Smallpox on the blankets: The real story?

 I have visited the site of the battle of Bushy Run, which is now just a nice meadow.

but apparently the guy who devised those tactics is now the hero of a film

ah but is he a hero or someone who did a war crime?

I had always read that it was malice and to steal the land that the Americans gave small pox blankets to the Indians. But it was actually a proposal (maybe never done) to lift the seige of Fort Pitt and save lives of those in there.

During the siege of Fort Pitt the idea was raised of infecting the Indians with small pox by giving them blankets from the fort’s smallpox hospital. William Trent’s journal entry from May 24th, 1763 described this event though some historians do not believe it to be true. Shortly after this event was alleged to have happened there was an out break of small pox among the Indian tribes.

In October of 1764 Bouquet led a force of 1500 men into Ohio country to bring Pontiacs War to a close. This treaty which Bouquet negotiated set in motion his connection to Smith’s Rebellion. It was this peace treaty that included the exchange of all white captives held by the Indians. Because the Indians were unble to return all white captives until the spring of 1765...

smallpox epidemics have been traced by historians from trade routes, but giving contaminated blankets was probably true, but as a war tactic. 

so it was done to save lives. What would have been the alternative? 

If you were there, what would you have done?

And it shows the danger of germ warfare. 

Most American born people did not have the immunity to smallpox (Europeans usually had it as a kid so were immune if they lived). 

Which is why George Washington saved the American army when it was trying to liberate Boston, where an epidemic was going on during the revolution, by inoculating those who never had the disease before they could join his troops.