Chapter 9

Owing to the shameful neglect of those whose duty it was to send up supplies, he and his men suffered much from the want of food,--many days at a stretch sometimes passing by without their tasting bread. To aggravate this new distress, the Half King and many of his warriors, with their wives and children, now sought refuge in the fort from the vengeance of the French and their savage allies; which added nothing to their strength, and only increased the number of hungry mouths to be fed. To this place, then, where gaunt famine pinched them from within and watchful enemies beset them from without, Washington gave the fitting name of Fort Necessity. Luckily for them, while in this pitiable plight, days and days passed by, and still no avenging De Villiers showed himself, though alarms were frequent.

Col. Washington now ordered Major Muse to bring up the rest of the troops that had been waiting all this while at Wills's Creek, with the heavy stores and cannon. To reward the friendly Indians for their services and fidelity, Major Muse brought with him presents of hatchets and knives, guns, powder and lead, tin cups, needles and pins, beads, and dry-goods of every gaudy hue, and it may be, although we can only guess it, a ruffled shirt or two. In addition to these, there came a number of silver medals for the chief sachems, sent by Gov. Dinwiddie at the suggestion of Col. Washington, who well knew how much these simple people prize little compliments of this kind. Major Muse handed out the presents, while Washington hung the medals about the necks of the sachems, which yielded them far more delight, you will be sorry to hear, than their good old missionary's catechism. This was done with all that show and parade so dear to an Indian's heart; and, to give a still finer edge to the present occasion, they christened each other all over again: that is to say, the red men gave the white men Indian names, and the white men gave the red men English names. Thus, for example, Washington gave the Half King the name of Dinwiddie, which pleased him greatly; while he, in his turn, bestowed on his young white brother a long, high-sounding Indian name, that you could pronounce as readily spelt backwards as forwards. Fairfax was the name given a young sachem, the son of Queen Aliquippa, whose eternal friendship to the English, it must be borne in mind, had been secured by Washington, the previous winter, by the present of an old coat and a bottle of rum.

By the advice of his old and much-esteemed friend, Col. William Fairfax, Washington had divine worship in the fort daily, in which he led; and, thanks to the early teachings of his pious mother, he could do this, and sin not. Solemn indeed, my dear children, and beautiful to behold, must have been that picture,--that little fort, so far away in the heart of the lonely wilderness, with its motley throng of painted Indians and leather-clad backwoodsmen gathered round their young commander, as, morning and evening, he kneeled in prayer before the Giver of all good, beseeching aid and protection, and giving thanks.

As if to put his manhood and patience to a still severer test, there came to the fort about this time an independent company of one hundred North Carolinians, headed by one Capt. Mackay, who refused to serve under him as his superior officer. As his reason for this conduct, Mackay argued that he held a royal commission (that is to say, had been made a captain by the King of England), which made him equal in rank, if not superior, to Washington, who held only a provincial commission, or had been made a colonel by the Governor of Virginia. This, in part, was but too true; and it had been a source of dissatisfaction to Washington, that the rank and services of colonial officers should be held at a cheaper rate than the same were valued at in the royal army. It wounded his honest, manly pride, and offended his high sense of justice; and he had already resolved in his own mind to quit such inglorious service, as soon as he could do so without injury to the present campaign, or loss of honor to himself. To most men, the lofty airs and pretensions of Capt. Mackay and his Independents would have been unbearable; but he kept his temper unruffled, and, with a prudence beyond his years, forbore to do or say any thing that would lead to an angry outbreak between them; and as they chose to encamp outside the fort, and have separate guards, he deemed it wisest not to trouble himself about them, only so far as might concern their common safety.

Days, and even weeks, had now passed away, and still no enemy had come to offer him battle. His men were becoming restless from inaction; and the example of the troublesome Independents had already begun to stir up discontent among them, which threatened, if not checked in season, to end in downright insubordination. As the surest remedy for these evils, Washington resolved to push forward with the road in the direction of Fort Duquesne, and carry the war into the enemy's own country. Requesting Capt. Mackay to guard the fort during his absence, he set out with his entire force of three hundred men, and again began the toilsome work of cutting a road through the wilderness. The difficulties they had now to overcome were even greater than those which beset them at the outset of their pioneering. The mountains were higher, the swamps deeper, the rocks more massive, the trees taller and more numerous, the torrents more rapid, the days more hot and sultry, and the men and horses more enfeebled by poor and scanty food. You will not wonder, then, that they were nearly two weeks in reaching Mr. Gist's plantation on the Monongahela, a distance of but fifteen miles.

