Washington Answers the Pioneer's Plea

In 1779 George Washington answered the frontier farmer's desperate plea for aid, resolving to accomplish, "the total destruction and devastation of the Iroquois camps."

Washington called on General John Sullivan and an army of 2500 from eastern Pennsylvania.  They made camp at Tioga Point on the New York- Pennsylvania border.  He was to await a second force of 1500 under General James Clinton.  Clinton would move from the Mohawk Valley southwest along the Susquehanna River.  When the two joined, they would drive deep into Iroquois country.

After many delays, the combined American force began moving west.  After only 12 miles,  the entrenched Tory-Indian force near Newton, New York challenged them.  After defeating them, the rest of the American campaign was more pillage than combat.  Forty Iroquois towns were destroyed, along with 160,000 bushels of corn, crops of vegetables and acres of apple, peach and pear orchards.

Although the Iroquois country was a smoking ruin, Sullivan made a serious error.  Assuming he had beat the Iroquois, he failed to push on and destroy the British supply base at Niagara on Lake Ontario.  Stripped on their possessions and homes (but not their will to fight), the Indians provisioned and armed themselves.  For the next two years, they joined the Tories.

Meanwhile another large chunk of western wilderness fell to the patriots. In  1778-1779 a small force of Kentucky sharpshooters led by George Rogers Clark fought the British in the Ohio Valley region.

Next time.. we'll look at Mr. Clark
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On this Day in Pioneer History: On October 8, 1871, flames spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, igniting a two-day blaze that kills between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings, leaves 100,000 homeless and causes an estimated $200 million. ($4 billion in today's dollars)

Early George Washington Against the French

In 1754 colonials were wending their way west through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachians.  Mostly traders, they were determined to challenge the French monopoly of the fur business. Other settlers were farmers who hoped to find in the western wilderness free land on which to start prosperous lives.  ALL were trespassing on territory that France claimed as its own.

In 1753, Virginia's governor, Robert Dinwiddie, with strong personal interest in the wilderness fur trading and land speculation, sent the young George Washington into the Ohio Valley to warn away the French.  Washington reported, "That it is their Absolute Design to take possession of the Ohio and by God, they would do it."

Dinwiddlie again sent Washington west, this second time in command of 150 militiamen to oust the French by force, if necessary.  The well-prepared French turned back Washington's troops. 

Again in 1755, on a far grander scale, an over confident General William Braddock, ignored
Washington's warnings and marched 1200 men directly into a French and Indian trap in a Pennsylvania forest clearing near Fort Duquesne (where Pittsburgh now stands). Washington was Braddock's aide and almost lost his life.  He recorded, "four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me."

The British learned a valuable lesson.  Never again would they march blindly into an ambush.  Two-thirds of the British lost their lives.  Braddock died from his wounds. 

Three years later a new British commander, General John Forbes cautiously led a force of 1700 British regulars plus 5000 colonials against Fort Duquesne.  With Washington at his side, going down what became known as Forbes Road, they repelled a French and Indian assault on October 12, 1758.  The French abandoned Fort Duquesne, and on November 25, it was renamed Fort Pitt by the British.

Next time...meanwhile back in Mohawk country
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Today in Pioneer History: On September 10, 1776, General George Washington asks for a volunteer for an extremely dangerous mission: to gather intelligence behind enemy lines before the coming Battle of Harlem Heights. Captain Nathan Hale of the 19th Regiment of the Continental Army stepped forward and subsequently become one of the first known American spy of the Revolutionary War.