The first care of the victors was to provide defence and shelter for those of their number on whom the dangerous task was to fall of keeping what they had won.  A stockade was planted around a cluster of traders’ cabins and soldiers’ huts, which Forbes named Pittsburg, in honor of the great minister.  It was not till the next autumn that General Stanwix built, hard by, the regular fortified work called Fort Pitt.[665] Captain West, brother of Benjamin West, the painter, led a detachment of Pennsylvanians, with Indian guides, through the forests of the Monongahela, to search for the bones of those who had fallen under Braddock.  In the heart of the savage wood they found them in abundance, gnawed by wolves and foxes, and covered with the dead leaves of four successive autumns.  Major Halket, of Forbes’ staff, had joined the party; and, with the help of an Indian who was in the fight, he presently found two skeletons lying under a tree.  In one of them he recognized, by a peculiarity of the teeth, the remains of his father, Sir Peter Halket, and in the other he believed that he saw the bones of a brother who had fallen at his father’s side.  The young officer fainted at the sight.  The two skeletons were buried together, covered with a Highland plaid, and the Pennsylvanian woodsmen fired a volley over the grave.  The rest of the bones were undistinguishable; and, being carefully gathered up, they were all interred in a deep trench dug in the freezing ground.[666]

[Footnote 665:  Stanwix to Pitt, 20 Nov. 1759.]

[Footnote 666:  Galt, Life of Benjamin West, I. 64 (ed. 1820).]

The work of the new fort was pushed on apace, and the task of holding it for the winter was assigned to Lieutenant-Colonel Mercer, of the Virginians, with two hundred provincials.  The number was far too small.  It was certain that, unless vigorously prevented by a counter attack, the French would gather in early spring from all their nearer western posts, Niagara, Detroit, Presquisle, Le Boeuf, and Venango, to retake the place; but there was no food for a larger garrison, and the risk must be run.

The rest of the troops, with steps quickened by hunger, began their homeward march early in December.  “We would soon make M. de Ligneris shift his quarters at Venango,” writes Bouquet just after the fort was taken, “if we only had provisions; but we are scarcely able to maintain ourselves a few days here.  After God, the success of this expedition is entirely due to the General, who, by bringing about the treaty with the Indians at Easton, struck the French a stunning blow, wisely delayed our advance to wait the effects of that treaty, secured all our posts and left nothing to chance, and resisted the urgent solicitation to take Braddock’s road, which would have been our destruction.  In all his measures he has shown the greatest prudence, firmness, and ability."[667] No sooner was his work done, than Forbes fell into a state of entire prostration, so