Colonel Washington.
By Archer Butler Hulbert.
Published from the Income
_of_ the Francis G. Butler Publication
Fund _of_ Western
Reserve University. 1902.
COLONEL WASHINGTON
BY ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED FROM THE INCOME
OF THE FRANCIS G. BUTLER
PUBLICATION FUND OF WESTERN
RESERVE UNIVERSITY.
1902
Entered according to Act of Congress
in the year 1902 by
ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress
at Washington, D. C.
NOTE.
The following pages contain a glimpse of the youth Washington when he
first stepped into public view. It is said the President and General
are known to us but “George Washington is an unknown man.” Those, to
whom the man is lost in the official, may well consider Edward
Everett’s oration in which the conduct of the youth Washington is
carefully described--that the orator’s audience might see “not an
ideal hero, wrapped in cloudy generalities and a mist of vogue
panegyric, but the real identical man.”
A. B. H.
Marietta, Ohio, Nov. 28, 1901.
CONTENTS.
I. A Prologue: The Governor’s Envoy.
II. The Story of the Campaign.
III. Fort Necessity and Its Hero.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Site of Fort Necessity Frontispiece
The Route Through the Alleghanies Page 26
“Lowdermilk’s Map of Fort Necessity” " 32
“Washington’s Rock,” " 34
Grape Shot Found Near Fort Necessity " 40
Spark’s Map of Fort Necessity " 42
Lewis’s Map of Fort Necessity " 48
“Frontier Forts” Map " 50
Views of Remains of Fort Necessity " 52
Diagrams of Fort Necessity " 54
[Illustration: SITE OF FORT NECESSITY.
The outline of the Southern embankment is in the fore-ground.
The hill is locally known as Mount Washington; the brick mansion
stands on the old National road and was known as Sampey’s
Tavern. From this hill the French first attacked the little
Virginian army under Washington in the fort.]
COLONEL WASHINGTON.
I.
A PROLOGUE; THE GOVERNOR’S ENVOY.
A thousand vague rumors came over the Allegheny mountains during the
year 1753 to Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, of French aggressions
into the Ohio River valley, the more alarming because vague and
uncertain.
Orders were soon at hand from London authorizing the Virginian
Governor to erect a fort on the Ohio which would hold that river for
England and tend to conciliate the Indians to English rule. But the
Governor was too much in the dark as to the operations of the French
to warrant any decisive step, and he immediately cast about him for an
envoy whom he could trust to find out what was really happening in the
valley of the Ohio.
Who was to be this envoy? The mission called for a person of unusual
capacity; a diplomat, a soldier and a frontiersman. Five hundred miles
were to be threaded on Indian trails in the dead of winter. This was
woodman’s work. There were cunning Indian chieftains and French
officers, trained to intrigue, to be met, influenced, conciliated.
This, truly, demanded a diplomat. There were forts to be marked and
mapped, highways of approach to be considered and compared, vantage
sites on river and mountain to be noted and valued. This was work for
a soldier and a strategist.
After failing to induce one or two gentlemen to undertake this
perilous but intrinsically important task, the services of a youthful
Major George Washington, one of the four adjutant-generals of
Virginia, were offered, and the despairing Scotch Governor, whose zeal
always approached rashness, accepted them.
But there was something more to the credit of this audacious youth
than his temerity. The best of Virginian blood ran in his veins, and
he had shown already a taste for adventurous service quite in line
with such a hazardous business. Acquiring, when a mere lad, a
knowledge of mathematics, he had gone surveying in Lord Fairfax’s
lands on the south branch of the Potomac. There he spent the best of
three years, far beyond the settled limits of Virginia, fortifying his
splendid physique against days of stress to come. In other ways this
life on his country’s frontier was of advantage. Here he had met the
Indians--that race upon which no man ever wielded a greater influence
than Washington. Here he learned to know frontier life, its charms,
its deprivations, its fears and its toils--a life for which he was
ever to entertain so much sympathy and so much consideration. Here he
studied the Indian traders, a class of men of much more importance, in
peace or war, than any or all others in the border land; men whose
motives of action were as hard to read as an Indian’s, and whose
flagrant and oft practiced deceptions on their fellow white men were
fraught with disaster.
It was of utmost fortune for his country that this youth went into the
West in his teens, for he was to be, under Providence, a champion of
that West worthy of its influence on human affairs. Thus he had come
to it early and loved it; he learned to know its value, to foresee
something of its future, to think for and with its pioneer developers,
to study its roads and rivers and portages: thus he was fortified
against narrow purposes, and made as broad in his sympathies and
ambitions as the great West was broad itself. No statesman of his day
came to know and believe in the West as Washington did; and it is not
difficult to think that had he not so known and loved it, the
territory west of the Allegheny mountains would never have become a
portion of the United States of America. There were far too many
serious men like Thomas Jefferson who knew little about the West and
boasted that they cared less. Yet today the seaboard states are more
dependent commercially and politically on the states between the
Alleghenies and Mississippi than are these central commonwealths
dependent on them.
The same divine Providence which directed this youth’s steps into the
Alleghenies had brought him speedily to his next post of duty, for
family influence secured him an appointment as adjutant-general (with
rank of major) over one of the four military districts into which
Virginia had been divided for purposes of defense, a position for
which he was as fitted by inclination as by frontier experience.
