COL. JOHN ARMSTRONG'S EXPEDITION AGAINST KITTANING--LIST OF THE KILLED
AND WOUNDED--DELAWARE CHIEFS, CAPTAIN JACOBS AND SHINGAS.
The following account of the famous expedition against the Indian town
of Kittaning we deem worthy of being recorded, not only because the
companies of Captains Potter and Steel belonged to the Juniata Valley,
but on account of its being an interesting detail of an important event
in the early settlement of the country.
The expedition was planned and carried out with great secresy, for the
sole purpose of punishing the Indians engaged in the Juniata Valley
massacres, and who it was known had their head-quarters at Kittaning,
where the chief instigators of all the mischief, Shingas and Captain
Jacobs, lived. The command was intrusted to Colonel John Armstrong, a
brave and prudent officer, and the forces consisted of seven companies.
He left Fort Shirley (Aughwick, Huntingdon county) on the 30th of
August, 1756, and on the 3d of September came up with the advanced
party at "Beaver Dams, a few miles from Frankstown, on the north branch
of the Juniata." This junction of the forces occurred on the flat where
Gaysport now stands, where the little army struck the celebrated trail
known as the Kittaning Path. In his official account of the expedition,
dated at Fort Littleton, September 14, 1756, Colonel Armstrong says:--
We were there [at the Beaver Dams] informed that some of our men,
having been out upon a scout, had discovered the tracks of two
Indians about three miles this side of the Alleghany Mountain and
but a few miles from the camp. From the freshness of the tracks,
their killing of a cub bear, and the marks of their fires, it
seemed evident they were not twenty-four hours before us, which
might be looked upon as a particular providence in our favor that
we were not discovered. Next morning we decamped, and in two days
came within fifty miles of the Kittaning. It was then adjudged
necessary to send some persons to reconnoitre the town, and to get
the best intelligence they could concerning the situation and
position of the enemy; whereupon an officer, with one of the pilots
and two soldiers, were sent off for that purpose. The day following
we met them on their return, and they informed us that the roads
were entirely clear of the enemy, and that they had the greatest
reason to believe they were not discovered; but from the rest of
the intelligence they gave it appeared they had not been nigh
enough the town, either to perceive the true situation of it, the
number of the enemy, or in what way it might most advantageously be
attacked. We continued our march, in order to get as near the town
as possible that night, so as to be able to attack it next morning
about daylight; but, to our great dissatisfaction, about nine or
ten o'clock at night one of our guides came and told us that he
perceived a fire by the road-side, at which he saw two or three
Indians, a few perches distant from our front; whereupon, with all
possible silence, I ordered the rear to retreat about one hundred
perches, in order to make way for the front, that we might consult
how we could best proceed without being discovered by the enemy.
Soon after, the pilot returned a second time, and assured us, from
the best observations he could make, there were not above three or
four Indians at the fire, on which it was proposed that we should
immediately surround and cut them off; but this was thought too
hazardous, for, if but one of the enemy had escaped, it would have
been the means of discovering the whole design; and the light of
the moon, on which depended our advantageously posting our men and
attacking the town, would not admit of our staying until the
Indians fell asleep; on which it was agreed to leave Lieutenant
Hogg, with twelve men and the person who first discovered the fire,
with orders to watch the enemy, but not to attack them, till break
of day, and then, if possible, to cut them off. It was also agreed
(we believing ourselves to be but about six miles from the town) to
leave the horses, many of them being tired, with what blankets and
other baggage we then had, and to take a circuit off the road,
which was very rough and incommodious on account of the stones and
fallen timber, in order to prevent our being heard by the enemy at
the fire place. This interruption much retarded our march, but a
still greater loss arose from the ignorance of our pilot, who
neither knew the true situation of the town nor the best paths that
led thereto; by which means, after crossing a number of hills and
valleys, our front reached the river Ohio [Alleghany] about one
hundred perches below the main body of the town, a little before
the setting of the moon, to which place, rather than by the pilot,
we were guided by the beating of the drum and the whooping of the
warriors at their dance. It then became us to make the best use of
