Kittanning Expedition
Kittanning Expedition | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the French and Indian War | |||||||
Medal issued to commemorate Kittanning's destruction | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Pennsylvania | Lenape | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
John Armstrong Sr. | Captain Jacobs † | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
300 provincials | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
17 killed 13 wounded 19 missing[2] | 9 killed[2] |
The Kittanning Expedition, also known as the Armstrong Expedition or the Battle of Kittanning, was a raid during the French and Indian War that led to the destruction of the American Indian village of Kittanning, which had served as a staging point for attacks by Lenape warriors against colonists in the British Province of Pennsylvania. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Armstrong Sr., this raid deep into hostile territory was the only major expedition carried out by Pennsylvanian provincial troops during a brutal backcountry war. Early on September 8, 1756, they launched a surprise attack on the Indian village.
Background
Although it eventually became a worldwide conflict known as the
The French-allied Indians who had defeated General
Beginning about October 1755, Lenape and Shawnee war parties, often with French cooperation, began raiding settlements in Pennsylvania.
Captain Jacobs was on an expedition led by François Coulon de Villiers[8] that descended on Fort Granville (near present-day Lewistown) on the morning of August 2, 1756. The attackers were held off, but the garrison commander was killed, and his second in command surrendered the garrison, including the women and children, the next morning.[9] Armstrong, the commander's brother, immediately organized an expedition against Kittanning in response.[9]
Expedition
Armstrong led 300 Pennsylvania provincial soldiers from Fort Shirley on August 31. By September 7, the column had reached the vicinity of Kittanning. Signs of a small Indian camp prompted Colonel Armstrong to detach a dozen men under Lieutenant James Hogg to monitor it while the column moved on toward the village.[10] The next morning Armstrong launched a surprise attack on the village. Many of the Kittanning residents fled, but Captain Jacobs put up a defense, holing up with his wife and family inside their home. When he refused to surrender, his house and others were set on fire, touching off gunpowder that had been stored inside. Some buildings exploded, and pieces of Indian bodies flew high into the air and landed in a nearby cornfield.[11] Captain Jacobs was killed and scalped after jumping from his home in an attempt to escape the flames.
The battle ended when the entire village was engulfed in flames.[12] Prisoners informed Armstrong that a party of 24 men had left the day before in advance of another planned raid. This news caused Armstrong some concern over the fate of Lieutenant Hogg, so he precipitately ordered a withdrawal. They were met after several miles by a mortally wounded Hogg, who reported that his force had been attacked by a larger Indian force. Some of his men had immediately fled, and most of the rest had been killed.[12] Armstrong and his remaining force marched to Fort Lyttleton to rest.[13] By September 13, they had returned to Fort Loudoun.[14] According to Armstrong's report, he took 11 scalps and freed 11 prisoners, mostly women and children. He estimated that his men killed between 30 and 40 Indians.[12] Many of the white captives who were not rescued were ferried across the Allegheny River in canoes, then taken by foot over trails into Ohio, where they were assimilated into the tribes. Many were not rescued until Henry Bouquet brought them back from Ohio to Pennsylvania in 1764.
Aftermath
After the destruction of the town, many of its inhabitants returned and erected their wigwams on the ashes of their former homes.[15] The town was reoccupied briefly and two of the British prisoners who had attempted to escape with Armstrong's men were tortured to death.[16] The Indians then harvested their corn and moved to Fort Duquesne, where they requested permission from the French to resettle further to the west, away from the British colonists.[7] According to Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger, many of Kittanning's inhabitants moved to Saucunk, Kuskusky or Muskingum.[17]
Historian Fred Anderson notes that equivalent raids by Indians on Pennsylvania villages were usually labeled "
Notes
- ^ Historian Fred Anderson (Anderson, p. 163) apparently erroneously reports this event as occurring on August 8; other sources consistently place it in September.
- ^ a b Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Archived 2007-09-02 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Anderson, Fred. The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War. Penguin Publishing Group, 2006.
- ^ Cave, Alfred A. The French and Indian War. Greenwood Press, 2004.
- ^ Misencik, Paul R., Misencik, Sally E. American Indians of the Ohio Country in the 18th Century. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2020.
- ^ Ward, Matthew C. Breaking The Backcountry: Seven Years War In Virginia And Pennsylvania 1754–1765. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003.
- ^ a b William Albert Hunter, "Victory at Kittanning," Pennsylvania History, vol. 23, no. 3, July 1956; pp 376–407
- ^ Gilbert C. Din, "François Coulon de Villiers: More Light on an Illusive Historical Figure," Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 23, no. 3, 2000; pp 354–355
- ^ a b O'Meara, p. 174
- ^ Fisher, p. 10
- ^ Fisher, pp. 11-12
- ^ a b c Fischer, p. 12
- ^ Elsie Greathead, The History of Fulton County, Pennsylvania The Fulton County News, McConnellsburg PA, 1936
- ^ Fisher, p. 13
- ^ Chester Hale Sipe, "The Principal Indian Towns of Western Pennsylvania," Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, v. 13, no. 2; April 1, 1930; pp. 104–122
- ^ Alden, Timothy. "An Account of the Captivity of Hugh Gibson among The Delaware Indians of the Big Beaver and the Muskingum, from the latter part of July 1756, to the beginning of April, 1759." Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, volume 6 of the 3rd Series. Boston: American Stationers’ Company. 1837
- ^ Le Roy, Marie; Leininger, Barbara (1759). The Narrative of Marie le Roy and Barbara Leininger, for Three Years Captives Among the Indians. Translated by Rev. Edmund de Schweinitz – via The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography volume 29, 1905.
- ^ Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 163
- ^ Daniel P. Barr, "Victory at Kittanning? Reevaluating the Impact of Armstrong’s Raid on the Seven Years’ War in Pennsylvania," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. CXXXI, No. 1, January 2007, pp 5–32
- ^ a b Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 164
- ^ Hunter, Pennsylvania Frontier, pp. 405–410
- ^ McConnell, p. 126
See also
References
- Anderson, Fred (2000). Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. New York: Alfred Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40642-5.
- Crytzer, Brady J. War in the Peaceable Kingdom: The Kittanning Raid of 1756. Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2016.
- Fisher, John S (1927). "Colonel John Armstrong's Expedition against Kittanning". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 51 (1). Historical Society of Pennsylvania: 1–14. JSTOR 20086627.
- Hunter, William A. Forts on the Pennsylvania Frontier, 1753–1758. Originally published 1960; Wennawoods reprint, 1999.
- McConnell, Michael N. A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724–1774. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
- Myers, James P. "Pennsylvania's Awakening: the Kittanning Raid of 1756." Pennsylvania History 66 (Summer 1999), pp 399–420
- O'Meara, Walter (1965). Guns at the Forks. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. OCLC 21999143.
External links