FROM CARLISLE TO THE OHIO 247 



The first French fort, which was only a stockade 

 and stood directly in the angle between the rivers, has 

 long since fallen to ruin. Under the English govern- 

 ment a spacious work of five bastions, with wall and 

 moat, was begun, but was not yet finished when the 

 last British garrison came away in the year 1774. At 

 that time peace had long prevailed with all the Indian 

 nations ; hence this and other fortified places, on the 

 Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, and the Mississippi, 

 were regarded as useless and the garrisons withdrawn. 

 The Americans, to whom this fort was very opportune 

 in the last war, have been at no further cost in its 

 equipment, but on account of the Indians have always 

 kept a garrison there, which just at this time is on the 

 point of being taken away. From its situation the fort 

 can be serviceable only against the Indians ; for it can 

 be quite commanded from several neighboring hills, 

 but especially from a high hill standing above the fort 

 on the other side of the Monongahela, at this point only 

 some 1 200 ft. wide ; and it is even said that the Indians 

 have shot their arrows from this hill quite into the fort. 



Another, smaller fort stood 30 miles below at Mac- 

 intosh, and still another at Wheeling. The garrisons 

 maintained there helped to support this place and even 

 enlivened it, for during the war there were balls, plays, 

 concerts, and comedies here, 400 miles west of the 

 ocean. Therefore the Pittsburg ladies cannot but be- 

 hold with troubled hearts the withdrawal of so many 

 fine gentlemen, and the cessation of so many diversions. 



The Alleghany and Monongahela come together al- 

 most at a right angle. The point of land between them 

 is a sand-hill built up by their alluvion, and containing 

 polished pebbles, with the same reddish sand as that 



