way, and that way, shooting without aim into the trees, while their
officers beat their muskets down with swords or tried to wave a charge.
Pretty soon he seemed to have reached the end of the Indians on this
side of the road. And suddenly a Shawnee right before him leaped high,
with a death yell; and while several other Indians in covert here
broke and legged for safety, rifles cracked to stop them and a tall
chief――followed by his men, among them a white man――raced in for the
scalp.
Robert lunged forward, regardless. His shout was drowned in the
scalp halloo of Scarouady; he tripped and fell, and next the hatchet
of Scarouady was poised over his shaved head. Only just in time he
wriggled aside, and flung up his arm and showed his face.
“No, no! See me, Scarouady!” he gasped.
“Wah!” panted Scarouady. “The Hunter! I saw a Mohawk scalp!”
Nothing more could be said now. Bullets sang past; Scarouady leaped for
the Shawnee scalp, and he and Aroas, Gist, Iagrea, Newcastle and White
Thunder “treed” again, to hold their ground.
The Hunter crept to Gist.
“Where’ve you been? You’ve turned Mohawk?” said Gist, between shots.
“Why is that?”
“Shingis took me to fort,” the Hunter panted. “Guyasuta there. He
turned me Mohawk to get me out. Where is Washington, Gist?”
“In the thick of it, I’ll wager,” rapped Gist. “Will you go to him?”
“Yes.”
“Good! But you can’t go in that Injun garb. Buckskin wouldn’t save you,
either. The red-coats shoot at every moving thing. Wait here.” And Gist
rapidly crawled away, darted from tree to tree and disappeared in the
smoke.
He came back with a round hat and a round jacket; they were bloody,
they had been worn by a wood chopper and Gist was bleeding, too, from a
ball that had scraped his ear.
“On with these. You’ll have to make a run for it. The woods are full of
death――those Injuns are everywhere. Find the colonel. Tell him I say
to fetch on the Virginians; make those red-coats take to the trees;
Braddock has got to fight Injun fashion or he’ll not have a soldier
left. Run.”
Robert ran. He was seen――the bullets pinged after――they crossed his
course――they fanned his cheeks, they seared his eyes, they ripped
through his coat and hat; whether he was struck he did not know,
although he thought he felt a sharp blow and a pain in one arm; but he
left Gist and Scarouady and the little squad trying to keep the enemy
at bay on this flank, and plunging on through the drifted smoke he
emerged into the road.
This was turmoil, with soldiers stumbling down, some hatless, some
wounded, all bewildered; and with soldiers marching up, pressing on
cheering, their officers leading, until the crowd from up the slope met
them and rammed in through them, for cover; and then there was another
hurly-burly.
Even here on the outskirts Robert was shoved to and fro. A galloping
horse knocked him over. He got up. The soldiers from below had formed
again; they marched in a solid line, with their bayonets pointed, and
a fine officer in scarlet and gold in front of them, to charge the
hill. But the bullets crumpled them, and their tall hats flew, and they
stopped as if a strong wind were blowing against them; and in a moment
their officer was marching alone. So he had to come back.
Here, on the run, came part of the Virginia Long Knives, at last;
they ran at double-quick, through the trees――the blue facing on
their buckskin shirts twinkled amid the green leaves and the pale
smoke. Washington had not waited, then! But where was Washington?
There――galloping in amid the red-coat soldiers, swinging his hat and
huzzahing. Robert made for him――arrived just as he was off his horse.
Washington had been riding upon a pillow; the pillow stayed on the
saddle――he tossed the reins one side――“Hold this horse, somebody!” he
rasped, and Robert grabbed the reins. Washington appeared to pay no
attention, for he ran to one of the cannon, helped to point it into a
ravine and fire it and load it.
Now he was here, there, everywhere, with Robert trying to follow him
and lead the rearing horse. No easy job this, while the bullets whined
and men were falling. A horse made a good target, too.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON WAS HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE]
The grenadier soldiers were being forced back. They stood in
groups――officers snatched flags and bore them forward and waved the men
on, but the men could not follow. They seemed to see nothing at which
to aim――their red faces were sweaty, their eyes were wild, and they
fired their muskets into the air. But they were brave; they stood, to
be shot down.