the remaining moonlight; but, ere we were aware, an Indian whistled
in a very singular manner, about thirty perches from our front, in
the foot of a corn-field; upon which we immediately sat down, and,
after passing silence to the rear, I asked one Baker, a soldier,
who was our best assistant, whether that was not a signal to the
warriors of our approach. He answered "No," and said it was the
manner of a young fellow's calling a squaw after he had done his
dance, who accordingly kindled afire, cleaned his gun, and shot it
off before he went to sleep. All this time we were obliged to lie
quiet and lurk, till the moon was fairly set. Immediately after, a
number of fires appeared in different places in the corn-field, by
which Baker said the Indians lay, the night being warm, and that
these fires would immediately be out, as they were only designed to
disperse the gnats. By this time it was break of day, and the men,
having marched thirty miles, were mostly asleep. The time being
long, the three companies of the rear were not yet brought over the
last precipice. For these some proper hands were immediately
despatched; and the weary soldiers being roused to their feet, a
proper number, under sundry officers, were ordered to take the end
of the hill at which we then lay, and march along the top of the
said hill at least one hundred perches, and so much farther (it
then being daylight) as would carry them opposite the upper part,
or at least the body, of the town. For the lower part thereof and
the corn-field, presuming the warriors were there, I kept rather
the larger number of men, promising to postpone the attack in that
part for eighteen or twenty minutes, until the detachment along the
hill should have time to advance to the place assigned them--in
doing of which they were a little unfortunate. The time being
elapsed, the attack was begun in the corn-field, and the men, with
all expedition possible, despatched through the several parts
thereof, a party being also despatched to the houses, which were
then discovered by the light of the day. Captain Jacobs immediately
then gave the war-whoop, and, with sundry other Indians, as the
English prisoners afterward told, cried the white men were at last
come, they would then have scalps enough; but, at the same time,
ordered their squaws and children to flee to the woods. Our men,
with great eagerness, passed through and fired in the corn-field,
where they had several returns from the enemy, as they also had
from the opposite side of the river. Presently after, a brisk fire
began among the houses, which from the house of Captain Jacobs was
returned with a great deal of resolution, to which place I
immediately repaired, and found that from the advantage of the
house and portholes sundry of our people were wounded and some
killed; and, finding that returning the fire upon the house was
ineffectual, I ordered the contiguous houses to be set on fire,
which was performed by sundry of the officers and soldiers with a
great deal of activity, the Indians always firing whenever an
object presented itself, and seldom missing of wounding or killing
some of our people--from which house, in moving about to give the
necessary orders and directions, I received a wound with a large
musket-ball in the shoulders. Sundry persons, during the action,
were ordered to tell the Indians to surrender themselves prisoners,
but one of the Indians in particular answered and said he was a
man, and would not be a prisoner; upon which he was told, in
Indian, he would be burnt. To this he answered he did not care, for
he would kill four or five before he died; and, had we not desisted
from exposing ourselves, they would have killed a great many more,
they having a number of loaded guns by them. As the fire began to
approach and the smoke grew thick, one of the Indian fellows, to
show his manhood, began to sing. A squaw in the same house, and at
the same time, was heard to cry and make a noise, but for so doing
was severely rebuked by the man; but by-and-by, the fire being too
hot for them, two Indian fellows and a squaw sprang out and made
for the corn-field, who were immediately shot down by our people
then surrounding the houses. It was thought Captain Jacobs tumbled
himself out at a garret or cockloft window at which he was
shot--our prisoners offering to be qualified to the powder-horn and
pouch there taken off him, which they say he had lately got from a
French officer in exchange for Lieutenant Armstrong's boots, which
he carried from Fort Granville, where the lieutenant was killed.
The same prisoners say they are perfectly assured of his scalp, as
no other Indians there wore their hair in the same manner. They
also say they know his squaw's scalp by a particular _bob_,
and also know the scalp of a young Indian called the King's Son.
