Part 4
The day following was spent in this work, and famed Fort Necessity was completed. It was the shape of an irregular square situated upon a small height of land near the center of the swampy meadow. “The natural entrenchments” of which Washington speaks in his _Journal_ may have been merely this height of ground, or old courses of the two brooks which flow by it on the north and on the east. At any rate the fort was built on an “island,” so to speak, in the wet lowland. A narrow neck of solid land connected it with the southern hillside, along which the road ran. A shallow ditch surrounded the earthen palisaded sides of the fort. Parallel with the southeastern and southwestern palisades rifle pits were dug. Bastion gateways offered entrance and exit. The work embraced less than a sixth of an acre of land. All day long skirmishers and double picket lines were kept out and the steady advance of the French force, three times the size of the army fearlessly awaiting it, was reported by hurrying scouts.
No army ever slept on its arms of a night surer of a battle on the morrow than did this first English army that ever came into the west. _Le Grande Villiers_, thirsting for revenge, lay not five miles off, with a thousand followers who had caught his spirit.
By earliest morning light on Wednesday, July third, an English sentry was brought in wounded. The French were then descending Laurel Hill, four miles distant. They had attacked the entrenchments on Mount Braddock the morning before only to find their bird had flown, and now were pressing after the retreating redcoats and their “buckskin Colonel.”
Little is known of the story of this day within that earthen fort save as it is told in the meagre details of the general battle. There was great lack of food, but, to compensate for this, as the soldiers no doubt thought, there was much to drink! By eleven o’clock the French and Indians, spreading throughout the forests on the northwest, began firing at six hundred yards distance. Finally they circled to the southeast where the forests approach nearer to the English trenches. Washington at once drew his little army out of the fort and boldly challenged assault on that narrow neck of solid land on the south which formed the only approach to the fort.
But the crafty Villiers, not to be tempted, kept well within the forest shadows to the south and east--cutting off all retreat to Virginia! Realizing at last that the French would not give battle, Washington withdrew again behind his entrenchments, Mackaye’s South Carolinians occupying the rifle-pits which paralleled the two sides of the fortification.
Here the all-day’s battle was fought between the Virginians behind their breastworks and in their trenches, and the French and Indians on the ascending wooded hill-sides. The rain which began to fall soon flooded Mackaye’s men out of their trenches. No other change of position was made. And, so far as the battle went, the English doggedly held their own. In the contest with hunger and rain however, they were fighting a losing battle. The horses and cattle escaped and were slaughtered by the enemy. The provisions were being exhausted and the ammunition was spending fast. As the afternoon waned, though there was some cessation of musketry fire, many guns being rendered useless by the rain, the smoking little swivels were made to do double duty. They bellowed their fierce defiance with unwonted zest as night came on, giving to the English an appearance of strength which they were far from possessing. The hungry soldiers made up for the lack of food from the abundance of liquor, which, in their exhausted state had more than its usual effect. By nightfall half the little doomed army was intoxicated. No doubt, had Villiers dared to rush the entrenchments, the English would have been annihilated. The hopelessness of their condition could not have been realized by the foe on the hills.
But it was realized by the young Colonel commanding. And as he looked about him in the wet twilight of that July day, what a dismal ending of his first campaign it must have seemed. Fifty-four of his three hundred and four men were killed or wounded in that little palisaded enclosure. Provisions and ammunition were about gone. Horses and cattle were gone. Many of the small arms were useless. The army was surrounded by _Le Grande Villiers_, watchfully abiding his time. And there was comedy with the tragedy--half the tired men were under the influence of the only stimulant that could be spared. What mercy could be hoped for from the brother of the dead Jumonville? A fight to the death, or at least a captivity at Fort Duquesne or Quebec was all that could be expected--for had not Jumonville’s party already been sent into Virginia as captives?
At eight in the evening the French requested a parley and Washington refused to consider the suggestion. Why should a parley be desired with an enemy in such a hopeless strait as they? It was clear that Villiers had resorted to this strategy to gain better information of their condition. But the request was soon repeated, and this time Villiers asked for a parley between the lines. To this Washington readily acceded, and Captain van Braam went to meet le Mercier, who brought a verbal proposition for the capitulation of Fort Necessity from Villiers. To this proposition Washington and his officers listened. Twice the commissioners were sent to Villiers to submit modifications demanded by Washington. They returned a third time with the articles reduced to writing--but in French. Washington depended upon van Braam’s poor knowledge of French and mongrel English for a verbal translation. Jumonville’s death was referred to as an assassination though van Braam Englished the word “death”--perhaps thinking there was no other translation of the French _l’assassinat_. By the light of a flickering candle, which the mountain wind frequently extinguished, the rain falling upon the company, George Washington signed this, his first and last capitulation.
