And thus these melancholy years came and went, with all their dark and
painful experiences. A firm and self-reliant spirit like Washington's,
however, could not be long cast down by even severer trials than those
by which we have just seen his strength and manhood tested: so, from
that time forward, come what might, he resolved to hold right on, nor
bate a jot of heart or hope or zeal or patience, till the coming-on of
better days, when, God willing, he might render a good and faithful
account of this, his country's trust.
But the little folks must not suppose that Col. Washington and Gov.
Dinwiddie were by any means the only persons of consequence who
figured in this Old French War. On the contrary, there were others of
far more importance at the time than they, not so much from any
peculiar merit of their own, as from the part they played in those
events; and upon whom, as such, I must needs bestow some passing
notice, were it but to give to our story greater clearness and
completeness. What concerns you to know of them at present I will
briefly sum up in a few words, and make it as plain to you as a table
of simple addition.
As Commander-in-chief of all the British forces in America, Braddock,
as I have told you elsewhere, was succeeded by Gen. Shirley; who,
proving himself unfit for the place, was soon recalled, and Lord
Loudoun sent over from England instead; who, proving himself equally
unfit, was dealt with in the same manner, and Gen. Abercrombie sent
over instead; who also, proving himself incompetent, was also
recalled, and Gen. Amherst sent over; who, proving a wiser choice,
there followed happier results; and it fell to him, and to the brave
young general, Wolfe, his next in rank, to bring this long and irksome
war, in due course of time, to a glorious end. After the failure of
Braddock's designs against Fort Duquesne, the conquest of Canada was
made the chief object of the British Government; and the regions of
the North thenceforth became the seat of war. While our young Virginia
colonel, making the best use of the slender means allowed him, was
struggling to keep back the pestilent savages and their pestilent
white allies from his long line of frontier in the South and West,
some of these leaders with their red allies, and some of the French
leaders with their red allies, were, with various fortunes and
misfortunes on either side, carrying on the war along the borders of
the great Lake Ontario, the little Lakes Champlain and George, and up
and down the mighty St. Lawrence.
Of these English leaders, I will mention Lord Loudoun merely, as being
the only one with whom Washington had any special dealings. Had this
nobleman come up to the hopes and expectations which many of the
colonists were at first wild enough to entertain respecting him, he
would have regained what Braddock had lost, overrun and conquered
Canada, and made a clean finish of the whole French empire in America,
in less than six months' time. They soon discovered, however, that he
was one of those unlucky persons, who, knowing much, seldom know what
use to make of their knowledge; who, having no will that they can call
their own, can never turn the will of others to any good or seasonable
purpose; and who, making a great show of doing, have never any thing
to show in the end what they have done. In this last particular, Dr.
Franklin, with that peculiar humor all his own, likened him to the
picture of St. George on the sign, that was always on horseback, but
never riding on.
Now, the recapture of Fort Duquesne, ever since the disgraceful
failure of that first attempt, had been the one object nearest to
Washington's heart. Foreseeing that there could never be peace or
safety for the back settlements of the middle provinces so long as
this stronghold of the enemy sent out its savage swarms to scourge
and waste the border, he had repeatedly called Lord Loudoun's
attention to the fact, and most earnestly urged its seizure as the
only remedy. It was not, however, until early in the autumn of 1758,
that an expedition, having for its object his long-cherished scheme,
was set on foot. It was undertaken with a force of three thousand
Pennsylvanians, twelve hundred North Carolinians, Washington's
detachment of nineteen hundred Virginians, seven hundred Indians, and
a few hundred regulars,--numbering in all seven thousand men, or
thereabouts,--with Gen. Forbes for their chief commander.
As an easy and rapid communication between the back settlements of
Virginia and Pennsylvania would greatly lessen the difficulties of the
coming campaign, this officer caused a road to be opened between Fort
Cumberland and Raystown, a frontier post of the last-named province,
where he had fixed his headquarters. Before the expedition could be
put in motion, it was necessary that Col. Washington should go to
Williamsburg to make known to the Virginia Legislature the needy
condition of his soldiers, and make a call upon them for fresh
supplies of tents, blankets, clothing, wagons, arms, &c.
