by Allan Eckert
Amazed at their good fortune, the few Shawnee defenders were quick to react. They managed to round up two dozen of their horses that the whites had been unable to catch, mounted and set off in pursuit. They overtook the army in about ten miles and began a harassing fire at the rear. One after another, the whites were shot off their horses until at last Bowman was forced to halt his force and form them into a square for defense, at which the Indians vanished. But as soon as the army resumed its march, the sniping began again and more were killed. That a body of only 24 warriors was pinning down a mounted army ten times larger was practically beyond belief. The soldiers desperately wanted Bowman to give an order to attack, but the colonel refused and continued the withdrawal. Five separate times, as their comrades were being killed around them, the army was forced to stop and defend, then push on again.
At last, their rage against their own commander pushed to its limits, Capt. James Harrod and two of his lieutenants acted on their own. Fully 100 of the men were ordered to throw down the loot they were carrying and charge the attackers.
With that concerted charge directed against them, the 24 warriors finally abandoned the harassment and galloped away, heading back to Chalahgawtha. Bowman, fuming at having his orders disobeyed, reformed the army and marched them back to the Ohio River with the horses and plunder. In total, 30 men had been killed and more than 60 wounded. Upon reaching the Kentucky shore, the army was ordered to camp, and a division of the horses and loot was made. Bowman then had the unbelievable temerity to call the campaign a great success. He disbanded the army and let the men find their own way home.363
By this time, the large number of warriors who had been absent returned from the Wapatomica council to find two-thirds of their town burned and many of their possessions taken, along with most of the horses. There had also been two Shawnee casualties. Chief Red Pole had been killed by a ball that found its way through a small gap between the logs of the council house, and the principal chief of the Shawnees, Chiungalla—Black Fish—was severely wounded: A ball had shattered his hip socket and sent bone splinters into the surrounding flesh. He was in terrible pain and knew he would die, but he knew as well that his death would be a long time in coming.
The mortal wounding of Chiungalla and the burning of Chalahgawtha ignited a dreadful fire in the heart of every remaining Shawnee in Ohio, filling them with fearsome resolve: Their strikes would no longer be hit-and-run horse-stealing attacks. Now they would do what they as a tribe had so long refrained from doing—they would not only accept arms, ammunition and supplies from the British but would demand that a British army, with artillery, help them destroy all the Shemanese in the Kan-tuck-kee lands.
[August 25, 1779—Sunday]
All in all, even though he had looked forward to more direct conflict than had been experienced, Col. Daniel Brodhead was well pleased with the results of his Allegheny Campaign that was just now concluding.
In command of the Western Department of the Army, now that Gen. McIntosh had been recalled to the east, Brodhead had not been long in taking action. He was heartily tired of the recurring raids against isolated cabins and larger settlements in Pennsylvania’s Westmoreland County: raids that had been carried on with almost complete impunity by the Senecas, Wyandots, Mingoes and the more hostile Delawares, the faction called Munceys. It was time, Brodhead felt, for them to be taught a lesson.
Aware that at this very moment, acting under orders from Gen. Washington himself, Maj. Gen. John Sullivan was leading a large army against the Iroquois into the very heartland of their nations and destroying all he encountered, Brodhead had reasoned that this would be a good time to do the same against the tribes on the Allegheny.364 He had called for whatever volunteers could be spared from the various settlements, and with them and about half of his regulars—the total force close to 600 men—he started them up the Allegheny on the first of August. His field officers included Lt. Col. George Verlandigham and Majs. Frederick Vernon and Samuel McCulloch. His pilot for the main army was the half-breed John Montour. The army marched up the right bank of the Allegheny; a small herd of cattle was driven with them for beef, and the baggage and provisions were carried in canoes that paced them on the river.
