Battle of Fort Duquesne
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The Battle of Fort Duquesne was a failed attempt by elements of General John Forbes's British-American army to capture French Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War. John Forbes had a total of 6,000 men that he had recruited in Fort Cumberland in Maryland, including a contingent of 2,000 Virginian militia led by George Washington.
On September 14, 1758, Major James Grant of the 77th Regiment of Foot led 800 men to Fort Duquesne as part of the overall British invasion of the Ohio Valley. De Lignery, aware of these movements, dispatched some 500 men in ambush. Surrounded, the Scots fought viciously, but unaccustomed to the tactics of North American warfare, inflicted little real damage to the French. Grant was taken prisoner along with eighteen of his officers. The Highlanders were impaled with their heads displayed on stakes with their kilts displayed below.
Though the French had won a stunning victory, nearly annihilating the 77th Highlander Regiment as a fighting force, de Lignery understood that his meager army, built atop a rapidly-crumbling network of alliances with native tribes, could not hold Fort Duquesne against the bulk of the British invasion force totalling 6,000 men under General Forbes. The French continued to occupy Duquesne until November 26, when its retreating garrison burnt it and left under the cover of darkness. Once the British took over the smoldering remains, they were appalled by the impalement of the ambushed Highlanders. Anglo-American armies rebuilt Fort Duquesne, naming it Fort Pitt after the contemporary Prime Minister William Pitt.
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