CHAPTER VII

THE FATE OF THE OHIO VALLEY

I. FRONTIER FEARS AND PANICS

There was an abundance of responsibility at once for Washington in his new official position. All the frontiers were being attacked by Indians urged on by the French. Washington tried to get his troops together to meet the Indians at the outposts, but he was unable at the main post to muster more than twenty-five of the militia. The others declared that if they had to die they preferred to die with their women and children.

In his first report to the Governor, he wrote, “No orders are obeyed, but such as a party of soldiers or my own drawn sword enforces. Without this, not a single horse, for the most earnest occasion, can be had,--to such a pitch has the insolence of these people arrived, by having every point hitherto submitted to them. However, I have given up none, where His Majesty’s service requires the contrary, and where my proceedings are justified by my instructions; nor will I, unless they execute what they threaten,--that is, to blow out our brains.”

This was naturally at the period of Washington’s greatest loyalty to his Sovereign, and also shows that some of Braddock’s notions of military authority still lingered with him. Perhaps it is better to say that he recognized the military necessity for obedient discipline in a common purpose and result, or there could be no successful army.

We may easily guess that the insolence to which he refers was the frontiersman’s disrespect for military authority and his growing belief in his own right to choose the manner of his service or his death. These men had been as badly treated by the Braddock style of authority as Washington had been, and most of his troubles doubtless arose from their memory of insolence in the officers.

As an example of the panic and confusion of the times, while Washington was at Winchester endeavoring to get his troops organized, a man came running into town, one Sunday afternoon, saying in breathless terror that a horde of Indians was only twelve miles off, killing and burning everything they came to. Washington remained up all night preparing for the attack. At about dawn on Monday morning, another man arrived, declaring that a host of Indians was now within four miles of the town. He had himself heard the guns of the Indians and the shrieks of the victims. The scouts sent out by Washington had not yet returned, and the terror-stricken people at once guessed that they had been ambushed and killed.

All that Washington could get together equipped to meet the Indian drive was only forty men. At the head of these he rode forth to the scene of massacre and carnage. All that they ever found was three drunken troopers who had been yelling in their carousal on the way to town and firing off their pistols.

Washington arrested them and brought them in as trophies of the Indian war.

“These circumstances,” Washington wrote in his report, “show what a panic prevails among the people; how much they are all alarmed at the most usual customary crimes; and yet how impossible it is to get them to act in any respect for their common safety.”

A Captain arriving at that time with recruits from Alexandria, reported that, in coming across the Blue Ridge, he had met a crowd of people hastening away in terror, whom he could not stop. They all told him that the Indians had overwhelmed the country and that Winchester had been sacked and burned.

Washington saw that nothing but confusion and cross purposes could prevail under the conditions as they then existed. Accordingly, he set about to reform the methods and the laws. Under his management, order at last came out of chaos. He also learned the uses of military show to give confidence and he ordered rather gorgeous uniforms to be sent him from England. This was probably necessary in order also to retain the respect of the young English officers for whom it was often true that the clothes made the man.

II. POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND OFFICIAL CONFUSION

Early in 1756, in order to get the necessary co-operation among the colonies, to settle the bitter quarrels as to rank among officers, and to give the Virginia colony a better idea of the plan for the war, Washington decided to visit General Shirley, at Boston. General Shirley had succeeded General Braddock as commander-in-chief of all the colonies.

Washington, with his aides in brilliant uniform, taken care of by a retinue of colored servants in finest livery, all riding in a pompous cavalcade, representing the style of aristocratic Southern gentlemen, made a profound social sensation all along the line of their travel, especially in Philadelphia, New York and Boston. After ten days’ conference in Boston, his mission being successful, he returned to Virginia as he had come.

On Washington’s return to his headquarters at Winchester, he found the people in more desperate terror than ever, and this time with good reason. The French and Indians were indeed ravaging the country within twenty miles. Any hour the enemy might sweep down upon the wretched town and destroy the people. If Washington could not save them they were indeed lost. It is said that the women surrounded him with terror-stricken cries, holding up their children, and imploring him to save them from the savages.

The feelings of the young commander may be appreciated from the letter he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie.

