That night Bradstreet's artillerymen laid in their guns, and in the morning they opened a barrage, pounding Frontenac's limestone walls while the engineers dug approaches. The surprise was so complete that the French vessels were trapped at their moorings in the river. The fort's commander, the elderly Pierre-Jacques Payen de Noyan et de Chavoy, had one hundred regulars and a smattering of Indians and Acadians to man the defenses. After a symbolic resistance he surrendered on August 27, 1758, in order to be accorded the traditional "honors of war," which included Bradstreet's permission for the old man to return to Montreal.
Bradstreet had not lost a single man to enemy fire. Inside the fort the English found an incredible storehouse. At least sixty cannon, many of them dismounted, were lying inside the magazines. Ironically, many of the guns bore the mark of George II, spoils taken at the Monongahela and Oswego. Since his mission was to destroy the fort, not occupy it, Bradstreet ordered his soldiers to prepare its destruction. Provincials rolled hundreds of barrels of provisions into the open area, where they stacked and burned them in a grand bonfire. The happy warriors were far more careful with the bundles of valuable furs they discovered awaiting shipment to Montreal. The victors counted and divided the bales among themselves and then stowed them aboard two of the captured French vessels bound for Oswego. In a gesture that gained him huzzahs among his soldiers, Bradstreet refused his share of the spoils, insisting that the men divide his portion. After throwing what they could not carry into the flames, the English returned to their boats and were back at Oswego on the thirtieth.11
Frontenac was a serious loss for the French, for which Vaudreuil assumed the blame. He admitted that he had underestimated the British and told his superiors that he wrongly believed that the English "would not dare to enter the lake [Ontario] on which [the French] had vessels."12 The governor had not counted on John Bradstreet. In one action, at almost no cost to themselves, the British had made the French position in the west and on the lakes precarious. With their principal depot in ashes, and their lines to the Ohio Valley and the west via the lakes severed, the French could neither reinforce nor supply key positions to the west and south, including Fort Duquesne.13
Like Frontenac's garrison, Duquesne's had been sapped to provide men for the defense of Canada. Weak and isolated, Duquesne had seen its strategic importance diminish greatly since the beginning of the war. Nonetheless, the thirst to revenge Braddock's defeat, and the fact that the mere presence of the French at the forks of the Ohio helped incite the Indians, made Duquesne an important British objective. At the same time that Pitt ordered the capture of Louisbourg and Ticonderoga, he also directed an assault against Duquesne. General John Forbes was assigned the task.14
Forbes nominally served under Abercromby; in fact, however, like Amherst he exercised independent command. He too was a Scot, and his father had been a professional military officer. Forbes, however, began his career as a medical student until, in his midtwenties, he turned to a career in arms. He served with Cumberland and was with the duke at Culloden in 1746. In 1757 he became colonel of the Seventh Regiment and was posted to Nova Scotia. Forbes's skill as an administrator drew Loudoun's attention, and the commander in chief appointed him adjutant general. Forbes had a knack for dealing with "obnoxious" colonials and their fractious assemblies. His organizational and diplomatic skills made him a natural choice to take command in Pennsylvania, where the disorder and acrimony that had helped doom Braddock three years prior still reigned. By mid-April 1758, Forbes was in Philadelphia, preparing his campaign against Duquesne.
