Source:Fleming-bouquet
George T. Fleming. "Henry Bouquet has place in history: Street name recalls intrepid soldier who gave block house: Victor at Bushy Run." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Mar. 21, 1915, sec. 5, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85418033.
IN THE preceding articles treating of the history of Pittsburgh as evolved from the names of actors in our history as commemocrated [sic] in our city streets, John Forbes and James Grant, Scotsmen, have been recently written of. We have Forbes and Grant streets to recall the history these two made.
We have also in cotemporeaneous [sic] service Lieut. Col. Henry Bouquet, subordinate to Forbes, superior to Grant. We have Bouquet street and Bouquet's block house.
It will not be denied that Bouquet's name is a household word in Pittsburgh, the city he helped to found, and which he preserved by his valor and military skill.
Hence, of all those who are mentioned in the history of the eventful times that put Pittsburgh in existence, Henry Bouquet can be regarded as the one most in the public's mind today.
Perhaps the statement should be amended to read—His name and fame are best known here and most often referred to. These from the fact that the blockhouse he built in 1764 within the outer walls of Fort Pitt is the only material relic of our colonial period, and the additional fact that we have also brought down his name to this generation in a street designation, Bouquet street in the Oakland district of the city, the street extending from Aliquippa street to Dawson street.
Spelling Changed.
However, the French form has been changed to Boquet. There is no warrant for this spelling. It is not found in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary as a variation of the English word meaning a nosegay.
Why the name has been changed by the dropping the "u" in the first syllable cannot be stated; perhaps on the score of looks, or as unnecessary, or as tending to correct pronunciation. It would seem a reasonable demand that in a commemorated name the spelling should conform to the cognomen as written by man himself.
But we have Boquet in our street nomenclature; notwithstanding we know it appears in the slab in his block house: "Coll. Bouquet."
And note also the abbreviation "Coll." Invariably this is set up "Col.," our modern abbreviation, and departing from the antique and verbatim record as chiseled by Bouquet's orders at the time.
Henry Bouquet was a soldier from his youth, a soldier of fortune; biographers usually designate such, "a military man."
Thomas Hutchins, a lieutenant in the garrison at the first Fort Pitt under Col. Hugh Mercer, was prominent in all the affairs about Fort Pitt. He became later celebrated as a topographer and died in Pittsburgh long after. He knew Bouquet intimately from associated service. Much of what we know of Bouquet has been handed down by Hutchins.
He tells us that Polle, Bouquet's birthplace, is in the Canton of Berne, and that his military service began in 1736 at the age of 17, in Italy.
Bouquet Made Ensign.
Two years later he was made an ensign and took service in another regiment in the army of the King of Sardinia, distinguishing himself as first lieutenant and afterward adjutant "in the skillful and memorable wars which that great prince sustained against the combined forces of France and Spain."
In 1748 Bouquet took service in Holland with the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Swiss Guards, a regiment formed at the Hague. His command was among those selected to receive from the French the fortresses in the low country which the French were bound to give up, and to conduct the return of the prisoners of war which France surrendered, to the republic of the Netherlands in conformity with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
In 1754, when the war broke out between France and England in America, the first acts of this war, the death of Jumonville and the capture of his scouting party by Washington, Bouquet was selected by the English to serve as an officer in their army in America and consented. Hutchins says:
His integrity and ability soon secured to him great confidence, especially in Pennsylvania and Virginia. He was respected by his troops, confided in by all who had a share in the interior government of the provinces; esteemed and beloved by all he had but to ask and he obtained all that was possible to afford him, because it was believed he had asked for nothing but what was necessary and proper and all that would be faithfully employed in the service of the King and the provinces.
This good understanding between the civil and military authorities contributed as much to his successes as his ability.
Fort Pitt Relieved.
Some biographers give the date of his arrival in America as 1756. His rank under Forbes we know to have been lieutenant colonel.
In 1763 Bouquet relieved the garrison at Fort Pitt besieged by the Indians under Pontiac's orders. Bouquet built the blockhouse here in 1764, and the same year made his expedition against the Western Indians, Shawanese, Delawares and Senecas, as far as the Muskingum River, compelling the Indians to give up their captives, some held for years, in all over 500, men, women, and children, English and French alike, and also some negroes, slaves from Virginia.
Bouquet was stern and resolute in his demands. He talked plainly to the chiefs and backed by his army he would remain until he got the captives or had punished the Indians for their perfidy and outrages.
The French, in America, he told them, were now subjects of the King of Great Britain and the Indians could no longer form offensive alliances with the French against the English colonies.
Bouquet, though stern, was magnanimous and tactful. The recovery of these captives was a notable performance.
