There is in Harvard College library a copy of a MS. journal of Ensign Moses Dorr, from May 25 to Oct. 28, 1758, including an account of the building of Fort Stanwix. The original MS. was in 1848 in the possession of Lyman Watkins, of Walpole, N. H.]
The destruction of Frontenac and the French fleet on Ontario had cut off Fort Duquesne from its sources of supply, and to the substantial, if not brilliant, success of Brigadier John Forbes[1159] we must now turn. It is a story of a stubborn Scotch purpose. Forbes had no dash, and purposely dallied with the forming and marching of his army to weary the Indian allies of the French, and to secure time to gain over all of the savages that he could. The English general got upon his route by June, but soon fell sick, and was carried through the marches in a litter; but he breasted every discomfort and harassing complexity of the details, which he had to manage almost in every particular, with a courage that might have done credit to a man in vigor. He had made up his mind to open a new road over the mountains more direct than Braddock’s. Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss officer of the Royal Americans, sustained him in this purpose; but Washington argued for the older route,—not without inciting some distrust, for Forbes was not blind to the rival interests of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and suspected that Washington was influenced by a greater loyalty for his colony than for the common cause.
Forbes did not fail, however, to recognize the young Virginian’s merit in the kind of warfare which was before them; and there exists in Washington’s hand a plan of a line of march for forces in a forest, with diagrams for throwing the line into order of battle, which Forbes had requested him to make.[1160] Braddock’s defeat was not lost on Forbes, and in his marches and preparations he availed himself of all the arts of woodcraft and partisanship which Washington could teach him. He did not, nevertheless, have a very high opinion of the provincials in his train, and, with the exception of some of their higher officers, they were, no doubt, a sorry set. As he pushed on he established fortified posts for supplies; but all the help he ought to have got from his quartermaster-general, Sir John Sinclair, stood him in poor stead, for that officer was “a very odd man,” and only added to his general’s perplexities. The advice of Washington about taking the other route had so far unsettled Forbes’s faith in him, that, though he told his subordinates among the advance to consult with the Virginia colonel, it might not be best, he suggested, to follow his advice. While the march went on he had little success in attaching some Cherokees and Catawbas, for they stayed no longer than the gifts held out. An occasional scout brought him intelligence of the enemy, and he felt that their numbers were not great, and that the weariness of delays would drive the Indian allies of the French into desertion,—as it did.
At Raystown he built Fort Bedford, to protect his supplies, and pushed on to Loyalhannon[1161] Creek, and there founded his last depot, fifty miles away from Duquesne.
In August Forbes was planning for a general convention with the Indians at Easton. The treaty of the previous year had secured the Delawares and Shawanoes, and a further conference had been held with them in April.[1162] Sir William Johnson was bullied, as Forbes says, into bringing into the compact the eastern tribes of the Six Nations, while other influences induced the Senecas and the western tribes also to join, despite the labors of Joncaire to retain them in the French interests. The chief difficulty was to inspire the Ohio Indians with a distrust of the French; while the failure of French presents, thanks to British cruisers on the ocean, was beginning to dispose them for a change. A Moravian brother, Christian Frederick Post, was sent to the tribes on a hazardous mission, and his confidence and fearlessness carried him through it alive; for he had to confront French officers at the conferences, one of which was held close by Fort Duquesne. As a result of his mission, the convention of the allied tribes which met the English at Easton in October decided confidently to send a wampum belt, in the name of both the whites and the red men, to the Ohio Indians, and Post, with an escort, was commissioned to bear it, the party setting out from Loyalhannon. It became a struggle for persuasion between the English messenger and a French officer, who again confronted Post and offered the Indians a belt of wampum of his own. The French won the young warriors; but Post impressed the sages of the Indian councils, and the old men carried the day. The overtures of peace from the English were accepted, and this happened notwithstanding that the garrison of Duquesne had but just badly used a reconnoitring party of the English under Major Grant, of the Scotch Highlanders.
It was a success of forest diplomacy that encouraged and rendered despondent the respective sides. The French scouting parties were hanging about Loyalhannon, while the little army at Duquesne kept dwindling under the prospect of famine, now that Bradstreet’s raid on Frontenac had checked their supplies. A rough and weltering October made the bringing up of provisions very difficult for the English, and their weakening general found his time, on his litter, disagreeably spent, as he says, “between business and medicine;” but in early November he himself reached Loyalhannon. He would have stopped here for winter quarters, but scouts brought in word that the French were defenceless; so a force was hurriedly pushed forward in light order, which, when it reached Turkey Creek, heard a heavy boom to the west. It was the explosion of the French mines, as the garrison of Duquesne blew up the fort and fled.
Forbes hutted a portion of his troops within a stockade, which he called Pittsburg, and early in December began his march eastward. The debilitated general reached Philadelphia, but died in March. Few campaigns were ever conducted so successfully from a litter of pain.
The winter of 1758-59 was an unquiet one in Canada. Vaudreuil and Montcalm disputed over the results of the last campaign, and the governor was doing all he could to make the home government believe that Montcalm neither deserved, nor could profit by, success. All his intrigue to induce the general’s recall only resulted in the ministry sending him orders to defer to Montcalm in all matters affecting the war.