But hardly had they pitched their tents, and thrown themselves on the grass to snatch a little rest, when there came the disheartening intelligence, brought in by their Indian spies, that Capt. de Villiers had been seen to sally from Fort Duquesne but a few hours before, at the head of a force of five hundred French and four hundred Indians, and must by that time be within a few miles of the Virginia camp. For three hundred weary and hungry men to wait and give battle to a force three times their number, fresh and well fed, was a thing too absurd to be thought of for a single moment. Washington, therefore, as their only chance of safety, ordered a hasty retreat, hoping that they might be able to reach the settlements on Wills's Creek before the enemy could overtake him. The retreat, however, was any thing but a hasty one; for the poor half-famished horses were at last no longer able to drag the heavy cannon and carry the heavy baggage. Moved with pity for the lean and tottering beasts, Washington dismounted from his fine charger, and gave him for a pack-horse; which humane example was promptly followed by his officers. Yet even this was not enough: so, while some of the jaded men loaded their backs with the baggage, the rest, as jaded, dragged the artillery along the stony roads with ropes, rather than that it should be left behind to fall into the hands of the enemy. For this good service, rendered so willingly in that hour of sore distress, they went not unrewarded by their generous young commander.

Capt. Mackay and his company of Independents had, at Washington's request, come up a little while before, and now joined in the retreat. But they joined in nothing else; for, pluming themselves upon their greater respectability as soldiers of his Britannic majesty, they lent not a helping hand in this hour of pressing need, although the danger that lurked behind threatened all alike. They marched along, these coxcombs, daintily picking their way over the smoothest roads, and too genteel to be burdened with any thing but their clean muskets and tidy knapsacks. This ill-timed and insolent behavior served only to aggravate the trials of the other poor fellows all the more; and when, at last, they had managed to drag the cannon and the wagons and themselves to Fort Necessity, they were so overcome with fatigue and hunger, and so moved with indignation at the conduct of the Independents, that they threw down their ropes and packs, and flatly refused to be marched further. Seeing their pitiful plight, and that it would be impossible to reach the settlements, Col. Washington, as their last chance of safety, turned aside, and once more took shelter in his little fort.

As Capt. Mackay and his company of gentlemen fighters had done nothing towards strengthening the works during his absence, Washington ordered a few trees to be felled in the woods hard by, as a still further barrier to the approach of the enemy. Just as the last tree went crashing down, the French and their Indian allies, nine hundred strong, came in sight, and opened a scattering fire upon the fort, but from so great a distance as made it little more than an idle waste of powder and lead. Suspecting this to be but a feint of the crafty foe to decoy them into an ambuscade, Washington ordered his men to keep within the shelter of the fort, there to lie close, and only to shoot when they could plainly see where their bullets were to be sent.

A light skirmishing was kept up all day, and until a late hour in the night; the Indians keeping the while within the shelter of the woods, which at no point came within sixty yards of the palisades. Whenever an Indian scalp-lock or a French cap showed itself from among the trees or bushes, it that instant became the mark of a dozen sharpshooters watching at the rifle-holes of the fort. All that day, and all the night too, the rain poured down from one black cloud, as only a summer ruin can pour, till the ditches were filled with water, and the breastworks nothing but a bank of miry clay; till the men were drenched to the skin, and the guns of many so dampened as to be unfit for use.

About nine o'clock that night, the firing ceased; and shortly after a voice was heard, a little distance beyond the palisades, calling upon the garrison, in the name of Capt. de Villiers, to surrender. Suspecting this to be but a pretext for getting a spy into the fort, Col. Washington refused to admit the bearer of the summons. Capt. de Villiers then requested that an officer be sent to his quarters to parley; giving his word of honor that no mischief should befall him, or unfair advantage be taken of it. Whereupon, Capt. Van Braam, the old Dutch fencing-master, being the only French interpreter conveniently at hand, was employed to go and bring in the terms of surrender. He soon came back; but the terms were too dishonorable for any true soldier to think of accepting. He was sent again, but with no better result. The third time, Capt. de Villiers sent written articles of capitulation; which, being in his own language, must needs be first translated before an answer could be returned. By the flickering light of one poor candle, which could hardly be kept burning for the pouring rain, the Dutch captain read the terms he had brought, while the rest stood round him, gathering what sense they could from the confused jumbling of bad French, and worse English he was pleased to call a translation. After this, there followed a little more parleying between the hostile leaders; when it was at last settled that the prisoners taken in the Jumonville affair should be set at liberty; that the English should build no forts upon the disputed territories within a twelvemonth to come; and that the garrison, after destroying the artillery and military stores, should be allowed to march out with all the honors of war, and pursue their way to the settlements, unmolested either by the French or their Indian allies. When we take into account the more than double strength of the enemy, the starving condition of the garrison (still further weakened as it was by the loss of twelve men killed and forty-three wounded), and the slender hope of speedy succor from the settlements, these terms must be regarded as highly honorable to Col. Washington; and still more so when we add to this the fact, that the Half King and his other Indian allies had deserted him at the first approach of danger, under the pretext of finding some safer retreat for their wives and children. Whether they failed from choice, or hinderance to return, and take part in the action, can never now be known with certainty.