ARTICLE 1st. We permit the English Commander to withdraw with all the garrison, in order that he may return peaceably to his country, and to shield him from all insult at the hands of our French, and to restrain the savages who are with us as much as may be in our power.
ART. 2nd. He shall be permitted to withdraw and to take with him whatever belongs to his troops, _except the artillery, which we reserve for ourselves_.
ART. 3d. We grant them the honors of war; they shall withdraw with beating drums, and with a small piece of cannon, wishing by this means to show that we consider them friends.
ART. 4th. As soon as these articles shall be signed by both parties, they shall take down the English flag.
ART. 5th. Tomorrow at daybreak a detachment of French shall lead forth the garrison and take possession of the aforesaid fort.
ART. 6th. Since the English have scarcely any horses or oxen left, they shall be allowed to hide their property, in order that they may return to seek for it after they shall have recovered their horses; for this purpose they shall be permitted to leave such number of troops as guards as they may think proper, _under this condition, that they give their word of honor that they will work on no establishment either in the surrounding country or beyond the Highlands during one year beginning from this day_.
ART. 7th. Since the English have in their power an officer and two cadets, and, in general, all the prisoners whom they took _when they murdered Lord Jumonville_, they now promise to send them, with an escort to Fort Duquesne, situated on Belle River; and to secure the safe performance of this treaty article, _as well as of the treaty_, Messrs. Jacob van Braam and Robert Stobo, both Captains, shall be delivered to us as hostages until the arrival of our French and Canadians herein before mentioned.
We on our part declare that we shall give an escort to send back in safety the two officers who promise us our French in two months and a half at the latest.
Copied on one of the posts of our block-house the same day and year as before.
(Signed.) MESSRS. JAMES MACKAYE, GO. GO. WASHINGTON, COULON VILLIER.
The parts printed in italics were those misrepresented by van Braam. The words “_pendent une annee a compter de ce jour_” are not found in the articles printed by the French government, as though it repudiated Villier’s intimation that the English should ever return. Yet within a year--lacking nine days--an English army, eight times as great as the one now capitulating, marched across this battle-field. The nice courtesy shown by the young Colonel in allowing Captain Mackaye’s name to take precedence over his own, is significant, as Mackaye, a King’s officer, had never considered himself amenable to Washington’s orders, and his troops had steadily refused to bear the brunt of the campaign--working on the road or transporting guns and baggage. In the trenches, however, the Carolinians did their duty.
And so, on the morning of July 4th, the red-uniformed Virginians and the King’s troops marched out from Fort Necessity between the files of French, with all the honors of war and _tambour battant_. Much baggage had to be destroyed to save it from the Indians whom the French could not restrain. Such was the condition of the men--the wounded being carried on stretchers--that only three miles could be made on the homeward march the first day. However glorious later July Fourths may have seemed to Washington, memories of this distress and gloom and humiliation served to temper his transports. The report of the officers of the Virginia regiment made at Will’s Creek, where they arrived July 9th, shows thirteen killed, fifty-three wounded, thirteen left lame on the road, twenty-one sick, and one hundred sixty-five fit for duty.
On August 30th, the Virginian House of Burgesses passed a vote of thanks to “Colonel George Washington, Captain Mackaye of his Majesty’s Independent Company, and the officers under his command,” for their “gallant and brave Behavior in Defence of their Country.” The sting of defeat was softened by a public realization of the odds of the contest and the failure of Dinwiddie to forward reinforcements and supplies.
But the young hero was deeply chagrined at his being duped to recognize Jumonville’s death as an assassination. Captain van Braam, being held in disrepute for what was probably nothing more culpable than carelessness, was not named in the vote of thanks tendered Washington’s officers. But this chagrin was no more cutting than the obstinacy of Dinwiddie in refusing to fulfil the article of the treaty concerning the return of the French prisoners. For this there was little or no valid excuse, and Dinwiddie’s action in thus playing fast and loose with Washington’s reputation was as galling to the young Colonel as it was heedless of his country’s honor and the laws of war.
Washington’s first visit to the Ohio had proven French occupation of that great valley. This, his second mission, had proven their power. With this campaign began his military career. “Although as yet a youth,” writes Sparks, “with small experience, unskilled in war, and relying on his own resources, he had behaved with the prudence, address, courage, and firmness of a veteran commander. Rigid in discipline, but sharing the hardships and solicitous for the welfare of his soldiers, he had secured their obedience and won their esteem amidst privations, sufferings and perils that have seldom been surpassed.”
