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176 hundred slain lay scattered about the forests only seven miles away. Could another army come again? Little wonder that the Shawanese and Delawares were already flushed with victory as they renewed their unavailing attacks.

The task of relieving Fort Pitt was placed upon the tried shoulders of Colonel Henry Bouquet, whose brilliant services in Forbes's campaign have been fully described. Amherst, then commanding in America, sent him the remains of the Forty-second and Seventy-seventh regiments, which amounted to the pitiful total of three hundred and forty-seven men and officers; concerning additional troops Amherst was painfully plain: "Should the whole race of Indians take arms against us I can do no more." Recruits joined the army as it moved along through Lancaster and Carlisle, which augmented the force slightly.

But the brave Bouquet, with an army not exceeding five hundred men, set out westward from Bedford on the rough road he himself had made with the vanguard of the "Head of Iron" five years before.