Part 11

I saw Mr. Franklin again but once before he went away. He was clearly not a man altogether to the liking of Lord Fairfax, but why, I never came to know. He seemed to me at that time a conscientious and intelligent person, very able to get along with all manner of people. I must admit that he conducted matters of gravity as if they amused him and were not serious, a method which never altogether pleased me. When I justified the general’s groaning over his many difficulties as to roads and transport and food, he said that his difficulties were of British making, and that had the force landed in Philadelphia, horses, waggons, and supplies would have been found in abundance. To this I agreed, for I thought the plan of the march ill chosen. After this the doctor amused himself with the astonishment the Indians would have when they got hold of the wigs of the officers――a jest which did not seem to me agreeable. He spoke also with much freedom of the general, and said to argue with him was useless and was like striking a pillow or reasoning with a wild animal, who had only its own thoughts and could not comprehend yours. I made no reply, and he fell to most ingenious talk about the temperature of springs and the ways of swimming. Notwithstanding his doubts, the great array of war kept me somewhat confident and cheerful until I heard that nine hundred men of the French had passed Sandusky on their way to reinforce the French on the Ohio, so that I had to write Mr. Speaker Robinson that I feared we should have more to do than merely to march up and down the hills, as the general had said would be all.

It was May 19 when the general arrived at Fort Cumberland, and June 10 before he set out to cross the mountains, and after, as the general said, more expenditure of oaths in a month than he had needed in his whole Scotch campaign with the duke, of whom the general liked to speak.

I spent much of my time while we lay at this post in learning the methods of drill and discipline, and in aiding to satisfy the Virginia recruits that it was necessary to imitate the methods of the regulars, although if it came to wood fighting I believed the English officers and men would more need to learn the ways of the rangers. Yet some who judged our people by their dislike of strict drill were of opinion that the lowness and ignorance of their officers gave little hope of their future behaviour under fire. My task of helping to train the men was given up when the general ordered me to go to Williamsburg and fetch back four thousand pounds, an errand not much to my liking.

Unfortunately, the detail was made without my having the opportunity of choice, and proved very unfit, giving me much concern and anxiety. I do not know why there was delay in assembling this detail, but eight days passed after I got my order before I was given the men. I believe they would not have been eight seconds in dispersing if we had been attacked.

Captain Horatio Gates, of a New York Independent company, advised not to take regulars, who would obey only their own officers; but I had no choice, and so set out and was gone a fortnight. On my return I slept every night in the waggon, with my precious money about me and pistols loaded. The men were drunken and disobedient until I promised strappado on our reaching camp, and indeed I was glad to be rid of the money and the guard.

I saw during this ride and later that, as Orme had told me, the men of the Forty-fourth and Forty-eighth regiments were drunken, mutinous, and disorderly, so that it was not alone our own failures to provide which made difficult the task of our unfortunate commander.

I found the general much disgusted at the delays in supplying him, and, as I thought, most unwise, and only increased his trouble by abuse of the colonies, for the more men deserve abuse the less they like it, and get sullen and less than ever inclined to help.

Just before we set out from Fort Cumberland, the general being now in the saddle, Lord Fairfax presented me with a handsome pair of pistols, and said: “I should have been pleased to have had a son like you; but for that I must have had a wife, which is a calamity I have been spared. If occasion serves, I shall be glad to hear from you.”

Lord Fairfax had informed me that General Braddock would ask my opinion and advice as to the use to be made of Indians and our rangers. He did consult me, but only, I believed, because his lordship had desired him to do so.

I never succeeded to make much impression upon him, and it was as the wise Mr. Franklin had said. Many Indians joined us on the way with their squaws, but the chiefs were too little considered or consulted. Their women were insulted or worse, and those that came to-day, receiving no gifts, were gone to-morrow.

On June 6, Sir John St. Clair was sent on in advance with some six hundred choppers to widen and better my old road. After him came Sir Peter Halket’s force. On June 10, if I remember aright, the general followed with his staff and the rest of the army. As soon as the march began, the lack of discipline became plain, and the officers were worse than the men and altogether too much drunkenness.

Captain Croghan said to me: “I should like to give these fellows a wood drill and upset half the rum-kegs.” This was as we led our horses over the second mountain. “Why, sir,” he said, “here are hundreds of waggons and enough gimcracks and nonsense to fit out a town, and all the officers of foot on horseback.”

I said that I had represented to the general and Colonel Dunbar the risk of this long train, and urged that we use our horses for packhorses and to carry only what we really needed. “That would be,” Captain Croghan said, “for the men, blankets, an axe, a rifle, a knife, and ammunition.”

