On the 21st we entered the colony of Penn, and on the 30th June dropped
down from the hills to Stewart’s Crossing on the Youghiogheny. Here St.
Clair, sent on in advance, had cleared the ground for a camp.
We had been all of ten days in marching twenty-four miles. Day after
day, as Croghan and I uneasily hung about the flanks and the rear,
we saw the long line of red-coated, cumbered men, sweating in heavy
uniforms, with waggons and cannon, slowly moving through the silent
woods, so full, to our minds, of peril.
I had been ill for some days, but at the Youghiogheny River I fell
worse of a sudden with a fever and pain in the head. The general was
most kind and at last ordered me to remain, leaving me a guard and my
dear Dr. Craik. Colonel Dunbar’s division had been left behind, to his
great indignation, and was to follow slowly with the baggage-train. I
was in the utmost gloom at my detention, being in a way responsible for
the new movement. The chance to be, by ill luck, laid up while a battle
might take place much disturbed me. I wrote my brother Jack I would not
miss it for five hundred pounds.
While I lay in bed most impatient, the detachment went on, and soon
after I had this letter from Christopher Gist, who was acting as guide:
RESPECTED SIR: We are moving along as solemn as a box-turtle,
one day two miles, which any smart turtle might compass. The
pickets are doubled, and men sleep with their arms, for, good
Lord! if a branch cracks they give an alarm, and if a poor
devil strays there is a scalp gone, for every step of our march
is watched. Still I am sure there are no big parties out, for
I have been off in advance and been within half a mile of
the fort, and came nigh to losing my hair, but with decent
good fortune we have the place. I should be easier with a few
hundred of our own people in the advance and on our skirts, but
they are kept in the rear, the Lord knows why.
Captain Orme also wrote to me of frequent night alarms, and of the
general’s confidence at being now but thirty miles from the fort. Here
two days’ halt was made to await fresh supplies from Dunbar.
On July 4, being stronger, I started in the rear of a party of one
hundred men just come up from Colonel Dunbar with provisions. I was set
upon going with them, but was too weak to ride a horse and must needs
use a waggon. As the road was much cut up, my bones were almost jolted
through the small cover left on them. On the 8th I reached the camp,
now but thirteen miles from Duquesne.
My journey took me through the Great Meadows, near where was my little
fight, and past the ruined palisadoes of Fort Necessity. I saw them
with great interest, and felt some sense of gratification that now I
might pay up my score against those who had both humbled and insulted
my King and myself.
Once, as my waggon approached the rear-guard, we came upon a dozen or
more stragglers. Some had fallen out tired, and some were loitering
to gather berries. I cried out to warn them of the danger they were
in, and, in fact, about a quarter of an hour later they ran after us,
crying, “Indians!” They may have had cause, but all the strange noises
of the woods alarmed them, and this time the rangers said it was a
wildcat.
The sound of distant martial music from the camps which we were come
near to seemed to revive my mind, and I was able to cast off the
feeling of gloom and converse with Captain Shirley, the military
secretary, who had ridden back with an order. He said to me that we had
been a month in marching less than a hundred miles. Captain Morris, who
was with him, said it was true, but all was well that ended well, and
we had the fort at our mercy and would attack next day. I advised my
friends, as I had before done, that it would be well if the officers
could be dressed in wood colours, like our scouts; but Captain Shirley
replied that the general would never allow of it, and, indeed, when
next day I got rid of my fire-red coat and put on a fringed buckskin
shirt, I was no little jeered at, and Colonel Gage made some comments,
which, I trust, he came later to regret. I am of opinion that the
absence of a gaudy red coat saved me from many balls and enabled me
to be of use when the other aides were wounded. I was much of Mr.
Franklin’s opinion that if fine feathers make fine birds, they also
make them an easier prey for the fowler.
Indeed, the learned Postmaster-General made himself very merry over the
queues and the stiff stocks and the bright scarlet uniforms. He thought
the officers only needed corsets, which I was told they did often use
at home.
When, in the afternoon, very tired and weak, I reached the tent made
ready for me by the kindness of my brother aides, I lay down to rest,
and, as Captain Morris was now on duty, I asked him to tell me what was
to be our mode of approach to the fort. I was able easily to recall the
general features of the country, for the camp was now set about twelve
miles from Frazier’s former trading-station, where I stopped on my
return from my mission to the French. We lay some ten miles to the east
of the Monongahela River, and, as was said, thirteen from Duquesne as
the crow flies.