Thus the dreary night wore away; and, when the dreary morning dawned, they destroyed the artillery and the military stores, preparatory to their setting forth on their retreat. As all the horses had been killed or lost the day before, they had no means of removing their heavy baggage: they therefore secured it as best they might, hoping to be able to send back for it from the settlements. Still in possession of their small-arms, they then marched out of the fort with all the honors of war,--fifes playing, drums beating, and colors flying. They had gone but a few yards from the fort, when a large body of Indians pounced with plundering hands upon the baggage. Seeing that the French could not or would not keep them back, Washington, to disappoint them of their booty, ordered his men to set fire to it, and destroy all they could not bring away upon their backs.

This done, they once more took up their line of march; and a melancholy march it was. Between them and the nearest settlements, there lay seventy miles of steep and rugged mountain-roads, over which they must drag their weary and aching limbs before they could hope to find a little rest. Washington did all that a kind and thoughtful commander could to keep up the flagging spirits of his men; sharing with them their every toil and privation, and all the while maintaining a firm and cheerful demeanor. Reaching Wills's Creek, he there left them to enjoy the full abundance which they found awaiting them at that place; and, in company with Capt. Mackay, repaired at once to Williamsburg to report the result of the campaign to Gov. Dinwiddie.

A short time after, the terms of surrender were laid before the Virginia House of Burgesses, and received the entire approval of that wise body; who, although the expedition had ended in defeat and failure, most cheerfully gave Col. Washington and his men a vote of thanks, in testimony of their having done their whole duty as good and brave and faithful soldiers.

XIV.

GENERAL BRADDOCK.

Having brought the campaign to an honorable if not successful end, Col. Washington threw up his commission, and left the service. This had been his determination for some time past; and he felt that he could do so now without laying his conduct open to censure or suspicion, having within his own breast the happy assurance, that, in the discharge of his late trust, he had acted the part of a faithful soldier and true patriot, seeking only his country's good. The reasons that led him to take this step need not be repeated, as you will readily understand them, if you still bear in mind what I told you a short time since touching those questions of rank which caused the difficulty between him and Capt. Mackay.

A visit to his much-beloved mother was the first use he made of his leisure. The profound love and reverence that never failed to mark his conduct towards his mother were among the most beautiful traits of his character. The management of the family estate, and the education of the younger children, were concerns in which he ever took the liveliest interest; and to make these labors light and easy to her by his aid or counsel was a pleasure to him indeed. This grateful duty duly done, he once more sought the shelter of Mount Vernon, to whose comforts he had been for so many months a stranger. The toils of a soldier's life were now exchanged for the peaceful labors of a husbandman. Nor did this change, to his well-ordered mind, bring with it any idle regrets; for the quiet pursuits of a farmer's life yielded him, young, ardent, and adventurous as he was, scarcely less delight than the profession of arms, and even more as he grew in years.

The affair of the Great Meadows roused the mother-country at last to a full sense of the danger that threatened her possessions in America. Accordingly, to regain what had been lost, money, and munitions of war, and a gallant little army fitted out in the completest style of that day, were sent over with all possible expedition, under the command of Major-Gen. Braddock.

From the shrubby heights of Mount Vernon, Washington could look down, and behold the British ships-of-war as they moved slowly up the majestic Potomac, their decks thronged with officers and soldiers dressed in showy uniform, their polished arms and accoutrements flashing back the cold, clear light of the February sun. From their encampment at Alexandria, a few miles distant, he could hear the booming of their morning and evening guns, as it came roiling over the hills and through the woods, and shook his quiet home like a sullen summons to arms. Often, no longer able to keep down his youthful ardor, he would mount his horse, and, galloping up to the town, spend hours there in watching the different companies, as with the precision of clockwork they went through their varied and difficult evolutions. At these sights and sounds, all the martial spirit within him took fire again.