This lad now received Dinwiddie’s appointment. As a practical surveyor
in the wilderness he possessed the frontiersman’s qualifications; as
an apt and diligent student of military science, with a
brother--trained under Admiral Vernon--as a practical tutor, he had
in a degree a soldier’s qualifications; if not a diplomat, he was as
shrewd a lad as chivalrous old Virginia had within her borders; still,
at twenty-one, that boy of the sixty maxims, but hardened, steadied
and made exceeding thoughtful by his life on Virginia’s great black
forest-bound horizon. His keen eyes, quick perception and daring
spirit were now to be turned to something of more moment than a
tripod’s reading or a shabby line of Virginia militia. All in all, he
was far better fitted for this mission than anyone could have known or
guessed.
It is not to be doubted that George Washington knew the dangers he
courted, at least very much better than we can appreciate them today.
He had not lived three years on the frontier for nothing. He had heard
of these French--of their bold invasion of the West, their growing
trade, their cunning conciliation of the Indian, their sudden passion
for fort building when they heard of the grant of land to the Ohio
Company to which his brothers belonged. Who can doubt that he looked
with envious eyes upon those fearless fleets of _coureur de bois_ and
their woodland pilgrimaging; who can doubt that the few stolid English
traders who went over the mountains on poor Indian ponies made a sorry
showing beside the roistering, picturesque, irrepressible Frenchmen
who knew and sailed those sweet, clear rivers that flowed through the
dark, green forests of the great West? But the forests were filled
with their sly, redskinned proselytes. One swift rifle ball might
easily be sent from a hidden covert to meet the stripling envoy from
the English who had come to spy out the land and report both its
giants and its grapes. Yet after one day’s preparation he was ready
to leave a home rich in comfort and culture, a host of warm friends,
and bury himself six hundred miles deep in the western forests, to
sleep on the ground in the dead of winter, wade rivers running with
ice and face a hundred known and a thousand unknown risks.
“Faith, you’re a brave lad,” broke out the old Scotch Governor, “and,
if you play your cards well, you shall have no cause to repent your
bargain,” and the Major Washington departed from Williamsburg on the
last day of October, but one, 1753. The first sentence in the
_Journal_ he now began suggests his avidity and promptness: “I was
commissioned and appointed by the Honourable _Robert Dinwiddie_, Esq;
Governor, _&c_ of _Virginia_, to visit and deliver a Letter to the
Commandant of the _French_ Forces on the _Ohio_, and set out on the
intended Journey the same Day.” At Fredericksburg he employed his old
fencing tutor, Jacob van Braam, as his interpreter, and pushed on
westward over the new road built by the Ohio Company to Will’s Creek
(Fort Cumberland, Maryland) on the upper Potomac, where he arrived
November 14th.
Will’s Creek was the last Virginian outpost, where Fort Cumberland was
soon erected. Already the Ohio Company had located a store house at
this point. Onward the Indian trail wound in and out through the
Alleghenies, over the successive ranges known as Wills’, Savage and
Meadow Mountains. From the latter it dropped down into Little Meadows.
Here in the open ground, covered with rank grasses, the first of the
western waters was crossed, a branch of the Youghiogeny River. From
“Little Crossings,” as the ford was called, the narrow trail vaulted
Negro Mountain and came down upon the upper Youghiogeny, this ford
here being named “Big Crossings.” Another climb over Briery Mountain
brought the traveller down into Great Meadows, the largest tract of
open land in the Alleghenies. By a zig-zag climb of five miles the
summit of the last of the Allegheny ranges--Laurel Hill--was reached,
where the path turned northward and followed the line of hills, by
Christopher Gist’s clearing on what is known as Mount Braddock, toward
the lower Youghiogeny, at “Stewart’s Crossing.” Thence the trail ran
down the point of land where Pittsburg now lies in its clouds of smoke
between the “Forks of the Ohio.”
This trace of the buffalo and portage path of the Indian had no name
until it took that of a Delaware Indian, Nemacolin, who blazed its
course, under the direction of Captain Thomas Cresap, for the Ohio
Company. To those who love to look back to beginnings, and read great
things in small, this Indian path, with its border of wounded trees,
leading across the first great divide into the central west, is worthy
of contemplation. Each tree starred whitely by the Indian’s axe spoke
of Saxon conquest and commerce, one and inseparable. In every act of
the great world-drama now on the boards this little trail with its
blazed trees lies in the foreground.
And the rise of the curtain shows the lad Washington and his party of
seven horsemen, led by the bold guide Christopher Gist, setting out
from Will’s Creek on the 15th of November, 1753. The character of the
journey is nowhere better described than in Washington’s words when he
engaged Gist’s services: “I engaged Mr. _Gist_ to pilot us out.”
It proved a rough voyage! A fierce, early winter came out of the
north, as though in league with the French to intimidate, if not drive
back, these spies of French aggression. It rained and snowed, and the
little roadway became well nigh impassable. The brown mountain ranges,
which until recently had been burnished with the glory of a mountain
autumn, were wet and black. Scarce eighteen miles were covered a day,
a whole week being exhausted in reaching the Monongahela. But this was
not altogether unfortunate. A week was not too long for the future
Father of the West to study the hills and valleys which were to bear
forever the precious favor of his devoted and untiring zeal. And in
this week this youth conceived a dream and a purpose, the dearest, if
not the most dominant, of his life--the union, commercial as well as
political, of the East and the West. Yet he passed Great Meadows
without seeing Fort Necessity, Braddock’s Run without seeing
Braddock’s unmarked grave, and Laurel Hill without a premonition of
the covert in the valley below, where shortly he should shape the
stones above a Frenchman’s grave. But could he have seen it all--the
wasted labor, nights spent in agony of suspense, humiliation, defeat
and the dead and dying--would it have turned him back?
