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Armstrong led his men rapidly, but secretly, over mountain, and through forest, until, after a long and perilous march, they reached the Allegany. It was a moonlight night when they arrived in the neighborhood of Kittanning. They were guided to the village by whoops and yells, and the sound of the Indian drum. The warriors were celebrating their exploits by the triumphant scalp-dance.
The Indians had two headquarters for their raids into the province, one at Logstown on the Ohio a few miles below Fort Duquesne, and the other at Kittanning or, as the French called it, Attique, about forty miles northeast. At these two points they assembled their forces, received ammunition and supplies from the French, and organized their expeditions.
He lives at the Indian town of Kittanning, on the banks of the Allegheny, and he is upheld by the French from Fort Duquesne and Venango. They supply him with the munitions of war, and he makes of our lives a terror. Colonel Armstrong has been sent by the Governor to try to fall upon him unawares, and oust him from his vantage ground.
Three days after, they reached the Delaware village of Attiqué, at the site of Kittanning, whose twenty-two wigwams were all empty, the owners having fled. A little farther on, at an old abandoned village of Shawanoes, they found six English traders, whom they warned to begone, and return no more at their peril.
None took place; and they reached the settlements at last, having bought their success with the loss of seventeen killed and thirteen wounded. A medal was given to each officer, not by the Quaker-ridden Assembly, but by the city council of Philadelphia. A list of the Names of the Persons killed, wounded, and missing in the late Expedition against the Kittanning.
More satisfactory still, they released from captivity eleven prisoners, white men with women and children, who had been carried off at different times when others had been massacred. From these persons they learned that the Indians of Kittanning had often boasted that they had in the place a stock of ammunition sufficient to keep up a ten years' war with the English along the borders.
This has sometimes been sneered at as mere Quaker pacifism; but it was certainly successful in lessening the numbers and effectiveness of the enemy. The other undertaking was a military one, the famous attack upon Kittanning conducted by Colonel John Armstrong, an Ulsterman from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the first really aggressive officer the province had produced.
It was the first intention to start on the Alleghany at Kittanning, but on looking over the ground, Paul selected Oil City as the starting point, distant above Pittsburgh about one hundred and forty miles. There was great excitement at Oil City when it became known that Boyton had arrived and contemplated paddling down the river.
Guided by the sounds, they cautiously moved forward, till those in the front, scrambling down a rocky hill, found themselves on the banks of the Alleghany, about a hundred rods below Kittanning. The moon was near setting; but they could dimly see the town beyond a great intervening field of corn.
Here amid its leafy aisles ran the brown and red Kittanning Trail, the main route of the Pennsylvania traders from the rich region of York, Lancaster, and Chambersburg. On this general alignment the Broadway Limited flies today toward Pittsburgh and Chicago. A little to the south another important pathway from the same region led, by way of Carlisle, Bedford, and Ligonier, to the Ohio.
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