“I am too little acquainted with pathetic language,” he said, “to attempt a description of these people’s distresses. But what can I do? I see their situation; I know their danger, and participate in their sufferings, without having it in my power to give them further relief than uncertain promises. The supplicating tears of the women, and the moving petitions of the men, melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people’s ease.”

But the Virginia newspapers very freely cast the blame for the Indian’s success on the military management. Washington was deeply stung with these attacks and he declared that he would resign at once, if it were not for the immediate dangers pressing so hard upon them. Then his friends began writing him encouraging letters and he was strengthened to see the issues through to some end.

“The country knows her danger,” said one of the Virginia legislators, “but such is her parsimony that she is willing to wait for the rains to wet the powder, and the rats to eat the bowstrings of the enemy, rather than attempt to drive her foes from her frontiers.”

But gradually through more blundering and still more confusion of purpose, after the French had begun to lose heavily in the North, a course of concerted action was once more organized against Fort Duquesne, as the center of supplies for the French and Indians in their frontier warfare. Scouts continually brought in reports that Fort Duquesne had become greatly weakened and it was believed by all that this place should now be taken to make good the success on the northern frontier.

At length such an expedition was on the way, and Washington wrote to the Commander, General Forbes, to be allowed to join the expedition with his command. This request was accepted, and, on July 2, 1758, Washington arrived at Fort Cumberland.

III. “A MATTER OF GREAT ADMIRATION”

War was at hand, but getting into action to accomplish results was distractingly slow. No word arrived as to what they were to do. They remained at Fort Cumberland to the disgust of Washington, and to the increased dispiriting, sickly condition of his men, until September. Then they went forward under Colonel Boquet to a point called Loyal Hannon, fifty miles from Fort Duquesne. Here they stopped, and, against Washington’s earnest remonstrance, Colonel Boquet detached eight hundred men from his force of two thousand, and sent them forward to reconnoiter about Fort Duquesne, under command of Major Grant. They were not to engage the enemy but were to return and report.

However, Major Grant believed they were easily able to whip anything that might be in or about Fort Duquesne. He could not open an attack on them according to orders, but if he could induce them to attack him, it would give him a chance for a fight. Accordingly, he made no attempt to conceal his approach to the fort. He arrived near the place in the night and sent some men forward who set fire to a log house near the walls of the fort. If this was not enough warning to the enemy, or of a dare to come out and fight, he ordered the drums to beat the reveille around the camp in the morning. After that he lined up his troops in battle array, as did Braddock before him, and sent up some men near the fort, to draw plans of that structure in full view of the enemy.

There was not a shot fired from the fort and no sound could be heard within its walls. Not a soldier or an Indian could be seen.

The officers became sure that nothing more was needed but to send forward the order for surrender. The soldiers were allowed to ground their arms and be at ease. Suddenly the woods around them blazed with the discharge of rifles. The dreaded warwhoop rang in their ears. The tomahawk and scalping knife was in their midst. A second Braddock’s defeat had begun. A panic-stricken rout began. Major Grant saved his life by surrendering to a French officer, but most of his men were dead and the rest scattered like wild animals.

Back of them a short distance was Captain Bullitt, who had been left with fifty men to care for the army stores. He rallied together some of the fugitives and they made a stand behind the baggage and wagons. The Indians rushed forward and were momentarily checked by the sudden fire of the ambushed men. Then, with the on-coming force of Indians from back of the ones stopped, the rush came on.

Then Captain Bullitt held up a signal for surrender and the firing ceased. The besieged men all came forward. When within eight yards of the Indians waiting to receive their guns, Captain Bullitt gave the order to fire, the guns having all been loaded for that purpose. From this destructive volley at close range, the Indians fled in confusion, and before they could rally, Captain Bullitt got his men and wagons together, so protected as to make good their retreat.

General Forbes commended Captain Bullitt’s method of saving his troops as “a matter of great admiration,” and rewarded him with a Major’s commission. There has been much discussion as to whether such methods made the Indians merciless or whether the merciless Indian required such methods. The problem is doubtless as unprofitable now as it is unanswerable, from any partisan point of view.