Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt; Early Names of Pittsburgh Streets — John Shaqi
Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt; Early Names of Pittsburgh StreetsDaughters of the American Revolution. Pittsburgh Chapter (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
History
Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt; Early Names of Pittsburgh Streets
Daughters of the American Revolution. Pittsburgh Chapter (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Fort Duquesne (Pa.) -- History; Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- History
When the news of this Indian uprising reached Gen. Amhurst, he ordered
Col. Bouquet to march with a detachment of five hundred men to the
relief of the besieged forts. The force was composed of companies from
the Forty-second Highlanders and Seventy-seventh Regulars, to which were
added six companies of Rangers. Bouquet established his camp in Carlisle
at the end of June. Here he found every building, every house, every
barn, every hovel, crowded with refugees. He writes to Gen. Amherst on
July 13th, as follows: "The list of people known to be killed increases
every day. The desolation of so many families, reduced to the last
extreme of want and misery; the despair of those who have lost their
parents; relations and friends, with the cries of distracted women and
children who fill the streets, form a scene painful to humanity and
impossible to describe."
[Illustration: LORD CHATHAM WILLIAM PITT.]
Strange as it may seem, the Province of Pennsylvania would do nothing to
aid the troops who gathered for its defense. The Quakers, who had a
majority in the Assembly, were non-combatants from principle and
practice; and the Swiss and German Mennonites, who were numerous in
Lancaster County, professed, like the Quakers, the principle of
non-resistance, and refused to bear arms. Wagons and horses had been
promised, but promises were broken. Bouquet writes again to Amherst: "I
hope we shall be able to save that infatuated people from destruction,
notwithstanding all their endeavors to defeat your vigorous measures."
While Bouquet harassed and exasperated, labored on at his difficult
task, the terror of the country people increased, until at last
finding that they could hope for but little aid from the Government,
they bestirred themselves with admirable spirit in their own defense.
They raised small bodies of riflemen, who scoured the woods in front of
the settlements, and succeeded in driving the enemy back. In some
instances these men dressed themselves as Indian warriors, painted their
faces red and black, and adopted the savage mode of warfare.
On the 3rd of July a courier from Fort Bedford rode into Carlisle, and
as he stopped to water his horse he was immediately surrounded by an
anxious crowd, to whom he told his tale of woe, adding, as he mounted
his horse to ride on to Bouquet's tent, "The Indians will soon be here."
Terror and excitement spread everywhere, messengers were dispatched in
every direction to give the alarm, and the reports, harrowing as they
had been, were fully confirmed by the fugitives who were met on every
road and by-path hurrying to Carlisle for refuge. A party armed
themselves and went out to warn the living and bury the dead. They found
death and desolation everywhere, and sickened with horror at seeing
groups of hogs tearing and devouring the bodies of the dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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