More soldiers arrived, to crowd the road; and more Virginians, to take
to the trees. Suddenly Washington seized the lines from the Hunter’s
hands and leaped into the saddle (the pillow had tumbled off) and tore
through the red masses. General Braddock was here; and he, too, was
galloping right and left, shouting and swinging his sword and urging
the men to the colors. Some of the soldiers had taken to the trees,
like the Long Knives. But General Braddock was driving them out, with
his sword, into the road again. “Cowards,” he roared――he was a furious
bear. “Cowards! Out, or I kill ye!”
The Hunter heard some of this, for he had followed Washington. He
intended to stick by Washington. And Washington was correcting the
General and pointing to the Virginians among the trees. But General
Braddock would have none of that.
Down fell the General’s horse. He seized another. Down fell Washington’s
horse. He seized another; there were holes through his clothing, made by
bullets. Thomas Waggener, who had been at the Jumonville fight and at
Fort Necessity, came at double-quick with almost a hundred Virginia
“Blues” in buckskin, their guns at a trail; and they dropped behind a
huge log, at one side of the road; then their guns belched smoke and
ball into the Indians; then a company of the grenadiers saw the smoke
and all fired into it; and the Long Knives had to run out or be shot in
the back.
It was curious how many things one sees when one is excited! And that
was the way with Robert, lost in the noise and the jostling, and
turning now this way, now that, to keep track of Washington.
Washington was upon a third horse! Braddock was being helped upon
another, also. Washington appeared to be the only officer left near
him. The Indians were screeching ever more gladly; and as fast as the
soldiers were blown backward by the blasts of bullets, the screeches
and shots clung to them on either side.
Now everybody was upon a piece of bottom-land, down toward the river.
The English were still firing without aim from the narrow road; the
Virginians were keeping to the trees; Washington was following the
General, as if begging him to let the red-coats join the Long Knives
and fight as they fought. A gray-haired old English officer (whose name
was Halket) hurried to argue also with the General; but they all were
being carried backward still by the soldiers.
Then down fell the gray-haired officer; then a young officer, his son,
jumped to lift him, and down fell the son. Then the soldiers moved
faster and faster, and they began to run, throwing away their guns,
with Washington and the General and several other officers spreading
their arms and beating with their swords to stop them.
But it was no use. Robert ran too, for the road was like a stream. He
had to run, or be swept down and trampled upon. There was shooting from
either side, and shooting behind, and the Virginians were still darting
from tree to tree, answering with their guns. But the red-coat soldiers
seemed to have shot all their ammunition――and not to much purpose,
either.
After a short time he came out of the boiling current into a little
eddy formed by an oak tree overhanging the road. Washington was here,
with two other officers, bending over General Braddock.
General Braddock was not so angry of face, now; he was paling, and
blood was welling from his right arm and his chest. He had been shot
through, and could scarcely speak. It looked to be a bad wound. A brave
man, this. Robert afterward heard that he had five horses killed under
him before he himself was struck.
The soldiers were pouring past, and paid no attention. Not one stopped,
for the Indians were yelling the scalp yells. The two officers with
Washington ran out and ordered and pleaded; then they stopped a little
cart; they carried the General to it, and put him upon it, and trundled
him on.
Washington turned about. He saw the Hunter, and he looked astonished.
“What are you doing here? Go to safety!”
“I stay with Washington,” Robert answered.
“Then you shall work. Find me my horse. We must help my Virginians hold
the enemy from the ford.”
Washington ran forward. Every loose horse had been seized by the
soldiers, who galloped right over Robert. So he followed Washington
again, who was trying to halt the soldiers, and make them join the
Virginians. Doctor Craik came on, helping a wounded officer.
The Virginians were holding the rear and the woods at the foot of the
hill. The Indians were pressing them closely. Had it not been for the
Long Knife Americans in blue buckskin many of these soldiers never
would have reached the ford. And likely the Indians would have crossed
and killed all between the fords.
But the Long Knives kept falling back, from tree to tree. Colonel
Washington was with them now, ordering and urging: “Stand firm, lads!
Waste no shot. Brave boys! Keep to cover.”
“To cover yourself, major!” barked George Croghan. “You’ve been singled
out――you’ve four bullets through your clothes. There’ll be a fifth.”
Most of the soldiers had crossed the ford, and the Long Knife Americans
at last crossed also――facing and firing at the Indians who burst into
the road, hot for plunder.
That ended the battle. Doctor Craik was waiting on the other side of
the river.
“You’re not hurt, colonel?” he asked of Washington.
“No, sir. But I think I’m the only officer on the General’s staff
unwounded. Two horses were shot from under me.”
