Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men

The skirmish known as the Battle of the Trough was a minor engagement in the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years’ War). The action, which took place in present-day Hardy County, West Virginia, left seven colonists dead and four others wounded.

In the aftermath of the disastrous defeat of the British forces under General Edward Braddock at the Battle of the Monongahela on July 9, 1755, the colonial settlers were left unprotected against raids by French-allied warriors. While the French command designated which areas were to be raided, it was the Indians who decided the specific targets. Odawas, Hurons, Miamis and Potawatomis from the area around the Great Lakes, and the Illinois country struck their enemies at will; as we shall see, Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware) launched attacks on the settlers of Virginia. 

The following autumn, plans were made to construct two forts in the South Branch Valley. Early in the following year, the 24-year-old commander of the Virginia Regiment, George Washington, ordered Captain Thomas Waggener (or Waggoner) to advance up the South Branch Valley and to start the construction of two forts in the vicinity of the Trough, a six-mile gorge, heavily wooded with Oak, hickory and Virginia pine.

Fort Pleasant was built on land owned by Henry Van Meter, close to where the settlement of Moorefield was later established. The fort, also known as Van Meter’s Fort and Town Fort, was to serve as the headquarters of the Virginia Regiment and was completed by the spring of 1756.  The fort was sited about a mile and a half above the Trough on the South Branch of the Potomac.

A second fort was built approximately five miles upstream from Fort Pleasant and was christened Fort Buttermilk. Later historians sometimes refer to it as Fort Waggener. The historian Robert B. Roberts described it as a ‘stockaded defense’, leaving the impression that it was not as imposing an edifice as Fort Pleasant, with its portholed blockhouses and palisades. Thomas Waggener then constructed a third fort, Fort Upper Tract, a short distance to the west. This stockade was attacked and burned on 27 April 1758, and 23 of its defenders were killed. The following day, the same Indians laid siege to the nearby Fort Seybert and massacred the fort’s occupants, an episode that we will cover at a later date. 

The regular soldiers held the provincial militias who were set to garrison these newly constructed forts in scarcely concealed contempt. General Sir John Forbes, who in 1758 would lead the campaign against Fort Duquesne (Today’s Pittsburgh), described the provincial officers as ‘an extream bad Collection of broken Innkeepers, Horse Jockeys, & Indian traders.’  Forbes held the rank and file in even lower regard, describing them as ‘a gathering from the scum of the worst of people in every Country.’ Not exactly high praise.

Not long after the two forts were constructed, two Indians, part of a larger force which had been defeated by soldiers led by Captain Jeremiah Smith in an engagement at the head of the Capon River, encountered two women, Mrs. Neff and Mrs. Brake, close to Fort Pleasant.

Mrs. Blake was tomahawked and scalped, while Mrs. Neff managed to escape, or was allowed to do so. Neff fled towards Fort Pleasant and alerted the garrison. Militiamen from forts Buttermilk and Pleasant rode out in pursuit of the two Indians.

The body of the Virginia Regiment, numbering no more than eighteen men, headed north towards the Trough. They dismounted and separated into two groups, intending to catch the Indians in a pincer movement. By now, the two Indians had been joined by a force of around seventy Shawnee and Lenape warriors led by the celebrated war chief Bemino, known to the Anglophone settlers as John Killbuck senior. It is worth noting that other sources suggest the number of indigenous combatants was as low as fourteen.

The barking of a dog, which had accompanied the Militia on their sortie from the forts, alerted the Indians to the presence of the soldiers. Bemino’s warriors had managed to get in the rear of the militia, between the men and their mounts. 

When the Shawnee and Lenape launched their attack, the men from the forts found themselves literally between a rock and a hard place; to their east lay the steep mountainside of the Trough, while to the west was the South Branch of the Potomac. 

A ferocious firefight erupted and lasted for approximately two hours. The Virginians were forced to fight their way through the massed ranks of Bemino’s force. Seven of the fort dwellers were killed in the skirmish, and four of their comrades were wounded; casualties sustained by Bemino’s force are harder to pin down, with estimates varying between three killed and many more. Sources state that ‘several’ were wounded.  

As the fight raged between the men of the Virginia Regiment and the native warriors, Bemino and a group of his followers besieged the cabin of settler Vincent Williams on Patterson Creek, nine miles from Fort Pleasant. Williams put up a stout defence and killed five of the seven attackers. Eventually, Bemino’s men prevailed; after they had slain Williams, they impaled his head on a stake at the cabin’s front door; they ritualistically mutilated Williams’ body, quartering it, and placing one part in each corner of the building.

It was reported that a detachment of British regulars was stationed at Fort Pleasant. Still, Captain Waggener refused to allow them to leave the fort and go to the aid of the militia, although the firefight took place only a mile and a half from the fort. On returning to Fort Pleasant, some members of the militia allegedly accused Waggener of cowardice in not sending the regulars out. 

The clash at The Trough was not to be Bemino’s last engagement with the encroaching settlers. He would lead attacks on Fort Upper Tract and Fort Seybert in April 1758. During the American Revolution, the Lenape, under Bemino’s son, Gelelemend (also known as John Killbuck Jr.), fought alongside the British against their colonial adversaries. 

© Mark Young 2025

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Trough

https://theclio.com/entry/21819

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bemino

https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/entries/1991

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trough

Breaking the Backcountry by Matthew Ward

Encyclopedia of Frontier Forts by Robert B. Roberts