Bushy Run, Pennsylvania

BUSHY RUN, PENNSYLVANIA. 5-6 August 1763. In this remarkable action, fought on a ridge dominated by higher ground twenty-six miles southeast of Fort Pitt, four hundred Highlanders, Royal Americans, and rangers went against an unknown, but larger, number of native Americans, most of whom had participated in the siege of Fort Pitt. Colonel Henry Bouquet, the able Swiss officer, commanded the British force, and, although ambushed on 5 August, devised overnight a ruse whereby the next morning two of his companies seemed to abandon a portion of the defensive perimeter. Native American warriors rushed in to take advantage of the gap and were caught in a crossfire by the British. When Bouquet advanced with two more companies, the Indians fled in disorder and broke off the engagement.

SEE ALSO Bouquet, Henry; Pontiac's War.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. New York: Knopf, 2000.

Daudelin, Don. "Numbers and Tactics at Bushy Run." Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 68, no. 2 (April 1985): 153-179.

Eid, Leroy V. "'A Kind of Running Fight': Indian Battlefield Tactics in the Late Eighteenth Century." Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 71, no. 2 (April 1988): 147-171.

Gipson, Lawrence H. The British Empire before the American Revolution. Vol. 9: The Triumphant Empire: New Responsibilities within the Enlarged Empire, 1763–1766. New York: Knopf, 1956.

                              revised by Harold E. Selesky