The first roof to offer Washington hospitable shelter was the cabin of
the trader Frazier at the mouth of Turtle Creek, on the Monongahela,
near the death-trap where soon that desperate horde of French and
Indians should put to flight an army five times its own number. Here
information was at hand, for it was none other than this Frazier who
had been driven from Venango but a few weeks before by the French
force sent there to build a fort. Joncaire was spending the winter in
Frazier’s old cabin, and no doubt the young Virginian heard this
irrepressible French officer’s title read clear in strong German
oaths. Here too was a Speech, with a string of wampum accompanying, on
its way from the anti-French Indians on the Ohio to Governor
Dinwiddie, bringing the ominous news that the Chippewas, Ottawas and
Wyandots had taken up the hatchet against the English.
Washington took the Speech and the wampum and pushed on undismayed.
Sending the baggage down the Monongahela by boat he pushed on overland
to the “Forks” where he chose a site for a fort, the future site,
first, of Fort Duquesne, and later, Fort Pitt. But his immediate
destination was the Indian village of Loggstown, fifteen miles down
the Ohio. On his way thither he stopped at the lodge of Shingiss, a
Delaware King, and secured the promise of his attendance upon the
council of anti-French (though not necessarily pro-English) Indians.
For this was the Virginian envoy’s first task--to make a strong bid
for the allegiance of the redmen; it was not more than suggested in
his instructions, but was none the less imperative, as he well knew
whether his superiors did or not.
It is extremely difficult to construct anything like a clear statement
of Indian affiliations at this crisis. This territory west of the
Alleghenies, nominally purchased from the Six Nations, was claimed by
the Shawanese and Delawares who had since come into it, and also by
many fugitives from the Six Nations, known generally as Mingoes, who
had come to make their hunting grounds their home. Though the Delaware
King was only a “Half-King” (because subject to the Council of the
Six Nations) yet they claimed the land and had even resisted French
encroachment. “Half-King” and his Delawares believed that the English
only desired commercial intercourse and favored them as compared with
the French who had already built forts in the West. The northern
nations who were nearer the French soon surrendered to their
blandishments; and soon the Delawares (called _Loups_ by the French)
and the Shawanese were overcome by French allurements and were
generally found about the French forts and forces. In the spring of
the year Half-King had gone to Presque Isle and spoken firmly to
Marin, declaring that the land was not theirs but the Indians’.
Insofar as the English were more backward than the French in occupying
the land the unprejudiced Delawares and Mingoes were inclined to
further English plans. When, a few years later, it became clear that
the English cared not a whit for the rights of the redmen, the latter
hated and fought them as they never had the French. Washington was
well fitted for handling this delicate matter of sharpening Indian
hatred of the French and of keeping very still about English plans.
Here at Loggstown unexpected information was received. Certain French
deserters from the Mississippi gave the English envoy a description of
French operations on that river between New Orleans and Illinois. The
latter word “Illinois” was taken by Washington’s old Dutch interpreter
to be the French words “_Isle Noire_,” and Washington speaks of
Illinois as the “Black Islands” in his _Journal_. But this was not to
be old van Braam’s only blunder in the role of interpreter!
Half-King was ready with the story of his journey to Presque Isle,
which, he affirmed, Washington could not reach “in less than five or
six nights’ sleep, good traveling.” Little wonder, at such a season, a
journey was measured by the number of nights to be spent in the frozen
forests! Marin’s answer to Half-King was not less spirited because of
his own dying condition. The Frenchman frankly stated that two English
traders had been taken to Canada “_to get intelligence of what the
English were doing in Virginia_.” So far as Indian possession of the
land was concerned Marin was quickly to the point: “_You say this Land
belongs to you, but there is not the Black of my Nail yours. I saw
that Land sooner than you did, before the Shannoahs and you were at
War_: Lead _was the Man who went down, and took Possession of that
River: It is my Land, and I will have it, let who will stand-up for,
or say-against, it. I’ll buy and sell with the_ English, (mockingly).
_If People will be rul’d by me, they may expect Kindness, but not
else._” La Salle had gone down the Ohio and claimed possession of it
long before Delaware or Shawanese, Ottawa or Wyandot had built a
single fire in the valley! The claim of the Six Nations, only,
antedated that of the French--but the Six Nations had sold their claim
to the English for 400 pounds at Lancaster in 1744. And there was the
rub!
