VIII

BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT WAR

The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle did very little to set matters at rest in North America; it provided only a short breathing spell before the numerous unsettled questions gave rise to another and far greater war. The treaty did little or nothing toward marking out boundaries either at the east in Acadia, or at the west toward the Ohio valley, and it was in the latter region that the next great storm was to burst. By 1748 the schemes of La Salle had developed as far as they were ever destined to do. A thriving colony had been founded near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and that region was connected with Canada by a straggling series of fortified villages at great distances apart. Such places were Kaskaskia and Cahokia, as well as Fort Chartres in the Illinois country, and Detroit.

But the French were now beginning to feel the disadvantage of scarcity of numbers distributed over long exterior lines. Every year

that brought them closer to contact with the English made this disadvantage more apparent. Since La Salle’s time a great change had come over the land. In his day, Pennsylvania was merely the banks of the Delaware River, while the Maryland and Virginia settlements were confined to the tidewater regions; but by 1748 not only had these English populations spread for many miles into the interior, but a fresh migration from Europe, conducted on a greater scale than any of its predecessors, had introduced into the middle Appalachian region an active and aggressive population. Of the 3,000,000 inhabitants of the United States in 1776, at least one sixth part were Presbyterians who had come from the north of Ireland since 1720.¹ Along with these there was a considerable population of Protestant Germans who had come at about the same time. By far the greater part of this population had passed through the old settled seaboard districts and made homes for itself on what was then the western frontier; that is to say, the Alleghany region of Pennsylvania,

Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. From this population came some of the most hardy and enterprising pioneers of the old west, such men as Daniel Boone, James Robertson, and John Sevier the Huguenot; for in this movement we find the name of many a Protestant Frenchman enlisted under the banner of St. George. By 1748 the settled English population was fast approaching the Appalachian ranges, and the more mobile company of hunters, trappers, fur-traders, and other pioneers were passing beyond them and fast making their mark upon the western country. A company had already been formed in Virginia for the improvement of lands on the Ohio River, and in this company were interested some of the most prominent men in the colony, including two brothers of George Washington. Some of the pioneers were pressing forward to make homes in the wilderness where afterward grew up the two great commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee; but that stage was only realized three years later. Meanwhile as the Indian trade was lucrative, and hunting had its charms, all the restless spirits who preferred life in the wilderness to life on plantations were finding their way through the picturesque defiles of the mountains down the broad grassy slopes through which flowed the western rivers.

Now this advance of the English frontier was an advance against the centre of the whole French position. In those days, as at present, there were two great routes, whether for military purposes or for trade, between the Atlantic seaboard and the Mississippi valley. One of these was from Albany to the Niagara River, and thence westward either to the north or to the south of Lake Erie. The other was from Philadelphia or Baltimore to Pittsburg, and thence down the Ohio River. It followed, therefore, that if the English could firmly hold both the Niagara River and the junction between the Allegheny and the Monongahela, where Pittsburg now stands, it would be in their power to strike at the centre of the long exterior line held by the French, and forever to cut Louisiana asunder from Canada. By degrees the more far-sighted Frenchmen who administered the affairs of Canada had been taking in the alarming character of the situation. Since the early part of the century the influence of the Frenchmen over the Indian tribes had relatively diminished. They held as firmly as ever the alliance of the northern Algonquins, from the Micmacs of Nova Scotia to the Ojibways of Lake Superior, and at one time in the early part of the eighteenth century their

influence had waxed strong even among their ancient enemies of the Long House. The persuasive tongues of the Jesuits had even won converts among the Mohawks, a small colony of whom they had established at Caughnawaga on the St. Lawrence River, a short distance above Montreal. These Caughnawagas were useful as middle men in the trade between the remote northwest and the province of New York by way of Lake Champlain, and they were also of considerable service as spies to report in Canada the affairs of New York. These circumstances led William Burnet, the able governor of New York, to build a fortress at Oswego in 1722 upon land which he bought for the purpose from the Six Nations. As the New York Assembly was as froward and penny wise as usual, Burnet cut the Gordian knot by paying the expenses out of his own pocket. This founding of Oswego was an event of prime importance in the history of the United States, inasmuch as it diverted the main current of the northwestern fur-trade from the valley of the St. Lawrence to the valley of the Mohawk, and thus greatly strengthened the hold of the English upon the Long House all the way from the Hudson River to Lake Erie.¹ In 1738 this English influence was still further increased by

the arrival of that remarkable man, William Johnson, a native of Ireland, who waxed rich in the Indian trade, built for himself two strongholds in the Mohawk valley, and acquired such a reputation among the Mohawks that they revered him like one of their natural chiefs. The influence exerted upon the Indians by Johnson and by the Schuylers of Albany, as well as through the trading station at Oswego, made it probable that in the event of a conflict with France the English could control the Niagara River.