He went on to tell us that he had urged this to be done again and again――that was, to Captains Orme and Shirley, the military secretary of the commander, for he had been told plainly enough that he was himself too small a person to converse with the general, and a d――d trader he had been called. He was sure the general would listen to no advice except from the King’s officers. I had to admit that he listened to me at times, and had always said in a civil way that he would consider of what I advised, but got no further.

XXXIV

Croghan came to me the day after at my hut (I am not sure of this date), and with him was Mr. Gist and a tall man in buckskins, leggins, and moccasins. He carried a long rifle and a scalping-knife.

Captain Croghan said: “This, colonel, is my friend, Captain Jack, of whom I wrote. He has come with fifty Pennsylvania men to offer as scouts.”

I had heard often of this man and was pleased that we were to have his services. I made him welcome, bade him be seated, and offered him rum, which he refused to take, saying he drank no spirits. He was very silent and made brief answers to my questions concerning the Indians and their inclinations. When I would have gone further, he rose and said his men were waiting to camp. He must see the general, and asked me to go with him. As we walked through the shelters the rangers had set up, I saw many look at him with curiosity, which was not surprising, for he was not less than six feet three, but a gaunt, thin man, of melancholic aspect. He never spoke a word, but presently we met a certain Major Moore, a rough, hard-drinking officer of the grenadiers. As he stopped us, I saw that he was under liquor, as was too common. He said, “Whom have you got there? Make a fine grenadier.” I said, “This is Captain Jack, a famous Pennsylvania scout,” and so would have passed on, when the major said rudely to Captain Jack, “Who the deuce made you a captain?” The scout tapped his rifle and said, “That,” and walked on, without saying more than his gesture seemed to imply. I could not avoid remarking, “You are well answered, major,” for I have always had a liking for men who do not talk much. I contented myself with saying to the scout that, as usual, the major was in liquor.

I sent in my name to General Braddock, and we were desired to enter his tent. Here I introduced Captain Jack as an experienced ranger and said he had fifty good scouts. The general asked me to be seated, but as he did not invite the scout to sit down, I remained standing. As for the captain, he said not so much as a word, but waited, looking steadily at the general, who asked me a question concerning the roads, and then said to me, “Let the man wait; I will see about him in a day or two.” Then he asked what pay they wanted, to which Captain Jack said, “No pay, nothing.”

I tried to make the general understand the great service we might expect in the woods from such men, but he replied impatiently that these men could not be drilled, and that he had experienced troopers on whom he could rely for any service he might require. He was going on to give orders as to where the men should camp, when Captain Jack turned and went out without further words. The general damned him roundly for an ill-bred cur, and I made after him in haste. When I had overtaken him, he said very quietly: “Good-by, Colonel Washington; when you have a separate command send for me.” I made a vain effort to induce him to remain. In half an hour he called his men together, and they went away into the woods Indian fashion, one after the other, and we saw him no more. Captain Croghan told me that this man had had his whole family massacred by the Indians, and had spent years in revenging himself, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a party, for he was both esteemed and trusted on the border-lands of Pennsylvania. Both Croghan and I were much disappointed.

Amid the difficulties caused by European need of useless luxuries and by the absence in officers and men of what Mr. Franklin called “pliability in the hands of new circumstances,” I was getting useful lessons and was made to see that when a commander cannot get what he wants he must make the most of what little he has. Indeed, the delay in getting waggons he could have done without was, in the end, a calamity to the general.

The army, over two thousand strong, followed routes over and through the Alleghanies which I had used in 1754, and which could easily have been bettered by free use of trained scouts and our own axe-men sent on ahead.

There was much sickness, and the regulars suffered in many ways by reason of ignorance and want of knowing how better to take care of themselves. They complained bitterly of the mosquitos, black flies, and midges, and took so kindly to smudges that Orme said the smoke was like that the Israelites had, with less or no trouble. There was, indeed, some reasonable cause for complaint by men unused to the woods. We had twice the worst thunder and lightning I ever saw. Trees were struck, but no man, nor ever is in the woods. Three men died of the bite of rattlesnakes, but few escaped the little forest bugs called ticks, which bore into the skin and leave sores and great itch for weeks. Our rangers undressed every night and picked off these pests. The soldiers were too lazy or did not know enough, and many were lamed or ulcered for want of such care.

Even before we reached Little Meadows certain officers saw the danger of our thin line; more than four miles of it stretched out across streams and marshes in deep woods. Had the French been in force we had certainly been sooner ambushed. Even the men became uneasy as we entered the white-pine woods beyond Great Savage Mountain. Here the deep of the forest was like twilight, and the trees of great bigness. When the rangers told the soldiers that these dark woods were called the “Shades of Death,”――but why I do not know,――they were more alarmed, and were glad about the 18th to be out of the forest and descending the shaggy slopes of the Meadow Mountain to Little Meadows, where was more light and room to camp.