Indian assistance would be critical to the campaign. Since Braddock's defeat, the Delaware and other western Indians had inclined to the French. Obtaining help from them seemed unlikely, so Forbes turned to the Cherokee. Still, he worried that the historic rivalry between the Cherokee and the Iroquois, to say nothing of the competition between their white patrons, Edmund Atkins, superintendent of Indian affairs in the south, and his counterpart, William Johnson in New York, would doom any hope of cooperation.15 Forbes had good reason to be concerned about the Iroquois. Neither he nor Abercromby appreciated Johnson's delicate position. While Johnson held enormous sway in Iroquois councils, he did not dictate policy. For generations the Iroquois had balanced on their pivot point between the French and English with extraordinary deftness. In a war now raging, they realized that the English were gaining the upper hand; nonetheless, they had no desire to sell themselves cheaply. Nor did they wish to see rival tribes, such as the Cherokee, invade their territory. On June 1 a delegation of twelve Cherokee chiefs arrived in Philadelphia to negotiate their support. Pennsylvania's deputy governor, William Denny, and Forbes met with them, and several hundred southern Indians soon joined Forbes. The arrival of the Cherokee proved to be an unmitigated disaster. Their mere presence in territory the Iroquois claimed as their own created tension. And with nothing to do but wait for the general to begin the campaign, the warriors spent their time eating and drinking at British expense. Forbes was beside himself. It seemed to him that either the Indians never came, or they came too early. He aimed his anger directly at Atkins and Johnson, who, understanding their own limited authority, left Forbes and his officers—most of whom knew or cared little about native customs—to deal with these difficult allies themselves. By late May Forbes, who by this time was showing serious signs of the "Cholick" that would soon make him a virtual invalid, wrote, "The Cherokees are now no longer with us."16
Left without Indian allies, Forbes pushed ahead with his mixed force of seven thousand regulars and provincials. The regular core consisted of a battalion of Royal Americans and Colonel Archibald Montgomery's Highlanders, while the provincial levees were mainly Virginia and Pennsylvania regiments.17 Washington commanded one of the Virginia regiments. When not dickering with local authorities over men and supplies, Forbes spent his time pouring over maps and listening to locals, Washington included, advise him about the best route west. For strategic and personal reasons, Virginians argued for following Braddock's road. Forbes was not convinced. Flooding streams, lack of forage, and generally rough terrain made him reluctant to follow on the same cursed road. The more Washington and his Virginia colleagues urged the old route, the more suspicious Forbes and Henry Bouquet, his able second in command, grew. After a tense meeting with Washington, Bouquet told Forbes that he "gained no satisfaction" and that the Virginians were blind to reason in the matter.18 Forbes mapped a new northerly route running west through Pennsylvania from Raystown via Loyal Hannon and thence to Duquesne. Stunned that Forbes had chosen the Pennsylvania route, an unusually emotional Washington exclaimed, "All is lost. All is lost, by Heavens."19
Bouquet went ahead with an advance party while Forbes assembled the main army at Carlisle. The general was determined not to repeat Braddock's fatal mistake of pushing forward on too thin a line, too far ahead of support. Methodical and efficient, Forbes laid out his wilderness march in a textbook manner, carefully following the doctrine of the "protected advance." At roughly forty-mile intervals (a two-day march) supply depots were erected and secured. From these places men and materiel could be hurried forward, or if misfortune should befall, they could provide refuges to which the army might withdraw and re-form. Loyal Hannon, the last major post before Duquesne, was the key staging point. As soon as it was ready to receive Forbes's men, he planned to concentrate the main army there and then launch the final attack against Duquesne, about fifty miles distant.20
By August, however, Forbes's personal condition had greatly deteriorated. "I eat nothing," he told Richard Peters, secretary to the Pennsylvania council.21 So incapacitated that he could neither march nor sit on a horse, the general was carried by his orderlies on a litter, from which he issued a blizzard of orders attending to the most minute details.
* * *
Plan of Fort Frontenac
Forbes would have preferred to have Indian assistance, but since that was not possible, neutralizing them became a priority. In this effort he soug
ht the help of the Quakers. Although they were despised by many in the colony for their dissenting ways and refusal to take up arms, Pennsylvania's Quakers had a long tradition of fair dealing with the Indians. Whether Forbes cared about "fair dealing" is uncertain; nonetheless, he was quite willing to join with the Friends if they could assist him in pacifying the tribes.22 In June, as his army prepared to march west, Forbes had met with Pennsylvania's deputy governor, William Denny, and others, including Israel Pemberton, a leading Quaker, to make his point that overtures had to be made to the Ohio Indians.23 With Pemberton's support Forbes got his way, and two messengers—Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian missionary; and Charles Thomson, a Presbyterian schoolmaster—headed west to talk with the legendary Delaware Teedyuscung.
