1755
Braddock
"I have the pleasure to acquaint you that General Braddock came to my
house last Sunday night," writes Dinwiddie, at the end of February, to
Governor Dobbs of North Carolina. Braddock had landed at Hampton from
the ship "Centurion," along with young Commodore Keppel, who commanded
the American squadron. "I am mighty glad," again writes Dinwiddie, "that
the General is arrived, which I hope will give me some ease; for these
twelve months past I have been a perfect slave." He conceived golden
opinions of his guest. "He is, I think, a very fine officer, and a
sensible, considerate gentleman. He and I live in great harmony."
Had he known him better, he might have praised him less. William
Shirley, son of the Governor of Massachusetts, was Braddock's secretary;
and after an acquaintance of some months wrote to his friend Governor
Morris: "We have a general most judiciously chosen for being
disqualified for the service he is employed in in almost every respect.
He may be brave for aught I know, and he is honest in pecuniary
matters."[192] The astute Franklin, who also had good opportunity of
knowing him, says: "This general was, I think, a brave man, and might
probably have made a good figure in some European war. But he had too
much self-confidence; too high an opinion of the validity of regular
troops; too mean a one of both Americans and Indians."[193] Horace
Walpole, in his function of gathering and immortalizing the gossip of
his time, has left a sharply drawn sketch of Braddock in two letters to
Sir Horace Mann, written in the summer of this year: "I love to give you
an idea of our characters as they rise upon the stage of history.
Braddock is a very Iroquois in disposition. He had a sister who, having
gamed away all her little fortune at Bath, hanged herself with a truly
English deliberation, leaving only a note upon the table with those
lines: 'To die is landing on some silent shore,' etc. When Braddock was
told of it, he only said: 'Poor Fanny! I always thought she would play
till she would be forced to _tuck herself up_.'" Under the name of Miss
Sylvia S----, Goldsmith, in his life of Nash, tells the story of this
unhappy woman. She was a rash but warm-hearted creature, reduced to
penury and dependence, not so much by a passion for cards as by her
lavish generosity to a lover ruined by his own follies, and with whom
her relations are said to have been entirely innocent. Walpole
continues: "But a more ridiculous story of Braddock, and which is
recorded in heroics by Fielding in his _Covent Garden Tragedy,_ was an
amorous discussion he had formerly with a Mrs. Upton, who kept him. He
had gone the greatest lengths with her pin-money, and was still craving.
One day, that he was very pressing, she pulled out her purse and showed
him that she had but twelve or fourteen shillings left. He twitched it
from her: 'Let me see that.' Tied up at the other end he found five
guineas. He took them, tossed the empty purse in her face, saying: 'Did
you mean to cheat me?' and never went near her more. Now you are
acquainted with General Braddock."
[Footnote 192: _Shirley the younger to Morris, 23 May, 1755_.]
[Footnote 193: Franklin, _Autobiography_.]
"He once had a duel with Colonel Gumley, Lady Bath's brother, who had
been his great friend. As they were going to engage, Gumley, who had
good-humor and wit (Braddock had the latter), said: 'Braddock, you are a
poor dog! Here, take my purse; if you kill me, you will be forced to run
away, and then you will not have a shilling to support you.' Braddock
refused the purse, insisted on the duel, was disarmed, and would not
even ask his life. However, with all his brutality, he has lately been
governor of Gibraltar, where he made himself adored, and where scarce
any governor was endured before."[194]
[Footnote 194: _Letters of Horace Walpole_ (1866), II. 459, 461. It is
doubtful if Braddock was ever governor of Gibraltar; though, as Mr.
Sargent shows, he once commanded a regiment there.]
Another story is told of him by an accomplished actress of the time,
George Anne Bellamy, whom Braddock had known from girlhood, and with
whom his present relations seem to have been those of an elderly adviser
and friend. "As we were walking in the Park one day, we heard a poor
fellow was to be chastised; when I requested the General to beg off the
offender. Upon his application to the general officer, whose name was
Dury, he asked Braddock how long since he had divested himself of the
brutality and insolence of his manners? To which the other replied: 'You
never knew me insolent to my inferiors. It is only to such rude men as
yourself that I behave with the spirit which I think they deserve.'"
Braddock made a visit to the actress on the evening before he left
London for America. "Before we parted," she says, "the General told me
that he should never see me more; for he was going with a handful of men
to conquer whole nations; and to do this they must cut their way through
unknown woods. He produced a map of the country, saying at the same
time: 'Dear Pop, we are sent like sacrifices to the altar,'"[195]--a
strange presentiment for a man of his sturdy temper.
[Footnote 195: _Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy, written by
herself_, II. 204 (London, 1786).]
Whatever were his failings, he feared nothing, and his fidelity and
honor in the discharge of public trusts were never questioned.
"Desperate in his fortune, brutal in his behavior, obstinate in his
sentiments," again writes Walpole, "he was still intrepid and
capable."[196] He was a veteran in years and in service, having entered
the Coldstream Guards as ensign in 1710.
[Footnote 196: Walpole, _George II._, I. 390.]
The transports bringing the two regiments from Ireland all arrived
safely at Hampton, and were ordered to proceed up the Potomac to
Alexandria, where a camp was to be formed. Thither, towards the end of
March, went Braddock himself, along with Keppel and Dinwiddie, in the
Governor's coach; while his aide-de-camp, Orme, his secretary, Shirley,
and the servants of the party followed on horseback. Braddock had sent
for the elder Shirley and other provincial governors to meet him in
council; and on the fourteenth of April they assembled in a tent of the
newly formed encampment. Here was Dinwiddie, who thought his troubles at
an end, and saw in the red-coated soldiery the near fruition of his
hopes. Here, too, was his friend and ally, Dobbs of North Carolina; with
Morris of Pennsylvania, fresh from Assembly quarrels; Sharpe of
Maryland, who, having once been a soldier, had been made a sort of
provisional commander-in-chief before the arrival of Braddock; and the
ambitious Delancey of New York, who had lately led the opposition
against the Governor of that province, and now filled the office
himself,--a position that needed all his manifold adroitness. But, next
to Braddock, the most noteworthy man present was Shirley, governor of
Massachusetts. There was a fountain of youth in this old lawyer. A few
years before, when he was boundary commissioner in Paris, he had had the
indiscretion to marry a young Catholic French girl, the daughter of his
landlord; and now, when more than sixty years old, he thirsted for
military honors, and delighted in contriving operations of war. He was
one of a very few in the colonies who at this time entertained the idea
of expelling the French from the continent. He held that Carthage must
be destroyed; and, in spite of his Parisian marriage, was the foremost
advocate of the root-and-branch policy. He and Lawrence, governor of
Nova Scotia, had concerted an attack on the French fort of Beauséjour;
and, jointly with others in New England, he had planned the capture of
Crown Point, the key of Lake Champlain. By these two strokes and by
fortifying the portage between the Kennebec and the Chaudière, he
thought that the northern colonies would be saved from invasion, and
placed in a position to become themselves invaders. Then, by driving the
enemy from Niagara, securing that important pass, and thus cutting off
the communication between Canada and her interior dependencies, all the
French posts in the West would die of inanition.[197] In order to
commend these schemes to the Home Government, he had painted in gloomy
colors the dangers that beset the British colonies. Our Indians, he
said, will all desert us if we submit to French encroachment. Some of
the provinces are full of negro slaves, ready to rise against their
masters, and of Roman Catholics, Jacobites, indented servants, and other
dangerous persons, who would aid the French in raising a servile
insurrection. Pennsylvania is in the hands of Quakers, who will not
fight, and of Germans, who are likely enough to join the enemy. The
Dutch of Albany would do anything to save their trade. A strong force of
French regulars might occupy that place without resistance, then descend
the Hudson, and, with the help of a naval force, capture New York and
cut the British colonies asunder.[198]
[Footnote 197: _Correspondence of Shirley, 1754, 1755_.]
[Footnote 198: _Shirley to Robinson, 24 Jan. 1755_.]
