In planning his campaign Pontiac delegated the Shawanese and Delawares to carry Fort Pitt. If they could not do it he might be assured that the position was impregnable. They were his most reliable warriors, and, once given the task of carrying out the second most important _coup_ of their great leader's plan, could be trusted to use any alternative savage lust could suggest, or trick savage cunning could invent in order to accomplish their portion of the terrible conquest of the West. The defense of Detroit was brave; but Detroit was on the great water highway east and west. Succor was possible, in fact probable, in time; if not, there was a way of escape. At Fort Pitt could either be expected? The only approach to it was this indifferent roadway hewn westward from Bedford in 1758. Moreover the fort had never been completed. On three sides the flood tides of the rivers had injured it. Ecuyer, its valiant defender, threw up a rough rampart of logs and palisaded the interior. And in this fragile fortress, hardly worthy of the name, behind which lay the darkling Alleghenies and about which loomed the Black Forest, were gathered some six hundred souls, a larger community, probably, than the total population of Detroit. And around on every side were gathered the lines of ochred warriors preparing for another charge even to the very blood-bespattered walls. The garrison might well have believed itself beyond the reach of succor, if indeed succor could avail before need of it had vanished. The bones of Braddock's seven hundred slain lay scattered about the forests only seven miles away. Could another army come again? Little wonder that the Shawanese and Delawares were already flushed with victory as they renewed their unavailing attacks. The task of relieving Fort Pitt was placed upon the tried shoulders of Colonel Henry Bouquet, whose brilliant services in Forbes's campaign have been fully described. Amherst, then commanding in America, sent him the remains of the Forty-second and Seventy-seventh regiments, which amounted to the pitiful total of three hundred and forty-seven men and officers; concerning additional troops Amherst was painfully plain: "Should the whole race of Indians take arms against us I can do no more." Recruits joined the army as it moved along through Lancaster and Carlisle, which augmented the force slightly.