General Edward Hand Starts on Expedition from Fort Pitt to Wheeling, October 19,1777

During the winter of 1776 and the following spring the agents of Great Britain had been very active in organizing Indian uprisings along the frontiers as a part of the general campaign for the subjugation of the rebellious colonists.

Continental Congress decided to take charge of the defense of the colonists, especially those in the western part of the State, where the Indians had been more active and where the settlers had been afforded less protection from the State and Colonial governments.

The first move by Congress was a decision to take Fort Pitt under its care and provide an adequate garrison at the Continental expense. The offer was accepted by Virginia, which colony then claimed the western part of Pennsylvania as its territory, and Captain John Neville 729was directed to transfer the fort to the United States officer appointed to its command.

General Washington selected Brigadier General Edward Hand, of Lancaster, for this important service. The brave and efficient work of this distinguished officer led the commander-in-chief to believe that he would be an able defender of the border, but fighting British and Hessians along the seaboard and Indians in the woods are two quite different propositions, as General Hand soon discovered.

General Hand was no stranger at Fort Pitt, but during his former service there he had no experience in fighting Indians.

He was a native of Ireland and educated to be a physician. At the age of twenty-three years he was commissioned as assistant surgeon in the Eighteenth Regiment of Foot, known as the Royal Irish, and in the spring of 1767 he accompanied the command to America.

He was stationed for a time in the Illinois country and afterward at Fort Pitt. In 1774 he resigned his commission and took up the practice of medicine in Lancaster, Pa.

Soon after the news of Lexington and Concord he interested himself in raising troops for the cause of the colonists and was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of Thompson’s celebrated regiment of Pennsylvania riflemen, afterward the First Regiment of the Pennsylvania Line.

In March, 1776, Hand succeeded as colonel and under his command the regiment did gallant work in the battles of Long Island, Trenton and Princeton.

On April 1, 1777, Hand was rewarded for his really exceptional services by promotion to the rank of brigadier general and soon thereafter General Washington further evinced his appreciation and confidence by assigning General Hand, then only thirty-three years old, to the defense of the western frontier.

General Hand arrived at Fort Pitt Sunday, June 1, 1777, and took over the property from Captain Neville. He led no forces across the mountains, being accompanied by only a few officers.

The garrison consisted of but two companies of the Thirteenth Virginia, recruited in and about Pittsburgh, and they were shy of discipline. The larger part of these soldiers had been with Washington in New Jersey.

General Hand, in the East, had engaged in warfare where it was never difficult to locate the enemy, in large bodies, ready to stand up and fight. In that warfare the colonists did most of the dodging and were the hardest to find.

On the frontier the conditions were reversed, the enemy could not 730be found yet was ever present. The savages, in small bands, entered the settlements and struck quick but terrible blows, then fled by night into the dense forests.

The only evidence of the presence of these savages were the dead bodies of the victims and ashes of their former cabins, but they left no trail that a white man could discover. The problem was perplexing to General Hand.

Many murders had been committed before General Hand’s arrival, but they became more numerous.

The British commandant, Colonel Henry Hamilton, at Detroit, began about June 1 to equip and send out war parties to attack the settlements of Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania, which parties consisted mostly of Indians of the Wyandotte and Miami tribes of Northern Ohio and Shawnee of Southern Ohio and a few British officers.

At the same time parties of Seneca invaded the Pennsylvania settlements from Western New York.

Beside the bodies of many victims of the raids were found copies of the proclamation by Hamilton, offering protection and reward to all settlers who would make their way to any of the British posts and join the cause of the King.

General Hand soon determined that the one way to fight Indians was to invade their own country and destroy their towns and provisions. The Ohio tribes had permanent villages and grew great crops of corn, beans and pumpkins, which they stored in earth silos. If the Indians lost their crops they would be driven to hunt in the winter and could have no time for the warpath.

General Hand decided to descend the Ohio with a large force of militiamen to the mouth of the Big Kanawha and to march thence overland against the Shawnee towns.

Hand appealed to all the militia commanders of Westmoreland and Bedford Counties in Pennsylvania, and of all the frontier counties of Virginia, to muster men for the expedition.

He also appealed to the governments of both States and they directed their officers to respond to the calls. The project was even indorsed by Congress; yet in spite of all these efforts the expedition was a failure.

General Hand expected 500 men from the two Pennsylvania counties and 1500 men from Virginia. His expectations were unreasonable in that he did not take into consideration the drained and distressed condition of the border. Already the hardiest and most useful men had gone to fight the British. Most of those who remained on the plantations believed they were needed at home to protect their families from the raids of the savages.

731No men responded from Bedford County and only 100 from Westmoreland, under command of Colonel Lochry, reached Fort Pitt.

On October 19, 1777, General Hand left Fort Pitt and went down the river to Wheeling, where he expected to meet the recruits from Virginia. After a week of waiting only a few poorly equipped squads reported to him. Hand gave up in disgust and returned to Fort Pitt.

The following spring he requested to be recalled from the frontier service, and General Washington called him to his army May 26, 1778.