“I looked to see you killed, a dozen times,” exclaimed Doctor Craik. “I
hear that the General is wounded. Is that so?”
“Yes, sir; and badly.”
“I must go to him at once.” Doctor Craik looked at his large, gold
watch. “Bless me! Five o’clock! What a bloody day for His Majesty’s
arms! Who would have thought it! The best troops of Europe defeated by
savages and a handful of French!”
“Aye, doctor; and saved from utter destruction by a handful of those
whom the General was pleased to term ‘backwoodsmen’ and ‘farmers’” said
Washington, a little bitterly. “Would we all had been backwoodsmen,
and fought fire with fire. If the Virginians had only been given the
advance, as I implored they might――but no matter. If the General
survives, next time there will be a different story, for now he knows
the value of the American Volunteer.”
“Yes,” said Doctor Craik; “if there is a next time for him. I fear from
the reports that his wound is fatal. He is a brave man. Is it true that
he ordered himself to be left――that he wished to stay and die upon the
field?”
“I did not hear him say, but Croghan so maintains,” said Washington. “I
was a little late at the spot where he lay.”
So they trudged on, in the rout. Washington walked slightly staggering,
for as plain to be seen and as had been proved by the pillow, he was
still not recovered from his sickness.
The Indians did not pursue. They were too busy gathering plunder.
That was fortunate. The army had been cut to pieces. Of the fourteen
hundred men and officers nearly two-thirds had been killed or wounded,
sixty-three out of the eighty-nine officers were dead or disabled and
of the three companies of Virginia Rangers only thirty members were
unhurt.
This night of July 9, 1755, camp was made upon the other side of the
river; but Washington, who was the only aide left to General Braddock,
had to ride forty miles upon a wagon horse with rope bridle and without
a saddle, through the rain and darkness to find Colonel Dunbar.
The terrible retreat continued. General Braddock died at the Great
Meadows, and was buried only about a mile from old Fort Necessity.
Colonel Dunbar was now in command. He took the fragment of the fine
army back to Fort Cumberland and refused to lead another attack upon
Fort Duquesne. Instead, he decided to go into winter quarters at
Philadelphia; so nothing more was to be done this year.
From Fort Cumberland Washington went home to Mount Vernon, to rest. The
Hunter was laid up for some time with the arm that had been wounded and
should have been attended to earlier. But there were many worse wounds,
and the doctors had been busy.
XXI
A BUCKSKIN CORPORAL
Robert Hunter!
This was his name, now, in the year Seventeen Hundred and Fifty-eight,
for he had become a white American and had learned to live as the
people of Washington’s country lived.
But during the three years since the fight of Braddock’s Field things
had been going badly for the American frontier. The English soldiers
were busy against the French soldiers of Canada. The French and their
Indians still held the Ohio; Fort Duquesne had not been marched upon
again and after the English had been driven back so easily almost all
the Indians had joined the French.
Just why Fort Duquesne was permitted to stand, nobody appeared to know.
Scarouady himself had sent word to the Governor of Virginia and to
Washington:
“I still have men who will join with you, my brothers, to take up the
hatchet again. We do not want the soldiers from across the big water.
They are unfit to fight in the woods. Let us go, ourselves; for we came
out of this ground and we understand what to do.”
Washington had been made commander of all the Virginia soldiers,
but it seemed hard work to get men who would leave their homes and
march into the woods again. For the Indians of the French were very
bold――especially the Delawares and Shawnees. They came across the
mountains to attack the Virginia and Maryland border; no one knew where
they might strike next; it looked as though northern Virginia was to
be put to the hatchet and knife, and a great alarm had seized the town
of Winchester, near which, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, old Lord
Fairfax lived upon his plantation of Greenway.
And having been working and learning upon this same plantation, under
the rule of the queer old lord whom he had first met with Gist and
Washington in camp at Will’s Creek that night several years back,
Robert Hunter also was in the midst of alarms.
Lord Fairfax would not run. He had raised a troop of horse and he had
men both white and black, and he said that at his age it didn’t matter
to him whether he fell by the tomahawk or by sickness.
Washington himself rode into Greenway, and on into Winchester and did
his best to quiet the people there. But the trail to Fort Cumberland
in the north was watched by the enemy, and a scouting party from
Winchester was attacked by French and Indians only twenty miles out and
Captain John Mercer and several men killed: so that, as said, it was
difficult to get the settlers to leave their homes.