The plans against Crown Point and Beauséjour had already found the
approval of the Home Government and the energetic support of all the New
England colonies. Preparation for them was in full activity; and it was
with great difficulty that Shirley had disengaged himself from these
cares to attend the council at Alexandria. He and Dinwiddie stood in the
front of opposition to French designs. As they both defended the royal
prerogative and were strong advocates of taxation by Parliament, they
have found scant justice from American writers. Yet the British colonies
owed them a debt of gratitude, and the American States owe it still.
Braddock, laid his instructions before the Council, and Shirley found
them entirely to his mind; while the General, on his part, fully
approved the schemes of the Governor. The plan of the campaign was
settled. The French were to be attacked at four points at once. The two
British regiments lately arrived were to advance on Fort Duquesne; two
new regiments, known as Shirley's and Pepperell's, just raised in the
provinces, and taken into the King's pay, were to reduce Niagara; a body
of provincials from New England, New York, and New Jersey was to seize
Crown Point; and another body of New England men to capture Beauséjour
and bring Acadia to complete subjection. Braddock himself was to lead
the expedition against Fort Duquesne. He asked Shirley, who, though a
soldier only in theory, had held the rank of colonel since the last war,
to charge himself with that against Niagara; and Shirley eagerly
assented. The movement on Crown Point was intrusted to Colonel William
Johnson, by reason of his influence over the Indians and his reputation
for energy, capacity, and faithfulness. Lastly, the Acadian enterprise
was assigned to Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton, a regular officer of merit.
To strike this fourfold blow in time of peace was a scheme worthy of
Newcastle and of Cumberland. The pretext was that the positions to be
attacked were all on British soil; that in occupying them the French had
been guilty of invasion; and that to expel the invaders would be an act
of self-defence. Yet in regard to two of these positions, the French, if
they had no other right, might at least claim one of prescription. Crown
Point had been twenty-four years in their undisturbed possession, while
it was three quarters of a century since they first occupied Niagara;
and, though New York claimed the ground, no serious attempt had been
made to dislodge them.
Other matters now engaged the Council. Braddock, in accordance with his
instructions, asked the governors to urge upon their several assemblies
the establishment of a general fund for the service of the campaign; but
the governors were all of opinion that the assemblies would
refuse,--each being resolved to keep the control of its money in its own
hands; and all present, with one voice, advised that the colonies should
be compelled by Act of Parliament to contribute in due proportion to the
support of the war. Braddock next asked if, in the judgment of the
Council, it would not be well to send Colonel Johnson with full powers
to treat with the Five Nations, who had been driven to the verge of an
outbreak by the misconduct of the Dutch Indian commissioners at Albany.
The measure was cordially approved, as was also another suggestion of
the General, that vessels should be built at Oswego to command Lake
Ontario. The Council then dissolved.
Shirley hastened back to New England, burdened with the preparation for
three expeditions and the command of one of them. Johnson, who had been
in the camp, though not in the Council, went back to Albany, provided
with a commission as sole superintendent of Indian affairs, and charged,
besides, with the enterprise against Crown Point; while an express was
despatched to Monckton at Halifax, with orders to set at once to his
work of capturing Beauséjour.[199]
[Footnote 199: _Minutes of a Council held at the Camp at Alexandria, in
Virginia, April 14, 1755. Instructions to Major-General Braddock, 25
Nov. 1754. Secret Instructions to Major-General Braddock, same date.
Napier to Braddock, written by Order of the Duke of Cumberland, 25 Nov.
1754,_ in _Précis des Faits, Pièces justificatives,_ 168. Orme,
_Journal of Braddock's Expedition. Instructions to Governor Shirley.
Correspondence of Shirley. Correspondence of Braddock_ (Public Record
Office). _Johnson Papers. Dinwiddie Papers. Pennsylvania Archives_, II.]
In regard to Braddock's part of the campaign, there had been a serious
error. If, instead of landing in Virginia and moving on Fort Duquesne
by the long and circuitous route of Wills Creek, the two regiments had
disembarked at Philadelphia and marched westward, the way would have
been shortened, and would have lain through one of the richest and most
populous districts on the continent, filled with supplies of every kind.
In Virginia, on the other hand, and in the adjoining province of
Maryland, wagons, horses, and forage were scarce. The enemies of the
Administration ascribed this blunder to the influence of the Quaker
merchant, John Hanbury, whom the Duke of Newcastle had consulted as a
person familiar with American affairs. Hanbury, who was a prominent
stockholder in the Ohio Company, and who traded largely in Virginia, saw
it for his interest that the troops should pass that way; and is said to
have brought the Duke to this opinion.[200] A writer of the time thinks
that if they had landed in Pennsylvania, forty thousand pounds would
have been saved in money, and six weeks in time.[201]
[Footnote 200: _Shebbeare's Tracts_, Letter I. Dr. Shebbeare was a
political pamphleteer, pilloried by one ministry, and rewarded by the
next. He certainly speaks of Hanbury, though he does not give his name.
Compare Sargent, 107, 162.]
[Footnote 201: _Gentleman's Magazine, Aug_. 1755.]
Not only were supplies scarce, but the people showed such unwillingness
to furnish them, and such apathy in aiding the expedition, that even
Washington was provoked to declare that "they ought to be
chastised."[202] Many of them thought that the alarm about French
encroachment was a device of designing politicians; and they did not
awake to a full consciousness of the peril till it was forced upon them
by a deluge of calamities, produced by the purblind folly of their own
representatives, who, instead of frankly promoting the expedition,
displayed a perverse and exasperating narrowness which chafed Braddock
to fury. He praises the New England colonies, and echoes Dinwiddie's
declaration that they have shown a "fine martial spirit," and he
commends Virginia as having done far better than her neighbors; but for
Pennsylvania he finds no words to express his wrath.[203] He knew
nothing of the intestine war between proprietaries and people, and hence
could see no palliation for a conduct which threatened to ruin both the
expedition and the colony. Everything depended on speed, and speed was
impossible; for stores and provisions were not ready, though notice to
furnish them had been given months before. The quartermaster-general,
Sir John Sinclair, "stormed like a lion rampant," but with small
effect.[204] Contracts broken or disavowed, want of horses, want of
wagons, want of forage, want of wholesome food, or sufficient food of
any kind, caused such delay that the report of it reached England, and
drew from Walpole the comment that Braddock was in no hurry to be
scalped. In reality he was maddened with impatience and vexation.
[Footnote 202: _Writings of Washington_, II. 78. He speaks of the people
of Pennsylvania.]
[Footnote 203: _Braddock to Robinson, 18 March, 19 April, 5 June, 1755_,
etc. On the attitude of Pennsylvania, _Colonial Records of Pa_., VI.,
_passim_.]
[Footnote 204: _Colonial Records of Pa_., VI. 368.]
A powerful ally presently came to his aid in the shape of Benjamin
Franklin, then postmaster-general of Pennsylvania. That sagacious
personage,--the sublime of common-sense, about equal in his instincts
and motives of character to the respectable average of the New England
that produced him, but gifted with a versatile power of brain rarely
matched on earth,--was then divided between his strong desire to repel a
danger of which he saw the imminence, and his equally strong antagonism
to the selfish claims of the Penns, proprietaries of Pennsylvania. This
last motive had determined his attitude towards their representative,
the Governor, and led him into an opposition as injurious to the
military good name of the province as it was favorable to its political
longings. In the present case there was no such conflict of
inclinations; he could help Braddock without hurting Pennsylvania. He
and his son had visited the camp, and found the General waiting
restlessly for the report of the agents whom he had sent to collect
wagons. "I stayed with him," says Franklin, "several days, and dined
with him daily. When I was about to depart, the returns of wagons to be
obtained were brought in, by which it appeared that they amounted only
to twenty-five, and not all of these were in serviceable condition." On
this the General and his officers declared that the expedition was at an
end, and denounced the Ministry for sending them into a country void of
the means of transportation. Franklin remarked that it was a pity they
had not landed in Pennsylvania, where almost every farmer had his wagon.