Aging, overweight, and reputed to drink too much, Teedyuscung remained one of the most remarkable men of eighteenth-century America.24 No eastern tribe suffered more from European oppression than the Delaware-, nor did they escape persecution from their northern neighbors, the Iroquois, who called the Delaware "women" and lusted after their lands. Caught between their own kin and the invading Europeans, the Delaware were pushed constantly about. Teedyuscung experienced all of this turmoil. Born near present-day Trenton, New Jersey, he and his family were pushed west by the expanding settlements. They finally settled at the forks of the Delaware River, where his father led the village of Pocopoco. Near that village Teedyuscung witnessed one of the most outrageous Indian land swindles in American history: the Delaware Walking Purchase.25
In 1686 William Penn had negotiated a land cession with the Delaware. The terms were deliberately vague and stipulated that the boundary of the grant was to be the distance a man could walk in a day and a half—about forty miles. More than half a century later, in 1787, Penn's land-hungry successors renegotiated the agreement using the same "one and a half day walk" measure. This time, however, the English purchasers prepared a route and hired a long-distance runner. By the end of the day and a half, he had covered more than sixty-six miles. After a few more "adjustments," the English were able to grab up twelve hundred square miles. When the Delaware protested, the English sought help from the Iroquois, who, in order to curry favor with their allies and enlarge their own empire, obligingly forced their "brothers" off the disputed lands.
Although he styled himself "king of the Delaware," Teedyuscung had no ancestral right to leadership. His skill was in his ability to balance among Delaware, Iroquois, French, and English. Amid a people who valued oratory, Teedyuscung was a star.. Like Pitt in Parliament, he could spellbind an audience with his eloquence, passion, wit, and sarcasm. In 1750 Teedyuscung, without abandoning his own roots, delivered himself and his family to be baptized at the Moravian Christian mission at Gnadenhutten. A few years later he made another political shift to broaden his base of friends: He allied himself with the Iroquois. As the French made their move into the Ohio Valley, Teedyuscung sidled up to them as well. In the violent days following Braddock's defeat, he led his people to war against the British, and for several months Teedyuscung and his warriors ravaged the Pennsylvania frontier. But they never forgot that neither the French nor the English held Indian interests dear.
Post's mission to the Indians went well. They listened to their trusted friend and agreed to gather to hear what the English had to say. In October 1758, all the principals met at Easton, Pennsylvania. At least thirteen of the eastern nations, including all the Iroquois, were present, as were Pember-ton, Post, and George Croghan, representing William Johnson. Teedyuscung also attended, but in the presence of the powerful Iroquois his influence and future were in grave doubt. By coming to meet with the English, the Indians left no doubt that their French connection was broken. For the moment at least, they sought an accommodation in return for their support. During these negotiations Teedyuscung and the Delaware took the biggest loss. They had hoped their claim to lands in Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley would be recognized, but neither the Iroquois nor the English were willing to do so. Instead the Iroquois, with English support, lorded it over the Delaware, treating them as tenants on their own land. Riding high, the Iroquois asked the Pennsylvanians to pledge that native lands west of the Alleghenies would remain free from white encroachment, which was agreed.26
While messengers were scurrying about the frontier arranging the Easton conference, Forbes continued his advance toward Duquesne. By early September a large advance party of fifteen hundred men under Bouquet had reached Loyal Hannon. Forbes's concern with securing the march, however, had come at a high cost in time. Many in his column, Washington included, feared that it was too late in the season to move on Duquesne and that the army would have to go into winter quarters. Loyal Hannon was the likely spot for the encampment.27 As Bouquet worked to prepare Loyal Hannon for Forbes's arrival, he discovered the consequences of being without the protection of a screen of Indian scouts. Work parties sent out to gather timber and find forage for the animals came back bloodied by marauding parties of French and Indians, directed from Duquesne. Ambushing work parties in the woods caused a stir in the camp, and led Bouquet to make a serious tactical error. Frustrated at the slowness of the advance and stung by the frequent ambushes, he agreed to a rash proposal from Major James Grant of Montgomery's Highlanders.28
Grant offered to take 500 chosen men on a quick march to Duquesne. Biouquet intended it as a reconnaissance in force, but the major, an officer known to have a "thirst for fame," likely had more ambitious plans in mind. Rumors were circulating in camp that the French were weak, and Grant saw an opportunity to grab the glory for capturing Duquesne. Bouquet encouraged Grant's ambition by giving him an additional 250 men.
