On July 22, Trent writes, "Gray Eyes, Wingenum, Turtle's Heart and Mamaultee, came over the River told us their Chiefs were in Council, that they waited for Custaluga who they expected that Day". There are eyewitness reports that outbreaks of smallpox and other diseases had plagued the Ohio Native Americans in the years before the siege of Fort Pitt. Colonists also caught smallpox from Native Americans at a peace conference in 1759 which then led to an epidemic in Charleston and the surrounding areas in South Carolina.