As I rested and we talked, came also Captain Shirley and Captain Gates
of the Twenty-eighth Regiment, with Stephens, Hamilton, and Stewart of
the Virginians. Of all of them I was the only man not killed or wounded
in the next day’s battle. I may well entertain my brother August’s
belief that the conspicuous hand of Providence was over me, and he must
be worse than an infidel who lacks faith in it.
No thought of to-morrow troubled our council of war, and we discussed
with spirit what our superiours meant to do. I drew on a piece of birch
bark a rude sketch of the country. The fort lay on a high bluff in the
angle made by the Ohio and Monongahela rivers. We were, as I said, some
ten miles to the east of the latter stream and on the same side as the
fort. Between us and it lay the deep, rugged ravines of Turtle Creek
and the brooks which run into it. The country beyond it was densely
wooded and without any road. To cross the creek and cut a road to the
fort would be the most direct way; otherwise we must march to and cross
the Monongahela, a fordable river, and afterwards move along bluffs
three or four hundred feet high, and follow the stream for five miles.
We should then descend to the water and arrive at a second ford; having
crossed it, we should be again on the same side as the fort. Then there
would be before us a slope, and, some two miles distant, hid in the
woods, the bastions of Duquesne. Having made clear to my fellow aides
the localities, we considered the two routes, with some differences of
opinion in regard to which was the better, until they were called away,
and I was left alone.
Soon after came Sir John St. Clair, sent by the general with a kind
message. I then learned that some effort had been made to cross Turtle
Creek, but that it had been found impossible to get the artillery
over and that the engineers pronounced it impracticable. Upon this
the general had given orders to change the route, so that we should
follow the traders’ horse-trail, on which we had made our road, and
should march to the river. There we were to ford the stream as I have
said, move on the farther bank some miles, and recross by the second
ford to the east side again, where the lay of the land allowed, as was
supposed, of an easy approach to the fort.
I was still weak, but although I could have desired more rest, I
walked at dusk through the great clearing made for the camp, to report
myself at once to the general’s headquarters. I had been sorry for
his obstinacy and the rudeness he showed in laughing at our way of
fighting, but I had been told by Sir Peter Halket that he had said
that Mr. Franklin and Colonel Washington were the only trustworthy
people he had met in the colonies. I thought this foolish as showing
poor judgment; but he had been most kind to me, and now, in spite of
all his blunders and our own failures to supply him promptly, which
were with some justice to be complained of, we were, as it seemed, on
the point of success.
When I presented myself, the general asked most pleasantly concerning
my health, and if I was well enough to serve as aide. I assured him I
was, but I was really at the time feeble enough. When I ventured to
make him my compliments on the near prospect of success before him,
he laughed and asked where had been the need for our rangers and the
tribes of Indians, and then made me a very fine speech, which I must
admit to having been pleased at. I ventured to ask leave to go on
in the advance with the Virginia wood-rangers, so as to secure the
pioneers and road-makers from an ambuscade. He replied shortly: “Oh,
damn your half-drilled rangers! I shall keep them as a rear-guard.”
I rose and apologized, feeling that I had been too forward and had
better have held my tongue. Indeed, I excused myself as well as I
could, and upon this his face cleared, and he said: “Colonel Gage is
to have the advance, and what would he say to the best regiment of the
King being protected by a mob of squatters and border farmers. No, sir;
I desire you as my aide.” I said no more, and returned to my tent.
I have never found that the coming of decisive events kept me awake
when I was myself the person who had the duty of decision; but this
night, whether from great fatigue or not, for that does keep a man from
sleep, or that I was still fevered, I lay awake long, unable to free my
mind from anxious thoughts.
I regretted that I had not asked Mr. Franklin why at night we heard so
many sounds in the woods which are not heard by day. No doubt he would
have found an explanation. Long after the camp was at rest I remained
sleepless, hearing the quick waters of the creek and the noises of the
wood, with the hoot-owl’s cry and the chipmunks gamboling over the
canvas of my tent, and such stir of the camp as never quite ceased.
The way we were to march troubled me and others, especially Sir Peter
Halket, who had forebodings, concerning which Dr. Mercer had some
superstitious ideas, such as my mother often had, but which I never
entertained, or if as to any, it is in the way of dreams.
I had reason for my fears, for the two fords we were to cross could
be easily disputed by a small party. I concluded that to leave all
baggage and artillery to come later by the fords, and to make a quick
and direct march over the creek and along a ridge leading to the fort,
would be the better way.
Having settled my mind as to what I would have done had I been in
command, I disposed myself for sleep, but with no good result until so
late that I heard no reveille sounded, and was waked by my orderly.