Chapter 15

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.
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.  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.  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.  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.

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.

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.  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.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.  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.

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.

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.

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.