Braddock caught eagerly at his words, and begged that he would use his
influence to enable the troops to move. Franklin went back to
Pennsylvania, issued an address to the farmers appealing to their
interest and their fears, and in a fortnight procured a hundred and
fifty wagons, with a large number of horses.[205] Braddock, grateful to
his benefactor, and enraged at everybody else, pronounced him "Almost
the only instance of ability and honesty I have known in these
provinces."[206] More wagons and more horses gradually arrived, and at
the eleventh hour the march began.
[Footnote 205: Franklin, _Autobiography. Advertisement of B. Franklin
for Wagons; Address to the Inhabitants of the Counties of York,
Lancaster, and Cumberland, Pennsylvania Archives,_II.294]
[Footnote 206: _Braddock to Robinson,5 June_,1755. The letters of
Braddock here cited are the originals in the Public Record Office]
On the tenth of May Braddock reached Wills Creek, where the whole force
was now gathered, having marched thither by detachments along the banks
of the Potomac. This old trading-station of the Ohio Company had been
transformed into a military post and named Fort Cumberland. During the
past winter the independent companies which had failed Washington in his
need had been at work here to prepare a base of operations for Braddock.
Their axes had been of more avail than their muskets. A broad wound had
been cut in the bosom of the forest, and the murdered oaks and chestnuts
turned into ramparts, barracks, and magazines. Fort Cumberland was an
enclosure of logs set upright in the ground, pierced with loopholes, and
armed with ten small cannon. It stood on a rising ground near the point
where Wills Creek joined the Potomac, and the forest girded it like a
mighty hedge, or rather like a paling of gaunt brown stems upholding a
canopy of green. All around spread illimitable woods, wrapping hill,
valley, and mountain. The spot was an oasis in a desert of leaves,--if
the name oasis can be given to anything so rude and harsh. In this
rugged area, or "clearing," all Braddock's force was now assembled,
amounting, regulars, provincials, and sailors, to about twenty-two
hundred men. The two regiments, Halket's and Dunbar's, had been
completed by enlistment in Virginia to seven hundred men each. Of
Virginians there were nine companies of fifty men, who found no favor in
the eyes of Braddock or his officers. To Ensign Allen of Halket's
regiment was assigned the duty of "making them as much like soldiers as
possible."[207]--that is, of drilling them like regulars. The General
had little hope of them, and informed Sir Thomas Robinson that "their
slothful and languid disposition renders them very unfit for military
service,"--a point on which he lived to change his mind. Thirty sailors,
whom Commodore Keppel had lent him, were more to his liking, and were in
fact of value in many ways. He had now about six hundred baggage-horses,
besides those of the artillery, all weakening daily on their diet of
leaves; for no grass was to be found. There was great show of
discipline, and little real order. Braddock's executive capacity seems
to have been moderate, and his dogged, imperious temper, rasped by
disappointments, was in constant irritation. "He looks upon the country,
I believe," writes Washington, "as void of honor or honesty. We have
frequent disputes on this head, which are maintained with warmth on both
sides, especially on his, as he is incapable of arguing without it, or
giving up any point he asserts, be it ever so incompatible with reason
or common sense."[208] Braddock's secretary, the younger Shirley,
writing to his friend Governor Morris, spoke thus irreverently of his
chief: "As the King said of a neighboring governor of yours [_Sharpe_],
when proposed for the command of the American forces about a twelvemonth
ago, and recommended as a very honest man, though not remarkably able,
'a little more ability and a little less honesty upon the present
occasion might serve our turn better.' It is a joke to suppose that
secondary officers can make amends for the defects of the first; the
mainspring must be the mover. As to the others, I don't think we have
much to boast; some are insolent and ignorant, others capable, but
rather aiming at showing their own abilities than making a proper use of
them. I have a very great love for my friend Orme, and think it
uncommonly fortunate for our leader that he is under the influence of so
honest and capable a man; but I wish for the sake of the public he had
some more experience of business, particularly in America. I am greatly
disgusted at seeing an expedition (as it is called), so ill-concerted
originally in England, so improperly conducted since in America."[209]
[Footnote 207: Orme, _Journal_.]
[Footnote 208: _Writings of Washington_, II. 77.]
[Footnote 209: _Shirley the younger to Morris, 23 May, 1755_, in
_Colonial Records of Pa._, VI. 404.]
Captain Robert Orme, of whom Shirley speaks, was aide-de-camp to
Braddock, and author of a copious and excellent Journal of the
expedition, now in the British Museum.[210] His portrait, painted at
full length by Sir Joshua Reynolds, hangs in the National Gallery at
London. He stands by his horse, a gallant young figure, with a face
pale, yet rather handsome, booted to the knee, his scarlet coat, ample
waistcoat, and small three-cornered hat all heavy with gold lace. The
General had two other aides-de-camp, Captain Roger Morris and Colonel
George Washington, whom he had invited, in terms that do him honor, to
become one of his military family.
[Footnote 210: Printed by Sargent, in his excellent monograph of
Braddock's Expedition.]
It has been said that Braddock despised not only provincials, but
Indians. Nevertheless he took some pains to secure their aid, and
complained that Indian affairs had been so ill conducted by the
provinces that it was hard to gain their confidence. This was true; the
tribes had been alienated by gross neglect. Had they been protected from
injustice and soothed by attentions and presents, the Five Nations,
Delawares, and Shawanoes would have been retained as friends. But their
complaints had been slighted, and every gift begrudged. The trader
Croghan brought, however, about fifty warriors, with as many women and
children, to the camp at Fort Cumberland. They were objects of great
curiosity to the soldiers, who gazed with astonishment on their faces,
painted red, yellow, and black, their ears slit and hung with pendants,
and their heads close shaved, except the feathered scalp-lock at the
crown. "In the day," says an officer, "they are in our camp, and in the
night they go into their own, where they dance and make a most horrible
noise." Braddock received them several times in his tent, ordered the
guard to salute them, made them speeches, caused cannon to be fired and
drums and fifes to play in their honor, regaled them with rum, and gave
them a bullock for a feast; whereupon, being much pleased, they danced a
war-dance, described by one spectator as "droll and odd, showing how
they scalp and fight;" after which, says another, "they set up the most
horrid song or cry that ever I heard."[211] These warriors, with a few
others, promised the General to join him on the march; but he apparently
grew tired of them, for a famous chief, called Scarroyaddy, afterwards
complained: "He looked upon us as dogs, and would never hear anything
that we said to him." Only eight of them remained with him to the
end.[212]
[Footnote 211: _Journal of a Naval Officer_, in Sargent. _The Expedition
of Major-General Braddock, being Extracts of Letters from an Officer_
(London, 1755).]
[Footnote 212: _Statement of George Croghan_, in Sargent, appendix iii.]
Another ally appeared at the camp. This was a personage long known in
Western fireside story as Captain Jack, the Black Hunter, or the Black
Rifle. It was said of him that, having been a settler on the farthest
frontier, in the Valley of the Juniata, he returned one evening to his
cabin and found it burned to the ground by Indians, and the bodies of
his wife and children lying among the ruins. He vowed undying vengeance,
raised a band of kindred spirits, dressed and painted like Indians, and
became the scourge of the red man and the champion of the white. But he
and his wild crew, useful as they might have been, shocked Braddock's
sense of military fitness; and he received them so coldly that they left
him.[213]
[Footnote 213: See several traditional accounts and contemporary letters
in _Hazard's Pennsylvania Register_, IV. 389, 390, 416; V. 191.]
