Bushy Run - Pennsylvania Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

The marker reads: "Three miles to the south, at Bushy Run, an army under Col. Henry Bouquet defeated the Indians, Aug. 5-6, 1763. This raised the siege of Fort Pitt and opened the gateway for settlement of the West. It is now a State Park."

During the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the British made a deal with the Native Americans of the Ohio Country saying that if they sided with the British against the French, the British would guarantee the land for the natives. Settelers would be kept east of the Alleghenies. Of course, at the same time, colonial soldiers were being told that they would be granted land in the frontier in payment for their military service. Conflict was inevitable.

As soon as the Treaty of Paris ended the war, settlers began pouring into the frontier. And almost as quickly, the Native Americans began by raiding homesteads and forts from Michigan to the Alleghenies. The British army was completely unprepared to defend the thousands of individual homes scatters all over the frontier, relying on a number of strongholds in an attempt to control the land.

Fort Pitt, with a garrison of 330 men (and over 200 women and children inside), was attacked on June 22, 1763, primarily by Delaware Indians. Too strong to be taken by force, the fort was kept under siege throughout July. Meanwhile, Delaware and Shawnee war parties raided deep into the Pennsylvania settlements, taking captives and killing unknown numbers of men, women, and children who were living on what was Indian land a generation earlier. Panicked settlers fled eastwards.

For General Amherst, who before the war had dismissed the possibility that the Indians would offer any effective resistance to British rule, the military situation over the summer became increasingly grim. He wrote his subordinates and instructed that enemy Indian prisoners should "immediately be put to death". To Colonel Henry Bouquet at Lancaster, who was preparing to lead an expedition to relieve Fort Pitt, Amherst made the following proposal on about 29 June 1763: "Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them."

Bouquet agreed, writing to Amherst on 13 July 1763: "I will try to inoculate the bastards with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself."

As it turned out, however, officers at the besieged Fort Pitt had already attempted to do what Amherst and Bouquet were still discussing. During a parley at Fort Pitt on 24 June 1763, Captain Simeon Ecuyer (the commander at Fort Pitt) gave representatives of the besieging Delawares two blankets and a handkerchief that had been exposed to smallpox, in hopes of spreading the disease to the Indians in order to end the siege. While smalpox was contracted by natives, it is unclear if it was from this biological warfare attack or if the infection came from other sources. In either case, this attempt at genocide did not prevent the impending battle.

In July 1763, Bouquet's relief column of consisting of 500 British soldiers left Carlisle to lift the siege of Fort Pitt. On August 4, the column was ambushed by a large force of Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, and Huron 25 miles east of Fort Pitt. The British managed to hold their ground and, after the natives withdrew after sunset, Bouquet ordered a redoubt constructed on Edge Hill placing their wounded and livestock in the center of the perimeter.

The following morning, after the evening sentries were being relieved, the allied tribes attacked only to be ambushed themselves by relived sentries. As the tribal forces were flanked, the warriors fled in a disorganized retreat. With troops under Bouquet, the column dispersed the attackers before heading to Bushy Run, where there was badly needed water, about a mile from Edge Hill. Bouquet then marched to the relief of Fort Pitt. The battle had been costly with 50 British soldiers killed. The confederacy of the Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, and Huron also suffered an unknown number of casualties including two prominent Delaware chieftains.

Today, the two hills upon which this battle was fought are open fields with bordered with young woods with think undergrowth but 250 years ago, it was old growth forest with massive trees and clear lines of fire. This makes it difficult to reconcile the view you have each August when a few score recreationists reenact the battle in the park each August with what conditions must have been like at a thousand warrios and soldiers clashed two and a half centuries ago.

The Bushy Run Battlefield Museum is located at N40 21.533 W79 37.504. From this marker, Travel south on Rt66, turn right onto Rt993 and travel approximately 3 miles to the battlefield.

Marker Name: Bushy Run County: Westmoreland Date Dedicated: 12/10/1946 Marker Type: Roadside Location: Pa. 66 at Pittsburgh St. (old U.S. 22), Delmont Category: Military, French & Indian War Website: [Web Link]

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