With the skeleton of a regiment, the First Regiment of Virginia
Militia, Washington was supposed to guard the long line of the Virginia
frontier.
All this trouble would keep up, too, while Fort Duquesne, over there
at the Forks of the Ohio, sent its Rangers and Indians against the
Americans of the south while the English soldiers were busy in the far
north.
At last, in the spring of 1758, it was known that Fort Duquesne was to
be taken this very summer. Lord Fairfax got the news as quickly as
anybody, for he constantly received letters and papers from England. He
liked to talk with Robert, who at eighteen had grown to feel himself
a man――and besides, had learned to read and to write and to think
white-race thoughts.
Washington rode down from Fort Loudoun, which he had built at
Winchester. He and Lord Fairfax, taking Robert (whom Colonel Washington,
aged twenty-six, never failed to send for) rode and talked, as in the
early days of Greenway Court.
“By George, George!” Lord Fairfax exulted. “They say Forbes, that
Scotch doctor, is to lead you into the woods. He won his berth of
brigadier in His Majesty’s army without favor, and while his record
shows him a hard man to turn, you may believe me that he is no
Braddock. He’s too canny not to look before he leaps. Will you trust
your precious carcass to him? Faith, you’ve been desperately sick; so
you might well seize the opportunity of getting as far away from your
bed as you can.”
“As long as I can move I will join any march to overthrow Fort
Duquesne,” answered Washington. “It is a thorn in the side of
Virginia, and should have been plucked out long ago. I have repeatedly
asked for forces and authority with which to carry the war into the
enemy’s territory. If we do not do that, this country is lost. There
will not be a settler north of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As for
Brigadier-General Forbes,” Washington added. “I have already, as you
might easily guess, applied for a part in the expedition.”
“I’ll furnish you with one good man, at least,” chuckled old Lord
Fairfax. “You shall have my half-Indian brave, here, again. Though I
don’t know who will tell me hunting stories while he is gone.”
Washington turned with a brief smile for Robert. He was very thin, and
white, for he had indeed been ill. The hardships of the wilderness
trail had left their mark upon him.
“Robert the Hunter has been in my mind,” he said. “I can count on him
as a soldier; and when he joins the colors I shall see that he is made
a corporal.”
“Ho, ho,” Lord Fairfax laughed. “That’s an honor. Since poor Braddock’s
failure with his Regulars I’ve come to look upon a corporal of your
‘raw Provincials’ as rather more dependable than a red-coat sergeant.
But mark my words, George: you’ll find John Forbes a different kind of
man.”
There were to be two regiments from Virginia, three from Pennsylvania,
several companies from Maryland, two from North Carolina; a battalion
of Royal Americans who were King’s soldiers under Regular officers; and
a regiment of Highlanders who were Scotch Regulars sent from across the
water.
“By George, when the claymore meets the tomahawk――eh, George?” had
chuckled Lord Fairfax. “And which’ll be the more astonished, think you:
The wild Hielander when he sees a man wi’ no skeen on his head (for
they don’t scalp in Scotland) or the wild Injun when he sees a bonny
warrior in petticoats?”
The whole force numbered about six thousand men. Six or seven hundred
Catawbas and Cherokees were expected. Brigadier-General John Forbes,
a hard fighter and a veteran, was in Philadelphia, to take command.
Washington had been gladly accepted to command the Long Knife
Americans. If anybody knew about Fort Duquesne, he did. It looked as
though Fort Duquesne would be taken this time; especially when word
came that many of its Indians had gone home, rich with plunder, and
that the garrison was small.
And the English were beginning to gain victories in the north, which so
frightened the Ohio Indians that they commenced to exchange peace belts
with the Governor of Pennsylvania. Even Shingis was “willing.”
The march, however, was delayed, as usual. Washington advised General
Forbes to take the Braddock road, which needed only a little repairing.
But General Forbes (who seemed to have ideas of his own) decided to
make a new road from central Pennsylvania straight to Fort Duquesne.
People told him that the mountains were lower and the rivers less swift.
If he had listened to Washington he would have got to Duquesne sooner
and with much less trouble. But Washington had his way in one thing: he
put two hundred of his men into hunter clothes of buckskin shirt and
leggins, and blankets, and sent them forward under Major Andrew Lewis
to Colonel Henry Bouquet of the Royal Americans, who commanded at the
rendezvous camp while General Forbes lay sick in Philadelphia.