Accordingly, attended by his trusty negro servant Bishop, and mounted
on his splendid white charger,--both of which had been bequeathed to
him by poor Braddock,--he set out on his journey, which proved an
eventful one indeed to him, as you shall directly see. At the ferry of
the Pamunkey, a branch of York River, he fell in with Mr. Chamberlin,
an acquaintance of his, who, according to the hospitable customs of
those good old times, invited him to call at his house, not far
distant, and be his honored guest till morning. The young colonel
would be only too happy to do so: but the nature of his business was
such as would not admit of an hour's delay; indeed, it was quite out
of the question, and he must hasten on. But, his friend repeating the
invitation in a manner too earnest to be mistaken, he felt it would be
uncourteous to refuse; and consented to stop and dine with him; on
condition, however, that he should be allowed to proceed on his
journey that same evening. At his friend's hospitable mansion he met
with a gay and brilliant throng of ladies and gentlemen, who, though
strangers to him, knew him well by reputation, and were but too proud
to be thus unexpectedly thrown in his company. Among them was Mrs.
Martha Custis, a young and beautiful widow of good family and large
fortune. Her husband had died three years before; leaving her with two
small children, a girl and a boy. She is said to have been a lady of
most winning and engaging manners, and of an excellent and cultivated
understanding. In stature she was a little below middle size, and of a
round and extremely well-proportioned form; which, on this occasion,
was set off to the best advantage by a dress of rich blue silk. Her
hair was dark; her features were pleasing and regular; and there was a
look of earnest, womanly softness in her hazel eyes, that found its
way at once to the heart and confidence of all on whom it chanced to
rest.
The little folks will not, I hope, suffer their admiration and respect
for our young hero to be lessened in the least, if I tell them, that,
like the rest of mankind who came within the magic circle of those
bewitching charms, he was first surprised into admiration, and then
led, whether or no, at a single step, into the enchanted realms of
love. You have seen, how that, in his boyhood, he wrote broken-hearted
verses to his Lowland Beauty; and how that, two or three years before,
he had nearly yielded himself captive to the beautiful Miss Phillipps:
which ought to prove to the satisfaction of all reasonable minds, that
Washington, like other men, had a heart of real human flesh, that now
and then gave him not a little trouble, despite that grave and
dignified reserve which hung about him like a spell, and, even at that
early age, was something to many quite overawing. The dinner, that had
at first, in his hurry, seemed so long in coming on, seemed now quite
as fast in going off. Not that I would have you suppose by this, that
he thought the guests were showing any indecent haste to make way with
the dishes that were set before them without number, and heaped up
without measure, on Mr. Chamberlin's ample board. On the contrary,
they partook of the good things of the table with a well-bred
slowness, that would have been beyond his endurance to bear, had Mars
been thundering with his iron fist at the gates of his fortress. But
as it was Cupid, only tapping with his rosy knuckles at the casement
of his heart, that dinner seemed no longer to him than, no, not half
so long indeed as, the shortest snack he had ever eaten on horseback
in the hurry of a forced march. The dinner over, Washington seemed in
no haste to depart.
The trusty Bishop, knowing well what a punctual man his master always
was, had appeared, according to orders, with the horses; and was
plainly enough to be seen from the parlor window, had any one cared to
look that way, patiently waiting with them in the pleasant shade of an
apple-tree. The fiery white charger soon began to paw the ground,
impatient at his master's unwonted tardiness; but no rider came.
Bishop Braddock shifted his place once, twice, thrice, to keep himself
and horses in the shade of the apple-tree; but still his master
lingered: and the ivory grin that settled by degrees on his ebony mug
showed that he had a sly suspicion of what was going on in the house.
The afternoon sped away as if old Time, all of a sudden forgetting his
rheumatism, had reached sunset at a single stride. Of course, they
would not suffer him to depart at this late hour: so Bishop was
ordered to restable the horses, and make himself easy and snug for the
night with the colored folks down at their quarters. The next morning,
the sun was hours on his journey to the west, before our love-smitten
hero was on his way to Williamsburg.
