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Defense in the Wilderness

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Defense in the Wilderness DEFENSE IN THE WILDERNESS Charles Morse Stotz DEFENSE IN THE WILDERNESS hundred years ago this November twenty-fifth a travel- worn English army occupied the Forks of the Ohio. Their Twoailing commander, General John Forbes, viewed from his litter the smoldering ruins of Fort Duquesne. The monumental landscape of hill,forest and water may not have moved him, but the acrid smoke from the fallen French stronghold must have been perfume to his nose. Braddock's defeat that had so shaken England had been avenged. Before him the Ohio's waters streamed westward to the vast inland basin; England now controlled them. Whatever solace this may have been to a weary and sick man, his first concern had to be with the perils and labors that lay immediately ahead. To a practical Scot and a soldier, first things must come first. He named the place Pittsburgh as a gesture of recognition for that ungainly master strategist who from his desk in London had ordered the seizure of this vital little triangle. Next, he must get the bulk of his more than 6,000 ragged weary men back over the mountains before they starved to death. And, finally, he must make secure his triumph for his King by building a stronghold at the Point. He ordered 250 men to remain at the Forks for this purpose, this number being all he could "possibly maintain during the Winter, considering 400 miles of land carriage thro an immense Wilderness, and the worst roads in the world."1 This was not to be the usual frontier fort of earthwork and timbers but a solid, massive construction worthy of its need. Such a fort he knew would require yet another conquest of the mountains to bring the supplies and materials to the remote wilderness site and would require at least a year or two to build. In the meantime a temporary fort must be built without delay, taking advantage of the winter season, to prepare for the inevitable attack by the French whose forces lay but a few days journey up the Allegheny. Having thus well served his King, Iron Head, as Forbes was known to the Indians, returned with his troops over the mountains. He must then have known he was a doomed man, for he died three months later from the illness which he had endured with such fortitude. In the four years before this event two forts had been built at 60 DRUMS IN THE FOREST the Point and each in turn had been taken and destroyed. These were the English Fort Prince George and the French Fort Duquesne. Within the three years which followed this event, two more forts were to be built at the Point by the English, neither of which was destined to be taken in battle or siege. These were the temporary Mercer's Fort and Fort Pitt, the most elaborate work of the Eng- lish military engineers in America to that time. A fifth fort, Fort Fayette, of less consequence to history or the art of fortification, was built a full generation later, by the forces of the young United States, a short distance from the Point on the Allegheny River. This article is largely concerned with the first four of these forts. To understand fully the reason for their creation and their physical character, a consideration of the background against which they were built is presented in the following three sections. Part One, Setting of the Stage, deals with the disposition of the French and English in North America in the mid-eighteenth century, the influence of geographic conditions on the natural routes of travel and a brief mention of the principal forts in the country. Part Two, Defense in Depth, tells of the evolution of the frontier fort and gives a working knowledge of fort design and construction. Part Three, Challenge of the Wilderness, based chiefly on the Forbes campaign, describes how the forts were serviced and includes road construction, problems of transportation, the soldier and his equip- ment and the nature of life in the outpost garrisons. Part Four continues with the establishment of the five forts at the Point, their design and construction, the purposes they served and something of the life in and about them. There will frequently appear in these pages the names of mili- tary engineers and their assistants who worked in western Pennsyl- vania. While the records provide scant information about most of them, one, Captain Harry Gordon, engineer and builder of Fort Pitt, stands out as a figure to rank with General John Forbes and Colonel Henry Bouquet. He served and fought with Braddock and Forbes and looms large in local affairs until he succeeded Colonel Eyre in 1764 as chief engineer in America, and was raised from the rank of captain to lieutenant colonel. He often risked his life in battle. He earned the affection and praise of his officers and his men for his conduct and dedicated effort. It would therefore seem fitting to dedicate to Captain Harry Gordon this brief account of the forts he served so faithfully. I.SETTING OF THE STAGE a May morning in1754, a group of French soldiers who had spent the night in a glen on Chestnut Ridge were preparing Onto break camp. They were suddenly surprised by an outburst of gunfire from the rocky ledges above them. The leader, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, and a number of his companions were killed. The twenty-two year old Virginia colonel, George Washington, had won his first battle and the first blood had been shed in the French and Indian War. The more than two hundred years that have passed since this event is a short time in the total span of history but a long time when measured by the brief span of a man's life. Voltaire, in 1754, was a man of 60, Samuel Johnson inEngland was 45 years old and Goethe was but five. Bach had died only four years before and Mozart was to be born two years later. Eastern North America in the mid-eighteenth century was the stage upon which England and France appeared as actors in this drama of conflict. Viewed in retrospect, the French and Indian War seems a picturesque episode in history. The contemporary records show it to have been a grim succession of fortuitous successes and blunders. Armies trained in Europe and accustomed to fighting in familiar open country were combined with provincial troops whose greater familiarity with wilderness conditions was offset by lack of discipline and co-ordination. To the herculean labors of organizing, supplying and moving troops through littleknown country was added the hazard of successful dealing with the Indians, whether as enemies or allies. Another actor in this drama, the trader, had preceded the soldier into the remote Indian lands and had made the Indian de- pendent on the white man's weapons and trade goods. With the trader went the French priest and, to a lesser extent, the English missionary. These vanguards of the white invaders very much complicated relations between white man and Indian, though they carried valuable information to the military leaders. In spite of the endless pow-wows, treaties and giving of presents, the rights of the native owners were largely ignored. As another people centuries before had been dispossessed by seekers after a promised land, so the Indians succumbed to a race that considered America its birthright. 62 DRUMS IN THE FOREST The Character Behind the Scenes Stillanother character, the settler, must be considered. In fact, he was the primary instigator of the piece and, after all the other actors had gone, remained to occupy the center of the stage. At first he lingered behind the scenes while his fellow countrymen, wittingly or not, made a place for him. The enemies of the French were the English, but the Indians, from the first, recognized the settlers as the villains to be dealt with. The Frenchman was their friend. For almost a century the Indians had permitted the French to establish their far-flung missions and trading posts throughout the vast inland country. The French understood the Indians' traits, plied them with the King's presents, learned their language, baptized and even intermarried with them. If the trade goods of the French were more costly than those of the English and even inferior in variety and quality, the French gave no material signs of intending to occupy the Indian lands by settlement. "They excited no jealousy and gained the affections of an ignorant, credulous but brave people, whose ruling passions are independence, gratitude, and revenge." 2 The French could readily cement the allegiance of the Indians by pointing to the English interlopers who had entered the forbidden area and the many more poised on the eastern slopes of the Appa- lachians, biding their time until they could occupy the rich Ohio country. These people who were to establish the civilization of our district are thus described by the author inhis The Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania: "Throughout the whole turbulent period, in spite of wars and governmental decrees against settlement, the [English] settler was stubbornly taking personal and permanent possession of the land, blazing his property without authority, and establishing a 'tomahawk claim' when he could get no better title. The Indians, who viewed the trader with suspicion and frequently regarded the soldier and government agent with distrust, heard with consternation the sound of the frontiersman's axe and rifle echoing through their forests. Here were the actual destroyers and usurpers of the Indian's shelter and game.
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