1763.
THE FIGHT OF BLOODY BRIDGE.
From the time when peace was concluded with the Wyandots and
Pottawattamies until the end of July, little worthy of notice took place
at Detroit. The fort was still watched closely by the Ottawas and Ojibwas,
who almost daily assailed it with petty attacks. In the mean time, unknown
to the garrison, a strong re-enforcement was coming to their aid. Captain
Dalzell had left Niagara with twenty-two barges, bearing two hundred and
eighty men, with several small cannon, and a fresh supply of provisions
and ammunition.[242]
Coasting the south shore of Lake Erie, they soon reached Presqu' Isle,
where they found the scorched and battered blockhouse captured a few weeks
before, and saw with surprise the mines and intrenchments made by the
Indians in assailing it.[243] Thence, proceeding on their voyage, they
reached Sandusky on the twenty-sixth of July; and here they marched inland
to the neighboring village of the Wyandots, which they burnt to the
ground, at the same time destroying the corn, which this tribe, more
provident than most of the others, had planted there in the spring.
Dalzell then steered northward for the mouth of the Detroit, which he
reached on the evening of the twenty-eighth, and cautiously ascended under
cover of night. "It was fortunate," writes Gladwyn, "that they were not
discovered, in which case they must have been destroyed or taken, as the
Indians, being emboldened by their late successes, fight much better than
we could have expected."
On the morning of the twenty-ninth, the whole country around Detroit was
covered by a sea of fog, the precursor of a hot and sultry day; but at
sunrise its surface began to heave and toss, and, parting at intervals,
disclosed the dark and burnished surface of the river; then lightly
rolling, fold upon fold, the mists melted rapidly away, the last remnant
clinging sluggishly along the margin of the forests. Now, for the first
time, the garrison could discern the approaching convoy.[244] Still they
remained in suspense, fearing lest it might have met the fate of the
former detachment; but a salute from the fort was answered by a swivel
from the boats, and at once all apprehension passed away. The convoy soon
reached a point in the river midway between the villages of the Wyandots
and the Pottawattamies. About a fortnight before, as we have seen, these
capricious savages had made a treaty of peace, which they now saw fit to
break, opening a hot fire upon the boats from either bank.[245] It was
answered by swivels and musketry; but before the short engagement was
over, fifteen of the English were killed or wounded. This danger passed,
boat after boat came to shore, and landed its men amid the cheers of the
garrison. The detachment was composed of soldiers from the 55th and 80th
Regiments, with twenty independent rangers, commanded by Major Rogers; and
as the barracks in the place were too small to receive them, they were all
quartered upon the inhabitants.
Scarcely were these arrangements made, when a great smoke was seen rising
from the Wyandot village across the river, and the inhabitants, apparently
in much consternation, were observed paddling down stream with their
household utensils, and even their dogs. It was supposed that they had
abandoned and burned their huts; but in truth, it was only an artifice of
these Indians, who had set fire to some old canoes and other refuse piled
in front of their village, after which the warriors, having concealed the
women and children, returned and lay in ambush among the bushes, hoping to
lure some of the English within reach of their guns. None of them,
however, fell into the snare.[246]
Captain Dalzell was the same officer who was the companion of Israel
Putnam in some of the most adventurous passages of that rough veteran's
life; but more recently he had acted as aide-de-camp to Sir Jeffrey
Amherst. On the day of his arrival, he had a conference with Gladwyn, at
the quarters of the latter, and strongly insisted that the time was come
when an irrecoverable blow might be struck at Pontiac. He requested
permission to march out on the following night, and attack the Indian
camp. Gladwyn, better acquainted with the position of affairs, and perhaps
more cautious by nature, was averse to the attempt; but Dalzell urged his
request so strenuously that the commandant yielded to his representations,
and gave a tardy consent.[247]
Pontiac had recently removed his camp from its old position near the mouth
of Parent's Creek, and was now posted several miles above, behind a great
marsh, which protected the Indian huts from the cannon of the vessel. On
the afternoon of the thirtieth, orders were issued and preparations made
for the meditated attack. Through the inexcusable carelessness of some of
the officers, the design became known to a few Canadians, the bad result
of which will appear in the sequel.