At the Council on the following day (26th), Washington delivered an
address, asking for guides and guards on his trip up the Allegheny and
Riviere aux Boeufs, adroitly implying, in word and gesture, that his
audience was the warmest allies of the English and equally desirous to
oppose French aggression. The Council was for granting each request
but the absence of the hunters necessitated a detention; undoubtedly
fear of the French also provoked delay and counselling. Little
wonder: Washington would soon be across the mountain again and the
rough Frenchman who claimed even the earth beneath his finger nails
and had won over Ottawas, Chippewas, and fierce Wyandots, would make
short work with those who housed and counselled with the English
envoy! And--perhaps more ominous than all--Washington did not announce
his business in the West, undoubtedly fearing the Indians would not
aid him if they knew it. When at last they asked the nature of his
mission he answered just the best an honest-hearted lad could. “This
was a Question I all along expected,” he wrote in his _Journal_, “and
had provided as satisfactory Answers to, as I could; which allayed
their Curiosity a little.” This youthful diplomat would have allayed
the burning curiosity of hundreds of others had he mentioned the
reasons he gave those suspicious chieftains for this five-hundred-mile
journey in the winter season to a miserable little French fort on the
Riviere aux Boeufs! It is safe to assume that could he have given the
real reasons he would have been saved the difficulty of providing
“satisfactory” ones.
For four days Washington remained, but on the 30th. he set out
northward accompanied only by the faithful Half-King and three other
Indians, and five days later (after four “nights sleep”) the party
arrived at the mouth of the Riviere aux Boeufs where Joncaire was
wintering in Frazier’s cabin. The seventy miles from Loggstown were
traversed at about the same poor rate as the one hundred and twenty
five from Will’s Creek. To Joncaire’s cabin, over which floated the
French flag, the Virginian envoy immediately repaired. He was
received with much courtesy, though, as he well knew, Legardeur de St
Piere, at Fort La Boeuf, the successor to the dead Marin, was the
French commandant to whom his letter from Dinwiddie must go.
However Washington was treated “with the greatest Complaisance” by
Joncaire. During the evening the Frenchmen “dosed themselves pretty
plentifully,” wrote the sober, keen-eyed Virginian, “and gave a
Licence to their Tongues. They told me, That it was their absolute
Design to take Possession of the _Ohio_, and by G-- they would do it:
For that altho’ they were sensible the _English_ could raise two Men
for their one; yet they knew, their Motions were too slow and dilatory
to prevent any Undertaking of theirs.” For a true picture of the man
Washington (who is said to be forgotten) what one would be chosen
before this: the youth sitting before the log fire in an Englishman’s
cabin, from which the French had driven its owner, on the Allegheny
river; about him sit leering, tipsy Gauls, bragging, with oaths, of a
conquest they were never to make; dress him for a five-hundred-mile
ride through a wilderness in winter, and rest his sober eyes
thoughtfully upon the crackling logs while oaths and boasts and the
rank smell of foreign liquor fill the heavy air. No picture could show
better the three commanding traits of this youth who was father of the
man: hearty daring, significant, homespun shrewdness, dogged,
resourceful patience. Basic traits of character are often displayed
involuntarily in the effervescence of youthful zest. These this lad
had shown and was showing in this brave ride into a dense wilderness
and a braver inspection of his country’s enemies, their works, their
temper, and their boasts. Let this picture hang on the walls of every
home where the lad in the fore-ground before the blazing logs is
unknown save in the role of the general or statesman he became in
later life.
How those French officers must have looked this tall, stern boy up and
down! How they enjoyed sneering in his face at English backwardness in
coming over the Alleghenies into the great West which their explorers
had honeycombed with a thousand swift canoes! As they even plotted his
assassination, how, in turn, that young heart must have burned to stop
their mouths with his hand. Little wonder that when the time came his
voice first ordered “Fire,” and his finger first pulled the trigger in
the great war which won the west from those bragging Frenchmen!
But with the boasts came no little information concerning the French
operations on the great lakes, the number of their forts and men.
Washington did not get off for Fort La Boeuf the next day for the
weather was exceedingly rough. This gave the wily Joncaire a chance to
tamper with his Indians, and the opportunity was not neglected! Upon
learning that Indians were in the envoy’s retinue he professed great
regret that Washington had not “made free to bring them in before.”
The Virginian was quick with a stinging retort: for since he had heard
Joncaire “say a good deal in Dispraise of the _Indians_ in general” he
did not “think their Company agreeable.” But Joncaire had his way and
“applied the Loquor so fast,” that lo! the poor Indians “were soon
rendered incapable of the Business they came about.”
In the morning Half-King came to Washington’s tent hopefully sober but
urging that another day be spent at Venango since “the Management of
the _Indians_ Affairs was left solely to Monsieur _Joncaire_.” To this
the envoy reluctantly acquiesced. But on the day after the embassy got
on its way, thanks to Christopher Gist’s influence over the Indians.
When Joncaire found them going, he forwarded their plans “in the
heartiest way in the world” and detailed Monsieur la Force (with whom
this Virginian was to meet under different circumstances inside half a
year!) to accompany them. Four days were spent in floundering over the
last sixty miles of this journey, the party being driven into “Mires
and Swamps” to avoid crossing the swollen Riviere aux Boeufs. On the
11th of December Washington reached his destination, having traveled
over 500 miles in forty-two days.
Legardeur St. Piere, the one-eyed commander at Fort La Boeuf, had
arrived but one week before Washington. To him the Virginian envoy
delivered Governor Dinwiddie’s letter the day after his arrival. Its
contents read:
“Sir,
The Lands upon the River _Ohio_, in the Western Parts of the
Colony of _Virginia_, are so notoriously known to be the
Property of the Crown of _Great-Britain_; that it is a Matter
of equal Concern and Surprise to me, to hear that a Body of
_French_ Forces are erecting Fortresses, and making Settlements
upon that River, within his Majesty’s Dominions.