Bouquet was prominent in the affairs of our region for upwards of seven years. We know that when the dying Forbes left the desolate scene about the ruined Fort Duquesne, Bouquet returned with him. The exact date that Forbes marched away from the place he had named Pittsburgh we do not know. We do know he arrived in Philadelphia January 17, 1759, and that the resolute and indomitable soldier died there March 11, 1759, and was interred in the chancel of Christ Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
Forbes left behind to garrison the post 280 men under Col. Hugh Mercer of Virginia, a fellow-countryman of Forbes. Mercer built the first fort called for Pitt. It was hastily constructed, for Mercer, writing under date of January 8, 1759, states that his small garrison was capable of some defense, though huddled up in a very hasty manner, the weather being extremely severe.
Officers at Fort Pitt.
Gen. Amherst, commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, seems to have had prompt information of Forbes' death, for the letter conveying that intelligence to Mercer was dated March 15, 1759. It announced also that Gen. John Stanwix had been appointed Forbes' successor.
In July, 1759, the officers in Mercer's command at Fort Pitt were Capts. Waggoner, Woodward, Prentice, Morgan, Smallman, Ward and Clayton; Lieuts. Matthews, Hydler, Biddle, Conrad, Kennedy, Sumner, Anderson, Hutchins, Dangerfield and Wright of the train; ensigns, Crawford and Morgan. Of these we have Pittsburgh streets named Mercer, Morgan, Smallman, Ward and Crawford.
Thomas Smallman was later a Revolutionary soldier, attaining the rank of major. He was a cousin of Edward Ward, in 1759 a captain, the same Ward who had been in command of the little party of 41 men constructing the first fort ever attempted at our Point, surprised there by Contracoeur, April 17, 1754, whence arose Fort Duquesne.
Smallman is entitled to more notice than can be herein given and his biography must be left open for another story.
It is a notable fact that in the renaming of our Pittsburgh streets after the annexation of the North Side none of the gallant officers above mentioned have been commemorated. There are streets bearing some of the above names, but they are of recent origin.
The first year of Fort Pitt was one of peril. In the summer of 1759 the little fort was threatened with a formidable descent of French and Indians from Venango, now Franklin.
Col. Mercer tells of it and how Fort Pitt escaped. By the fall of the French fort at Niagara, Venango was cut off and Pitt was saved; the chain of French forts was irretrievably broken. Greater security came to Pitt with the fall of Quebec and the crushing of the French power in America forever.
All these far-away operations concerned the new Pittsburgh. Stanwix seems to have come to Pittsburgh early in July, 1759, the elaborate and second Fort Pitt arose and Pittsburgh was safe for four years.
Return of Bouquet.
We have records of Bouquet's return here in 1760. To go into all the details of these years would require volumes of history. Only such as is sufficient for the purposes of this article can be mentioned. Bouquet was a ready letter-writer and left a mass of manuscripts which have been preserved in the British Museum and to which we owe much of our succinct history of the times. Parkman especially acknowledges access to these papers and admits their value. Other historians also.
July 22, 1760, the first census of Pittsburgh was taken by order of Bouquet.
April 17, 1761, a similar census was taken. At these times nearly all the male inhabitants of Pittsburgh were Indian traders. The total population at the first enumeration was 149. The second census gave the names of the house owners only. The houses were all log cabins.
Among the 149 were 24 women, 14 male children and 18 female.
In 1761 there were "43 outlying soldiers" with their families not enumerated.
In the first line we find the names of Ephraim Blaine, Andrew Biarly (Byerley), William Trent, Edward Ward and John Finley, all noted men of the border.
In the second we find William Clapham, subsequently killed by the Indians; John Ormsby and George Croghan.
We must pass over much of Bouquet's doings and come down to the siege of Fort Pitt by the Delawares and Shawanese, mainly in 1763, part of the gigantic and well-planned conspiracy of Pontiac, all thrilling history and ably and adequately written of by all historians, and especially in detail by Parkman.
Capt. Simon Ecuyer, a Swiss also, in command of the little garrison at the fore [sic] here, wrote to Bouquet June 2, 1763, giving the strength of the garrison as 250 men, as many regulars as militia.
Ecuyer kept a journal throughout the siege. It is most interesting reading. We learn from it that the siege began May 30. June 26 he wrote Bouquet that the garrison then consisted of "330 men—all counted, 104 women, 106 children; total 540 mouths, of which 420 receive the provisions of the king." Some mouths to feed under desperate and distressing conditions.
Days of Terror.
He who desires to go into the full accounts of these eventful days can readily find the books containing them in the libraries.
Let us turn to Bouquet and his relieving column on the way. While the siege of the fort was in progress war parties of the savages had devastated the whole country as far as the Susquehanna. By July 13, 19 people had been killed in the vicinity of Carlisle.
