The governor was now fully decided to resist the French aggressions,
and convened the House of Burgesses after much delay. I was offered
full command of a force of three hundred men in six companies, forming
a regiment. I consulted his lordship and my half-brother Augustine as
to this, and not feeling secure of my fitness for so great a position,
and they agreeing, I chose rather to serve as second under Colonel
Frye. This being settled, I went about the business of recruiting as
lieutenant-colonel.
In considering the new duty to which I was called and what it led
me to do, I have asked myself whether I could have done it better,
considering the want of supplies and of sufficiency of men.
Mr. John Langdon at one time wrote to me, when commenting on the
character of General A――――, that what he had been as a very young
man he continued to be ever after, and that, although education and
opportunity might give a man of strong character the tools for his
purposes, they would not seriously alter his nature; he would only be
more and more that which he had been.
As I sit in judgment upon the particulars which occasioned the affair
at Great Meadows, and later my disaster at Fort Necessity, I am
inclined to believe that I could have done no better at fifty than I
did at twenty-two. I perceive also that the conditions which at that
time surrounded and embarrassed me were on a lesser scale the same as
those with which I had to struggle in the later and more important
days, which made me old before my time. Such comparisons as these do
not readily occur to me, as I am inclined to dwell most upon the needs
of the present and upon the possibilities which the future may have in
store.
On one occasion, during the march to Yorktown, when bivouacked at the
head of the Elk, Colonel Scammel and Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Wynne,
both at that time of my military family, led me into expressing myself
as to these earlier events, and one of them, Lieutenant-Colonel
Wynne, I think, remarked that I had then to encounter the same kind
of obstacles as those which had perplexed me at the Valley Forge and
Morristown, and indeed throughout the War of Independency. I did not
encourage such further discussion by these young officers as might
readily lead on to the impropriety of criticisms upon Congress. But
now, recalling what was then said, I am led to see how remarkably alike
were the conditions I had to meet at two periods of my life. Nor can
I fail to observe that what General Hamilton liked very often to call
“the education of events” was valuable in teaching me moderation and
such control of temper as I was to need on a larger field.
While I went about my military preparations, the governor and the House
wrangled over the ten thousand pounds he asked for the fitting out of
troops. I have observed that men engaged in agriculture as the masters
of slaves acquire a great independence of thought and are hard to move
to a common agreement even when, as at that time, there is an immediate
need for united action.
There was also much distrust of Governor Dinwiddie, and indeed we
rarely submitted with entire good will to any of the royal governors.
He got his grant at last, but a committee was to confer with him as to
how it was to be used――a measure not altogether unwise, but which made
him swear we were getting to be too republican and, he feared, would be
more and more difficult to be brought to order.
As to my recruiting, the better men were indisposed to join, and I got
chiefly a vagabond crew of shoeless, half-dressed fellows, but most of
them hunters and good shots. I did better when the governor offered a
bounty in land, which as yet we had not, for it was to be about the
fine bottoms at the Forks of the Ohio, which were in the hands of the
French and the Indians.
I made Van Braam a captain, and thereafter obtained more men and
better, for the old warrior promised, I fear, an easy time and all
manner of agreeable rewards, with such accounts of the lands they were
to have as much delighted the hard-working farmers’ sons.
On April 2 I left Alexandria, with orders to secure tools and build
roads, for Colonel Frye to follow me with the artillery and a greater
force.
In what I was thus set to do I knew I was to have difficulty, and this
it was hard to make Governor Dinwiddie understand, nor do I think he
or our rulers in England could form any idea of the country to be
traversed, even up to the Forks of the Ohio. From our outlying farms
westward to the Mississippi was a great forest land with savannas,
and beyond the Ohio vast meadows where buffalo grazed. Through our
own hills there were old Indian trails, and as far as to the Ohio
were horse-paths used by the traders and their men. There were also
many crossing-trails made by horned game to reach water, and apt
to mislead any but men accustomed to the woods. Very few knew this
mighty wilderness, nor was it easy to make persons unused to the woods
comprehend the obstacles and risks an army would find on traversing
them with waggons and artillery.
As I have said, I had long ago fixed upon the Forks of the Ohio as an
excellent station for a fort. The French were also of this opinion,
and in their hands it became at last Fort Duquesne, and in 1759 was
lightly given up by them to General Forbes. At this earlier date our
governor, resolving to take my advice, made choice of Captain Trent to
build a fort at the Forks, where we prepared to follow and support him.
Having failed on a former and easier errand, it was foolish to have
expected better things of this man in a more difficult matter. He was
given only fifty men, as it was supposed he would not be attacked.
While I was on my way to Wills Creek from Winchester, Contrecœur
dropped down-stream from Venango with a great force and took the
half-finished fort, Captain Trent being absent at the time. I was
near to Wills Creek when I learned of this disaster. Colonel Frye and
other detachments were to follow me, but I saw that we were now in a
way to be devoured in bits by the larger French forces. Everything I
needed was lacking. I had been cursed along the border for my taking of
waggons, horses, and food, and when I would have picks, shovels, and
axes, it was worse.
I heard while here from Mr. Fairfax, desiring me not to neglect having
divine service in the camps for the benefit of the Indians. I did on
one occasion, but as Davidson told me they considered it some form of
incantation, I did not repeat it. I had also a letter from my mother,
meant to have found me earlier. It seemed strange amid anxieties like
mine to be asked to send her a good Dutch servant and, if I remember
correctly, four pounds of good Dutch butter. I had far other business.
At the Ohio Company’s post at Wills Creek, nothing was ready; only
Captain Trent, full of excuses for the failure of horses and boats, and
much cast down at the news of the loss of the fort. I sent back for
waggons and horses sixty miles to Winchester, and waited as patiently
as I could.
On April 23 came the men of Trent’s party, released by the French. The
ensign, Mr. Ward, was the only officer with them, and to surrender was
all he could do. He told me of hundreds of Chippewas and Ottawas coming
to join Contrecœur, and of another force descending the Ohio. To add to
my troubles, Trent’s men were disorderly, making my men uneasy by their
stories.
At this time I was decently housed in a small log hut, and here,
retiring by myself, I fell to thinking of what I had heard and what I
ought to do. The situation demanded serious consideration, but also
speedy action.