Battle of Bushy Run

On August 5 and 6, 1763, fighting broke out in western Pennsylvania at Bushy Run, pitting a column of British troops led by Colonel Henry Bouquet against a joined body of Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, and Huron fighters. The clash formed part of Pontiac's Rebellion. Although the British column endured heavy casualties, its soldiers ultimately drove off the native warriors and reached Fort Pitt in time to lift the siege on its garrison.

Battle

A column of 500 British troops set out from Carlisle, Pennsylvania in July 1763 with orders to break the siege at Fort Pitt. The relief force drew on three units: the 42nd Highlanders, the 60th Royal Americans, and the 77th Highlanders. Native scouts tracked Bouquet's men as they advanced west on Forbes Road and carried word of the approaching soldiers back to the warriors encircling Fort Pitt.

Around one in the afternoon on August 5, warriors from the besieging force struck the marching column near Edge Hill, a mile east of what would become known as Bushy Run Station. Through the afternoon and into evening the British troops refused to give ground, and only after darkness fell did their attackers pull back. Bouquet responded by having his men build a defensive redoubt atop Edge Hill, gathering the wounded soldiers and the animals within the protected center of their position.

Accounts of what followed the next morning differ somewhat. One version holds that the combined tribes launched their assault early in the day, only to be caught off guard themselves by sentries coming off night duty. This ambush from the flank, paired with a direct push from the main body of British troops, broke the numerically inferior Indian force, sending them into a chaotic withdrawal.

A different telling describes the warriors renewing their assault that morning with growing intensity, pressing hard against the British formation. As their confidence grew, Bouquet sensed the fighting had reached a turning point. He responded by weakening a portion of his own line on purpose, hoping to draw the attackers close enough to strike them down. The warriors noticed the apparent opening and surged toward it, but instead of finding weakness they met a volley fired directly at them followed by bayonets that inflicted severe losses. Those who survived broke and scattered, unable to regroup.

This version aligns with the account Richard Cannon set down in 1845 in his history of the 42nd Highlanders. According to Cannon, the regiment's colonel pulled back his outposts in a move that resembled retreat, leading the warriors to believe they had won and to abandon their cover in pursuit. Two companies of the 42nd Highlanders then struck them simultaneously from the front and the flank, throwing the exposed warriors into disorder and putting them to flight.

With his attackers scattered, Bouquet pushed his column onward to Bushy Run itself, roughly a mile further along Forbes Road, where much needed water awaited the exhausted men. Though the heaviest combat had actually unfolded at Edge Hill, it is the Bushy Run site that gave the engagement its lasting name. From there, Bouquet continued on to complete the relief of Fort Pitt.

Aftermath

Fifty British troops perished in the fighting, among them twenty-nine men of the 42nd Highlanders, seven from the 60th Royal Americans, six belonging to the 77th Highlanders, and eight who were civilians or volunteers. On the opposing side, the allied Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, and Huron warriors absorbed losses that remain uncertain, though two respected Delaware chiefs were among those killed. Observers at the time guessed the Indian dead numbered close to sixty in total. Killbuck, one of the warriors present, would later inform Sir William Johnson that the Indian force engaged had actually amounted to no more than 110 men. Bouquet himself judged that the enemy he faced was roughly equal in size to his own command. Another account from that era put Indian deaths at twenty, with a considerably larger number wounded.

News of this outcome brought what was described as widespread relief throughout the frontier among the British, marking as it did the first time the Indians had been beaten on ground of their own choosing. One newspaper seized on the moment to declare that Indians proved no more immune to defeat than any other men when confronted on equal terms, particularly by British soldiers.

Today the battlefield forms part of Bushy Run Battlefield Park.