About two o'clock on the morning of the thirty-first of July, the gates
were thrown open in silence, and the detachment, two hundred and fifty in
number, passed noiselessly out. They filed two deep along the road, while
two large bateaux, each bearing a swivel on the bow, rowed up the river
abreast of them. Lieutenant Brown led the advance guard of twenty-five
men; the centre was commanded by Captain Gray, and the rear by Captain
Grant. The night was still, close, and sultry, and the men marched in
light undress. On their right was the dark and gleaming surface of the
river, with a margin of sand intervening, and on their left a succession
of Canadian houses, with barns, orchards, and cornfields, from whence the
clamorous barking of watch-dogs saluted them as they passed. The
inhabitants, roused from sleep, looked from the windows in astonishment
and alarm. An old man has told the writer how, when a child, he climbed on
the roof of his father's house, to look down on the glimmering bayonets,
and how, long after the troops had passed, their heavy and measured tramp
sounded from afar, through the still night. Thus the English moved forward
to the attack, little thinking that, behind houses and enclosures, Indian
scouts watched every yard of their progress--little suspecting that
Pontiac, apprised by the Canadians of their plan, had broken up his camp,
and was coming against them with all his warriors, armed and painted for
battle.
A mile and a half from the fort, Parent's Creek, ever since that night
called Bloody Run, descended through a wild and rough hollow, and entered
the Detroit amid a growth of rank grass and sedge. Only a few rods from
its mouth, the road crossed it by a narrow wooden bridge, not existing at
the present day. Just beyond this bridge, the land rose in abrupt ridges,
parallel to the stream. Along their summits were rude intrenchments made
by Pontiac to protect his camp, which had formerly occupied the ground
immediately beyond. Here, too, were many piles of firewood belonging to
the Canadians, besides strong picket fences, enclosing orchards and
gardens connected with the neighboring houses. Behind fences, wood-piles,
and intrenchments, crouched an unknown number of Indian warriors with
levelled guns. They lay silent as snakes, for now they could hear the
distant tramp of the approaching column.
The sky was overcast, and the night exceedingly dark. As the English drew
near the dangerous pass, they could discern the oft-mentioned house of
Meloche upon a rising ground to the left, while in front the bridge was
dimly visible, and the ridges beyond it seemed like a wall of
undistinguished blackness. They pushed rapidly forward, not wholly
unsuspicious of danger. The advance guard were half way over the bridge,
and the main body just entering upon it, when a horrible burst of yells
rose in their front, and the Indian guns blazed forth in a general
discharge. Half the advanced party were shot down; the appalled survivors
shrank back aghast. The confusion reached even the main body, and the
whole recoiled together; but Dalzell raised his clear voice above the din,
advanced to the front, rallied the men, and led them forward to the
attack.[248] Again the Indians poured in their volley, and again the
English hesitated; but Dalzell shouted from the van, and, in the madness
of mingled rage and fear, they charged at a run across the bridge and up
the heights beyond. Not an Indian was there to oppose them. In vain the
furious soldiers sought their enemy behind fences and intrenchments. The
active savages had fled; yet still their guns flashed thick through the
gloom, and their war-cry rose with undiminished clamor. The English pushed
forward amid the pitchy darkness, quite ignorant of their way, and soon
became involved in a maze of outhouses and enclosures. At every pause they
made, the retiring enemy would gather to renew the attack, firing back
hotly upon the front and flanks. To advance farther would be useless, and
the only alternative was to withdraw and wait for daylight. Captain Grant,
with his company, recrossed the bridge, and took up his station on the
road. The rest followed, a small party remaining to hold the enemy in
check while the dead and wounded were placed on board the two bateaux
which had rowed up to the bridge during the action. This task was
commenced amid a sharp fire from both sides; and before it was completed,
heavy volleys were heard from the rear, where Captain Grant was stationed.
A great force of Indians had fired upon him from the house of Meloche and
the neighboring orchards. Grant pushed up the hill, and drove them from
the orchards at the point of the bayonet--drove them, also, from the
house, and, entering it, found two Canadians within. These men told him
that the Indians were bent on cutting off the English from the fort, and
that they had gone in great numbers to occupy the houses which commanded
the road below.[249] It was now evident that instant retreat was
necessary; and the command being issued to that effect, the men fell back
into marching order, and slowly began their retrograde movement. Grant was
now in the van, and Dalzell at the rear. Some of the Indians followed,
keeping up a scattering and distant fire; and from time to time the rear
faced about, to throw back a volley of musketry at the pursuers. Having
proceeded in this manner for half a mile, they reached a point where,
close upon the right, were many barns and outhouses, with strong picket
fences. Behind these, and in a newly dug cellar close at hand, lay
concealed a great multitude of Indians. They suffered the advanced party
to pass unmolested; but when the centre and rear came opposite their
ambuscade, they raised a frightful yell, and poured a volley among them.