The many and repeated Complaints I have received of these Acts
of Hostility, lay me under the Necessity, of sending, in the
Name of the King my Master, the Bearer hereof, _George
Washington_, Esq; one of the Adjutants General of the Forces of
this Dominion; to complain to you of the Encroachments thus
made, and of the Injuries done to the Subjects of
_Great-Britain_, in the open Violation of the Law of Nations,
and the Treaties now subsisting between the two Crowns.
If these Facts are true, and you shall think fit to justify
your Proceedings, I must desire you to acquaint me, by whose
Authority and Instructions you have lately marched from
_Canada_, with an armed Force; and invaded the King of
_Great-Britain’s_ Territories, in the Manner complained of?
that according to the Purport and Resolution of your Answer, I
may act agreeably to the Commission I am honored with, from the
King my Master.
However, Sir, in Obedience to my Instructions, it becomes my
Duty to require your peaceable Departure; and that you would
forbear prosecuting a Purpose so interruptive of the Harmony
and good Understanding, which his Majesty is desirous to
continue and cultivate with the most Christian King.
I persuade myself you will receive and entertain Major
_Washington_ with the Candour and Politeness natural to your
Nation; and it will give me the greatest Satisfaction, if you
return him with an Answer suitable to my Wishes for a very long
and lasting Peace between us. I have the Honour to subscribe
myself,
_SIR_,
Your most obedient,
Humble Servant,
ROBERT DINWIDDIE.”
While an answer was being prepared the envoy had an opportunity to
take careful note of the fort and its hundred defenders. The fortress
which Washington carefully described in his _Journal_ was not so
significant as the host of canoes along the river shore. It was French
canoes the English feared more than French forts. The number at Fort
La Boeuf at this time was over two hundred, and others were being
made. And every stream flowed south to the land “notoriously known” to
belong to the British Crown!
On the 14th. Washington was planning his homeward trip. His horses,
lacking proper nourishment, exhausted by the hard trip northward, were
totally unfit for service, and were at once set out on the road to
Venango, since canoes had been offered the little embassy for the
return trip. Anxious as Washington was to be off, neither his business
nor that of Half-King’s had been forwarded with any celerity until
now; but this day Half-King secured an audience with St. Piere and
offered him the wampum which was promptly refused, though with many
protestations of friendship and an offer to send a load of goods to
Loggstown. Every effort possible was being put forth to alienate
Half-King and the Virginian frankly wrote: “I can’t say that ever in
my Life I suffered so much Anxiety as I did in this Affair.” This day
and the next the French officers out did themselves in hastening
Washington’s departure and retarding Half-King’s. At last Washington
complained frankly to St. Piere, who denied his duplicity--and doubled
his bribes! But on the day following Half-King was lured away, Venango
being reached in six long days, a large part of the time being spent
in dragging the canoes over icy shoals.
Four days were spent with Joncaire, when abandoning both horses and
Indians, Washington and Gist set out alone and afoot by the shortest
course to the Forks of the Ohio. It was a daring alternative but
altogether the preferable one. At Murdering Town, a fit place for
Joncaire’s assassin to lie in wait, some French Indians were
overtaken, one of whom offered to guide the travelers across to the
Forks. At the first good chance he fired upon them, was disarmed and
sent away. The two, building a raft, reached an island in the
Allegheny after heroic suffering but were unable to cross to the
eastern shore until the following morning. Then they passed over on
the ice which had formed and went directly to Frazier’s cabin. There
they arrived December 29th. On the first day of the new year, 1754,
Washington set out for Virginia. On the sixth he met seventeen horses
loaded with materials and stores, “for a Fort at the Forks of the
_Ohio_.” Governor Dinwiddie, indefatigable if nothing else, had
commissioned Captain Trent to raise a company of an hundred men to
erect a fort on the Ohio for the protection of the Ohio Company.
On the sixteenth of January the youthful envoy rode again into
Williamsburg, one month from the day he left Fort La Boeuf. St.
Piere’s reply to Governor Dinwiddie’s letter read as follows:
“_SIR_,
As I have the Honour of commanding here in Chief, Mr.
_Washington_ delivered me the Letter which you wrote to the
Commandant of the _French_ Troops.
I should have been glad that you had given him Orders, or that
he had been inclined to proceed to _Canada_, to see our
General; to whom it better belongs than to me to set-forth the
Evidence and Reality of the Rights of the King, my Master, upon
the Lands situated along the River _Ohio_, and to contest the
Pretentions of the King of _Great-Britain_ thereto.
I shall transmit your Letter to the Marquis _Duguisne_. His
Answer will be a Law to me; and if he shall order me to
communicate it to you, Sir, you may be assured I shall not fail
to dispatch it to you forthwith.
As to the Summons you send me to retire, I do not think myself
obliged to obey it. What-ever may be your Instructions, I am
here by Virtue of the Orders of my General; and I entreat you,
Sir, not to doubt one Moment, but that I am determin’d to
conform myself to them with all the Exactness and Resolution
which can be expected from the best Officer.
