither of them could accomplish was done by a devoted Moravian missionary, Christian Frederick Post. Post spoke the Delaware language, had married a converted squaw, and by his simplicity, directness and perfect honesty, had gained their full confidence. He was a plain German, upheld by a sense of duty and single-hearted trust in God. The Moravians were apostles of peace, and they succeeded in a surprising way in weaning their converts from their ferocious instincts and savage practices, while the mission Indians of Canada retained all their native ferocity, and their wigwams were strung with scalps, male and female, adult and infant. These so-called missions were but nests of baptized savages, who wore the crucifix instead of the medicine-bag.
Post accepted the dangerous mission as envoy to the camp of the hostile Indians, and making his way to a Delaware town on Beaver Creek, he was kindly received by the three kings; but when they conducted him to another town he was surrounded by a crowd of warriors, who threatened to kill him. He managed to pacify them, but they insisted that he should go with them to Fort Duquesne. In his Journal he gives thrilling accounts of his escape from dangers threatened by both French and Indians. But he at last succeeded in securing a promise from both Delaware and Shawnees, and other hostile tribes, to meet with the Five Nations, the Governor of Pennsylvania and commissioners from other provinces, in the town of Easton, before the middle of September. The result of this council was that the Indians accepted the White wampum belt of peace, and agreed on a joint message of peace to the tribes of Ohio.
A few weeks before this Col. Bouquet, from his post at Fort Ligonier, forgot his usual prudence, and at his urgent request, allowed Major Grant, commander of the Highlanders, to advance. On the 14th of September, at about 2 A. M., he reached an eminence about half a mile from the Fort. He divided his forces, placing detachments in different positions, being convinced that the enemy was too weak to attack him. Infatuated with this idea, when the fog had cleared away, he ordered the reveille to be sounded. It was as if he put his foot into a hornet's nest. The roll of drums was answered by a burst of war-whoops, while the French came swarming out, many of them in their night shirts, just as they had jumped from their beds. There was a hot fight for about three-quarters of an hour, when the Highlanders broke away in a wild flight. Captain Bullit and his Virginians tried to cover the retreat, and fought until two-thirds of them were killed and Grant taken prisoner. The name of "Grant's Hill" still clings to the much-ambushed "hump" where the Court House now stands.
The French pushed their advantages with spirit, and there were many skirmishes in the forest between Fort Ligonier and Fort Duquesne, but their case was desperate. Their Indian allies had deserted them, and their supplies had been cut off; so Ligneris, who succeeded Contrecœur, was forced to dismiss the greater part of his force. The English, too, were enduring great hardships. Rain had continued almost without cessation all through September; the newly made road was liquid mud, into which the wagons sunk up to the hubs. In October the rain changed to snow, while all this time Forbes was chained to a sick-bed at Raystown, now Fort Bedford. In the beginning of November he was carried from Fort Bedford to Fort Ligonier in a litter, and a council of officers, then held, decided to attempt nothing more that season, but a few days later a report of the condition of the French was brought in, which led Forbes to give orders for an immediate advance. On November 18, 1758, two thousand five hundred picked men, without tents or baggage, without wagons or artillery except a few light pieces, began their march.
Lord Viscount Ligonier.