He had a difficult and dangerous task before him. The rough road through the forest and over the mountains had been broken up by bad weather in the previous winter, and the temporary bridges had been swept away. His fighting men did not exceed 500, Highlanders of the 42nd and 77th Regiments, and Royal Americans. The force was far too small for the enterprise, and the commander wrote of the disadvantage which he suffered from want of men used to the woods, noting that the Highlanders invariably lost themselves when employed as scouts, and that he was therefore compelled to try and secure 30 woodsmen for scouting purposes.[12] [Sidenote: The fight at Edgehill.] On the 2nd of August he reached Fort Ligonier, and there, as on the former expedition, he left his heavy transport, moving forward on the 4th with his little army on a march of over fifty miles to Fort Pitt. On that day he advanced twelve miles. On the 5th of August he intended to reach a stream known as Bushy Creek or Bushy Run, nineteen miles distant. Seventeen miles had been passed by midday in the hot summer weather, when at one o’clock, at a place which in his dispatch he called Edgehill, the advanced guard was attacked by Indians. The attack increased in severity, the flanks of the force and the convoy in the rear were threatened, the troops were drawn back to protect the convoy, and circling round it they held the enemy at bay till nightfall, when they were forced to encamp where they stood, having lost 60 men in killed and wounded, and, worst of all, being in total want of water. Bravely Bouquet wrote to Amherst that night, but the terms of the dispatch told his anxiety for the morrow. At daybreak the Indians fell again upon the wearied, thirsty ring of troops: for some hours the fight went on, and a repetition of Braddock’s overthrow seemed inevitable. At length Bouquet tried a stratagem. Drawing back the two front companies of the circle, he pretended to cover their retreat with a scanty line, and lured the Indians on in mass, impatient of victorious butchery. Just as they were breaking the circle, the men who had been brought back and had unperceived crept round in the woods, gave a point blank fire at close quarters into the yelling crowd, and followed it with the bayonet. Falling back, the Indians came under similar fire and a similar charge from two other companies who waited them in ambush, and leaving the ground strewn with corpses the red men broke and fled. Litters were then made for the wounded: such provisions as could not be carried were destroyed; and at length the sorely tried English reached the stream of Bushy Run. Even there the enemy attempted to molest them, but were easily dispersed by the light infantry. [Sidenote: Victory of the English and relief of Fort Pitt.]