I don’t know that in the Progress of this Campaign any Thing
has passed which can be reputed an Act of Hostility, or that is
contrary to the Treaties which subsist between the two Crowns;
the Continuation whereof as much interests, and is as pleasing
to us, as the _English_. Had you been pleased, Sir, to have
descended to particularize the Facts which occasioned your
Complaint, I should have had the Honour of answering you in the
fullest, and, I am persuaded, most satisfactory Manner.
I made it my particular Care to receive Mr _Washington_, with a
Distinction suitable to your Dignity, as well as his own
Quality and great Merit. I flatter myself that he will do me
this Justice before you, Sir; and that he will signify to you
in the Manner I do myself, the profound Respect with which I
am,
_SIR_,
Your most humble, and
most obedient Servant,
LEGARDEUR DE ST. PIERE.”
Washington found the Governor’s council was to meet the day following
and that his report was desired. Accordingly he rewrote his _Journal_
from the “rough minutes” he had made. From any point of view this
document of ten thousand words, hastily written by a lad of twenty-one
who had not seen a school desk since his seventeenth year, is far more
creditable and remarkable than any of the feats of physical endurance
for which the lad is idolized by the youthful readers of our school
histories. It is safe to say that many a college bred man of today
could not prepare from rough notes such a succinct and polite document
as did this young surveyor, who had read few books and studied neither
his own nor any foreign language. The author did not “in the least
conceive ... that it would ever be published.” Speaking afterward of
its “numberless imperfections” he said that all that could recommend
it to the public was its truthfulness of fact. Certain features of
this first literary work of Washington’s are worthy of remark: his
frankness, as in criticising Shingiss’ village as a site for a fort as
proposed by the Ohio Company; his exactness in giving details (where
he could obtain them) of forts, men, and guns; his estimates of
distances; his wise conforming to Indian custom; his careful note of
the time of day of important events; his frequent observations of the
kinds of the land through which he passed; his knowlege of Indian
character.
This mission prosecuted with such rare tact and skill was an utter
failure, considered from the standpoint of its nominal purpose. St.
Piere’s letter was firm, if not defiant. Yet Dinwiddie, despairing of
French withdrawal, had secured the information he desired. Already the
French had reached the Forks of the Ohio where an English fort was
being erected. Peaceful measures were exhausted with the failure of
Washington’s embassy.
England’s one hope was--war.
II.
THE STORY OF THE CAMPAIGN.
No literary production of a youth of twenty-one ever electrified the
world as did the publication of the _Journal_ of this dauntless envoy
of the Virginian Governor. No young man more instantly sprang into the
notice of the world than George Washington. The _Journal_ was copied
far and wide in the newspapers of the other colonies. It sped across
the sea, and was printed in London by the British government. In a
manly, artless way it told the exact situation on the Ohio frontier
and announced the first positive proof the world had had of hostile
French aggression into the great river valley of the West. Despite
certain youthful expressions, the prudence, tact, capacity and modesty
of the author were recognized by a nation and by a world.
Without waiting for the House of Burgesses to convene, Governor
Dinwiddie’s Council immediately advised the enlistment of two hundred
men to be sent to build forts on the Monongahela and Ohio rivers. The
business of recruiting two companies of one hundred men each was given
to the tried though youthful Major Washington, since they were to be
recruited from the northern district over which he had been
adjutant-general. His instructions read as follows:
“_Instruct’s to be observ’d by Maj’r Geo. Washington, on the
Expedit’n to the Ohio._
Maj’r Geo. Washington: You are forthwith to repair to the Co’ty
of Frederick and there to take under Y’r Com’d 50 Men of the
Militia who will be deliver’d to You by the Comd’r of the s’d
Co’ty pursuant to my Orders. You are to send Y’r Lieut. at the
same Time to the Co’ty of Augusta, to receive 50 Men from the
Comd’r of that Co’ty as I have order’d, and with them he is to
join You at Alexandria, to which Place You are to proceed as
soon as You have rec’d the Men in Frederick. Having rec’d the
Detachm’t, You are to train and discipline them in the best
Manner You can, and for all Necessaries You are to apply
Y’rself to Mr. Jno. Carlisle at Alex’a who has my Orders to
supply You. Having all Things in readiness You are to use all
Expedition in proceeding to the Fork of Ohio with the Men under
Com’d and there you are to finish and compleat in the best
Manner and as soon as You possibly can, the Fort w’ch I expect
is there already begun by the Ohio Comp’a. You are to act on
the Defensive, but in Case any Attempts are made to obstruct
the Works or interrupt our Settlem’ts by any Persons whatsoever
You are to restrain all such Offenders, and in Case of
resistance to make Prisoners of or kill and destroy them. For
the rest You are to conduct Y’rself as the Circumst’s of the
Service shall require and to act as You shall find best for the
Furtherance of His M’y’s Service and the Good of His Dom’n.
Wishing You Health and Success I bid you Farewell.”
The general command of the expedition was given to Colonel Joshua Fry,
formerly professor of mathematics in William and Mary College and a
geographer and Indian commissioner of note. His instructions were as
follows:
“_Instruction’s to Joshua Fry, Esqr., Colo. and the
Com’r-in-Chief of the Virg’a Regiment._
March, 1754.