As an advance unit, Brodhead sent out Capt. Samuel Brady and his Rangers, by this time increased by Brady’s recruitment of 15 more very good men. At Brodhead’s suggestion, Brady gladly accepted the services of Jonathan Zane and the Seneca half-breed Thomas Nicholson as his advance party’s guides, since they were more familiar with the location and size of the upper Allegheny villages than Brady or any of his men. Nicholson, he knew, had long been an Iroquois interpreter at Fort Pitt and was fluent in several other Indian languages. Four friendly Delawares joined them as well, their leader a small, cheerful young man who went by the name of Captain Wilson, who said he was the nephew of John Thompson, now known as Scare the World. So the entire advance party was 30 men. Brady promised Brodhead he would hold a steady, fairly easy pace and maintain a distance of about a mile ahead of the main army.
They had encountered no one by the time they reached Brady’s Bend, but a bit less than two hours beyond that point, just after having followed the Indian trail through a narrow defile and then back along the river’s edge, John Cuppy, who was near the lead with Brady and Zane, said, “Hold it!” and stopped. The others stopped as well, and Brady noted with satisfaction that most of them, instead of looking at Cuppy, were scanning the area ahead, looking for whatever it was that Cuppy had seen. They saw nothing alarming.
“What?” Brady asked.
“Way up there, at the bend of the river,” Cuppy said, pointing to an eastward curve in the river, “I caught a glint of something—sunlight reflecting off metal, I think.”
Brady nodded. “Let’s see to the tracks, then under cover. Fast.”
The men cut some branches and quickly swept the trail of any footprints they had left, all the way back to the rocky defile, where the stony ground gave no clue. Then Brady held a quick conference with them and laid out what they were going to do, with Nicholson interpreting for the Indians. When they were finished, Brady sent one of his new men, Jacob Fouts, as a runner to Brodhead to tell him what was occurring and their plan. As soon as this was finished, they split in half and spread out a bit, half going into hiding on the west slope of the defile above the path, the other half on the east slope.365
Some ten minutes after Brady’s men were situated, a war party of some 40 Indians—Senecas, Munceys and Wyandots—came into their view.366 Most, if not all, were carrying rifles, and all had tomahawks and knives in their belts. A few also carried war clubs. Some of the warriors were painted, but most were not, signifying that while they were on their way to attack the settlements, they would wait until closer to their targets before fully applying the war paint.
The Indians strode through the pass in single file, quite close to one another, a tall, hawk-nosed and rather fierce appearing Seneca in the lead. The murmured conversation going on was low enough in tone that the whites could not make out individual words. In about five minutes the entire 40 had passed and soon disappeared from sight as the trail they were following left the defile and entered somewhat open woodland. Not a single Indian had suspected the Rangers’ presence.
“Know who that was, leadin’ ’em?” Nicholson asked Brady, a few moments after they had disappeared.
“No. Who?”
“That was Bald Eagle. He’s the one who’s been hittin’ along the Kiskeminetas. Mean son of a bitch!”
Brady nodded and then held up a hand in the signal for them to stay in place and keep silent. By this time, Brady knew, Brodhead’s force should be no more than five or six minutes away and were probably already hidden and ready to spring their ambush. Less than five minutes later, they heard a prolonged barrage of gunshots very faintly from the south. At once Brady stepped into view, lifted his right arm straight up, with flattened hand bent at the wrist to a 90-degree angle—the signal to get ready but
to wait for his shot to fire—and then stepped back into his hiding place.
In a few minutes more, Bald Eagle’s war party came into sight, running back toward them along the trail; some exhibited difficulty, as if they were wounded. Brady, near the far end of his hidden Rangers, waited until the head of the Indian formation was directly below him and then aimed at Bald Eagle and fired. The chief was knocked dead to the ground. As the Indians frantically scrambled and dodged to escape the trap, the other guns were fired amid a din of cries from Brady’s men. Four more of the war party fell, and some others, who were wounded, fled with difficulty. It was a wild few moments, and by the time the guns of the Rangers were reloaded, the survivors were pretty much out of range.
