this engagement, amounted to sixty-seven, rank and file, killed and wounded. (1)

On the twenty-third or twenty-fourth of October, General Forbes and the rear division of the army, left Bedford and advanced towards Loyalhanna. He arrived at the latter place about the first of November, when it was determined in a council of war, that it was impracticable to pursue the campaign any further, until the ensuing spring. The weather had be come cold, and the summits of the mountains were white with snow.Shortly after, three Frenchmen who had been sent out to watch the movements of the English army were taken prisoners, and their report of the weak state of the garrison at Fort Du Quesne, changed the determination of General Forbes, and it was resolved in another council to prosecute the enterprise as speedily as possible. (2)

It was learned that the Indians had now mostly deserted the French, and returned home. After the failure of the attack upon Col. Bouquet, at Loyalhanna, the greater portion left to prepare for their winter hunt.

Colonel Washington was now sent forward in advance of the main army, to take command of a division employed in opening the road. (3) On the twelfth of November, he fell in with a number of the enemy, about three miles from camp, and in the attack, killed one man, and took three prisoners. Among the latter was one Johnson, an Englishman, who had been captured by the Indians in Lancaster county, from whom was derived full and correct information of the state of things at Fort Du Quesne. (4) A most unfortunate occurrence happened to the provincial troops, on this occasion. The fire of Col. Washington's detachment being heard at the camp, Col. Mercer, with a number of Virginians, were sent to his assistance. The two parties approaching in the dusk

(1) Gordon's History of Pennsylvania, p. 367.

A letter from Loyalhanna, dated October 14, 1758, and published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, contains the following:

"We were attacked on Thursday the 12th, by 1200 French, and 200 Indians, beginning at 11 A. M., and continuing until 3 P. M., when I had the pleasure of seeing victory attend the British arms. The enemy attempted to attack us again at night, when in return for their melodious music, we gave them some shells from our mortars, which soon made them retreat.

The following is a list of the killed, wounded, and missing:

Highlanders, one killed; First Virginia Regiment, four killed, six wounded; N. Carolina Companies, three missing; Maryland Companies, two killed, six wounded, eleven missing; First Pennsylvania Regiment, four killed, five wounded, twelve missing; Second Pennsylvania Regiment, one killed, four wounded; Lower Country Company, one missing. Total, twelve killed, seventeen wounded, thirty-one missing.

It will be seen that the number is less than reported by Gordon.

(2) Sparks' Washington, Vol. II. p. 316.

(3) Sparks' Washington, Vol. 11. p. 315.

of the evening, mistook each other for enemies. A number of shots were exchanged, by which a Lieutenant and thirteen or fourteen Virginians were killed. (1)

On the thirteenth, a force of one thousand men under Col. Armstrong, pushed forward to assist Col. Washington in opening the road for the artillery and baggage. On the seventeenth, General Forbes followed with four thousand and three hundred effective men, leaving strong garrisons at Bedford and Loyalhanna.

The army progressed slowly. The weather was damp and chilly, and the road, though cut as the army proceeded, was extremely bad from falling rain. A number of friendly Indians were constantly kept out as scouts, and every precaution was taken to guard against surprise.

When the army had arrived within twelve miles of the fort, they were met by some of the Indians who had been reconnoitering in advance, with a report that the French had set fire to the fort. (2) A dense cloud of smoke had been discovered ascending from the place and extending along the Allegheny bottom. Shortly afterwards, other scouts arrived, who had approached sufficiently near on the hills to see the place, with certain intelligence that the fort was burnt and abandoned.(3)

A company of cavalry was immediately sent forward, with instructions to extinguish the fires and save as much as practicable.(4) The whole army followed as speedily as possible, and arrived at the ruins on the twenty-fifth day of November, after a hurried march of five days from the fort on the Loyalhanna.

The abandoned fortress Du Quesne, and the cabins around it, were principally destroyed, while the blackened chimnies of more than thirty tenements stood in desolate relief from the smouldering ruins.