“Sir: The Forces under Y’r Com’d are rais’d to protect our
frontier Settlements from the incursions of the French and the
Ind’s in F’dship with them. I therefore desire You will with
all possible Expedition repair to Alexandria on the Head of the
Poto. River, and there take upon You the com’d of the Forces
accordingly; w’ch I Expect will be at that Town the Middle of
next Mo. You are to march them to will’s Creek, above the Falls
of Poto. from thence with the Great Guns, Amunit’n and
Provisions. You are to proceed to Monongahela, when ariv’d
there, You are to make Choice of the best Place to erect a
Fort for mounting y’r Cannon and ascertain’g His M’y the King
of G. B’s undoubt’d right to those Lands. My Orders to You is
to be on the Defensive and if any foreign Force sh’d come to
annoy You or interrupt Y’r quiet Settlem’t, and building the
Fort as afores’d, You are in that Case to represent to them the
Powers and Orders You have from me, and I desire they w’d
imediately retire and not to prevent You in the discharge of
your Duty. If they sh’d continue to be obstinate after your
desire to retire, you are then to repell Force by Force. I
expect a Number of the Southern Indians will join you on this
expedit’n, w’ch with the Indians on the Ohio, I desire You will
cultivate a good Understanding and Correspondence with,
supplying them with what Provisions and other Necessaries You
can spare; and write to Maj’r Carlyle w’n You want Provisions,
who has my Orders to purchase and Keep a proper Magazine for
Your dem’ds. Keep up a good Com’d and regular Discipline,
inculcate morality and Courage in Y’r Soldiers that they may
answer the Views on w’ch they are rais’d. You are to constitute
a Court Martial of the Chief of Your Officers, with whom You
are to advise and consult on all Affairs of Consequence; and as
the Fate of this Expedition greatly depends on You, from the
Opinion I have of Your good Sense and Conduct, I refer the
Management of the whole to You with the Advice of the Court
Martial. Sincerely recommending You to the Protection of God,
wishing Success to our just Designs, I heartily wish You
farewell.”
This expedition was in no sense the result of general agitation
against French encroachment. And, as in Virginia, so it was in other
colonies to which Governor Dinwiddie appealed; the Governors said they
had received no instructions; the validity of English title to the
lands upon which the French were alleged to have encroached was
doubted; no one wished to precipitate a war through rash zeal.
Before the bill voting ten thousand pounds “for the encouragement and
protection of the settlers on the Mississippi,” as it was called,
passed the House of Burgesses, Governor Dinwiddie had his patience
well-nigh exhausted, but he overlooked both the doubts raised as to
England’s rights in the West, and personal slights, and signed the
bill which provided the expenses of this memorable expedition of the
Virginia Regiment in 1754.
Major Washington was located at Alexandria, on the upper Potomac, in
February where he superintended the rendezvous and the transportation
of supplies and cannon. It was found necessary to resort to
impressments to raise the required quota of men. As early as February
19th, so slow were the drafts and enlistments, Governor Dinwiddie
issued a proclamation granting two hundred thousand acres of land on
the Ohio to be divided among the officers and men who would serve in
the expedition. This had its effect.
By April 20th Washington arrived at Will’s Creek (Cumberland,
Maryland) with three companies, one under Captain Stephen joining him
on the way. The day previous, however, he met a messenger sent from
Captain Trent on the Ohio announcing that the arrival of a French army
was hourly expected. And on the day following, at Will’s Creek, he was
informed of the arrival of the French on what is now the site of
Pittsburg and the withdrawal of the Virginian force under Trent from
the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela whither they had been
sent to build a fort for the protection of the Ohio Company. This
information he immediately forwarded to the Governors of Virginia,
Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Fancy the state of mind of this vanguard of the Virginian army at the
receipt of this news. It was, then, at the last frontier fort, eleven
companies strong. Their order was to push on to the Ohio, drive off
the French (which was then reported to number a thousand men) and
build a fort. Before it the only road was the Indian path hardly wide
enough to admit the passage of a pack-horse.
A ballot was cast among Washington’s Captains--the youngest of whom
was old enough to have been his father--and the decision was to
advance. The Indian path could at least be widened and bridges built
as far as the Monongahela. There they determined to erect a fort and
await orders and reinforcements. The reasons for this decision are
given as follows in Washington’s _Journal_ of 1754:[1].
“_1st._ That the mouth of _Red-Stone_ is the first convenient place on
the River _Monongahela_.
_2nd._ The stores are already built at that place for the provisions
of the Company, wherein the Ammunition may be laid up, our great guns
may also be sent by water whenever we shall think it convenient to
attack the Fort.
_3rd._ We may easily (having all these conveniences) preserve our men
from the ill consequences of inaction, and encourage the _Indians_ our
Allies to remain in our interests.”
