Fort Ligonier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fort Ligonier was a British fortification built during the French and Indian War as the staging area for the 1758 attack on France's Fort Duquesne. In addition to serving as a staging area for the assault, the fort provided refuge for local settlers. It never fell to the French and their allied Native Americans during the French and Indian Wars nor during Pontiac's War of 1763. Abandoned in March, 1766, the fort was completely reconstructed in 1954. The reconstructed fort is located at 216 South Market Street, Ligonier, Pennsylvania, 15658, northeast of the crossroads of routes 30 and 711.
[edit] Braddock's Campaign and Forbes's Road
After General Edward Braddock's campaign to take the forks of the Ohio River ended in disaster, General John Forbes was placed in command of a new expedition to capture the strategic point guarded by Fort Duquesne. Forbes vowed not to make the same mistakes as his predecessor.
Braddock had launched his campaign from western Maryland. His lines of supply and communication had been vulnerable. Forbes intended to launch a large invasion from eastern Pennsylvania by hacking a new pioneer wagon road over the Allegheny Mountains. His plan called for a string of forts and blockhouses to guard the supply road from hostile bands of Native Americans.
Fort Ligonier was the last in the string of these forts. General Forbes ordered British troops under the command of Colonel Henry Bouquet to build the fort. The site of Fort Ligonier was a Delaware Tribe village called Loyalhanna, which lay 50 miles from Fort Duquesne. The fort was eventually named Fort Ligonier in honor of Sir John Ligonier, commander-in-chief of the British Army.
[edit] Timeline of Fort Ligonier
- August 10, 1758—Col. Bouquet ordered Major James Grant to build the road from Bedford to Ligonier.
- August 15, 1758—Col. Bouquet sent Ensign Charles Rohr, engineer for Gen. Forbes, to the future site of Fort Ligonier to select a location for a storehouse there.
- August 20, 1758—Col. Bouquet sent Major Grant, Col. James Burd and 1500 men to the site to begin construction. Grant was in overall charge of the fort and men.
- August 21, 1758—Ensign Rohr picked the exact location for the fort.
- August 22, 1758—Col. Bouquet ordered Col. Burd's men and some artillerymen to build a 120-foot storehouse for supplies and a Hospital.
- August 27, 1758—Burd and Rhor reported of a much better site than Ligonier to build a fort. The site is located 9 miles to the west of Ligonier around the present-day Saint Vincent College area, 2 miles south of Latrobe, Pennsylvania at the mouth of Nine Mile Run. When told of the new site, Forbes directed that work continue on Fort Ligonier, since construction had already begun.
- August 29, 1758—Col. Burd and troops arrived at Fort Ligonier and built trenches around the fort.
- September 1, 1758—Bouquet sent 100 men to entrench the "Grants Paradise" location south of Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
- September 9, 1758—Major Grant left Fort Ligonier with troops and headed west to Fort Duquesne. He approached within 5 miles of Fort Duquesne before being beaten by the French in a surprise attack on September 14. Bouquet arrived at Fort Ligonier with troops and wrote to Sinclair about the conditions of the fort, area, and supplies, including wagons.
- October 12, 1758—While the fort was still under construction, the Battle of Fort Ligonier was fought; the four-hour assault resulted in a French defeat. The French forces attempted to attack again at nightfall, but were forced to retreat by mortar fire from the fort.
- November 12, 1758—The command of Colonel Forbes ran across another squad of De Vitri’s French troops lurking around Fort Ligonier. The British attacked, killing one and taking three prisoners. One of the prisoners turned out to be an Englishman who had been taken from his home in Lancaster county by anti-British Native Americans. His testimony concerning the weak condition of Fort Duquesne was corroborated by that of the French prisoners. Forbes therefore resolved to push forward to capture Fort Duquesne.
- November 12, 1758—Units led by George Washington (1st Virginia) and Lieutenant Colonel George Mercer (2nd Virginia) accidentally engaged each other in a heavy fog and at night. Two officers and 38 men are killed or wounded.
- November 1758—4,000 troops encamped at the fort, making Ligonier the second-largest community in Pennsylvania.
- November 25, 1758—Forbes captured Fort Duquesne.
- March 1766—Fort Ligonier was abandoned.
[edit] Sources and external links
- Fort Ligonier is at coordinates Coordinates:
- "The Frontier Forts of Western Pennsylvania," Albert, George Dallas, C. M. Busch, state printer, Harrisburg, 1896. Plan of the fort, pg. 208B.
- Geo-coordinates derived from Google Earth, based on a map showing the location of the fort.
- Fort Ligonier Association
- page on Fort Bedford
- William M. Fowler, Jr., Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763 (2005).[[Category:Forts in