It was the tenth of June before the army was well on its march. Three
hundred axemen led the way, to cut and clear the road; and the long
train of packhorses, wagons, and cannon toiled on behind, over the
stumps, roots, and stones of the narrow track, the regulars and
provincials marching in the forest close on either side. Squads of men
were thrown out on the flanks, and scouts ranged the woods to guard
against surprise; for, with all his scorn of Indians and Canadians,
Braddock did not neglect reasonable precautions. Thus, foot by foot,
they advanced into the waste of lonely mountains that divided the
streams flowing to the Atlantic from those flowing to the Gulf of
Mexico,--a realm of forests ancient as the world. The road was but
twelve feet wide, and the line of march often extended four miles. It
was like a thin, long party-colored snake, red, blue, and brown,
trailing slowly through the depth of leaves, creeping round inaccessible
heights, crawling over ridges, moving always in dampness and shadow, by
rivulets and waterfalls, crags and chasms, gorges and shaggy steps. In
glimpses only, through jagged boughs and flickering leaves, did this
wild primeval world reveal itself, with its dark green mountains,
flecked with the morning mist, and its distant summits pencilled in
dreamy blue. The army passed the main Alleghany, Meadow Mountain, and
Great Savage Mountain, and traversed the funereal pine-forest afterwards
called the Shades of Death. No attempt was made to interrupt their
march, though the commandant of Fort Duquesne had sent out parties for
that purpose. A few French and Indians hovered about them, now and then
scalping a straggler or inscribing filthy insults on trees; while others
fell upon the border settlements which the advance of the troops had
left defenceless. Here they were more successful, butchering about
thirty persons, chiefly women and children.
It was the eighteenth of June before the army reached a place called the
Little Meadows, less than thirty miles from Fort Cumberland. Fever and
dysentery among the men, and the weakness and worthlessness of many of
the horses, joined to the extreme difficulty of the road, so retarded
them that they could move scarcely more than three miles a day. Braddock
consulted with Washington, who advised him to leave the heavy baggage
to follow as it could, and push forward with a body of chosen troops.
This counsel was given in view of a report that five hundred regulars
were on the way to reinforce Fort Duquesne. It was adopted. Colonel
Dunbar was left to command the rear division, whose powers of movement
were now reduced to the lowest point. The advance corps, consisting of
about twelve hundred soldiers, besides officers and drivers, began its
march on the nineteenth with such artillery as was thought
indispensable, thirty wagons, and a large number of packhorses. "The
prospect," writes Washington to his brother, "conveyed infinite delight
to my mind, though I was excessively ill at the time. But this prospect
was soon clouded, and my hopes brought very low indeed when I found
that, instead of pushing on with vigor without regarding a little rough
road, they were halting to level every mole-hill, and to erect bridges
over every brook, by which means we were four days in getting twelve
miles." It was not till the seventh of July that they neared the mouth
of Turtle Creek, a stream entering the Monongahela about eight miles
from the French fort. The way was direct and short, but would lead them
through a difficult country and a defile so perilous that Braddock
resolved to ford the Monongahela to avoid this danger, and then ford it
again to reach his destination.
Fort Duquesne stood on the point of land where the Alleghany and the
Monongahela join to form the Ohio, and where now stands Pittsburg, with
its swarming population, its restless industries, the clang of its
forges, and its chimneys vomiting foul smoke into the face of heaven. At
that early day a white flag fluttering over a cluster of palisades and
embankments betokened the first intrusion of civilized men upon a scene
which, a few months before, breathed the repose of a virgin wilderness,
voiceless but for the lapping of waves upon the pebbles, or the note of
some lonely bird. But now the sleep of ages was broken, and bugle and
drum told the astonished forest that its doom was pronounced and its
days numbered. The fort was a compact little work, solidly built and
strong, compared with others on the continent. It was a square of four
bastions, with the water close on two sides, and the other two protected
by ravelins, ditch, glacis, and covered way. The ramparts on these sides
were of squared logs, filled in with earth, and ten feet or more thick.
The two water sides were enclosed by a massive stockade of upright logs,
twelve feet high, mortised together and loopholed. The armament
consisted of a number of small cannon mounted on the bastions. A gate
and drawbridge on the east side gave access to the area within, which
was surrounded by barracks for the soldiers, officers' quarters, the
lodgings of the commandant, a guardhouse, and a storehouse, all built
partly of logs and partly of boards. There were no casemates, and the
place was commanded by a high woody hill beyond the Monongahela. The
forest had been cleared away to the distance of more than a musket shot
from the ramparts, and the stumps were hacked level with the ground.
Here, just outside the ditch, bark cabins had been built for such of the
troops and Canadians as could not find room within; and the rest of the
open space was covered with Indian corn and other crops.[214]
[Footnote 214: _M'Kinney's Description of Fort Duquesne, 1756_, in
_Hazard's Pennsylvania Register_, VIII. 318. _Letters of Robert Stobo,
Hostage at Fort Duquesne, 1754_, in _Colonial Records of Pa._ VI. 141,
161. Stobo's _Plan of Fort Duquesne, 1754. Journal of Thomas Forbes,
1755. Letter of Captain Haslet, 1758_, in _Olden Time_, I. 184. _Plan of
Fort Duquesne_ in Public Record Office.]
The garrison consisted of a few companies of the regular troops
stationed permanently in the colony, and to these were added a
considerable number of Canadians. Contrecoeur still held the
command.[215] Under him were three other captains, Beaujeu, Dumas, and
Ligneris. Besides the troops and Canadians, eight hundred Indian
warriors, mustered from far and near, had built their wigwams and
camp-sheds on the open ground, or under the edge of the neighboring
woods,--very little to the advantage of the young corn. Some were
baptized savages settled in Canada,--Caughnawagas from Saut St. Louis,
Abenakis from St. Francis, and Hurons from Lorette, whose chief bore the
name of Anastase, in honor of that Father of the Church. The rest were
unmitigated heathen,--Pottawattamies and Ojibwas from the northern lakes
under Charles Langlade, the same bold partisan who had led them, three
years before, to attack the Miamis at Pickawillany; Shawanoes and
Mingoes from the Ohio; and Ottawas from Detroit, commanded, it is said,
by that most redoubtable of savages, Pontiac. The law of the survival of
the fittest had wrought on this heterogeneous crew through countless
generations; and with the primitive Indian, the fittest was the
hardiest, fiercest, most adroit, and most wily. Baptized and heathen
alike they had just enjoyed a diversion greatly to their taste. A young
Pennsylvanian named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of
eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the western borders of
the province and led captive to the fort. When the party came to the
edge of the clearing, his captors, who had shot and scalped his
companion, raised the scalp-yell; whereupon a din of responsive whoops
and firing of guns rose from all the Indian camps, and their inmates
swarmed out like bees, while the French in the fort shot off muskets and
cannon to honor the occasion. The unfortunate boy, the object of this
obstreperous rejoicing, presently saw a multitude of savages, naked,
hideously bedaubed with red, blue, black, and brown, and armed with
sticks or clubs, ranging themselves in two long parallel lines, between
which he was told that he must run, the faster the better, as they would
beat him all the way. He ran with his best speed, under a shower of
blows, and had nearly reached the end of the course, when he was knocked
down. He tried to rise, but was blinded by a handful of sand thrown into
his face; and then they beat him till he swooned. On coming to his
senses he found himself in the fort, with the surgeon opening a vein in
his arm and a crowd of French and Indians looking on. In a few days he
was able to walk with the help of a stick; and, coming out from his
quarters one morning, he saw a memorable scene.[216]
[Footnote 215: See Appendix D.]
[Footnote 216: _Account of Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of Colonel
James Smith, written by himself_. Perhaps the best of all the numerous
narratives of captives among the Indians.]
Three days before, an Indian had brought the report that the English
were approaching; and the Chevalier de la Perade was sent out to
reconnoitre.[217] He returned on the next day, the seventh, with news
that they were not far distant. On the eighth the brothers Normanville
went out, and found that they were within six leagues of the fort. The
French were in great excitement and alarm; but Contrecoeur at length
took a resolution, which seems to have been inspired by Beaujeu.[218] It
was determined to meet the enemy on the march, and ambuscade them if
possible at the crossing of the Monongahela, or some other favorable
spot. Beaujeu proposed the plan to the Indians, and offered them the
war-hatchet; but they would not take it. "Do you want to die, my father,
and sacrifice us besides?" That night they held a council, and in the
morning again refused to go. Beaujeu did not despair. "I am determined,"
he exclaimed, "to meet the English. What! will you let your father go
alone?"[219] The greater part caught fire at his words, promised to
follow him and put on their war-paint. Beaujeu received the communion,
then dressed himself like a savage, and joined the clamorous throng.
