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GEN. McINTOSH'S CAMPAIGN.

CHAPTER V.

GEN. McINTOSH'S CAMPAIGN.

In the spring of the year 1773, the government having sent a small force of regular troops, under the command of Gen. McIntosh, for the defense of the western frontier, the general with the regulars and militia from Fort Pitt, descended the Ohio River about thirty miles, and built Fort McIntosh, on the site of the present Beaver towns. This Fort was made with strong stockades, furnished with bastions and mounted with one 6-pounder. This station was well selected as a point for a small military force, always in readiness {typo corrected} to pursue or intercept any {typo corrected} war parties of Indians, who frequently made incursions into the settlements on the opposite side of the River in its immediate neighborhood. The Fort was well garrisoned and supplied with provisions during the summer.

Sometime in the fall of the same year, Gen. McIntosh received an order from the government to make a campaign {typo corrected} against the Sandusky towns. The order he attempted to obey with one thousand men; but owing to the delay in making necessary outfits for the expedition, the officer, on reaching Tuscarawa, thought it best to halt at that place, build and garrison a Fort, and delay the further prosecution of the campaign until the next spring. Accordingly they built Fort Laurens on the bank of the Tuscarawa River. Some time after the completion of the Fort, the general returned with the army to Fort Pitt, leaving Col. John Gibson with a command of one hundred and fifty men to protect the Fort until spring. The Indians were soon acquainted with the existence of the Fort, and soon convinced our people, by sad experience, of the bad policy of building and attempting to hold a Fort so far in advance of our settlements and other Forts.

The first annoyance the garrison received from the Indians was some time in the month of January. In the night time they caught most of the horses belonging to the Fort, and taking them off some distance in the woods, they took off their bells, and formed an ambuscade {typo corrected} by the side of the path leading through the high grass of a prairie at a little distance from the Fort. In the morning the Indians rattled the horse bells at the further end of the line of the ambuscade. The plan succeeded; a fatigue of sixteen men went out for the horses and fell in the snare. Fourteen were killed on the