It seemed good to Robert Hunter to be in buckskin; and all the men (and
Washington also) were pleased when Colonel Bouquet the Regular said
that this was the most proper dress he had seen yet.
Colonel Bouquet’s camp was at Raystown, of central Pennsylvania
north from Fort Cumberland. While the road was being cut ahead, he
built a fort named Fort Bedford (which became the town of Bedford,
Pennsylvania); he had the Highlanders――who were a strange sight in
their things called “kilts” that did look like short petticoats, and
the Royal Americans in dark red coats faced with blue, and part of the
Virginians (among them Robert) in hunting shirts and in green uniforms
faced with buff.
When the road had been hacked out far enough (a terrible road that had
proved to be, too; much worse than the Washington and Braddock road) he
marched forty miles across the Alleghany Mountains to Loyalhannon Creek
on the other side of the same Laurel Hills crossed farther west by the
Washington and Braddock road.
Washington had been at Fort Cumberland, completing his regiments;
but he would follow. He had not missed the Braddock fight, and he
certainly would not miss this. General Forbes was still very sick in
Philadelphia――and working from his bed; but he would be on hand, too.
At Loyalhannon Creek Colonel Bouquet began another supply fort. This
was General Forbes’ plan: not to bore in as General Braddock had done,
with a lot of baggage to guard; but to leave bases, as he went, for his
supplies; and when he was near Duquesne to use all his men and take it
quickly.
Now this was already September, and the rains had fallen and the road
had been the worst that even Robert had yet seen. The Catawbas and
Cherokees had been no good at all――why, one Mingo such as Scarouady
was worth a hundred of them. They did go out, a few, under Long Knife
officers, and brought in news and scalps; but as a rule, they could not
be believed. They even stole some of the scalps, and pretended that
they had taken them. Therefore, just what the garrison at Fort Duquesne
were doing nobody knew; nor how many they were.
But it was known that they did not number a great many, and that the
Indians were leaving them.
Now Fort Duquesne was about fifty miles away. Major James Grant of the
Highlanders, it was said, had been wishing to go on and have a look at
the fort, perhaps capture some of its men in the woods and bring them
back.
Colonel Bouquet finally consented. So Grant took part of his
Highlanders, and part of the Royal Americans, and the Major Lewis
Buckskins, and some of the Pennsylvanians and the Maryland companies.
That turned out to be a bad move. How Robert himself ever got out alive
he hardly knew. For when they all had arrived in the dark of early
morning on top of the hill (the same hill!) less than a mile from the
fort, Major Grant sent the Virginians down to draw out the fort’s
Indians and lead them back into an ambush.
Major Andrew Lewis was an old Indian fighter, but he did not relish
this job. A thick fog had settled, making the darkness worse. Nobody
had any idea what lay before, down there in the cleared ground where
the French Indians were supposed to be camped.
All that he could do was to send scouts ahead to feel the way while he
tried to follow. So once again Robert the Hunter found himself stealing
forward to spy upon the enemy at Fort Duquesne.
This was blind work! Very soon he had lost the other scouts and the
fort too. He could see nothing, nothing; and he blundered on, while the
dense forest dripped with the fog. Then, when he was putting one hand
before the other, and groping from trunk to trunk, and log to log, as
he crawled, and had heard no sound of Indians his fingers fell upon a
new, a fearsome object. It was fuzzily smooth, and dank, and ridged――――
Ugh! It was a shaven head!
U-u-ugh! Over backward he went, with the Indian on top of him,
weighting him down and clutching at his throat, and growling angrily.
The growls were in a language that he knew.
“Hold! Scarouady!” he managed to gasp. “You know me.”
Scarouady let up.
“Ho, ho! The Hunter! What do you do here, crawling without eyes?”
“I scout for the Long Knives. What do you do, hiding in the bushes?”
“I scout, too,” said Scarouady. “But I wait for eyes. Where are your
Long Knives?”
That, Robert did not know. He explained; whereat Scarouady grunted.
“I have seen those petticoat warriors. Is the captain who commands used
to the woods?”
Robert thought not.
“I sent word to Washington and Assaragoa that I would help fight the
French if those soldiers from across the water did not interfere,” said
Scarouady. “And now here are across-the-water soldiers in petticoats
like women, come to the woods. Wah! The English are crazy. Why isn’t
Washington sent in, with his men who understand?”
Washington was coming, Robert explained; and so was a red-coat General
who would listen to reason, and was brave besides.