Open barrels of gunpowder and bullets were set before the gate of the
fort, and James Smith, painfully climbing the rampart with the help of
his stick, looked down on the warrior rabble as, huddling together, wild
with excitement, they scooped up the contents to fill their powder-horns
and pouches. Then, band after band, they filed off along the forest
track that led to the ford of the Monongahela. They numbered six hundred
and thirty-seven; and with them went thirty-six French officers and
cadets, seventy-two regular soldiers, and a hundred and forty-six
Canadians, or about nine hundred in all.[220] At eight o'clock the
tumult was over. The broad clearing lay lonely and still, and
Contrecoeur, with what was left of his garrison, waited in suspense for
the issue.
[Footnote 217: _Relation de Godefroy_, in Shea, _Bataille du
Malangueulé_ (Monongahela).]
[Footnote 218: Dumas, however, declares that Beaujeu adopted the plan at
his suggestion. _Dumas au Ministre, 24 Juillet, 1756_.]
[Footnote 219: _Relation depuis le Départ des Trouppes de Québec
jusqu'au 30 du Mois de Septembre, 1755_.]
[Footnote 220: _Liste des Officiers, Cadets, Soldats, Miliciens, et
Sauvages qui composaient le Détachement qui a été au devant d'un Corps
de 2,000 Anglois à 3 Lieues du Fort Duquesne, le 9 Juillet, 1755; joint
à la Lettre de M. Bigot du 6 Août, 1755_.]
It was near one o'clock when Braddock crossed the Monongahela for the
second time. If the French made a stand anywhere, it would be, he
thought, at the fording-place; but Lieutenant-Colonel Gage, whom he sent
across with a strong advance-party, found no enemy, and quietly took
possession of the farther shore. Then the main body followed. To impose
on the imagination of the French scouts, who were doubtless on the
watch, the movement was made with studied regularity and order. The sun
was cloudless, and the men were inspirited by the prospect of near
triumph. Washington afterwards spoke with admiration of the
spectacle.[221] The music, the banners, the mounted officers, the troop
of light cavalry, the naval detachment, the red-coated regulars, the
blue-coated Virginians, the wagons and tumbrils, cannon, howitzers, and
coehorns, the train of packhorses, and the droves of cattle, passed in
long procession through the rippling shallows, and slowly entered the
bordering forest. Here, when all were over, a short halt was ordered for
rest and refreshment.
[Footnote 221: Compare the account of another eye-witness, Dr. Walker,
in _Hazard's Pennsylvania Register_, VI. 104.]
Why had not Beaujeu defended the ford? This was his intention in the
morning; but he had been met by obstacles, the nature of which is not
wholly clear. His Indians, it seems, had proved refractory. Three
hundred of them left him, went off in another direction, and did not
rejoin him till the English had crossed the river.[222] Hence perhaps it
was that, having left Fort Duquesne at eight o'clock, he spent half the
day in marching seven miles, and was more than a mile from the
fording-place when the British reached the eastern shore. The delay,
from whatever cause arising, cost him the opportunity of laying an
ambush either at the ford or in the gullies and ravines that channelled
the forest through which Braddock was now on the point of marching.
[Footnote 222: _Relation de Godefroy_, in Shea, _Bataille du
Malangueulé_.]
Not far from the bank of the river, and close by the British line of
march, there was a clearing and a deserted house that had once belonged
to the trader Fraser. Washington remembered it well. It was here that he
found rest and shelter on the winter journey homeward from his mission
to Fort Le Boeuf. He was in no less need of rest at this moment; for
recent fever had so weakened him that he could hardly sit his horse.
From Fraser's house to Fort Duquesne the distance was eight miles by a
rough path, along which the troops were now beginning to move after
their halt. It ran inland for a little; then curved to the left, and
followed a course parallel to the river along the base of a line of
steep hills that here bordered the valley. These and all the country
were buried in dense and heavy forest, choked with bushes and the
carcases of fallen trees. Braddock has been charged with marching
blindly into an ambuscade; but it was not so. There was no ambuscade;
and had there been one, he would have found it. It is true that he did
not reconnoitre the woods very far in advance of the head of the column;
yet, with this exception, he made elaborate dispositions to prevent
surprise. Several guides, with six Virginian light horsemen, led the
way. Then, a musket-shot behind, came the vanguard; then three hundred
soldiers under Gage; then a large body of axemen, under Sir John
Sinclair, to open the road; then two cannon with tumbrils and
tool-wagons; and lastly the rear-guard, closing the line, while
flanking-parties ranged the woods on both sides. This was the
advance-column. The main body followed with little or no interval. The
artillery and wagons moved along the road, and the troops filed through
the woods close on either hand. Numerous flanking-parties were thrown
out a hundred yards and more to right and left; while, in the space
between them and the marching column, the pack horses and cattle, with
their drivers, made their way painfully among the trees and thickets;
since, had they been allowed to follow the road, the line of march would
have been too long for mutual support. A body of regulars and
provincials brought up the rear.
Gage, with his advance-column, had just passed a wide and bushy ravine
that crossed their path, and the van of the main column was on the point
of entering it, when the guides and light horsemen in the front suddenly
fell back; and the engineer, Gordon, then engaged in marking out the
road, saw a man, dressed like an Indian, but wearing the gorget of an
officer, bounding forward along the path.[223] He stopped when he
discovered the head of the column, turned, and waved his hat. The forest
behind was swarming with French and savages. At the signal of the
officer, who was probably Beaujeu, they yelled the war-whoop, spread
themselves to right and left, and opened a sharp fire under cover of the
trees. Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired several
volleys with great steadiness against the now invisible assailants. Few
of them were hurt; the trees caught the shot, but the noise was
deafening under the dense arches of the forest. The greater part of the
Canadians, to borrow the words of Dumas, "fled shamefully, crying 'Sauve
qui peut!'"[224] Volley followed volley, and at the third Beaujeu
dropped dead. Gage's two cannon were now brought to bear, on which the
Indians, like the Canadians, gave way in confusion, but did not, like
them, abandon the field. The close scarlet ranks of the English were
plainly to be seen through the trees and the smoke; they were moving
forward, cheering lustily, and shouting "God save the King." Dumas, now
chief in command, thought that all was lost. "I advanced," he says,
"with the assurance that comes from despair, exciting by voice and
gesture the few soldiers that remained. The fire of my platoon was so
sharp that the enemy seemed astonished." The Indians, encouraged, began
to rally. The French officers who commanded them showed admirable
courage and address; and while Dumas and Ligneris, with the regulars and
what was left of the Canadians, held the ground in front, the savage
warriors, screeching their war-cries, swarmed through the forest along
both flanks of the English, hid behind trees, bushes, and fallen trunks,
or crouched in gullies and ravines, and opened a deadly fire on the
helpless soldiery, who, themselves completely visible, could see no
enemy, and wasted volley after volley on the impassive trees. The most
destructive fire came from a hill on the English right, where the
Indians lay in multitudes, firing from their lurking-places on the
living target below. But the invisible death was everywhere, in front,
flank, and rear. The British cheer was heard no more. The troops broke
their ranks and huddled together in a bewildered mass, shrinking from
the bullets that cut them down by scores.
[Footnote 223: _Journal of the Proceeding of the Detachment of Seamen_,
in Sargent.]
[Footnote 224: _Dumas au Ministre, 24 Juillet, 1756. Contrecoeur à
Vaudreuil, 14 Juillet, 1755_. See Appendix D, where extracts are given.]