They scalped the five dead men and took their weapons. One was a rather fat man who turned out to be a white renegade, identified by one of the Delawares as a brother of Simon Girty. Tom Nicholson, who knew Girty’s brothers quite well, refuted the identification.367 By this time, Fouts had returned, and at Brady’s questioning look, he shook his head and spoke bitterly. “Brodhead’s boys didn’t kill none of’em. Some damn fool private dropped his gun just as they was gettin’ in range an’ blowed his own brains out.368 Injens took off arunnin’ back this way, and there was a whole lot of shootin’ for a while. Couple or three got hit, I reckon, but none of’em fell. I see,” he added, his glance flicking across the bodies, “you boys ’counted for a few.”
“A few,” Brady said. “Could’ve been more. Brodhead coming on yet?”
“Wish I could’a been here.” Fouts shook his head. “No, not yet. They’re buryin’ that fool private. Said he’d start again in ’bout half an hour. Mebbe fifteen minutes from now.”
The march upriver continued for close to a week after that without encountering any further Indians. The few villages they passed, such as Venango at the mouth of French Creek, adjacent to the old burned-out ruins of Fort Machault, were all deserted, their inhabitants evidently having been warned by the survivors of Brady’s ambush. At Col. Brodhead’s order these villages were burned by the main army as it passed, and the fields of corn and other vegetables near them were destroyed.
It was about ten o’clock in the morning, when the advance party under Brady was about three miles downstream from the mouth of Dagahshenodeago—called Brokenstraw Creek by the Americans—and opposite an island in the Allegheny, that they spied, far upstream, a party of Indians approaching in four canoes with upward of a dozen warriors in each. Nicholson volunteered to attempt to lure them to shore, and Brady agreed. A small stream flowing through a forested ravine entered the river near where Brady’s party was waiting, and he ordered his men to get under cover.
The approaching Indians turned out to be a war party made up primarily of Senecas but with a few Munceys among them. Nicholson moved a little distance away to the shoreline and hallowed the Indians in their own tongue. They headed in toward him at once and beached their canoes, three of them close together and the last one, carrying 12 warriors, perhaps 30 yards above. All alighted with guns in hand, except for four who remained with the canoes, each standing with rifle in hand in one of the boats.
The war party was led by the Seneca chief Dehguswaygahent—The Fallen Board—and the Muncey chief named Dayoosta—It Is Light To Be Lifted.369 As these two stood talking with Nicholson, some of the Senecas of the party spotted the head of Jonathan Zane as he incautiously peeped from behind a tree at them. Instantly they shouted an alarm and shot at Nicholson, one of the balls grazing him across the top of the thigh.
Nicholson dodged behind a tree, and the Indians of the war party tried to do the same, but there were few trees that close to the water. A deadly hail of gunfire erupted from Brady’s party, and in the first few seconds a number of the Indians were downed. One of these was the Seneca subchief Dahgahgahend—White Eye—who was knocked out of the canoe he was standing in, fell into the water and did not resurface.370 Dehguswaygahent, wounded, staggered away and reentered his canoe, but a second ball broke his spine and he fell dead in the bottom of the boat. The fight was very hot and lasted for about ten minutes. Fifteen of the Indians were killed outright, and 14 others wounded. Those wounded scattered, some into the forest and a few into the water. Dayoosta tried to reach the river and was shot just as he plunged into the water. His body sank and did not return to the surface.
The warriors of the fourth canoe managed to regain their boat—one of the men appeared to be wounded—and swiftly paddled away upstream and out of sight. The only Indian unharmed of the first three canoes was the Seneca subchief Hutgueote—The Arrow—who was known to the whites as Red Eye. He plunged into the river and by alternately diving, swimming underwater and then coming up for breath, he managed to reach the island unscathed, even though rifle balls kept sending up spurts of water as they struck close to him. He clambered ashore and raced across the island, crouching low in the weeds and brush growing on its surface. On the other side he plunged into the water again and swam to the east side of the Allegheny. As he gained the shore there, he paused and gave three loud yells, as if to notify any other Indian party within hearing, then disappeared into the underbrush.371
It was all over by the time Brodhead’s main army arrived, even though they had broken into double time when they heard the gunfire. There were a few minor wounds and one serious one suffered by the men in Brady’s party. Apart from Nicholson being creased on the thigh, young Captain Wilson had had a ball pass across the back of his left hand, and it was bleeding freely, though no bones had been broken. One of Brady’s new men, David Asken, formerly a sergeant at Fort Pitt, had also been shot in the left hand, the bullet passing through the ball of his thumb—very painful but not terribly serious. Jonathan Zane, however, had taken a ball in the hollow between his collarbone and shoulder and was out of commission.