Once in the saddle, however, all his yesterday's impatience returned
upon him with redoubled force; and, giving his fiery white charger the
spur, he dashed away at a break-neck speed on the road to the Virginia
capital. It is said, so fast did he travel on that day, that, to keep
up with him, Bishop Braddock ran serious risk of having his woolly nob
shaken from his shoulders by the high, hard trotter he rode; and so
sore was he made by the jolting he got, that, for a week thereafter,
it was quite as much as he could do to bring his legs together. This
last, by the way, is merely traditional, and must be received by the
little folks with some caution.
Luckily, the White House, the residence of Mrs. Custis, was situated
within a very few miles of Williamsburg; which gave young Washington
many opportunities, during his two-weeks' stay at that place, of
seeing her, and still further cultivating her acquaintance.
Experience, that sage teacher who never spoke to him in vain, had
taught him, that although there are many blessings of this world which
seem to come of their own accord, yet there are a few that never come
except at the asking for; and the chiefest of these is woman's love.
So, resolving to profit by this knowledge, he did precisely what any
wise and reasonable man would have done in his place,--overcame his
troublesome bashfulness, and made the lady an offer of marriage; which
she, precisely as any wise and reasonable woman would have done in her
place, modestly accepted. The business that had called him to
Williamsburg being at last disposed of, Washington took leave of his
intended, after it had been agreed between them to keep up an
interchange of letters until the close of the present campaign, when
they were to be united in the holy bonds of wedlock.
Upon his return to Winchester, he was dismayed to find that the
English generals had taken it into their inexperienced heads to cut a
new road from Raystown to Fort Duquesne by the way of Laurel Hill,
instead of marching there at once by the old Braddock Road, as he
naturally supposed had been their intention from the beginning.
Foreseeing the consequences, he, in an earnest and forcible manner,
hastened to represent to them the difficulties and disadvantages of
such an undertaking. Cold weather would be setting in, he urged, long
before they could cut their way through so many miles of that mountain
wilderness to the point in question; and they would be obliged either
to winter at Laurel Hill, or fall back upon the settlements until
spring. This would give the enemy time to get full intelligence of
their threatened danger, and send to Canada for re-enforcements. Their
Indian allies too, as was their wont, would grow impatient at the long
delay that must needs attend this plan if carried out; and, returning
to their homes in disgust, would fail to render to the expedition
their valuable services as scouts and spies, as had been expected of
them. On the other hand, by taking the old road, they could march
directly to the fort; which, being at that time but feebly garrisoned,
must fall almost without a blow, and this, too, in less than half the
time, and with less than half the trouble and expense. This prudent
counsel, coming from one, who, from his knowledge of the country, had
so good a right to give it, was nevertheless overruled. The English
generals had gathered a most appalling idea of the difficulties and
dangers of this route from the account Braddock had given of it in his
letters. He had therein described it as lying through a region where
the mountains were of the highest and steepest, the forests of the
thickest and tallest, the rocks of the most huge and rugged, the
swamps of the deepest, and the torrents of the swiftest. The route for
the new road, on the contrary, according to the Pennsylvanians, who
saw in it a great advantage to themselves, lay through a region where
the mountains were not by far so lofty, the woods so thick, the rocks
so huge, the swamps so deep, nor the streams so swift, or half so
given to running rampant over their banks. All these advantages this
route had, besides being fifty miles shorter. So, under the mistaken
notion that more was to be gained by following a short road that would
take them a long time in getting over, than by following a long one
that would take them but a short time in getting over, they resolved
to cut the new road.
This was a sore disappointment to Col. Washington; for he saw in it a
likelihood of Braddock's folly being played all over again, and that,
too, on a still larger scale. The tidings of glorious victories won by
British arms in the North had filled the whole country with triumph
and rejoicing, that rendered him all the more impatient at the
tardiness with which their own expedition was moving forward. "He
wished to rival the successes of the North by some brilliant blow in
the South. Perhaps a desire for personal distinction in the eyes of
the lady of his choice may have been at the bottom of his impatience."
This last, it is but fair to say, is an assertion of our great
countryman, Washington Irving; who, being a wise and learned
historian, would not have made it, you may be sure, had not his deep
insight into the workings of the human heart given him a perfect right
so to do. If this be not enough to convince you that such was really
the case, know that your Uncle Juvinell is entirely of the same
opinion.