When Braddock heard the firing in the front, he pushed forward with the
main body to the support of Gage, leaving four hundred men in the rear,
under Sir Peter Halket, to guard the baggage. At the moment of his
arrival Gage's soldiers had abandoned their two cannon, and were falling
back to escape the concentrated fire of the Indians. Meeting the
advancing troops, they tried to find cover behind them. This threw the
whole into confusion. The men of the two regiments became mixed
together; and in a short time the entire force, except the Virginians
and the troops left with Halket, were massed in several dense bodies
within a small space of ground, facing some one way and some another,
and all alike exposed without shelter to the bullets that pelted them
like hail. Both men and officers were new to this blind and frightful
warfare of the savage in his native woods. To charge the Indians in
their hiding-places would have been useless. They would have eluded
pursuit with the agility of wildcats, and swarmed back, like angry
hornets, the moment that it ceased. The Virginians alone were equal to
the emergency. Fighting behind trees like the Indians themselves, they
might have held the enemy in check till order could be restored, had not
Braddock, furious at a proceeding that shocked all his ideas of courage
and discipline, ordered them, with oaths, to form into line. A body of
them under Captain Waggoner made a dash for a fallen tree lying in the
woods, far out towards the lurking-places of the Indians, and, crouching
behind the huge trunk, opened fire; but the regulars, seeing the smoke
among the bushes, mistook their best friends for the enemy, shot at them
from behind, killed many, and forced the rest to return. A few of the
regulars also tried in their clumsy way to fight behind trees; but
Braddock beat them with his sword, and compelled them to stand with the
rest, an open mark for the Indians. The panic increased; the soldiers
crowded together, and the bullets spent themselves in a mass of human
bodies. Commands, entreaties, and threats were lost upon them. "We would
fight," some of them answered, "if we could see anybody to fight with."
Nothing was visible but puffs of smoke. Officers and men who had stood
all the afternoon under fire afterwards declared that they could not be
sure they had seen a single Indian. Braddock ordered Lieutenant-Colonel
Burton to attack the hill where the puffs of smoke were thickest, and
the bullets most deadly. With infinite difficulty that brave officer
induced a hundred men to follow him; but he was soon disabled by a
wound, and they all faced about. The artillerymen stood for some time by
their guns, which did great damage to the trees and little to the enemy.
The mob of soldiers, stupefied with terror, stood panting, their
foreheads beaded with sweat, loading and firing mechanically, sometimes
into the air, sometimes among their own comrades, many of whom they
killed. The ground, strewn with dead and wounded men, the bounding of
maddened horses, the clatter and roar of musketry and cannon, mixed with
the spiteful report of rifles and the yells that rose from the
indefatigable throats of six hundred unseen savages, formed a chaos of
anguish and terror scarcely paralleled even in Indian war. "I cannot
describe the horrors of that scene," one of Braddock's officers wrote
three weeks after; "no pen could do it. The yell of the Indians is fresh
on my ear, and the terrific sound will haunt me till the hour of my
dissolution."[225]
[Footnote 225: _Leslie to a Merchant of Philadelphia, 30 July, 1755_, in
_Hazard's Pennsylvania Register_, V. 191. Leslie was a lieutenant of the
Forty-fourth.]
Braddock showed a furious intrepidity. Mounted on horseback, he dashed
to and fro, storming like a madman. Four horses were shot under him, and
he mounted a fifth. Washington seconded his chief with equal courage; he
too no doubt using strong language, for he did not measure words when
the fit was on him. He escaped as by miracle. Two horses were killed
under him, and four bullets tore his clothes. The conduct of the British
officers was above praise. Nothing could surpass their undaunted
self-devotion; and in their vain attempts to lead on the men, the havoc
among them was frightful. Sir Peter Halket was shot dead. His son, a
lieutenant in his regiment, stooping to raise the body of his father,
was shot dead in turn. Young Shirley, Braddock's secretary, was pierced
through the brain. Orme and Morris, his aides-de-camp, Sinclair, the
quartermaster-general, Gates and Gage, both afterwards conspicuous on
opposite sides in the War of the Revolution, and Gladwin, who, eight
years later, defended Detroit against Pontiac, were all wounded. Of
eighty-six officers, sixty-three were killed or disabled;[226] while out
of thirteen hundred and seventy-three noncommissioned officers and
privates, only four hundred and fifty-nine came off unharmed.[227]
[Footnote 226: _A List of the Officers who were present, and of those
killed and wounded, in the Action on the Banks of the Monongahela, 9
July, 1755_ (Public Record Office, _America and West Indies_, LXXXII).]
[Footnote 227: Statement of the engineer, Mackellar. By another account,
out of a total, officers and men, of 1,460, the number of all ranks who
escaped was 583. Braddock's force, originally 1,200, was increased, a
few days before the battle, by detachments from Dunbar.]
Braddock saw that all was lost. To save the wreck of his force from
annihilation, he at last commanded a retreat; and as he and such of his
officers as were left strove to withdraw the half-frenzied crew in some
semblance of order, a bullet struck him down. The gallant bulldog fell
from his horse, shot through the arm into the lungs. It is said, though
on evidence of no weight, that the bullet came from one of his own men.
Be this as it may, there he lay among the bushes, bleeding, gasping,
unable even to curse. He demanded to be left where he was. Captain
Stewart and another provincial bore him between them to the rear.
It was about this time that the mob of soldiers, having been three hours
under fire, and having spent their ammunition, broke away in a blind
frenzy, rushed back towards the ford, "and when," says Washington, "we
endeavored to rally them, it was with as much success as if we had
attempted to stop the wild bears of the mountains." They dashed across,
helter-skelter, plunging through the water to the farther bank, leaving
wounded comrades, cannon, baggage, the military chest, and the General's
papers, a prey to the Indians. About fifty of these followed to the edge
of the river. Dumas and Ligneris, who had now only about twenty
Frenchmen with them, made no attempt to pursue, and went back to the
fort, because, says Contrecoeur, so many of the Canadians had "retired
at the first fire." The field, abandoned to the savages, was a
pandemonium of pillage and murder.[228]
[Footnote 228: "Nous prîmes le parti de nous retirer en vue de rallier
notre petite armée." _Dumas au Ministre, 24 Juillet, 1756_.
On the defeat of Braddock, besides authorities already cited,--_Shirley
to Robinson, 5 Nov. 1755_, accompanying the plans of the battle
reproduced in this volume (Public Record Office, _America and West
Indies_, LXXXIL). The plans were drawn at Shirley's request by Patrick
Mackellar, chief engineer of the expedition, who was with Gage in the
advance column when the fight began. They were examined and fully
approved by the chief surviving officers, and they closely correspond
with another plan made by the aide-de-camp Orme,--which, however, shows
only the beginning of the affair.
_Report of the Court of Inquiry into the Behavior of the Troops at the
Monongahela. Letters of Dinwiddie. Letters of Gage. Burd to Morris, 25
July, 1755. Sinclair to Robinson, 3 Sept. Rutherford to----, 12 July.
Writings of Washington_, II. 68-93. _Review of Military Operations in
North America_. Entick, I. 145. _Gentleman's Magazine_ (1755), 378, 426.
_Letter to a Friend on the Ohio Defeat_ (Boston, 1755).
_Contrecoeur à Vaudreuil, 14 Juillet, 1755. Estat de l'Artillerie, etc.,
qui se sont trouvés sur le Champ de Bataille. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5
Août, 1755. Bigot au Ministre, 27 Août. Relation du Combat du 9 Juillet.
Relation depuis le Départ des Trouppes de Québec jusqu'au 30 du Mois de
Septembre. Lotbinière à d'Argenson, 24 Oct. Relation officielle imprimée
au Louvre. Relation de Godefroy_ (Shea). _Extraits du Registre du Fort
Duquesne_ (_Ibid._). _Relation de diverses Mouvements_ (_Ibid._).
Pouchot, I. 37.]