Brady’s party scalped the dead Indians and stripped them of their weapons, pouches, ornaments and moccasins.372 In the canoes were their provisions, along with seven war clubs, two more rifles and a quantity of ammunition, all of which were also taken. One of Brady’s pet Delawares had seen where Chief Dahgahgahend’s rifle fell into the river when he was killed, and he dove into the river and recovered it—a much better weapon than his own, which he gave to a companion who had heretofore been armed only with tomahawk and knife.
Zane, Asken, Nicholson and Captain Wilson were ordered into one of the canoes and, with two of the pet Delawares paddling, were sent back to Fort Pitt to get their wounds treated. That night Brady’s party and Brodhead’s main army camped together at the mouth of Brokenstraw Creek.373
In the morning they pushed on together and at noon three days later reached the Muncey Towns, or Twin Towns, as they were sometimes called—sister villages located opposite each other on the shores of the Allegheny.374 The warriors of both these towns were absent, having gone away a week or so earlier to help oppose Gen. Sullivan on his invasion into Iroquois territory. But the women, children and elderly who were still there had just abandoned both villages, obviously in great haste, with food still cooking in some of the dwellings. Provisions and other goods were abundant in the cabins and, once they had been plundered, Brodhead again ordered all the cabins destroyed, along with some 500 acres of corn in full roasting ears. All the corn was cut down—a process that took three days—and that portion close enough to the Allegheny was thrown into the river; the more distant portions were tossed into large piles to be quickly destroyed by the heat generated from their own decomposition under the hot summer sun. Thirty brass kettles that were found in the cabins were sunk in the river at Brodhead’s order.375
The Muncey Town on the northern shore here was where Simon Girty had evidently been making his headquarters for a while, as a number of papers and other goods belonging to him were discovered and confiscated.
It was known that a few miles farther upstream there was a village named Dunosahdahgah, meaning The Burnt House. It was named after an Indian log house there that had accidentally gone
up in flames some years before, just after the town was established. This headquarters village of the famed Seneca chief Warhoytonehteh—better known to the whites as Cornplanter—was located on the right bank, about two miles below the mouth of Conewango Creek. Capt. Samuel Brady’s party, enlarged by some 25 volunteers from the main army, was detached to check it out.376 On the way they surprised two Senecas descending a tributary in a small canoe. The warrior in the stern snatched up his rifle but was shot and killed before he could shoot. His 16-year-old brother in the bow was shot through the lower leg and fell into the creek. It was thought at first that he had been killed and sunk, but he swam underwater a considerable distance downstream before surfacing beneath an overhanging willow tree. By the time the Rangers realized it, he had swiftly scrambled to shore and escaped through some dense brush.377
When Brady’s party arrived at Dunosahdahgah, they found the chief and most of his warriors gone to help oppose Sullivan, but the Seneca subchief in charge, Nantagoah—Captain Crow—and some of his men were engaged in a deer hunt when Brady’s party crept up. A number of the Indians had been positioned in hiding in the tall grasses on a long narrow island not very far from the north shore, and a number of others, yipping and yelping like dogs, had formed a wide semicircle and were driving the deer toward the river. The frightened animals plunged into the water and swam toward the island, only to have the hunters there rise from hiding and shoot them as they came ashore.
One of the main army volunteers in Brady’s force spoiled their surprise by stumbling and falling into a ravine. He wasn’t hurt, but his startled cry and the crashing of branches alerted the Indians under Nantagoah. Hasty gunfire from Brady’s men killed a Seneca warrior named Gennehoon—Double Door—but all the others escaped unharmed except for one Muncey warrior who was shot in the arm.378 Dunosahdahgah village was plundered and destroyed, and the deer that had been killed were recovered and taken back to the main army at the Brokenstraw Creek camp.