100 DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [1763, Oct. 



object of the expedition ; for which, indeed, their 

 numbers were scarcely adequate.^ 



Within a few weeks after their return. Colonel 

 Armstrong, a veteran partisan of the French war, 

 raised three hundred men, the best in Cumberland 

 County, with a view to the effectual destruction of 

 the Susquehanna villages. Leaving their rendez- 

 vous at the crossings of the Juniata, about the first 

 of October, they arrived on the sixth at the Great 

 Island, high up the west branch. On or near this 

 island were situated the principal villages of the 

 enemy. But the Indians had vanished, abandon- 

 ing their houses, their cornfields, their stolen horses 

 and cattle, and the accumulated spoil of the settle- 

 ments. Leaving a detachment to burn the towns 

 and lay waste the fields, Armstrong, with the main 

 body of his men, followed close on the trail of the 

 fugitives ; and, pursuing them through a rugged and 

 difficult country, soon arrived at another village, 

 thirty miles above the former. His scouts informed 

 him that the place was full of Indians ; and his men, 

 forming a circle around it, rushed in upon the cabins 

 at a given signal. The Indians were gone, hav- 

 ing stolen away in such haste that the hominy 

 and bear's meat, prepared for their meal, were 

 found smoking upon their dishes of birch-bark. 

 Having burned the place to the ground, the 

 party returned to the Great Island; and, rejoining 

 their companions, descended the Susquehanna, 

 reaching Fort Augusta in a wretched condition, 



1 Penn. Gaz. No. 1811. 