James Smith, the young prisoner at Fort Duquesne, had passed a day of
suspense, waiting the result. "In the afternoon I again observed a great
noise and commotion in the fort, and, though at that time I could not
understand French, I found it was the voice of joy and triumph, and
feared that they had received what I called bad news. I had observed
some of the old-country soldiers speak Dutch; as I spoke Dutch, I went
to one of them and asked him what was the news. He told me that a runner
had just arrived who said that Braddock would certainly be defeated;
that the Indians and French had surrounded him, and were concealed
behind trees and in gullies, and kept a constant fire upon the English;
and that they saw the English falling in heaps; and if they did not take
the river, which was the only gap, and make their escape, there would
not be one man left alive before sundown. Some time after this, I heard
a number of scalp-halloos, and saw a company of Indians and French
coming in. I observed they had a great number of bloody scalps,
grenadiers' caps, British canteens, bayonets, etc., with them. They
brought the news that Braddock was defeated. After that another company
came in, which appeared to be about one hundred, and chiefly Indians;
and it seemed to me that almost every one of this company was carrying
scalps. After this came another company with a number of wagon-horses,
and also a great many scalps. Those that were coming in and those that
had arrived kept a constant firing of small arms, and also the great
guns in the fort, which were accompanied with the most hideous shouts
and yells from all quarters, so that it appeared to me as though the
infernal regions had broke loose."
"About sundown I beheld a small party coming in with about a dozen
prisoners, stripped naked, with their hands tied behind their backs and
their faces and part of their bodies blacked; these prisoners they
burned to death on the bank of Alleghany River, opposite the fort. I
stood on the fort wall until I beheld them begin to burn one of these
men; they had him tied to a stake, and kept touching him with
firebrands, red-hot irons, etc., and he screaming in a most doleful
manner, the Indians in the meantime yelling like infernal spirits. As
this scene appeared too shocking for me to behold, I retired to my
lodging, both sore and sorry. When I came into my lodgings I saw
Russel's _Seven Sermons_, which they had brought from the field of
battle, which a Frenchman made a present of to me."
The loss of the French was slight, but fell chiefly on the officers,
three of whom were killed, and four wounded. Of the regular soldiers,
all but four escaped untouched. The Canadians suffered still less in
proportion to their numbers, only five of them being hurt. The Indians,
who won the victory, bore the principal loss. Of those from Canada,
twenty-seven were killed and wounded; while the casualties among the
Western tribes are not reported.[229] All of these last went off the
next morning with their plunder and scalps, leaving Contrecoeur in great
anxiety lest the remnant of Braddock's troops, reinforced by the
division under Dunbar, should attack him again. His doubts would have
vanished had he known the condition of his defeated enemy.
[Footnote 229: _Liste des Officiers, Soldats, Miliciens, et Sauvages de
Canada qui out été tués et blessés le 9 Juillet, 1755_.]
In the pain and languor of a mortal wound, Braddock showed unflinching
resolution. His bearers stopped with him at a favorable spot beyond the
Monongahela; and here he hoped to maintain his position till the arrival
of Dunbar. By the efforts of the officers about a hundred men were
collected around him; but to keep them there was impossible. Within an
hour they abandoned him, and fled like the rest. Gage, however,
succeeded in rallying about eighty beyond the other fording-place; and
Washington, on an order from Braddock, spurred his jaded horse towards
the camp of Dunbar to demand wagons, provisions, and hospital stores.
Fright overcame fatigue. The fugitives toiled on all night, pursued by
spectres of horror and despair; hearing still the war-whoops and the
shrieks; possessed with the one thought of escape from the wilderness of
death. In the morning some order was restored. Braddock was placed on a
horse; then, the pain being insufferable, he was carried on a litter,
Captain Orme having bribed the carriers by the promise of a guinea and a
bottle of rum apiece. Early in the succeeding night, such as had not
fainted on the way reached the deserted farm of Gist. Here they met
wagons and provisions, with a detachment of soldiers sent by Dunbar,
whose camp was six miles farther on; and Braddock ordered them to go to
the relief of the stragglers left behind.
At noon of that day a number of wagoners and packhorse-drivers had come
to Dunbar's camp with wild tidings of rout and ruin. More fugitives
followed; and soon after a wounded officer was brought in upon a sheet.
The drums beat to arms. The camp was in commotion; and many soldiers and
teamsters took to flight, in spite of the sentinels, who tried in vain
to stop them.[230] There was a still more disgraceful scene on the next
day, after Braddock, with the wreck of his force, had arrived. Orders
were given to destroy such of the wagons, stores, and ammunition as
could not be carried back at once to Fort Cumberland. Whether Dunbar or
the dying General gave these orders is not clear; but it is certain that
they were executed with shameful alacrity. More than a hundred wagons
were burned; cannon, coehorns, and shells were burst or buried; barrels
of gunpowder were staved, and the contents thrown into a brook;
provisions were scattered through the woods and swamps. Then the whole
command began its retreat over the mountains to Fort Cumberland, sixty
miles distant. This proceeding, for which, in view of the condition of
Braddock, Dunbar must be held answerable, excited the utmost
indignation among the colonists. If he could not advance, they thought,
he might at least have fortified himself and held his ground till the
provinces could send him help; thus covering the frontier, and holding
French war-parties in check.
[Footnote 230: _Depositions of Matthew Laird, Michael Hoover, and Jacob
Hoover, Wagoners_, in _Colonial Records of Pa._, VI. 482.]
Braddock's last moment was near. Orme, who, though himself severely
wounded, was with him till his death, told Franklin that he was totally
silent all the first day, and at night said only, "Who would have
thought it?" that all the next day he was again silent, till at last he
muttered, "We shall better know how to deal with them another time," and
died a few minutes after. He had nevertheless found breath to give
orders at Gist's for the succor of the men who had dropped on the road.
It is said, too, that in his last hours "he could not bear the sight of
a red coat," but murmured praises of "the blues," or Virginians, and
said that he hoped he should live to reward them.[231] He died at about
eight o'clock in the evening of Sunday, the thirteenth. Dunbar had begun
his retreat that morning, and was then encamped near the Great Meadows.
On Monday the dead commander was buried in the road; and men, horses,
and wagons passed over his grave, effacing every sign of it, lest the
Indians should find and mutilate the body.
[Footnote 231: _Bolling to his Son, 13 Aug. 1755_. Bolling was a
Virginian gentleman whose son was at school in England.]
Colonel James Innes, commanding at Fort Cumberland, where a crowd of
invalids with soldiers' wives and other women had been left when the
expedition marched, heard of the defeat, only two days after it
happened, from a wagoner who had fled from the field on horseback. He at
once sent a note of six lines to Lord Fairfax: "I have this moment
received the most melancholy news of the defeat of our troops, the
General killed, and numbers of our officers; our whole artillery taken.
In short, the account I have received is so very bad, that as, please
God, I intend to make a stand here, 'tis highly necessary to raise the
militia everywhere to defend the frontiers." A boy whom he sent out on
horseback met more fugitives, and came back on the fourteenth with
reports as vague and disheartening as the first. Innes sent them to
Dinwiddie.[232] Some days after, Dunbar and his train arrived in
miserable disorder, and Fort Cumberland was turned into a hospital for
the shattered fragments of a routed and ruined army.
[Footnote 232: _Innes to Dinwiddie, 14 July, 1755_.]
On the sixteenth a letter was brought in haste to one Buchanan at
Carlisle, on the Pennsylvanian frontier:--
Sir,--I thought it proper to let you know that I was in the battle
where we were defeated. And we had about eleven hundred and fifty
private men, besides officers and others. And we were attacked the
ninth day about twelve o'clock, and held till about three in the
afternoon, and then we were forced to retreat, when I suppose we
might bring off about three hundred whole men, besides a vast many
wounded. Most of our officers were either wounded or killed;
General Braddock is wounded, but I hope not mortal; and Sir John
Sinclair and many others, but I hope not mortal. All the train is
cut off in a manner. Sir Peter Halket and his son, Captain Polson,
Captain Gethan, Captain Rose, Captain Tatten killed, and many
others. Captain Ord of the train is wounded, but I hope not mortal.