There were two fortifications, about two hundred yards distant from each other-one constructed with immense labor, and at great expense, -small but strong, and calculated to concentrate great powers of resistance within a small space, and standing on the point of land at the confluence of the two rivers. The other stood on the bank of the Allegheny, and was built in the form of a parallelogram, not so strong as the first, and its outworks having the appearance of being unfinished.

(1) Gordon's History of Pennsylvania, p. 367.

(2) Already on the 21st of November, when the English army was yet fifteen miles from the fort, the French uncovered their houses, and laid the roofs round the fort to set it on fire, and made ready to go off.-Appendix, p, 109.

(3) Col. Boquet's Letter to Hon. Wm. Allen, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, dated Fort Du Quesne, Nov. 25, 1758.-Appendix, 300.

(4) Capt. Haslet's Letter, Nov. 26, 1758, in Hazard's Register of Pennsylva

There were two magazines, one of which was blown up and ruined by the springing of a mine of powder. In the other were found sixteen barrels of ammunition, gun-barrels, a large quantity of carriage iron, and a wagon load of scalping-knives. Their cannon had been removed, but whether taken with them down the Ohio, or sunk in the river, is unknown.(1)

There were about four or five hundred Frenchmen in the fort, at the time of its evacuation, a part of whom went down the Ohio, and the remainder with Governor M. De Lignery to Presq' Isle and Venango.(2)

On the second of November, before the abandonment of the fort, a boy twelve years of age, who had been two years a prisoner with the French, made his escape, and reached the approaching army. He testified that a quantity of dry wood was carried into the fort, and that five of the prisoners taken at Grant's defeat had been burned to death with it, and that they delivered others to the savages, who tomahawked them at once.(3)

On the arrival of the army numbers of the bodies of those who fell at the fatal skirmish with Grant, lay scattered around over the memorable hill, scalped and mutilated. The rites of burial were performed by the soldiers, and their remains consigned to the earth. Afterwards were gathered the whitened bones of those who fell on the bloody field of Braddock, and committed to a soldier's grave. The capture of Fort Du Quesne, was hailed every where throughout the colonies as the harbinger of better times. Gov. Denny communicated the particulars of the campaign to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and congratulated the province upon the triumph of the English arms. The Assembly drew up an answer to the address, responding to the tone of the Governor's Message, congratulating him upon the expulsion of the French from the Ohio, the regaining of the friendship of the Indians, and expressing a wil lingness to co-operate with him in frustrating the ambitious views of the French in extending their settlements from Canada to the Mississippi.(4)

(1) Capt. Haslet's Letter in Hazzard's Register, Vol. VI., p. 226. (2) Col. Bouquet's Letter to the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. (3) Capt. Haslet's Letter in Hazzard's Register, Vol. VI., p. 226. (4) The following will be found in the Votes. of Assembly, 4th vol-1758. A Message to the Governor from the Assembly.

May it please your Honor:

The advices of the success of His Majesty's forces, employed in the reduction of Fort Duquesne, which you have been pleased to lay before us in your message of the 21st instant, are so interesting and important, as well to the peace and security of this and the neighboring provinces, as to the British interest in general, that we shall not fail to do every thing, which can be reasonably expected from this young Colony, in frustrating the ambitious views of the French to destroy our settlements, and extend their own from Canada

During the little time the French occupied this strong hold and key to the west, an immense amount of suffering and bloodshed had fallen upon the English. Four years and eight months had passed, memorable for the terrors and cruelties of unsparing warfare, since Ensign Ward, with a little party of forty one men, had fled, at the approach of the formida ble motley-manned batteau and Indian canoe-fleet of Contracœur, from his unfinished fortification, upon which was erected Fort Du Quesne, and from the fire-scathed walls of which, now, at last, floated the proud flag of England.(1)

The success of this campaign produced the happiest effects upon the Indian tribes, lately the allies of the French. Conferences were held at he old site of Fort Du Quesne, when the Delawares immediately sued

(1) Patterson's History of the Backwoods, p. 117.

