Barrett’s Rangers At Bushy Run

It was a classic Frontier Partisan tactical maneuver — and it won a battle of great strategic significance. History has never given proper due to the Frontier Partisan Ranger who made it happen…

Warriors of the Shawnee, Delaware, and Mingo, along with a contingent from the Great Lakes, had ambushed a column marching toward Fort Pitt at the Forks of the Ohio in Western Pennsylvania on August 5, 1763. The column was led by a Swiss mercenary, Col. Henry Bouquet, serving the British Army as it tried to quell Pontiac’s Rebellion, a pan-Indian uprising against the newly established British control over the North American interior.

Many forts had fallen, their garrisons gruesomely killed. Fort Pitt held out, but it was cut off and in danger. If Fort Pitt fell, the Rebellion would gain further momentum and critical supply, and the entire Pennsylvania/Maryland/Virginia frontier would be exposed to violent raids.

So Bouquet led a relief force comprised largely of Scottish Highlander troops to lift the siege. He also had a contingent of American Rangers — because Bouquet had learned a thing or two about war in the wilderness. He wrote to the British commander in North America, General Jeffry Amherst:

“Without a Certain Number of Woodsmen, I cannot think it Advisable to employ regulars in the Woods against the Savages, as they cannot procure any intelligence and are open to Continual Surprises, nor can they Pursue at any distance their Enemy when they have Routed them.”

Bouquet had his Woodsmen — a small contingent of Rangers, mostly from Maryland and Virginia, recruited for the expedition by Captain Lemuel Barrett. Barrett is one of the multitude of Frontier Partisans whose moccasin tracks have nearly faded from history. Gary Zaboly sings his song in his new tome The Bushfighters: The Unsung Rangers, from Georgia to Nova Scotia, 1754-1764.

Barrett was an emigre from England who had originally lighted in New England and made his way to western Maryland. Somewhere along the way, he picked up woodsmanship skills significant enough to draw Bouquet’s attention. The contingent of men he recruited on behalf of the Swiss mercenary colonel was small, but composed of the best men in the western counties, men who had begun to adopt  the rifle and Indian dress and the Indian mode of fighting.

They could not prevent the ambush that hit Bouquet’s advance toward Fort Pitt on August 5 — but they did help keep it from becoming a disaster. They were instrumental in staving off the attack and allowing the British force to fall back into an improvised fortified camp for the night.

Then next morning, the warriors renewed their attacks, putting severe pressure on the British force, which was fatigued and lacking in water. Bouquet called his officers together for an impromptu council of war. It was there, Zaboly argues, that Barrett proposed a stratagem to defeat the woodland warriors — a stratagem that Bouquet readily agreed to.

It was a simple enough stratagem — but delicate to execute under fire. A portion of the Highlander troops, stripped to their waistcoats in the August heat, feigned retreat. The woodland warriors rushed in, thinking they had routed the British. But the troops, along with Barrett’s Rangers, maneuvered around and fell on the Indians’ flank. Startled and overwhelmed by superior numbers at the point of attack, it was the Indians who were routed. They fled the field, suffering significant casualties, including the Lenape War Captain Keekyuskung.

The Battle of Bushy Run was an important strategic victory for the Anglo-Americans. It lifted the siege of Fort Pitt, and damaged the morale of the loose confederacy of militants that the Odawa Pontiac and the Seneca Guyasuta had mobilized against the British Empire. Raiding would continue in western Pennsylvania through 1763-64, but there was no longer any question that the Anglo-American settlers would be able to hold the country. The victory at Bushy Run made Bouquets name — justifiably: he was the commander of the victorious force, and he had prevailed where many other leaders had met disaster. But He failed to credit Barrett, who goes unmentioned in Brtiish Army reports.

Zaboly offers three contemporary witnesses to events who credit Barrett with the salvation of Bouquet’s force — and call out the British Army for failing to acknowledge his contribution and that of his Rangers. James Smith, himself a Ranger leader, took umbrage at the omission:

“Had it not been for [Captain] Barrett Fort Pitt would have fallen into the hands of the enemy —when the British made their official report to England, the Virginians or [Captain] Barrett were not mentioned — it was stated that the Red-Coats had done all!”

In a matter of months, Smith would be leading his Rangers as the “Black Boys” in resistance to efforts to reestablish trade with the tribes of the Ohio Country. Perhaps the Barrett incident was the first catalyst for his belief that the British authorities were not aligned with the interests of the backcountry settlers…

The Bushfighters: The Unsung Rangers, from Georgia to Nova Scotia, 1754-1764 is crammed with such tales of unjustly forgotten Rangers who fought obscure battles in a long fight for mastery of North America’s first frontier.