It was a wonder to us frugal woodsmen how all this host, cumbered as it was, did at last get over the hills and reach the Little Meadows, this being about June 18.

On the evening of our arrival the general desired me to remain after the other aides had received orders and gone away. He then opened his mind to me with great freedom about the tardiness of the march and his desire to know what was my opinion concerning the matter in hand. When he had made an end of speaking, I said that he had more men than were needed, but that to push on in haste was desirable and to take only the light division, leaving the heavy troops and most of the baggage.

I begged leave to add that Duquesne was as yet weakly garrisoned, and the long dry weather would keep the rivers low, and hard to navigate by reinforcements from Venango and the lake, so that if we could dismount officers, take to packhorses, and push on without encumbrance, we could be sure of an easy victory.

A council of all the field-officers was called soon after I left the tent; but my rank not entitling me to be present, I was pleased to hear from Captain Orme that the general had stated my views and that a more rapid march was decided. I was much disappointed to learn that we were still to be overburdened with artillery and waggons. I gave up one of my horses for a packhorse and saw it no more. Out of two hundred and twelve horses allowed to officers, only twelve were thus offered. Why the general did not order them taken I do not know.

The force selected was in all about twelve hundred men and their artillery; but in place of pushing on with vigour, they must needs stop to bridge every brook and level every mole-hill. In four days we marched only twelve miles.

St. Clair and Colonel Gage were sent on ahead to clear the way with four hundred men, and the general followed with eight hundred. We still moved so slowly that we were constantly halted because of overtaking our pioneers. It was up hill and down, where cannon and waggons had to be lowered by ropes. There were deep morasses and constant scares from outlying parties of Indians.

XXXV

On the 21st we entered the colony of Penn, and on the 30th June dropped down from the hills to Stewart’s Crossing on the Youghiogheny. Here St. Clair, sent on in advance, had cleared the ground for a camp.

We had been all of ten days in marching twenty-four miles. Day after day, as Croghan and I uneasily hung about the flanks and the rear, we saw the long line of red-coated, cumbered men, sweating in heavy uniforms, with waggons and cannon, slowly moving through the silent woods, so full, to our minds, of peril.

I had been ill for some days, but at the Youghiogheny River I fell worse of a sudden with a fever and pain in the head. The general was most kind and at last ordered me to remain, leaving me a guard and my dear Dr. Craik. Colonel Dunbar’s division had been left behind, to his great indignation, and was to follow slowly with the baggage-train. I was in the utmost gloom at my detention, being in a way responsible for the new movement. The chance to be, by ill luck, laid up while a battle might take place much disturbed me. I wrote my brother Jack I would not miss it for five hundred pounds.

While I lay in bed most impatient, the detachment went on, and soon after I had this letter from Christopher Gist, who was acting as guide:

RESPECTED SIR: We are moving along as solemn as a box-turtle, one day two miles, which any smart turtle might compass. The pickets are doubled, and men sleep with their arms, for, good Lord! if a branch cracks they give an alarm, and if a poor devil strays there is a scalp gone, for every step of our march is watched. Still I am sure there are no big parties out, for I have been off in advance and been within half a mile of the fort, and came nigh to losing my hair, but with decent good fortune we have the place. I should be easier with a few hundred of our own people in the advance and on our skirts, but they are kept in the rear, the Lord knows why.

Captain Orme also wrote to me of frequent night alarms, and of the general’s confidence at being now but thirty miles from the fort. Here two days’ halt was made to await fresh supplies from Dunbar.

On July 4, being stronger, I started in the rear of a party of one hundred men just come up from Colonel Dunbar with provisions. I was set upon going with them, but was too weak to ride a horse and must needs use a waggon. As the road was much cut up, my bones were almost jolted through the small cover left on them. On the 8th I reached the camp, now but thirteen miles from Duquesne.

My journey took me through the Great Meadows, near where was my little fight, and past the ruined palisadoes of Fort Necessity. I saw them with great interest, and felt some sense of gratification that now I might pay up my score against those who had both humbled and insulted my King and myself.

Once, as my waggon approached the rear-guard, we came upon a dozen or more stragglers. Some had fallen out tired, and some were loitering to gather berries. I cried out to warn them of the danger they were in, and, in fact, about a quarter of an hour later they ran after us, crying, “Indians!” They may have had cause, but all the strange noises of the woods alarmed them, and this time the rangers said it was a wildcat.

