Raid
Armstrong led 300 Pennsylvania militiamen 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. 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. 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. 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. By September 13, Armstrong and his remaining force had returned to Fort Lowden.
According to Armstrong's report, he took 11 scalps and freed 11 prisoners. He estimated that his men killed between 30 and 40 Indians.
Read more about this topic: Kittanning Expedition
Famous quotes containing the word raid:
“Each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“John Brown and Giuseppe Garibaldi were contemporaries not solely in the matter of time; their endeavors as liberators link their names where other likeness is absent; and the peaks of their careers were reached almost simultaneously: the Harper’s Ferry Raid occurred in 1859, the raid on Sicily in the following year. Both events, however differing in character, were equally quixotic.”
—John Cournos (1881–1956)