We lost all our artillery entirely, and everything else.
To Mr. John Smith and Buchannon, and give it to the next post, and
let him show this to Mr. George Gibson in Lancaster, and Mr.
Bingham, at the sign of the Ship, and you'll oblige,
Yours to command,
JOHN CAMPBELL, _Messenger_.[233]
[Footnote 233: _Colonial Records of Pa._, VI. 481.]
The evil tidings quickly reached Philadelphia, where such confidence had
prevailed that certain over-zealous persons had begun to collect money
for fireworks to celebrate the victory. Two of these, brother physicians
named Bond, came to Franklin and asked him to subscribe; but the sage
looked doubtful. "Why, the devil!" said one of them, "you surely don't
suppose the fort will not be taken?" He reminded them that war is always
uncertain; and the subscription was deferred.[234]The Governor laid the
news of the disaster before his Council, telling them at the same time
that his opponents in the Assembly would not believe it, and had
insulted him in the street for giving it currency.[235]
[Footnote 234: _Autobiography of Franklin_.]
[Footnote 235: _Colonial Records of Pa._, VI. 480.]
Dinwiddie remained tranquil at Williamsburg, sure that all would go
well. The brief note of Innes, forwarded by Lord Fairfax, first
disturbed his dream of triumph; but on second thought he took comfort.
"I am willing to think that account was from a deserter who, in a great
panic, represented what his fears suggested. I wait with impatience for
another express from Fort Cumberland, which I expect will greatly
contradict the former." The news got abroad, and the slaves showed signs
of excitement. "The villany of the negroes on any emergency is what I
always feared," continues the Governor. "An example of one or two at
first may prevent these creatures entering into combinations and wicked
designs."[236] And he wrote to Lord Halifax: "The negro slaves have been
very audacious on the news of defeat on the Ohio. These poor creatures
imagine the French will give them their freedom. We have too many here;
but I hope we shall be able to keep them in proper subjection." Suspense
grew intolerable. "It's monstrous they should be so tardy and dilatory
in sending down any farther account." He sent Major Colin Campbell for
news; when, a day or two later, a courier brought him two letters, one
from Orme, and the other from Washington, both written at Fort
Cumberland on the eighteenth. The letter of Orme began thus: "My dear
Governor, I am so extremely ill in bed with the wound I have received
that I am under the necessity of employing my friend Captain Dobson as
my scribe." Then he told the wretched story of defeat and humiliation.
"The officers were absolutely sacrificed by their unparalleled good
behavior; advancing before their men sometimes in bodies, and sometimes
separately, hoping by such an example to engage the soldiers to follow
them; but to no purpose. Poor Shirley was shot through the head, Captain
Morris very much wounded. Mr. Washington had two horses shot under him,
and his clothes shot through in several places; behaving the whole time
with the greatest courage and resolution."
[Footnote 236: _Dinwiddie to Colonel Charles Carter, 18 July, 1755_.]
Washington wrote more briefly, saying that, as Orme was giving a full
account of the affair, it was needless for him to repeat it. Like many
others in the fight, he greatly underrated the force of the enemy, which
he placed at three hundred, or about a third of the actual number,--a
natural error, as most of the assailants were invisible. "Our poor
Virginians behaved like men, and died like soldiers; for I believe that
out of three companies that were there that day, scarce thirty were left
alive. Captain Peronney and all his officers down to a corporal were
killed. Captain Polson shared almost as hard a fate, for only one of his
escaped. In short, the dastardly behavior of the English soldiers
exposed all those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain
death. It is imagined (I believe with great justice, too) that two
thirds of both killed and wounded received their shots from our own
cowardly dogs of soldiers, who gathered themselves into a body, contrary
to orders, ten and twelve deep, would then level, fire, and shoot down
the men before them."[237]
[Footnote 237: These extracts are taken from the two letters preserved
in the Public Record Office, _America and West Indies_, LXXIV, LXXXII.]
To Orme, Dinwiddie replied: "I read your letter with tears in my eyes;
but it gave me much pleasure to see your name at the bottom, and more so
when I observed by the postscript that your wound is not dangerous. But
pray, dear sir, is it not possible by a second attempt to retrieve the
great loss we have sustained? I presume the General's chariot is at the
fort. In it you may come here, and my house is heartily at your command.
Pray take care of your valuable health; keep your spirits up, and I
doubt not of your recovery. My wife and girls join me in most sincere
respects and joy at your being so well, and I always am, with great
truth, dear friend, your affectionate humble servant."
To Washington he is less effusive, though he had known him much longer.
He begins, it is true, "Dear Washington," and congratulates him on his
escape; but soon grows formal, and asks: "Pray, sir, with the number of
them remaining, is there no possibility of doing something on the other
side of the mountains before the winter months? Surely you must mistake.
Colonel Dunbar will not march to winter-quarters in the middle of
summer, and leave the frontiers exposed to the invasions of the enemy!
No; he is a better officer, and I have a different opinion of him. I
sincerely wish you health and happiness, and am, with great respect,
sir, your obedient, humble servant."
Washington's letter had contained the astonishing announcement that
Dunbar meant to abandon the frontier and march to Philadelphia.
Dinwiddie, much disturbed, at once wrote to that officer, though without
betraying any knowledge of his intention. "Sir, the melancholy account
of the defeat of our forces gave me a sensible and real concern"--on
which he enlarges for a while; then suddenly changes style: "Dear
Colonel, is there no method left to retrieve the dishonor done to the
British arms? As you now command all the forces that remain, are you not
able, after a proper refreshment of your men, to make a second attempt?
You have four months now to come of the best weather of the year for
such an expedition. What a fine field for honor will Colonel Dunbar have
to confirm and establish his character as a brave officer." Then, after
suggesting plans of operation, and entering into much detail, the fervid
Governor concludes: "It gives me great pleasure that under our great
loss and misfortunes the command devolves on an officer of so great
military judgment and established character. With my sincere respect and
hearty wishes for success to all your proceedings, I am, worthy sir,
your most obedient, humble servant."
Exhortation and flattery were lost on Dunbar. Dinwiddie received from
him in reply a short, dry note, dated on the first of August, and
acquainting him that he should march for Philadelphia on the second.
This, in fact, he did, leaving the fort to be defended by invalids and a
few Virginians. "I acknowledge," says Dinwiddie, "I was not brought up
to arms; but I think common sense would have prevailed not to leave the
frontiers exposed after having opened a road over the mountains to the
Ohio, by which the enemy can the more easily invade us.... Your great
colonel," he writes to Orme, "is gone to a peaceful colony, and left our
frontiers open.... The whole conduct of Colonel Dunbar appears to me
monstrous.... To march off all the regulars, and leave the fort and
frontiers to be defended by four hundred sick and wounded, and the poor
remains of our provincial forces, appears to me absurd."[238]
[Footnote 238: Dinwiddie's view of Dunbar's conduct is fully justified
by the letters of Shirley, Governor Morris, and Dunbar himself.]
He found some comfort from the burgesses, who gave him forty thousand
pounds, and would, he thinks, have given a hundred thousand if another
attempt against Fort Duquesne had been set afoot. Shirley, too, whom the
death of Braddock had made commander-in-chief, approved the Governor's
plan of renewing offensive operations, and instructed Dunbar to that
effect; ordering him, however, should they prove impracticable, to march
for Albany in aid of the Niagara expedition.[239] The order found him
safe in Philadelphia. Here he lingered for a while; then marched to join
the northern army, moving at a pace which made it certain that he could
not arrive in time to be of the least use.
[Footnote 239: _Orders for Colonel Thomas Dunbar, 12 Aug. 1755_. These
supersede a previous order of August 6, by which Shirley had directed
Dunbar to march northward at once.]
Thus the frontier was left unguarded; and soon, as Dinwiddie had
foreseen, there burst upon it a storm of blood and fire.