to the river Mississippi; and we hope the success of our late campaign, under Gen. Forbes, will greatly contribute to this good end. This happy event we agree, with your Honor, under divine Providence, and the courage, prudence and steady conduct of the General, is owing to the good effects of the several treaties held with the Indians, at the expense of this province; and especially the late negociations and messages with those on the Ohio, before and since the late treaty at Easton; by which they were induced to withdraw themselves from the French, and observe a neutrality; in consequence whereof, the enemy have been necessitated to abandon the fort, from whence they have so frequently distressed our frontier settlements, and those of the neighboring colonies. The regaining the Indian affections, from which we always expect ed the most natural barrier, and security of the extended western boundary of this colony, has been, and will still continue, the object of our strictest attention; and we shall, whenever we receive sufficient information of the disposition of the Indians on the Ohio, and the treaty held with them by order from Gen. Forbes, exert our best abilities to render it their true interest to join cordially with us, and by all means in our power, endeavor to revive, and effectually secure that friendship, which happily subsisted between them and us, till within these few years, from the first settlement of this province.

In expectation of a vigorous effort to be made upon the enemy in the next year, and at the requisition of His Excellency Gen. Amberst, we shall continue the fourteen hundred old troops in the pay of the province, till our next meeting, at which time we hope to receive further information from our most gracious sovereign of the intended operations of the ensuing campaign.

Your Honor's care to discharge the new levies, in pursuance of their agreement, and the method you have taken to grant them certificates for their arrears, are very agreeable to us, as thereby the public faith will be preserved, should the last supplies fall short, till this debt can be provided for in the aids to be granted to His Majesty for defraying the expenses of the current year.

We return your Honor our thanks for your ready concurrence with the commissioners of the Indian trade in providing an early supply of goods for our Indian allies, which we hope will have a good effect; and if the act for preventing abuses in the said trade should, on experience, and a larger extension of our trade, require any alterations, or a larger stock, we shall on all occasions be willing to make such alterations or amendments to that act, as may render it effectual. Signed by order of the House, ISAAC NORRIS, Speaker.

December 23, 1758.

T

for peace.(1) Gen. Forbes (2) ordered the fort to be repaired, left in it a garrison of two hundred provincial troops, built a block house near the Loyalhanna and manned it, and marched the remainder of the army to the other side of the mountains.(3)

Thus ended the campaign of 1758. It expelled the French, forever, from the confluence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny, and estabtablished, in perpetuity, the possession of the Anglo Saxon race, in the great west.

(1) Sparks' Washington, Vol. 11, p. 322. Appendix p. 127.

(2) Gen. John Forbes, died at Philadelphia, March 13, 1759, aged 49 years. The 14th he was interred in the chancel of Christ's Church in the city. He was a son of a Mr. Forbes, Esq., of Pentrief, in the Shire of Fife, in Scotland. "He was a gentleman generally known and esteemed, and most sincerely and universally regretted. In his younger days he was bred to the profession of physic, but, early ambitions of the military character, he purchased into the regiment of Scott's Grey Dragoons, where, by repeated purchases and faithful services,he arrived to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His superior abilities soon recommended him to the protection of Gen. Campbell, the Earl of Stair, Duke of Bedford, Lord Legonier, and other distinguished characters in the army, with some of them as an aid; with the rest in the familiarity of a family man. During the last war he had the honor to be employed in the post of Quartermaster General, in the army under his Royal Highness, the Duke, which duty he discharged with accuracy and dispatch. His services in American are well known. By a steady pursuit of well concerted measures, in defiance of disease and numberless obstructions, he brought to a happy issue a most extraordinary campaign, and made a willing sacrifice of his own life to what he valued more—the interests of his King and country. As a man be was just and without prejudices; brave without ostentation; uncommonly warm in his friendships, and incapable of flattery; acquainted with the world and mankind, he was well bred, but absolutely impatient of formality and affectation. As an officer, he was quick to discern useful men, and useful measures, generally seeing both at first view, according to their real qualities; steady in his measures, and open to information and council; in command he had dignity without superciliousness; and though perfectly master of forms, Dever besitated to drop them, when the spirit and more essential parts of the service required it.-Pa. Gazette, January 18, 1759.

(3) Appendix p. 122, 126, 127, 132.