III.
FORT NECESSITY AND ITS HERO.
On a plateau surrounded by low ground at the western extremity of classic Great Meadows, Fort Necessity was built, and there may be seen today the remains of its palisades.
The site was not chosen because of its strategic location but because, late in that May day, a century and a half ago, a little army hurrying forward to find any spot where it could defend itself, selected it because of the supply of water afforded by the brooks.
From the hill to the east the young Commander no doubt looked with anxious eyes upon this well watered meadow, and perhaps he decided quickly to make his resistance here. As he neared the spot his hopes rose, for he found that the plateau was surrounded by wet ground and able to be approached only from the southern side. Moreover the plateau contained “natural fortifications,” as Washington termed them, possibly gullies torn through it sometime when the brooks were out of banks.
Here Washington quickly ensconced his men. From their trenches, as they looked westward for the French, lay the western extremity of Great Meadows covered with bushes and rank grasses. To their right--the north--the meadow marsh stretched more than a hundred yards to the gently ascending wooded hillside. Behind them lay the eastern sweep of meadows, and to their left, seventy yards distant, the wooded hillside to the south. The high ground on which they lay contained about forty square rods, and was bounded on the north by Great Meadows brook and on the east by a brooklet which descended from the valley between the southern hills.
When, in the days following, Fort Necessity was raised, the palisades, it is said, were made by erecting logs on one end, side by side, and throwing dirt against them from both sides. As there were no trees in the meadow, the logs were brought from the southern hillside over the narrow neck of solid ground to their place. On the north the palisade was made to touch the waters of the brook. Without its embankments on the south and west sides, two trenches were dug parallel with the embankments, to serve as rifle-pits. Bastion gateways, three in number, were made in the western palisade.
The first recorded survey of Fort Necessity was made by Mr. Freeman Lewis, senior author, with Mr. James Veech, of “The Monongahela of Old,” in 1816. This survey was first reproduced in Lowdermilk’s “History of Cumberland”; it is described by Mr. Veech in “The Monongahela of Old,” and has been reproduced, as authoritative, by the authors of “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania” published in 1895 by the State of Pennsylvania. The embankments are described thus by Mr. Veech on the basis of his collaborator’s survey: “It (Fort Necessity) was in the form of an obtuse-angled triangle of 105 degrees, having its base or hypothenuse upon the run. The line of the base was about midway, sected or broken, and about two perches of it thrown across the run, connecting with the base by lines of the triangle. One line of the angle was six, the other seven perches; the base line eleven perches long, including the section thrown across the run. The lines embraced in all about fifty square perches of land on (or?) nearly one third of an acre.”
This amusing statement has been seriously quoted by the authorities mentioned, and a map is made according to it and published in the “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania” without a word as to its inconsistencies! How could a triangle, the sides of which measure six, seven and eleven rods, contain fifty square rods or one third of an acre? It could not contain half that amount.
The present writer went to Fort Necessity armed with this two page map of Fort Necessity in the “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania” which he trusted as authoritative. The present owner of the land, Mr. Lewis Fazenbaker objected to the map, and it was only in trying to prove its correctness that its inconsistencies were discovered.
The mounds now standing on the ground are drawn on the appended chart “Diagrams of Fort Necessity” as lines C A B E. By a careful survey of them by Mr. Robert McCracken C. E., sides C A and A B are found to be the identical mounds surveyed by Mr. Lewis, the variation in direction being exceedingly slight and easily accounted for by erosion. The direction of Mr. Lewis’ sides were N 25 W and S 80 W: their direction by Mr. McCracken’s survey are N 22 W and S 80.30 W. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the embankments surveyed in 1816 and 1901 are identical.
But the third mound B E runs utterly at variance with Mr. Lewis’ figure. By him its direction was 59¼ E; its present direction is S 76 E. The question then arises; Is this mound the one that Mr. Lewis surveyed? Nothing could be better evidence that it is than the very egregious error Mr. Lewis made concerning the area contained within his triangular embankment. He affirms that the area of Fort Necessity was fifty square rods. Now take the line of B E for the hypothenuse of the triangle and extend it to F where it would meet the projection of side A C. _That triangle contains almost exactly 50 square rods or one-third of an acre!_ The natural supposition must be that some one had surveyed the triangle A F B and computed its area correctly as about fifty square rods. The mere recording of this area is sufficient evidence that the triangle A F B had been surveyed in 1816, and this is sufficient proof that mound B E stood just as it stands today and was considered in Mr. Lewis’ day as one of the embankments of Fort Necessity.
