A HERO OF THE COLONIES
DO you not think there are a great many interesting stories in American
history? I have told you some, and I could tell you many more. I am
going to tell you one now, about a brave young man who had a great deal
to do with the making of our glorious country. But to reach it we will
have to take a step backward over one hundred and fifty years. That is a
pretty long step, isn't it? It takes us away back to about the year
1750. But people had been coming into this country for more than a
hundred and fifty years before that, and there were a great many white
men and women in America at that time.
These people came from Spain and France and Great Britain and Holland
and Germany and Sweden and other countries besides. The Spaniards had
spread through many regions in the south; the French had gone west by
way of the Great Lakes and then down the Mississippi River; but the
British were settled close to the ocean, and the country back of them
was still forest land, where only wild men and wild beasts lived. That
is the way things were situated at the time of the story which I now
propose to tell.
The young man I am about to speak of knew almost as much about life in
the deep woods as Daniel Boone, the great hunter, of whom I have just
told you. Why, when he was only sixteen years old he and another boy
went far back into the wild country of Virginia to survey or measure the
lands there for a rich land-holder.
The two boys crossed the rough mountains and went into the broad valley
of the Shenandoah River, and for months they lived there alone in the
broad forest. There were no roads through the woods and they had to make
their own paths. When they were hungry they would shoot a wild turkey or
a squirrel, or sometimes a deer. They would cook their meat by holding
it on a stick over a fire of fallen twigs, and for plates they would cut
large chips from a tree with their axe.
All day long they worked in the woods, measuring the land with a long
chain. At night they would roll themselves in their blankets and go to
sleep under the trees. If the weather was cold they gathered wood and
made a fire. Very likely they enjoyed it all, for boys are fond of
adventure. Sometimes a party of Indians would come up and be very
curious to know what these white boys were doing. But the Indians were
peaceful then, and did not try to harm them. One party amused the young
surveyors by dancing a war dance before them. A fine time they had in
the woods, where they stayed alone for months. When they came back the
land-holder was much pleased with their work.
Now let us go on for five years, when the backwoods boy-surveyor had
become a young man twenty-one years of age. If we could take ourselves
back to the year 1753, and plunge into the woods of western
Pennsylvania, we might see this young man again in the deep forest,
walking along with his rifle in hand and his pack on his back. He had
with him an old frontiersman named Gill, and an Indian who acted as
their guide through the forest.
The Indian was a treacherous fellow. One day, when they were not
looking, he fired his gun at them from behind a tree. He did not hit
either of them. Some men would have shot him, but they did not; they let
him go away and walked on alone through the deep woods. They built a
fire that night, but they did not sleep before it, for they were afraid
the Indian might come back and try to kill them while they were
sleeping. So they left it burning and walked on a few miles and went to
sleep without a fire.
A few days after that they came to the banks of a wide river. You may
find it on your map of Pennsylvania. It is called the Allegheny River,
and runs into the Ohio. It had been frozen, for it was winter time; but
now the ice was broken and floating swiftly down the stream.
What were they to do? They had to get across that stream. The only plan
they could think of was to build a raft out of logs and try to push it
through the ice with long poles. This they did, and were soon out on the
wild river and among the floating ice.
It was a terrible passage. The great cakes of ice came swirling along
and striking like heavy hammers against the raft, almost hard enough to
knock it to pieces. One of these heavy ice cakes struck the pole of the
young traveler, and gave him such a shock that he fell from the raft
into the freezing cold water. He had a hard enough scramble to get back
on the raft again.
After a while they reached a little island in the stream and got ashore.
There was no wood on it and they could not make a fire, so they had to
walk about all night to keep from freezing. The young man was wet to the
skin, but he had young blood and did not suffer as much as the older man
with him. When morning came they found that the ice was frozen fast
between the island and the other shore, so all they had to do was to
walk across it.
These were not the only adventures they had, but they got safe back to
Virginia, from which they had set out months before.
Do you want to know who this young traveler was? His name was George
Washington. That is all I need say. Any one who does not know who George
Washington was is not much of an American. But quite likely you do not
guess what he was doing in the woods so far away from his home. He had
been sent there by the governor of Virginia, and I shall have to tell
you why.
But first you must go back with me to an earlier time. The time I mean
is when the French were settling in Canada along the St. Lawrence River,
and going west over the lakes, and floating in canoes down the
Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Wherever they went they built
forts and claimed the country for their king. At the same time the
English were settling along the Atlantic shores and pushing slowly back
into the country.
You should know that the French and the English were not the best of
friends. They had their wars in Europe, and every time they got into war
there they began to fight in America also. This made terrible times in
the new country. The French had many of the Indians on their side, and
they marched through the woods and attacked some of the English towns,
and the cruel Indians murdered many of the poor settlers who had done
them no harm. There were three such wars, lasting for many years, and a
great many innocent men, women and children, who had nothing to do with
the wars in Europe, lost their lives. That is what we call war. It is
bad enough now, but it was worse still in those days.
The greatest of all the wars between the French and the English was
still to come. Between the French forts on the Mississippi and the
English settlements on the Atlantic there was a vast forest land, and
both the French and the English said it belonged to them. In fact, it
did not belong to either of them, but to the Indians; but the white men
never troubled themselves about the rights of the old owners of the
land.
