ar the way for the
main body of the troops. A column of British regulars, two deep, marched
in the center with a file of regulars on their right, and a file of
Pennsylvanian recruits on their left.

Two platoons of regulars came after these; then came a battalion of
Pennsylvanians in single file on the right and left, and between them
the convoy, with the ammunition and tools first, then the officers'
baggage and tents, then the sheep and oxen in separate droves for the
subsistence of the army, then the pack horses with other provisions.
A party of light horsemen followed, and last of all another body of
Virginians brought up the rear. The men marched in silence, six feet
from one another, ready, if any part of the force halted, to face
outward, and prepare to meet an attack.

The Indians hung upon Bouquet's march in large numbers at first, but
when they saw the perfect order and discipline of his army, and the
knowledge of their own tactics which he showed in disposing his men,
they fell away, and he kept his course unmolested, so that in two weeks
he reached a point in the Ohio country which he could now reach in two
hours, if he took rail from Pittsburg direct. But the wonder is for
what he did then, and not for what he could do now. His two weeks' march
through the wilderness was a victory such as had never been achieved
before, and it moved the imagination of the Indians more than if he had
fought them the whole way.

His quiet firmness in establishing his force in the heart of their
country, where they had gathered the strength of their tribes from all
the outlying regions, must have affected them still more. At the first
halt he made on the Muskingum, they sent some of their chiefs to parley
with him, but he gave them short and stern answers, bidding them be
ready to bring in their captives from every tribe and family; and again
took up his march along the river till he reached the point where the
Tuscarawas and Waldhonding meet to form the Muskingum. There his axmen
cleared a space in the forest, and his troops built a town, rather than
pitched a camp. They put up four redoubts, one at each corner of the
town, and fortified it with a strong stockade. Within this they built a
council house, where the Indians could come and make speeches to
their hearts' content, and deliver up their captives. Three separate
buildings, one for the captives from each of the colonies, with the
officers' quarters, the soldiers' ca