Before this time, Captain Hugh Mercer, who, early in the action,
was wounded in the arm, had been taken to the top of a hill above
the town,--to whom a number of the men and some of the officers
were gathered, from whence they had discovered some Indians pass
the river and take the hill, with an intention, as they thought, to
surround us and cut off our retreat, from whom I had sundry
pressing messages to leave the houses and retreat to the hills, or
we should all be cut off. But to this I would by no means consent
until all the houses were set on fire. Though our spreading upon
the hills appeared very necessary, yet did it prevent our
researches of the corn-field and river-side, by which means sundry
scalps were left behind, and doubtless some squaws, children, and
English prisoners, that otherwise might have been got. During the
burning of the houses, which were near thirty in number, we were
agreeably entertained with a quick succession of charged guns
gradually firing off as reached by the fire, but much more so with
the vast explosion of sundry bags and large kegs of gunpowder,
wherewith almost every house abounded; the prisoners afterward
informing us that the Indians had frequently said they had a
sufficient stock of ammunition for ten years' war with the English.
With the roof of Captain Jacobs's house, when the powder blew up,
was thrown the leg and thigh of an Indian, with a child of three or
four years old, to such a height that they appeared as nothing, and
fell in an adjoining corn-field. There was also a great quantity of
goods burnt, which the Indians had received in a present but ten
days before from the French. By this time I had proceeded to the
hill, to have my wound tied up and the blood stopped, where the
prisoners which in the morning had come to our people informed me
that that very day two bateaux of Frenchmen, with a large party of
Delaware and French Indians, were to join Captain Jacobs at the
Kittaning, and to set out early the next morning to take Fort
Shirley, or, as they called it, George Crogan's Fort; and that
twenty-four warriors, who had lately come to the town, were set out
the evening before, for what purpose they did not know,--whether to
prepare meat, to spy the fort, or to make an attack on some of our
back inhabitants. Soon after, upon a little reflection, we were
convinced these warriors were all at the fire we had discovered but
the night before, and began to doubt the fate of Lieutenant Hogg
and his party. From this intelligence of the prisoners,--our
provisions being scaffolded some thirty miles back, except what
were in the men's haversacks, which were left, with the horses and
blankets, with Lieutenant Hogg and his party,--and having a number
of wounded people then on hand, by the advice of the officers it
was thought imprudent then to wait for the cutting down the
corn-field, (which was before designed,) but immediately to collect
our wounded and force our march back in the best manner we could;
which we did, by collecting a few Indian horses to carry off our
wounded. From the apprehension of being waylaid and surrounded,
(especially by some of the woodsmen,) it was difficult to keep the
men together, our march, for sundry miles, not exceeding two miles
an hour; which apprehensions were heightened by the attempt of a
few Indians, who, for some time after the march, fired upon each
wing and immediately ran off; from whom we received no other damage
but one of our men being wounded through both legs. Captain
Mercer--being wounded, was induced, as we have every reason to
believe, by some of his men, to leave the main body, with his
ensign, John Scott, and ten or twelve men, they being heard to tell
him that we were in great danger, and that they could take him into
the road a nigh way--is probably lost, there being yet no account
of him, and the most of the men come in. A detachment was sent back
to bring him, but could not find him; and upon the return of the
detachment it was generally reported he was seen, with the above
number of men, to take a different road. Upon our return to the
place where the Indian fire had been discovered the night before,
we met with a sergeant of Captain Mercer's company, and two or
three other of his men, who had deserted us that morning,
immediately after the action at the Kittaning. These men, on
running away, had met with Lieutenant Hogg, who lay wounded in two
different parts of his body by the road-side. He there told them of
the fatal mistake of the pilot, who had assured us there were but
three Indians, at the most, at the fire place; but when he came to
attack them that morning, according to orders, he found a number
considerably superior to his, and believes they killed or mortally
wounded three of them the first fire, after which a warm engagement
began, and continued for above an hour, when three of his best men
were killed and himself twice wounded. The residue fleeing off, he
was obliged to squat in a thicket, where he might have lain
securely until the main body had come up, if this cowardly sergeant
and others that fled with him had not taken him away.