To Gen. Braddock, who commanded all the forces in America, provincial as well as royal, Gov. Dinwiddie and other Virginia notables spoke in the highest terms of the character of young Washington; giving him at the same time still further particulars of the brave and soldierly conduct he had so signally shown during the campaign of the previous year. They took pleasure, they said, in recommending him as one whose skill and experience in Indian warfare, and thorough acquaintance with the wild country beyond the borders, were such as could be turned to the greatest advantage in the course of the following campaign.

Desirous of securing services of such peculiar value, Braddock sent our young Virginian a courteous invitation to join his staff; offering him the post of volunteer aide-de-camp, with the rank of colonel. Here was an opportunity of gratifying his taste for arms under one of the first generals of the day. Could he do it without the sacrifice of honor or self-respect? Although he had left the service for the best of reasons, as you must bear in mind, yet there was nothing in these reasons to hinder him from serving his country, not for pay, but as a generous volunteer, bearing his own expenses. Besides, such a post as this would place him altogether above the authority of any equal or inferior officer who might chance to hold a king's commission. Debating thus with himself, and urged on by his friends, he accepted Braddock's invitation, and joined his staff as volunteer aide-de-camp.

Now, would you know what an aide-de-camp is? Wait, and you will find out for yourselves when we come to the battle of the Monongahela, where Braddock suffered his gallant little army to be cut to pieces by the French and Indians.

When Mrs. Washington heard that her son was on the eve of joining the new army, full of a mother's fears, she hastened to entreat him not again to expose himself to the dangers and trials of a soldier's life. Although the army was the only opening to distinction at that time in the Colonies, yet, to have him ever near her, she would rather have seen him quietly settled at his beautiful homestead, as an unpretending farmer, than on the high road to every worldly honor at the risk of life or virtue. Ever mindful of her slightest wishes, her son listened respectfully to all her objections, and said all he could to quiet her motherly fears: but, feeling that he owed his highest duty to his country, he was not to be turned from his steadfast purpose; and, taking an affectionate leave of her, he set out to join his general at Fort Cumberland.

Fort Cumberland was situated on Wills's Creek, and had just been built by Braddock as a gathering point for the border; and thither he had removed his whole army, with all his stores, and munitions of war. Upon further acquaintance, Washington found this old veteran a man of courteous though somewhat haughty manners, of a hasty and uneven temper, strict and rigid in the discipline of his soldiers, much given to martial pomp and parade, and self-conceited and wilful to a degree that was sometimes scarcely bearable. He was, however, of a sociable and hospitable turn; often inviting his officers to dine with him, and entertaining them like princes. So keen a relish had he for the good things of the table, that he never travelled without his two cooks, who were said to have been so uncommonly skilful in their line of business, that they could take a pair of boots, and boil them down into a very respectable dish of soup, give them only the seasoning to finish it off with. The little folks, however, must be very cautious how they receive this story, as their Uncle Juvinell will not undertake to vouch for the truth of it.

The contractors--that is to say, the men who had been engaged to furnish the army with a certain number of horses, pack-saddles, and wagons, by a certain time, and for a certain consideration--had failed to be as good as their word, and had thereby seriously hindered the progress of the campaign. As might have been expected, this was enough to throw such a man as Braddock into a towering passion; and, to mend his humor, the governors of the different provinces were not as ready and brisk to answer his call for men and supplies as he thought he had a right to expect.

So he poured forth his vials of wrath upon whomsoever or whatsoever chanced to come uppermost. He stormed at the contractors; he railed at the governors, and sneered at the troops they sent him; he abused the country in general, and scolded about the bad roads in particular.

Washington, with his usual clearness of insight into character, soon saw, to his deep disappointment, that this was hardly the man to conduct a wilderness campaign to any thing like a successful end, however brave the testy old veteran might be, and expert in the management of well-drilled regulars in the open and cultivated regions of the Old World. Of the same opinion was Dr. Franklin, who, being at that time Postmaster-General of all the Colonies, came to Braddock's quarters at Fort Cumberland to make some arrangements for transporting the mail to and from the army during the progress of the expedition. I will read you his own lively account of this interview, as it will enable you to see more clearly those faults of Braddock's character that so soon after brought ruin on his own head, and disgrace upon English arms in America.

"In conversation with him one day, he was giving me some account of his intended progress. 'After taking Fort Duquesne,' said he, 'I am to proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days: and then I can see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara.'