SOURCE OF ST. Peter's river. 29 



with great valour, was surrendered in the campaign which 

 preceded Braddock's defeat, (Marshall's Life of Washing- 

 ton, Vol. ii, p. 9,) and the remains of it still to be traced, 

 show that the ditch was inside of the embankment, which 

 comports better with Indian warfare.* The fort stands about 

 a quarter of a mile to the south-west of the road, and it is 

 difficult to trace its outline, but from the obsei^vations we 

 made, it would appear as if it had been triangular and 

 scarcely one hundred feet in length. It is said that when 

 Washington first entered it, his force amounted to six hun- 

 dred men, but that having advanced on his march towards 



• We are led to notice this fact more particularly, from the impor- 

 tance which Bishop Madison has attached to the circumstance of the 

 ditch being inside of the ramparts in most, or perhaps in all the Indian 

 remains, which are considered as fortifications. His opinion that these 

 works were not of a military nature, appears to us very far from being 

 proved. He quotes Livy and Polybius to show us, that in Roman works, 

 " the parapet or breastwork was formed of the earth dug out from the 

 fosse and thrown up on the side of the camp" — and he further asks, 

 *' whether the military art does not require that the ditch should be 

 exterior" We do not consider this to be the question at issue. We 

 have derived our notions of fortifications from the Romans, and we have 

 continued to this day, probably with propriety, to place the ditch out- 

 side of the rampart ; but this is no reason why works constructed by 

 the Indians for military purposes, may not have had it otherwise. If 

 we form our opinion of their notions of the military art, from the traces 

 still visible among the Indians, who, if they be not their lineal descen- 

 dants, have at least succeeded to them in the inhabitance of that coun- 

 try, (and it is more consistent to look to them than to the Romans in 

 this case,) we will find that their usual practice is, when apprehensive 

 of an attack from an enemy, to make a small excavation, by digging 

 up a little earth, which they uniformly throw out in the direction from 

 which they apprehend an attack, and then to descend into this hollow 

 where they find themselves sheltered from the missile weapons of 

 their enemies. (Vide a letter on the supposed fortifications of the 

 western country, from Bishop Madison of Virginia to Dr. Barton, Amer. 

 Phil. Trans, Vol, vi, i, p. 132.) 