They had marched but a short space when four Indians appeared, on
which these deserters began to flee. The lieutenant then,
notwithstanding his wounds, as a brave soldier, urged and commanded
them to stand and fight, which they all refused. The Indians
pursued, killing one man and wounding the lieutenant a third time,
through the belly, of which he died in a few hours, but, having
some time before been put on horseback, rode some miles from the
place of action. This last attack of the Indians upon Lieutenant
Hogg and the deserters was by the before-mentioned sergeant
represented to us quite in a different light, he telling us that
there was a far larger number of the Indians there than appeared to
them, and that he and the men with him had fought five rounds; that
he had there seen the lieutenant and sundry others killed and
scalped, and had also discovered a number of Indians throwing
themselves before us, and insinuated a great deal of such stuff as
threw us into much confusion; so that the officers had a great deal
to do to keep the men together, but could not prevail upon them to
collect what horses and other baggage the Indians had left after
the conquest of Lieutenant Hogg and the party under his command in
the morning, except a few of the horses, which some of the bravest
of the men were prevailed on to collect; so that from the mistake
of the pilot who spied the Indians at the fire, and the cowardice
of the said sergeant and other deserters, we here sustained a
considerable loss of our horses and baggage. It is impossible to
ascertain the exact number of the enemy killed in the action, as
some were destroyed by fire, and others in different parts of the
corn-field; but, upon a moderate computation, it is generally
believed there cannot be less than thirty or forty killed and
mortally wounded, as much blood was found in sundry parts of the
corn-field, and Indians seen in several places crawl into the woods
on hands and feet,--whom the soldiers in pursuit of others then
overlooked, expecting to find and scalp them afterward,--and also
several killed and wounded in crossing the river. On beginning our
march back, we had about a dozen of scalps and eleven English
prisoners; but now we find that four or five of the scalps are
missing, part of which were lost on the road, and part in
possession of those men who, with Captain Mercer, separated from
the main body, with whom went also four of the prisoners, the other
seven being now at this place, where we arrived on Sunday night,
not being separated or attacked through our whole march by the
enemy, though we expected it every day. Upon the whole, had our
pilots understood the true situation of the town and the paths
leading to it, so as to have posted us at a convenient place where
the disposition of the men and the duty assigned to them could have
been performed with greater advantage, we had, by divine
assistance, destroyed a much greater number of the enemy, recovered
more prisoners, and sustained less damage, than what we at present
have. But though the advantage gained over this our common enemy is
far from being satisfactory to us, yet we must not despise the
smallest degrees of success that God is pleased to give, especially
at a time of such general calamity, when the attempts of our
enemies have been so prevalent and successful. I am sure there was
the greatest inclination to do more, had it been in our power, as
the officers and most of the soldiers, throughout the whole action,
exerted themselves with as much activity and resolution as could be
expected. Our prisoners inform us the Indians have for some time
past talked of fortifying at the Kittaning and other towns.
The following is a list of the killed and wounded, returned in Colonel
Armstrong's official report of the expedition:--
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOHN ARMSTRONG'S COMPANY.--_Killed_--Thomas Power,
John M'Cormick. _Wounded_--Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong, James
Caruthers, James Strickland, Thomas Foster.
CAPTAIN HAMILTON'S COMPANY.--_Killed_--John Kelly.
CAPTAIN MERCER'S COMPANY.--_Killed_--John Baker, John McCartney,
Patrick Mullen, Cornelius McGinnis, Theophilus Thompson, Dennis
Kilpatrick, Bryan Carrigan. _Wounded_--Richard Fitzgibbons.
_Missing_--Captain Hugh Mercer, Ensign John Scott, Emanuel Minskey,
John Taylor, John Francis Phillips, Robert Morrow, Thomas Burk, Philip
Pendergrass.
CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG'S COMPANY.--_Killed_--Lieutenant James Hogg, James
Anderson, Holdcraft Stringer, Edward Obrians, James Higgins, John
Lasson. _Wounded_--William Findley, Robert Robinson, John Ferrol,
Thomas Camplin, Charles O'Neal. _Missing_--John Lewis, William Hunter,
William Barker, George Appleby, Anthony Grissy, Thomas Swan.
CAPTAIN WARD'S COMPANY.--_Killed_--William Welch. _Wounded_--Ephraim
Bratton. _Missing_--Patrick Myers, Lawrence Donnahow, Samuel Chambers.
CAPTAIN POTTER'S COMPANY.--_Wounded_--Ensign James Potter, Andrew
Douglass.
CAPTAIN STEEL'S COMPANY.--_Missing_--Terence Cannaherry.
Total killed, 17; wounded, 13; missing, 19. All the missing, with one
or two exceptions, reached their homes, and nearly all of the wounded
recovered.
The loss on the part of the colonists was severe, when we consider
that they had three hundred and fifty men engaged in the action, while
the Indian force did not consist of over one hundred warriors. The
ignorance of the pilot, and the great error of some of the officers in
persisting in trying to dislodge the enemy from the houses by discharge
of fire-arms, was no doubt the direct cause of the death of many of the
brave men; for all must admit that the expedition was well planned, and
admirably carried out, as far as circumstances would permit.
In speaking of the horrible Indian massacres which followed the defeat
of Braddock, Drake, in his Indian history, says:--
Shingas and Captain Jacobs were supposed to have been the principal
instigators of them, and a reward of seven hundred dollars was
offered for their heads. It was at this period that the dead bodies
of some of the murdered and mangled were sent from the frontiers to
Philadelphia, and hauled about the streets, to inflame the people
against the Indians, and also against the Quakers, to whose mild
forbearance was attributed a laxity in sending out troops. The mob
surrounded the House of Assembly, having placed the dead bodies at
its entrance, and demanded immediate succor. At this time, the
above reward was offered.
King Shingas, as he was called by the whites, (who is noticed in the
preceding paragraph,) but whose proper name was _Shingask_, which
is interpreted _Bog-meadow_, was the greatest Delaware warrior at
that time. Heckwelder, who knew him personally, says, "Were his war
exploits all on record, they would form an interesting document, though
a shocking one." Conococheague, Big Cove, Sherman's Valley, and other
settlements along the frontier, felt his strong arm sufficiently to
attest that he was a "bloody warrior,"--cruel his treatment, relentless
his fury. His person was small, but in point of courage, activity, and
savage prowess, he was said to have never been exceeded by any one. In
1753, when Washington was on his expedition to fight the French on the
Ohio, (Alleghany,) Shingas had his house at Kittaning.
King Shingas was at Fort Duquesne when Lieutenant Armstrong destroyed
Kittaning; but there is no doubt whatever that Captain Jacobs fell in
the engagement, notwithstanding Hans Hamilton, in a letter to the
council, dated at Fort Lyttleton, April 4, 1756, said, "Indian Isaac
hath brought in the scalp of Captain Jacobs." This Indian Isaac
claimed, and we believe received, the reward offered for killing and
scalping Captain Jacobs, and yet Captain Jacobs lived to do a great
deal of mischief before his scalp fell into the hands of the English
colonists.
Not only was Captain Jacobs a great warrior, but it would appear that
all his family connections were Indians of note. In a letter from
Colonel Stephen to Colonel Armstrong, it is stated, on the authority of
a returned captive from Muskingum, that
A son of Captain Jacobs is killed, and a cousin of his, about seven
foot high, called Young Jacob, at the destroying of Kittaning, and
it is thought a noted warrior by the name of The Sunfish, as many
of them were killed that we know nothing of.
There is no doubt that Armstrong's return did not embrace half the
actual loss of the enemy, including women and children; but it was a
mistake in Stephen or his informant to include the warrior Sunfish
among the slain, for he was a hale old chief in 1781.