the last degree by the total want of water, were about to give way, and the Indians, confident of success, were pressing them more closely, redoubling their yells and war-cries—at this moment, when all seemed lost, their commander, a cool and experienced veteran, by a successful stratagem, changed the fortune of the day. Withdrawing a part of his force from the front, he gave the Indians the impression that he was about to retreat. Leaping from their hidingplaces, they rushed with fierce yells upon the thin line of English, and were on the point of breaking into the camp, when suddenly the troops that had been removed appeared upon their flank, and, after pouring in a well-directed fire, fell upon them with the bayonet. A similar movement, performed at the same moment by two companies upon the other flank, put the savages to flight. They were closely pursued by the troops, who gave them no time to rally or reload their rifles, and many of them slain. The loss of the English in this severe conflict was eight officers and one hundred and fifteen men. On this occasion the Indians displayed great firmness and intrepidity, but these qualities were more than counterbalanced by the steadiness and courage of the English. A few days later Fort Pitt was relieved.. In the following campaign two armies were marched from different points into the heart of the Indian country. Bouquet advanced from Fort Pitt into the Delaware and Shawnee settlements of the 1764. Ohio valley, while Colonel Bradstreet passed up the lakes and penetrated the region beyond Detroit. The latter failed to accomplish anything of consequence, the former succeeded in overawing the hostile tribes, and compelled them to sue for peace and restore all their captives. In conducting this expedition to a successful termination, Bouquet showed himself well acquainted with the Indian character, and fully equal to the task of impressing them strongly with his ability to chastise them in case they attempted to cajole or deceive him, as they several times attempted to do. Seeing the kind of man with whom they had to deal, they had no alternative but to submit. He told them plainly that their excuses were frivolous, and their conduct indefensible, that they were all in his power, and that he could exterminate them, but that the English were a merciful and generous people, and that if they sincerely repented of their past perfidy and behaved well in future they might hope for mercy and peace. As a reward for his important services, Bouquet received the thanks of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and the rank of brigadier-general from the King. The return of the English captives and the meeting of husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, who had long been separated, and many of whom were supposed to be dead, presented a scene of thrilling interest. Even the Indians, taught from infancy to repress all outward signs of emotion, could not wholly conceal their sorrow at parting. with their adopted relatives and friends. They shed tears over them, and earnestly besought for them the care and protection of the commanding officer. They offered them furs and choice articles of food, and even asked leave to follow the army home, that they might hunt for the captives and supply them with better food than that provided for the soldiers. The Indian women filled the camp with their lamentations and wailing both night and day. A tinge of romance is thrown around this remarkable scene. One young warrior had become so much attached to a Virginia maiden among the captives that he called her his wife, and persisted in following her to the frontier at the risk of his life. There was a darker side to this impressive picture. Among the Virginians and Pennsylvanians in Bouquet's army were many who had joined in the hope of recovering their lost loved ones. While some were filled with joy and rapture, others with anxious and troubled looks were flying from place to place, with eager inquiries after relatives and friends, trembling to receive the answer to their questions, distracted with doubts, hopes, and fears, on obtaining no news of those they sought for, or stiffened into living monuments of horror and woe on learning their unhappy fate. At the delivery of the captives a Shawnee chief addressed Bouquet as follows: "Father," said the chief, "we have brought your flesh and blood to you. They have all been united to us by adoption, and although we now deliver them, we will always look upon them as our relatives whenever the Great Spirit is pleased that we may visit them. We have taken as much care of them as if they were our own flesh and blood. They are now become unacquainted with your customs and manners, and we therefore request you to use them tenderly and kindly, which will induce them to live contentedly with you." What a pang must have invaded that mother's breast who recognized her child, only to find it clinging more closely to its Indian mother, her own claims wholly forgotten? Some of the children had lost all remembrance of their former home, and resisted when handed over to their relatives. Some of the young women had married Indian husbands, and with their children were unwilling to return to the settlements. Indeed several of them had become so strongly attached to their Indian lords and to their mode of life that they made their escape and returned to the wigwams of their husbands. One old woman sought her daughter, who had been carried off nine years before. She discovered her, but the girl, who had almost forgotten her native tongue, did not recognize her, and she bitterly complained that the child she had so often sung to sleep on her knee had forgotten her in her old age. Bouquet, whose humane heart had been deeply touched by this scene, suggested an expedient: "Sing the song you used to sing to her when a child." The mother sung, the child's attention was instantly fixed, a flood of tears proclaimed the awakened memories, and the long lost child was restored to the mother's arms. Pontiac endeavored, but in vain, to secure the assistance of the French in his efforts to continue the war. In the spring of 1766 he made a treaty with Sir William Johnson at Oswego, and submitted to the English, renouncing forever the great scheme he had so long meditated. His death April, 1769. occurred at Cahokia, where he was murdered by an Illinois Indian, who, it is said, was bribed with a keg of whiskey by an English trader to commit the deed. This murder, which aroused the vengeance of all the tribes friendly to Pontiac, brought about the successive wars and almost total annihilation of the Illinois nation. The dead chieftain was buried with the honors of war by his friend, St. Ange, the French commandant of St. Louis.* war. * Parkman's "Conspiracy of Pontiac" gives a graphic account of the events of this Consult also Bouquet's "Narrative." |