On the 25th of July he reached Fort Bedford, where he left his invalids to recuperate, and engaged thirty backwoodsmen as guides. All communication with Fort Pitt, one hundred and five miles distant, was cut off, and the woods were filled with prowling savages. On August 2d he reached Fort Ligonier, fifty miles from Bedford, where he left his draught-oxen and wagons, and went on with three hundred and fifty pack-horses. About a day's march further west lay the defiles of Turtle Creek, where he expected the Indians would lay an ambuscade. He therefore determined to proceed as far as a small stream called Bushy Run, rest till night, and pass Turtle Creek under cover of darkness. At one o'clock in the afternoon of August 5th, when the train was half a mile from Bushy Run, a report of rifles was heard at the front, indicating that the advanced guard was engaged. Two companies were ordered forward to support it. The woods were quickly cleared, when firing was heard in the rear, and the troops were ordered back to protect the baggage train. Forming a circle around the convoy, the troops kept up the fight gallantly until night. As they were exposed in the open field, while the Indians were under cover in the woods, their loss was heavy compared with that of the enemy. Several officers and about sixty soldiers were killed or wounded, and the situation had become desperate. They had no choice but to camp on the hill where the engagement had taken place, and without a drop of water. Sentinels and outposts were stationed to guard against a night attack, and the morrow was awaited with anxious solicitude. During the night Colonel Bouquet wrote to General Amherst: "Whatever our fate may be, I thought it necessary to give your excellency this information.... I fear insurmountable difficulties in protecting and transporting our provisions, being already so much weakened by the losses of this day in men and horses."
BOUQUET'S COUNCIL WITH THE INDIANS.
This follows in fac-simile a plate in the London edition of the Historical Account (1766), drawn by Benjamin West; and as that artist painted the portrait of Bouquet given on another page, the sitting figure in the left of the plate may safely be considered not unlike that soldier. This plate was reëngraved by Paul Revere, in the Royal Amer. Mag., Dec., 1774.
With the early morning light the woods rang with the exultant war-cries of the Indians. The battle was renewed, and the savages, seeing the distress of the troops, pressed closer and closer, expecting an easy victory. Colonel Bouquet, with a quick perception of the situation and full knowledge of the Indian character, saw that his only hope of escaping the fate of Braddock's army was to draw the enemy from their cover and bring them into close engagement with his regulars. This he did by a stratagem. He ordered his most advanced troops, when in action, to fall back suddenly, as if in retreat, behind a second line lying in ambush. The Indians he expected would follow, eager to seize the train.
BOUQUET'S CAMPAIGN.
Reduced from Smith's Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians, London, 1766. It is also included in Jefferys' Gen. Topog. of N. Amer., etc. (London, 1768). It is reproduced in full size fac-simile, in the Cincinnati edition, 1868, and is reëngraved in the Amsterdam edition and in Parkman's Pontiac, vol. ii.