[1] The private _Journal_ kept by Washington on the expedition
of the Virginia Regiment in 1754 was composed of rough notes
only. It was lost with other papers at the Battle of Fort
Necessity and was captured by the French and sent to Paris. Two
years later it was published by the French government, after
being thoroughly “edited” by a French censor. It was titled
“MEMOIRE _contenant le Precis des Faits, avec leurs Pieces
Justificatives, pour servir de Reponse aux_ OBSERVATIONS
_envoyees, par les Ministres d’Angleterre, dans les Cours de
l’Europe. A Paris; de l’Imprimerie Royale, 1756._”
In this MEMOIRE, together with portions of Washington’s
_Journal_ appear papers, instructions, etc., captured at
Braddock’s defeat in 1755. Of the portion of Washington’s
_Journal_ published, Washington himself said; “I kept no regular
one (Journal) during the Expedition; rough notes of occurrences
I certainly took, and find them as certainly and strangely
metamorphised, some parts left out which I remember were
entered, and many things added that never were thought of, the
names of men and things egregiously miscalled, and the whole of
what I saw Englished is very incorrect and nonsensical.” The
last entry on the _Journal_ is on June 27th., six days previous
to the Battle of Fort Necessity.
Thus Washington’s march westward in 1754 must be looked upon only as
the advance of a van-guard to open the road, bridge the streams and
prepare the way for the commanding officer and his army. Nor was
there, now, need of haste--had it been possible or advisable to
hasten. The landing of the French at the junction of the Allegheny and
Monongahela already thwarted Governor Dinwiddie’s purpose in sending
out the expedition “To prevent their (French) building any Forts or
making any Settlem’s on that river (Ohio) and more particularly so
nigh us as that of Loggstown (fifteen miles below the forks of the
Ohio.)” Now that a fort was building, with a French army of a thousand
men (as Washington had been erroneously informed) encamped about it,
nothing more was to be thought of than a cautious advance.
And so Washington gave the order to march on the 29th. of April, three
score men having been sent ahead to widen the Indian trail. The
progress was difficult, and exceedingly slow. In the first ten days
the hundred and fifty men covered but twenty miles. Yet each mile must
have been anticipated seriously by the young commander. He knew not
whether the enemy or his Colonel with reinforcements was nearest.
Governor Dinwiddie wrote him (May 4) concerning reinforcements, as
follows:
“The Independ’t Compa., from So. Car. arriv’d two days ago; is
compleat; 100 Men besides Officers, and will re-embark for Alexa
next Week, thence proceed imediately to join Colo. Fry and You.
The two Independ’t Compa’s from N. York may be Expected in ab’t
ten days. The N. Car. Men, under the Com’d of Colo. Innes, are
imagin’d to be on their March, and will probably be at the
Randezvous ab’t the 15th. Itst.” ... “I hope Capt. McKay, who
Com’ds the Independ’t Compa., will soon be with You And as he
appears to be an Officer of some Experience and Importance, You
will, with Colo. Fry and Colo. Innes, so well agree as not to
let some Punctillios ab’t Com’d render the Service You are all
engag’d in, perplex’d or obstructed.”
Relying implicitly on Dinwiddie, Washington pushed on and on into the
wilderness, opening a road and building bridges for a Colonel and an
army that was never to come! As he advanced into the Alleghenies he
found the difficulty of hauling wagons very serious, and, long before
he reached the Youghiogheny, he determined to test the possibility of
transportation down that stream and the Monongahela to his destination
at the mouth of the Redstone Creek. May 11th. he sent a reconnoitering
force forward to Gist’s, on Laurel Hill, the last spur of the
Alleghenies, to locate a French party, which, the Indians reported,
had left Fort Duquesne, and to find if there was possibility of water
transportation to the mouth of Redstone Creek, where a favorable site
for a fort was to be sought.
Slowly the frail detachment felt its way along to Little Meadows and
across the smaller branch of the Youghiogheny which it bridged at
“Little Crossings.” On the 16th, according to the French version of
Washington’s _Journal_, he met traders who informed him of the
appearance of French at Gist’s and who expressed doubts as to the
possibility of building a wagon road from Gist’s to the mouth of
Redstone Creek. This made it imperatively necessary for the young
Lieutenant-Colonel to attempt to find a water passage down the
Youghiogheny.
The day following much information was received, both from the front
and the rear, vividly stated in the _Journal_ as follows:
“The Governor informs me that Capt. McKay, with an independent
company of 100 men, excluding the officers, had arrived, and
that we might expect them daily; and that the men from New-York
would join us within ten days.
This night also came two _Indians_ from the _Ohio_ who left the
French fort five days ago: They relate that the French forces
are all employed in building their Fort, that it is already
breast-high, and of the thickness of twelve feet, and filled
with Earth, stones, etc. They have cut down and burnt up all
the trees which were about it and sown grain instead thereof.
The _Indians_ believe they were only 600 in number, although
they say themselves they are 800. They expect a greater number
in a few days, which may amount to 1600. Then they say they can
defy the _English_.”
[Illustration: THE ROUTE THROUGH THE ALLEGHENIES]
Arriving on the eastern bank of the Youghiogheny the next day, 18th,
the river being too wide to bridge and too high to ford, Washington
put himself “in a position of defence against any immediate attack
from the Enemy” and went straightway to work on the problem of water
transportation.
By the 20th., a canoe having been provided, Washington set out on the
Youghiogheny with four men and an Indian. By nightfall they reached
“Turkey Foot,” (Confluence, Pennsylvania,) which Washington mapped as
a possible site for a fort. Below “Turkey Foot” the stream was found
too rapid and rocky to admit any sort of navigation and Washington
returned to camp on the 24th. with the herculean hardships of an
overland march staring him in the face. Information was now at hand
from Half-King, concerning alleged movements of the French; thus the
letter read;
“To any of his Majesty’s officers whom this May Concern.