While the English were talking the French were acting. About 1750 they
built two or three forts in the country south of Lake Erie. What they
wanted was the Ohio River, with the rich and fertile lands which lay
along that stream. Building those forts was the first step. The next
step would be to send soldiers to the Ohio and build forts there also.
When the English heard what the French were doing they became greatly
alarmed. If they did not do something very quickly they would lose all
this great western country. The governor of Virginia wished to know what
the French meant to do, and he thought the best way to find out was to
ask them. So he chose the young backwoods surveyor, George Washington,
and sent him through the great forest to the French forts.
Washington was very young for so important a duty. But he was tall and
strong and quick-witted, and he was not afraid of any man or anything.
And he knew all about life in the woods. So he was chosen, and far west
he went over plain and mountain, now on horseback and now on foot,
following the Indian trails through the forest, until at last he came to
the French forts.
The French officers told him that they had come there to stay. They were
not going to give up their forts to please the governor of Virginia. And
Washington's quick eye saw that they were getting canoes ready to go
down the streams to the Ohio River the next spring. This was the news
the young messenger was taking back to the governor when he had his
adventures with the Indian and the ice.
If any of you know anything about how wars are brought on, you may well
think there was soon going to be war in America. Both parties wanted the
land, and both were ready to fight to get it, and when people feel that
way fighting is not far off.
Indeed, the spring of 1754 was not far advanced before both sides were
on the move. Washington had picked out a beautiful spot for a fort.
This was where the two rivers which form the Ohio come together. On
that spot the city of Pittsburg now stands; but then it was a very wild
place.
As soon as the governor heard Washington's report he sent a party of men
in great haste to build a fort at that point. But in a short time a
larger party of French came down the Allegheny River in canoes and drove
the English workmen away. Then they finished the fort for themselves and
called it Fort Duquesne.
Meanwhile Washington was on his way back. A force of four hundred
Virginians had been sent out under an officer named Colonel Frye. But
the colonel died on the march, and young Washington, then only
twenty-two years old, found himself at the head of a regiment of
soldiers, and about to start a great war. Was it not a difficult
position for so young a man? Not many men of that age would have known
what to do, but George Washington was not an ordinary man.
While the Virginians were marching west, the French were marching south,
and it was not long before they came together. A party of French hid in
a thicket to watch the English, and Washington, thinking they were there
for no good, ordered his men to fire. They did so, and the leader of the
French was killed. This was the first shot in the coming war.
But the youthful commander soon found that the French were too strong
for him. He built a sort of fort at a place called Great Meadows, and
named it Fort Necessity. It was hardly finished before the French and
Indians came swarming all around it and a severe fight began.
The Virginians fought well, but the French were too strong, and fired
into the fort till Washington had to surrender. This took place on July
4, 1754, just twenty-two years before the American Declaration of
Independence. Washington and his men were allowed to march home with
their arms, and the young colonel was very much praised when he got
home, for everybody thought he had done his work in the best possible
way.
When the news of this battle crossed the ocean there was great
excitement in England and France, and both countries sent soldiers to
America. Those from England were under a general named Braddock, a man
who knew all about fighting in England, but knew nothing about fighting
in America. And what was worse, he would let nobody tell him. Washington
generously tried to do so, but he got snubbed by the proud British
general for his pains.
After a while away marched General Braddock, with his British soldiers
in their fine red coats. Washington went with him with a body of
Virginians dressed in plain colony clothes. On and on they went, through
the woods and over the mountains, cutting down trees and opening a road
for their wagons, and bravely beating their drums and waving their
flags. At length they came near Fort Duquesne, the drums still beating,
the flags still flying, the gun barrels glittering in the bright
sunshine.
"Let me go ahead with my Virginians," said Washington. "They know all
about Indian fighting."
"That for your Indians!" said Braddock, snapping his fingers. "They will
not stay in their hiding places long when my men come up."
Soon after they came into a narrow place, with steep banks and thick
bushes all around. And suddenly loud Indian war-whoops and the crack of
guns came from those bushes. Not a man could be seen, but bullets flew
like hail-stones among the red-coats. The soldiers fired back, but they
wasted their bullets on the bushes. Washington and his men ran into the
woods and got behind trees like the Indians, but Braddock would not let
his men do the same, and they were shot down like sheep. At length
General Braddock fell wounded, and then his brave red-coats turned and
ran for their lives. Very likely not a man of them would have got away
if Washington and his men had not kept back the French and Indians.
This defeat was a bad business for the poor settlers, for the savage
redskins began murdering them on all sides, and during all the rest of
the war Washington was kept busy fighting with these Indians. Not till
four years afterwards was he able to take Fort Duquesne from the French.
Then another body of men was sent through the woods and over the
mountains to capture this fort. But their general did as Braddock had
done before him, spending so much time cutting a highroad through the
woods that the whole season passed away and he was ready to turn and
march back. Then Washington, who was with him, asked permission to go
forward with his rangers. The general told him to go and he hurried
through the woods and to the fort. When he came near it the French took
to their boats and paddled off down the river, so that Washington took
the fort without firing a shot.