Duquesne's commander, François-Marie Le Marchand de Lignery, was a battle-hardened, forty-year veteran of la Marine. He had been at Braddock's defeat, and for his valor the king presented him with the cross of St. Louis. When his Indian scouts brought word of Grant's advance, the captain laid plans for an ambush, and Grant played right into his hands. By September 14, after a quick and easy march, Grant was about a mile from the fort. He broke his force into three separate detachments and advanced with bagpipes swirling. Lignery sprang the trap. His native allies and troops swooped down on Grant's men, whose three-pronged attack cracked, "and the Gentlemen were beat by detail."29 Grant lost three hundred men, more than a third of his force. The rest fled back toward Loyal Hannon. Among the casualties was the major himself, who was taken prisoner and quickly shipped off to Montreal.30
Despite his victory, Lignery's situation remained serious. He was running short of provisions, and Bradstreet's capture of Frontenac made it virtually certain that he could expect no new supplies. Desperate to force a decision, and perhaps take the supplies being gathered at Loyal Hannon, Lignery decided to attack. The French struck on October 13.
Bouquet had gone back to the post at Stoney Creek, leaving Colonel James Burd, a Pennsylvania officer, in command. At about eleven in the morning twelve hundred French drew within range of Loyal Hannon's entrenchments and began firing. Over the next four hours they made three unsuccessful assaults. During the night they probed around the edges of the encampment, picking off unwary sentries. By morning, however, they withdrew back toward Duquesne.31
Grant's disaster and Lignery's futile attack on Loyal Hannon shocked Forbes, but it did not deter him. On November 2 he arrived at the fort in his litter to take personal command. Ten days later Lignery hit them again, but with no greater success.32 Approaching winter put Forbes in a difficult situation. Unless he advanced immediately against Duquesne, he knew his army would have to go into winter quarters and wait for spring. Fort Ligonier (Forbes's new name for Loyal Hannon) was crammed with supplies, including artillery.33 Forbes's logistical triumph was now his tactical burden. When the general asked the post engineer, Captain Harry Gordon, if the fort could withstand an assault, Gordon replied that an enemy with cannon would have little trouble reducing the wooden walls to splinters.34 Forbes could not risk allowing the huge supply
depot to fall into enemy hands. Such a disaster would negate all the advantages secured from the fall of Frontenac. Forbes turned bold and decided to attack.
Plan of Fort Duquesne
On November 18, twenty-five hundred picked men, marching without tents or heavy baggage, and trailing only a light train of artillery, set out from Loyal Hannon. Daylight was growing shorter, and even though there were only a few of them the guns and wagons slowed the column. On the twenty-third the column halted a dozen miles east of Duquesne.
Lignery understood that his situation was hopeless. At the news of Forbes's approach, his Indian allies packed their spoils and returned home. The commander's standing orders were to not surrender, but soldiers were too scarce in New France to sacrifice them in a hopeless cause. Lignery prepared to evacuate. He sent one hundred men north to Venango and another one hundred down the Ohio to the Illinois country. The remainder went to work setting demolition charges. On the evening of the twenty-fourth, as Forbes made camp only a few miles away, he heard a dull roar and saw smoke. He sent a light-horse detachment to reconnoiter. They returned with the news that Duquesne was a smoldering ruin and there was no sign of the French. The next morning, as Forbes later reported, "[I] took Possession with my little Army." The British had retaken the forks of the Ohio. In honor of the minister Forbes christened the place Pittsburgh.35
Empires at War Page 20