Now, why did Mr. Lewis ignore the embankment B E and the triangle A F B which contained these fifty square rods he gave as the area of Fort Necessity? For the very obvious reason that that triangle crossed the brook and ran far into the marsh beyond. By every account the palisades of Fort Necessity were made to extend on the north to touch the brook, therefore it would be quite ridiculous to suppose the palisades crossed the brook again on the east. Mr. Lewis, prepossessed with the idea that the embankments must have been triangular in shape, drew the line B C as the base of his triangle, bisecting it at M and N, and making the loop M S N touch the brook. This design (triangle A B C) of Fort Necessity is improbable for the following reasons:
1. It has not one half the area Mr. Lewis gives it.
2. It would not include much more than one-half of the high ground of the plateau, which was none too large for a fort.
3. There is no semblance of a mound B C nor any shred of testimony nor any legend of its existence.
4. The mound B E is entirely ignored though there is the best of evidence that it stood in Mr. Lewis’ day where it stands today and was considered an embankment of Fort Necessity. Mr. Lewis gives exactly the area of a triangle with it as a part of the base line.
5. Loop M S N would not come near the course of the brook without extending it far beyond Mr. Lewis’ estimate of the length of its sides.
6. Its area is only about 5200 square feet which would make Fort Necessity unconscionably small in face of the fact that more high ground was available.
In 1759 Colonel Burd visited the site of Fort Necessity. This was only five years after it was built. He described its remains as circular in shape. If it was originally a triangle it is improbable that it could have appeared round five years later. If, however, it was originally an irregular square it is not improbable that the rains and frosts of five winters, combined with the demolition of the Fort by the French, would have given the mounds a circular appearance. Was Fort Necessity, then, built in the form of an irregular square? There is the best of evidence that it was.
In 1830--fourteen years after Mr. Lewis’ “survey,”--Mr. Jared Sparks, a careful historian and author of the standard work on Washington, visited Fort Necessity. According to him its remains occupied “an irregular square, the dimensions of which were about one hundred feet on each side.” Mr. Sparks drew a map of the embankments which is incorporated in his “Writings of Washington.” This drawing has not been reproduced in any later work, the authors of both “History of Cumberland” and “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania” preferring to reproduce Mr. Lewis’ inconsistent survey and speculation rather than the drawing of what Mr. Sparks, himself, saw.
It is plain that Mr. Sparks found the embankment B E running in the direction it does today and not at all in direction of the line B C as Mr. Lewis drew it. By giving the approximate length of the sides as one hundred feet, Mr. Sparks gives about the exact length of the line B E in whatever direction it is extended to the brook. The fact that such an exact scholar as Mr. Sparks does not mention a sign or tradition of an embankment at B C, only fourteen years after Mr. Lewis “surveyed” it, is evidence that it never existed which cannot come far from convicting the latter of a positive intention to speculate.
Mr. Sparks gives us four sides for Fort Necessity. Three of these have been described as C A, A B and the broken line B E D. Is there any evidence of the fourth side such as indicated by the line C D? There is.
When Mr. Fazenbaker first questioned the accuracy of the map of Fort Necessity in “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania,” he believed the fort was a four sided construction and pointed to a small mound, indicated at O, as the remains of the fourth embankment. The mound would not be noticed in a hasty view of the field but, on examination proves to be an artificial, not a natural, mound. It is in lower ground and nearer the old course of the brook than the remains of Fort Necessity. A mound here would suffer most when the brook was out of banks, which would account for its disappearance.
Excavations in the other mounds had been unsuccessful; nothing had been discovered of the palisades, though every mound gave certain proof of having been artificially made. But excavations at mound O gave a different result. At about four and one-half feet below the surface of the ground, at the water line, a considerable amount of bark was found, fresh and red as new bark. It was water-soaked and the strings lay parallel with the mound above and were not found at a greater distance than two feet from its center. It was the rough bark of a tree’s trunk--not the skin bark such as grows on roots. Large flakes, the size of a man’s hand, could be removed from it. At a distance of ten feet away a second trench was sunk, in line with the mound but quite beyond its northwestern extremity. Bark was found here entirely similar in color, position, and condition. There is little doubt that the bark came from the logs of the palisades of Fort Necessity, though nothing is to be gained by exaggerating the possibility. Bark, here in the low ground, would last indefinitely, and water was reached under this mound sooner than at any other point. No wood was found. It is probable that the French threw down the palisades, but bark would naturally have been left in the ground. If wood had been left it would not withstand decay so long as bark. Competent judges declare the bark to be that of oak. An authority of great reputation, expresses the opinion that the bark found was probably from the logs of the palisades erected in 1754.