The men had well-nigh fallen into a panic. The river ran close on their
left, and the only avenue of escape lay along the road in front. Breaking
their ranks, they crowded upon one another in blind eagerness to escape
the storm of bullets; and but for the presence of Dalzell, the retreat
would have been turned into a flight. "The enemy," writes an officer who
was in the fight, "marked him for his extraordinary bravery;" and he had
already received two severe wounds. Yet his exertions did not slacken for
a moment. Some of the soldiers he rebuked, some he threatened, and some he
beat with the flat of his sword; till at length order was partially
restored, and the fire of the enemy returned with effect. Though it was
near daybreak, the dawn was obscured by a thick fog, and little could be
seen of the Indians, except the incessant flashes of their guns amid the
mist, while hundreds of voices, mingled in one appalling yell, confused
the faculties of the men, and drowned the shout of command. The enemy had
taken possession of a house, from the windows of which they fired down
upon the English. Major Rogers, with some of his provincial rangers, burst
the door with an axe, rushed in, and expelled them. Captain Gray was
ordered to dislodge a large party from behind some neighboring fences. He
charged them with his company, but fell, mortally wounded, in the
attempt.[250] They gave way, however; and now, the fire of the Indians
being much diminished, the retreat was resumed. No sooner had the men
faced about, than the savages came darting through the mist upon their
flank and rear, cutting down stragglers, and scalping the fallen. At a
little distance lay a sergeant of the 55th, helplessly wounded, raising
himself on his hands, and gazing with a look of despair after his retiring
comrades. The sight caught the eye of Dalzell. That gallant soldier, in
the true spirit of heroism, ran out, amid the firing, to rescue the
wounded man, when a shot struck him, and he fell dead. Few observed his
fate, and none durst turn back to recover his body. The detachment pressed
on, greatly harassed by the pursuing Indians. Their loss would have been
much more severe, had not Major Rogers taken possession of another house,
which commanded the road, and covered the retreat of the party.
He entered it with some of his own men, while many panic-stricken regulars
broke in after him, in their eagerness to gain a temporary shelter. The
house was a large and strong one, and the women of the neighborhood had
crowded into the cellar for refuge. While some of the soldiers looked in
blind terror for a place of concealment, others seized upon a keg of
whiskey in one of the rooms and quaffed the liquor with eager thirst;
while others, again, piled packs of furs, furniture, and all else within
their reach, against the windows, to serve as a barricade. Panting and
breathless, their faces moist with sweat and blackened with gunpowder,
they thrust their muskets through the openings, and fired out upon the
whooping assailants. At intervals, a bullet flew sharply whizzing through
a crevice, striking down a man, perchance, or rapping harmlessly against
the partitions. Old Campau, the master of the house, stood on a trap-door
to prevent the frightened soldiers from seeking shelter among the women in
the cellar. A ball grazed his gray head, and buried itself in the wall,
where a few years since it might still have been seen. The screams of the
half-stifled women below, the quavering war-whoops without, the shouts and
curses of the soldiers, mingled in a scene of clamorous confusion, and it
was long before the authority of Rogers could restore order.[251]
In the mean time, Captain Grant, with his advanced party, had moved
forward about half a mile, where he found some orchards and enclosures, by
means of which he could maintain himself until the centre and rear should
arrive. From this point he detached all the men he could spare to occupy
the houses below; and as soldiers soon began to come in from the rear, he
was enabled to re-enforce these detachments, until a complete line of
communication was established with the fort, and the retreat effectually
secured. Within an hour, the whole party had arrived, with the exception
of Rogers and his men, who were quite unable to come off, being besieged
in the house of Campau, by full two hundred Indians. The two armed bateaux
had gone down to the fort, laden with the dead and wounded. They now
returned, and, in obedience to an order from Grant, proceeded up the river
to a point opposite Campau's house, where they opened a fire of swivels,
which swept the ground above and below it, and completely scattered the
assailants. Rogers and his party now came out, and marched down the road,
to unite themselves with Grant. The two bateaux accompanied them closely,
and, by a constant fire, restrained the Indians from making an attack.
Scarcely had Rogers left the house at one door, when the enemy entered it
at another, to obtain the scalps from two or three corpses left behind.
Foremost of them all, a withered old squaw rushed in, with a shrill
scream, and, slashing open one of the dead bodies with her knife, scooped
up the blood between her hands, and quaffed it with a ferocious ecstasy.
Grant resumed his retreat as soon as Rogers had arrived, falling back from
house to house, joined in succession by the parties sent to garrison each.