The sound of distant martial music from the camps which we were come near to seemed to revive my mind, and I was able to cast off the feeling of gloom and converse with Captain Shirley, the military secretary, who had ridden back with an order. He said to me that we had been a month in marching less than a hundred miles. Captain Morris, who was with him, said it was true, but all was well that ended well, and we had the fort at our mercy and would attack next day. I advised my friends, as I had before done, that it would be well if the officers could be dressed in wood colours, like our scouts; but Captain Shirley replied that the general would never allow of it, and, indeed, when next day I got rid of my fire-red coat and put on a fringed buckskin shirt, I was no little jeered at, and Colonel Gage made some comments, which, I trust, he came later to regret. I am of opinion that the absence of a gaudy red coat saved me from many balls and enabled me to be of use when the other aides were wounded. I was much of Mr. Franklin’s opinion that if fine feathers make fine birds, they also make them an easier prey for the fowler.

Indeed, the learned Postmaster-General made himself very merry over the queues and the stiff stocks and the bright scarlet uniforms. He thought the officers only needed corsets, which I was told they did often use at home.

When, in the afternoon, very tired and weak, I reached the tent made ready for me by the kindness of my brother aides, I lay down to rest, and, as Captain Morris was now on duty, I asked him to tell me what was to be our mode of approach to the fort. I was able easily to recall the general features of the country, for the camp was now set about twelve miles from Frazier’s former trading-station, where I stopped on my return from my mission to the French. We lay some ten miles to the east of the Monongahela River, and, as was said, thirteen from Duquesne as the crow flies.

As I rested and we talked, came also Captain Shirley and Captain Gates of the Twenty-eighth Regiment, with Stephens, Hamilton, and Stewart of the Virginians. Of all of them I was the only man not killed or wounded in the next day’s battle. I may well entertain my brother August’s belief that the conspicuous hand of Providence was over me, and he must be worse than an infidel who lacks faith in it.

No thought of to-morrow troubled our council of war, and we discussed with spirit what our superiours meant to do. I drew on a piece of birch bark a rude sketch of the country. The fort lay on a high bluff in the angle made by the Ohio and Monongahela rivers. We were, as I said, some ten miles to the east of the latter stream and on the same side as the fort. Between us and it lay the deep, rugged ravines of Turtle Creek and the brooks which run into it. The country beyond it was densely wooded and without any road. To cross the creek and cut a road to the fort would be the most direct way; otherwise we must march to and cross the Monongahela, a fordable river, and afterwards move along bluffs three or four hundred feet high, and follow the stream for five miles. We should then descend to the water and arrive at a second ford; having crossed it, we should be again on the same side as the fort. Then there would be before us a slope, and, some two miles distant, hid in the woods, the bastions of Duquesne. Having made clear to my fellow aides the localities, we considered the two routes, with some differences of opinion in regard to which was the better, until they were called away, and I was left alone.

Soon after came Sir John St. Clair, sent by the general with a kind message. I then learned that some effort had been made to cross Turtle Creek, but that it had been found impossible to get the artillery over and that the engineers pronounced it impracticable. Upon this the general had given orders to change the route, so that we should follow the traders’ horse-trail, on which we had made our road, and should march to the river. There we were to ford the stream as I have said, move on the farther bank some miles, and recross by the second ford to the east side again, where the lay of the land allowed, as was supposed, of an easy approach to the fort.

I was still weak, but although I could have desired more rest, I walked at dusk through the great clearing made for the camp, to report myself at once to the general’s headquarters. I had been sorry for his obstinacy and the rudeness he showed in laughing at our way of fighting, but I had been told by Sir Peter Halket that he had said that Mr. Franklin and Colonel Washington were the only trustworthy people he had met in the colonies. I thought this foolish as showing poor judgment; but he had been most kind to me, and now, in spite of all his blunders and our own failures to supply him promptly, which were with some justice to be complained of, we were, as it seemed, on the point of success.

When I presented myself, the general asked most pleasantly concerning my health, and if I was well enough to serve as aide. I assured him I was, but I was really at the time feeble enough. When I ventured to make him my compliments on the near prospect of success before him, he laughed and asked where had been the need for our rangers and the tribes of Indians, and then made me a very fine speech, which I must admit to having been pleased at. I ventured to ask leave to go on in the advance with the Virginia wood-rangers, so as to secure the pioneers and road-makers from an ambuscade. He replied shortly: “Oh, damn your half-drilled rangers! I shall keep them as a rear-guard.” I rose and apologized, feeling that I had been too forward and had better have held my tongue. Indeed, I excused myself as well as I could, and upon this his face cleared, and he said: “Colonel Gage is to have the advance, and what would he say to the best regiment of the King being protected by a mob of squatters and border farmers. No, sir; I desire you as my aide.” I said no more, and returned to my tent.

I have never found that the coming of decisive events kept me awake when I was myself the person who had the duty of decision; but this night, whether from great fatigue or not, for that does keep a man from sleep, or that I was still fevered, I lay awake long, unable to free my mind from anxious thoughts.