Forbes came to Philadelphia in April; and through the early summer months his force gradually assembled, and moved to the front. When the numbers were complete, they amounted to over 6,000 men, in the main southern colonists, but including a strong regiment of Highlanders. The second in command was a good man for the work, Bouquet, one of the Swiss officers of the Royal Americans. The advanced base was formed at Raestown, now Bedford, in Pennsylvania, distant about ninety miles from Fort Duquesne. It was some thirty miles north-east of Fort Cumberland, from which Braddock had started on his disastrous march; and a keen controversy arose as to whether the old route should be followed, or a new road taken. Opening a road to the Ohio meant, when the fighting was over, giving to the State, within or near whose boundaries the road ran, control of the trade. Virginia accordingly pressed for the old and more southerly route, Pennsylvania for the northern line. In spite {285} of Washington's arguments, the latter was chosen; it was shorter and more direct, and on the whole presented fewer natural difficulties than the other. The first forty miles led due west over the main Alleghany range and the Laurel hills, to a place called Loyalhannon; and by the end of August Bouquet had a road cut to this place, a dépôt established, and preparations made for carrying on the track through fifty miles of less difficult country to Fort Duquesne. [Sidenote: _An advance attack on Fort Duquesne repulsed with loss._] [Sidenote: _The Ohio Indians desert the French._] Every care was being taken by the commanders; but notwithstanding, before the end came, there was in a smaller measure a repetition of Braddock's reverse. In the middle of September, Major Grant, an officer of the Highlanders, obtained permission from Bouquet to march out from Loyalhannon with between 700 and 800 men,[40] for the purpose of reconnoitring Fort Duquesne. He arrived at night time close to the fort; intended a night attack, which miscarried; repeated the attempt to attack on the following day, and having broken up his force into small parties, was badly beaten and himself taken prisoner. The total British casualties numbered about 280, the survivors finding their way back to Bouquet at Loyalhannon. 'This was a most terrible check to my small army,' wrote Forbes,[41] but the reverse was more than counterbalanced shortly afterwards by a success of a different kind. From the first Forbes had spared no pains to secure the friendship of the Indians; and in October, in large measure through the good offices of a Moravian missionary, a general council was held, at which the tribes of the Ohio made their peace with the English, deserting the French cause as rats leave a sinking ship. [Footnote 40: Forbes' own dispatch mentions 900.] [Footnote 41: Forbes to Pitt, Raestown, Oct. 20, 1758.] [Sidenote: _The final advance on Fort Duquesne._]