The Indians, in great numbers, stood whooping and yelling, at a vain
distance, unable to make an attack, so well did Grant choose his
positions, and so steadily and coolly conduct the retreat. About eight
o'clock, after six hours of marching and combat, the detachment entered
once more within the sheltering palisades of Detroit.
In this action, the English lost fifty-nine men killed and wounded. The
loss of the Indians could not be ascertained, but it certainly did not
exceed fifteen or twenty. At the beginning of the fight, their numbers
were probably much inferior to those of the English; but fresh parties
were continually joining them, until seven or eight hundred warriors must
have been present.
The Ojibwas and Ottawas alone formed the ambuscade at the bridge, under
Pontiac's command; for the Wyandots and Pottawattamies came later to the
scene of action, crossing the river in their canoes, or passing round
through the woods behind the fort, to take part in the fray.[252]
In speaking of the fight of Bloody Bridge, an able writer in the Annual
Register for the year 1763 observes, with justice, that although in
European warfare it would be deemed a mere skirmish, yet in a conflict
with the American savages, it rises to the importance of a pitched battle;
since these people, being thinly scattered over a great extent of country,
are accustomed to conduct their warfare by detail, and never take the
field in any great force.
The Indians were greatly elated by their success. Runners were sent out
for several hundred miles, through the surrounding woods, to spread
tidings of the victory; and re-enforcements soon began to come in to swell
the force of Pontiac. "Fresh warriors," writes Gladwyn, "arrive almost
every day, and I believe that I shall soon be besieged by upwards of a
thousand." The English, on their part, were well prepared for resistance,
since the garrison now comprised more than three hundred effective men;
and no one entertained a doubt of their ultimate success in defending the
place. Day after day passed on; a few skirmishes took place, and a few men
were killed, but nothing worthy of notice occurred, until the night of the
fourth of September, at which time was achieved one of the most memorable
feats which the chronicles of that day can boast.
The schooner Gladwyn, the smaller of the two armed vessels so often
mentioned, had been sent down to Niagara with letters and despatches. She
was now returning, having on board Horst, her master, Jacobs, her mate,
and a crew of ten men, all of whom were provincials, besides six Iroquois
Indians, supposed to be friendly to the English. On the night of the
third, she entered the River Detroit; and in the morning the six Indians
asked to be set on shore, a request which was foolishly granted. They
disappeared in the woods, and probably reported to Pontiac's warriors the
small numbers of the crew. The vessel stood up the river until nightfall,
when, the wind failing, she was compelled to anchor about nine miles below
the fort. The men on board watched with anxious vigilance; and as night
came on, they listened to every sound which broke the stillness, from the
strange cry of the night-hawk, wheeling above their heads, to the bark of
the fox from the woods on shore. The night set in with darkness so
complete, that at the distance of a few rods nothing could be discerned.
Meantime, three hundred and fifty Indians, in their birch canoes, glided
silently down with the current, and were close upon the vessel before they
were seen. There was only time to fire a single cannon-shot among them,
before they were beneath her bows, and clambering up her sides, holding
their knives clinched fast between their teeth. The crew gave them a close
fire of musketry, without any effect; then, flinging down their guns, they
seized the spears and hatchets with which they were all provided, and met
the assailants with such furious energy and courage, that in the space of
two or three minutes they had killed and wounded more than twice their own
number. But the Indians were only checked for a moment. The master of the
vessel was killed, several of the crew were disabled, and the assailants
were leaping over the bulwarks, when Jacobs, the mate, called out to blow
up the schooner. This desperate command saved her and her crew. Some
Wyandots, who had gained the deck, caught the meaning of his words, and
gave the alarm to their companions. Instantly every Indian leaped
overboard in a panic, and the whole were seen diving and swimming off in
all directions, to escape the threatened explosion. The schooner was
cleared of her assailants, who did not dare to renew the attack; and on
the following morning she sailed for the fort, which she reached without
molestation. Six of her crew escaped unhurt. Of the remainder, two were
killed, and four seriously wounded, while the Indians had seven men killed
upon the spot, and nearly twenty wounded, of whom eight were known to have
died within a few days after. As the action was very brief, the fierceness
of the struggle is sufficiently apparent from the loss on both sides. "The
appearance of the men," says an eye-witness who saw them on their arrival,
"was enough to convince every one of their bravery; they being as bloody
as butchers, and their bayonets, spears, and cutlasses, blood to the
hilt." The survivors of the crew were afterwards rewarded as their courage
deserved.[253]
And now, taking leave, for a time, of the garrison of Detroit, whose
fortunes we have followed so long, we will turn to observe the progress of
events in a quarter of the wilderness yet more wild and remote.