With the fall of Presqu'isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango, the trade-route between Lake Erie and Fort Pitt was closed. Save for Detroit, Niagara, and Pitt, not a British fort remained in the great hinterland; and the soldiers at these three strong positions could leave the shelter of the palisades only at the risk of their lives. Meanwhile, the frontiers of the British settlements, as well as the forts, were being raided. Homes were burnt and the inmates massacred. Traders were plundered and slain. From the eastern slopes of the Alleghanies to the Mississippi no British life was safe.
CHAPTER VI
THE RELIEF OF FORT PITT
On the tongue of land at the confluence of the Monongahela and Aheghany rivers stood Fort Pitt, on the site of the old French fort Duquesne. It was remote from any centre of population, but was favourably situated for defence, and so strongly garrisoned that those in charge of it had little to fear from any attempts of the Indians to capture it. Floods had recently destroyed part of the ramparts, but these had been repaired and a parapet of logs raised above them.
Captain Simeon Ecuyer, a Swiss soldier in the service of Great Britain and an officer of keen intelligence and tried courage, was in charge of Fort Pitt. He knew the Indians. He had quickly realized that danger threatened his wilderness post, and had left nothing undone to make it secure. On the fourth day of May, Ecuyer had written to Colonel Henry Bouquet, who was stationed at Philadelphia, saying that he had received word from Gladwyn that he 'was surrounded by rascals.' Ecuyer did not treat this alarm lightly. He not only repaired the ramparts and made them stronger, but also erected palisades within them to surround the dwellings. Everything near the fort that could give shelter to a lurking foe was levelled to the ground. There were in Fort Pitt at this time about a hundred women and their children—families of settlers who had come to the fertile Ohio valley to take up homes. These were provided with shelter in houses made shot-proof. Small-pox had broken out in the garrison, and a hospital was prepared under the drawbridge, where the patients in time of siege would be in no danger from musket-balls or arrows. But the best defence of Fort Pitt was the capacity of Ecuyer—brave, humorous, foresighted; a host in himself—giving courage to his men and making even the women and children think lightly of the power of the Indians.
It was nearly three weeks after the siege of Detroit had begun that the savages appeared in force about Fort Pitt. On May 27 a large band of Indians came down the Alleghany bearing packs of furs, in payment for which they demanded guns, knives, tomahawks, powder, and shot, and would take nothing else. Soon after their departure word was brought to Ecuyer of the murder of some traders and settlers not far from the fort. From that time until the beginning of August it was hazardous for any one to venture outside the walls; but for nearly a month no attack was to be made on the fort itself. However, as news of the capture of the other forts reached the garrison, and as nearly all the messengers sent to the east were either slain or forced to return, it was evident that, in delaying the attack on Fort Pitt, the Indians were merely gathering strength for a supreme effort against the strongest position in the Indian territory.
On June 22 a large body of Indians assembled in the forest about the fort, and, creeping stealthily within range of its walls, opened fire from every side. It was the garrison's first experience of attack; some of the soldiers proved a trifle overbold, and two of them were killed. The firing, however, lasted but a short time. Ecuyer selected a spot where the smoke of the muskets was thickest, and threw shells from his howitzers into the midst of the warriors, scattering them in hurried flight. On the following day a party came within speaking distance, and their leader, Turtle's Heart, a Delaware chief, informed Ecuyer that all the western and northern forts had been cut off, and that a host of warriors were coming to destroy Fort Pitt and its garrison. He begged Ecuyer to withdraw the inmates of the fort while there was yet time. He would see to it that they were protected on their way to the eastern settlements. He added that when the Ottawas and their allies arrived, all hope for the lives of the inhabitants of Fort Pitt would be at an end. All this Turtle's Heart told Ecuyer out of 'love for the British.' The British officer, with fine humour, thanked him for his consideration for the garrison, but told him that he could hold out against all the Indians in the woods. He could be as generous as Turtle's Heart, and so warned him that the British were coming to relieve Fort Pitt with six thousand men; that an army of three thousand was ascending the Great Lakes to punish the Ottawa Confederacy; and that still another force of three thousand had gone to the frontiers of Virginia. 'Therefore,' he said, 'take pity on your women and children, and get out of the way as soon as possible. We have told you this in confidence, out of our great solicitude, lest any of you should be hurt; and,' he added, 'we hope that you will not tell the other Indians, lest they should escape from our vengeance.' The howitzers and the story of the approaching hosts had their effect, and the Indians vanished into the surrounding forest. For another month Fort Pitt had comparative peace, and the garrison patiently but watchfully awaited a relieving force which Amherst was sending. In the meantime news came of the destruction of Presqu'isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango; and the fate of the garrisons, particularly at the last post, warned the inhabitants of Fort Pitt what they might expect if they should fall into the hands of the Indians.
On July 26 some Indian ambassadors, among them Turtle's Heart, came to the post with a flag of truce. They were loud in their protestations of friendship, and once more solicitous for the safety of the garrison. The Ottawas, they said, were coming in a vast horde, to 'seize and eat up everything' that came in their way. The garrison's only hope of escape would be to vacate the fort speedily and 'go home to their wives and children.' Ecuyer replied that he would never abandon his position 'as long as a white man lives in America.' He despised the Ottawas, he said, and was 'very much surprised at our brothers the Delawares for proposing to us to leave this place and go home. This is our home.' His humour was once more in evidence in the warning he gave the Indians against repeating their attack on the fort: 'I will throw bomb-shells, which will burst and blow you to atoms, and fire cannon among you, loaded with a whole bagful of bullets. Therefore take care, for I don't want to hurt you.'
The Indians now gave up all hope of capturing Fort Pitt by deception, and prepared to take it by assault. That very night they stole within range, dug shelter-pits in the banks of the Alleghany and Monongahela, and at daybreak began a vigorous attack on the garrison. Musket-balls came whistling over the ramparts and smote every point where a soldier showed himself. The shrieking balls and the wild war-whoops of the assailants greatly alarmed the women and children; but never for a moment was the fort in real danger or did Ecuyer or his men fear disaster. So carefully had the commandant seen to his defences, that, although hundreds of missiles fell within the confines of the fort, only one man was killed and only seven were wounded. Ecuyer himself was among the wounded: one of two arrows that fell within the fort had, to use his own words, 'the insolence to make free' with his 'left leg.' From July 27 to August 1 this horde of Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingoes kept up the attack. Then, without apparent cause, as suddenly as they had arrived, they all disappeared. To the garrison the relief from constant vigil, anxious days, and sleepless nights was most welcome.
The reason for this sudden relief was that the red men had learned of a rich prize for them, now approaching Fort Pitt. Bouquet, with a party of soldiers, was among the defiles of the Alleghanies. The fort could wait; the Indians would endeavour to annihilate Bouquet's force as they had annihilated Braddock's army in the same region eight years before; and if successful, they could then at their leisure return to Fort Pitt and starve it out or take it by assault.