These were days of etrror [sic] unimaginab.el [sic] Boquet was the man of the hour.
He cannot wait for the few troops, 700, the Pennsylvania Assembly voted to raise. He set out escorted by the shattered remnant of the Royal Highlanders of the Forty-second or "Black Watch" regiment and some men from the Seventy-seventh Regiment, lately returned, we are told, in a dismal condition from the West Indies without having recovered from the fatigues of the siege of Havana.
With these brave but rundown men Bouquet hastened westward, employing them in a service that required men of the strongest constitution and vigor—men of iron.
July 25 Bouquet reached Bedford. The borders were aflame. The Indians had left a trail of horror for hundreds of miles. Bouquet had 460 men with their officers.
Fort Ligonier was reached August 2. Here, as at Bedford, 30 men were left as a garrison reinformcement.
Bushy run was reached on the 5th. This run is a branch of Brush creek, which is a branch of Turtle creek. The battle ground is about three miles north of Manor and 21 miles from Pittsburgh.
Bouquet was following the Forbes road that he had helped make five years previously. He had passed through a panic-stricken country, vacant houses, crops rotting in the fields, mountain roads blocked with despairing half-famished fugitives,—everywhere misery—desolation. Not a man more could Amherst furnish.
Bravery of Bouquet.
The intrepid Bouquet never hesitated. He knew the success of the campaign depended on him. He was everywhere and everything. He knew the enemy, their tactics; he knew they were watching him, falling back before him; he knew they were aware of his weakness, his lack of provisions, his fewness of scouts.
The silent, subtle foes that spied upon him knew that Braddock's slain in the forest a few miles to the West outnumbered Bouquet's whole force, and the Indians exulted that they had slain these men of England and they would slay again and in the same way. The blow would come soon and swiftly.
Bouquet knew it too. But there was to be no Braddock affair, no folly as on Grant's Hill in Pittsburgh.
On marched the toiling column. The inevitable battle-ground came hourly nearer. Behind them lay the Alleghenies, before them the fort beleagured [sic] by a foe who knew and gave no quarter.
It was fight—victory or death for all, some death with victory—annihilation without.
Around the battalion lay the forest hiding the ambushed foe. Solitude on all sides.
August 5, 17 miles had been made. It was 1 o'clock and the advance was halted a mile from Bushy Run, where the camp was to be pitched.
Suddenly a rifle shot rang out in front; in a moment a rattling volley. The decisive battle was on. The fate of Fort Pitt and Pittsburgh was at stake. Never moments of graver peril.
Boquet's inspired men fought with desperation; the combatants were even in numbers, but they were ill-matched by a cunning foe, a reckless, vaunting foe.
Night came and with it terror; the command was entirely surrounded; cries of the wounded rent the air, answered by the yells and war whoops of the savages. Not a drop of water in sight—so the wounded suffered and died, and day came and with it a deadly fire.
If ever a commander was to win with odds against him this was the occasion. It was plain it must be a decisive and bold stroke that would give victory.
Why proceed? We know how Bouquet won; how he feigned retreat in part and lured the foe from their coverts into the open; how he charged with the bayonet; how the retreating Indians were caught in the rear; how they fled, leaving the field covered with dead braves. One captive was taken—only to be riddled with English bullets. Revenge came, but with the los of 50 killed and 65 wounded, but Pitt was saved.
Victory Is Decisive.
Bushy Run alone entitles Bouquet to lasting fame. It was decisive and timely. Things had been going bad at Fort Pitt and with defeat for Bouquet the horrors of Indian warfare, begun on the borders, would have extended to the Delaware. They were the aftermath of Braddock's defeat, the harvest thereof sufficient of evil and more than enough in loss of human life, omitting any mention of munitions of war and the necessary impedimenta of an army, the baggage, and their supplies, precious stores in a wilderness, and the artillery.
Yet Bouquet at Bushy Run had no easy victory. It was a victory that not only saved Fort Pitt and maintained Pittsburgh, but it humiliated and disheartened the red foemen so that in 1764 Bouquet brought them to his terms.
Thanks are indeed due to the Daughters of the American Revolution for preserving Bouquet's blockhouse, the oldest work of man in or about Pittsburgh, and the last remaining vestige of British dominion in Western Pennsylvania.
Bouquet had been promoted to colonel in 1762. In 1765 King George III made him a brigadier general and commandant of the troops in all the southern colonies of British America.
Gallant, sturdy Bouquet! It is disheartening to learn that three years after his victory at Bushy Run he died at Pensacola, Fla., in the forty-seventh year of his age.
The question arises, have we of Pittsburgh fully honored Henry Bouquet, even in the misspelling that is carried in the name of a well-known street?
How about that commemorating monument at the Point? This is up to the Historical Commission of Pennsylvania, we hear in reply.
