'
Pontiac and his band of savages paddled southward for
the Maumee, and spent the winter among the Indians along
its upper waters. Again he broke his plighted word and
plotted a new confederacy, greater than the Three Fires,
and sent messengers with wampum belts and red hatchets
to all the tribes as far south as the mouth of the
Mississippi and as far north as the Red River. But his
glory had departed. He could call; but the warriors would
not come when he summoned them.
Fort Detroit was freed from hostile Indians, and the
soldiers could go to rest without expecting to hear the
call to arms. But before the year closed it was to be
the witness of still another tragedy. Two or three weeks
after the massacre at the Devil's Hole, Major Wilkins
with some six hundred troops started from Fort Schlosser
with a fleet of bateaux for Detroit. No care seems to
have been taken to send out scouts to learn if the forest
bordering the river above the falls was free from Indians,
and, as the bateaux were slowly making their way against
the swift stream towards Lake Erie, they were savagely
attacked from the western bank by Indians in such force
that Wilkins was compelled to retreat to Fort Schlosser.
It was not until November that another attempt was made
to send troops and provisions to Detroit.
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