Still more important, however, was the mountainous site of Pittsburg, the Gateway of the West, as it used to be called; for it was in that neighbourhood that the English were already pressing westward and winning control over the numerous and powerful tribes of the Ohio valley. Among these should especially be mentioned the Delawares and Shawnees upon the upper Ohio; and with them were associated the remnants of the Hurons, generally known as Wyandottes, and likewise a group which had migrated from the Long House, apparently consisting chiefly of Senecas, but called by the frontiersmen Mingos. Westward of all these came the Miamis, and then the Illinois. Late in the seventeenth century all these tribes had been invaded, tormented, and made more or less tributary

by the Long House. Whether they acknowledged the relationship or not, the Long House asserted it whenever an occasion offered. French influence over these tribes had never been strong except among the Illinois. On the other hand, the English traders as they came into the Ohio valley were careful to propitiate the natives, and succeeded in establishing a strong influence over them, especially the tribes of the upper Ohio.

Obviously, if this sort of thing were to go on, it would not be long before the English would hold the whole stretch of country from Oswego south of Lake Erie to Cahokia as firmly as the French held the country from Montreal to the Sault Ste. Marie; in other words, the English would hold both the great routes between east and west, and New France would be severed in twain.

This situation was distinctly realized by the Marquis de la Galissonière, who governed Canada in 1749; and that year he sent a party of about 250 men to inspect the country between the Niagara and Ohio rivers, to take possession of it in the name of the French king, and to ascertain the sentiments of the native tribes. The command of this party was entrusted to a captain and chevalier named Céloron de Bienville. They went up the St. Lawrence as far as Fort

Frontenac, crossed Lake Ontario in canoes which they carried up by the bank of the Niagara River, and launching them at a safe distance above the falls, made their way into Lake Erie. Then for seven days they forced their way through the dense forest to the placid waters of Chautauqua Lake, and after landing where Jamestown now stands, and struggling once more with the tangled woods, they reached the Allegheny River. At that point of their route on the 29th of July they took possession of the country in the name of Louis XV. This act of taking possession was performed as follows: The royal arms of France stamped upon a tin plate were nailed to a tree. At the foot of the tree a plate of lead was buried, upon which was an inscription stating that Monsieur Céloron had buried this plate “as a token of renewal of possession heretofore taken of the aforesaid river Ohio, of all streams that fall into it, and all lands on both sides to the source of the aforesaid streams, as the preceding kings of France have enjoyed or ought to have enjoyed it, and which they have upheld by force of arms and by treaties, notably by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle.”¹ It

will be observed that this is the usual style which France has maintained for some centuries. Whenever her borders have been extended it has always been officially declared to be simply taking possession of what was hers already. Upon various other spots as they descended the river our party of Frenchmen buried these leaden tablets, the last place being at the mouth of the Great Miami. Some of the plates have since then been dug up and preserved in museums. The general demeanour of the Indians through whose towns the Frenchmen passed was polite, but suspicious and unsatisfactory. It was evident that the English influence was strong throughout the upper country drained by the Ohio. When Céloron reached the Great Miami he turned his course up that river and presently came to a village of the Miamis, ruled by a chieftain who was a firm friend to the English, in so much that they commonly called him “Old Britain,” but the French oddly called him “La Demoiselle,” or “The Maiden.” Whether he was faint-hearted, as such an epithet might seem to imply, or perhaps more delicate of feature than others of his race, we cannot say; but as to his capacity for lying, we are not left in doubt. His home had formerly been upon the Maumee River, not far from the site of Fort Wayne, and

he had now moved close down to the Ohio, apparently in order to be in the highway of English trade. Céloron heaped gifts upon him and urged him to take his men back to their old home on the Maumee. The astute Demoiselle accepted the presents and was profuse in promises, but so far was he from retiring that he gathered into his new town as many recruits as he could summon.¹ The English called it Pickawillany. It became one of the principal Indian towns of the west, completely under English influence, and was a serious obstacle to all French schemes in that quarter. For some time Canadian officials intrigued and fulminated against Pickawillany, until at length in the summer of 1752 Charles de Langlade, a young French trader of Green Bay, led a large force of Ojibways and Ottawas against the obnoxious town. They took it by surprise, slaughtered many of the defenders, and burned the town, crowning the work by a hilarious supper in which they feasted upon the boiled carcase of the Demoiselle himself.

Considering the vital importance of the Gateway

of the West, it seems very strange that the English, who were then in possession of it, did not build and maintain a strong fortress there, but in truth the spot was claimed at once by Virginia and by Pennsylvania, and in neither of these provinces did the legislature wish to invest money in property that might be adjudged to belong to another province. The swarm of difficulties that surrounded this unsettled question sufficed to prevent all action. Meanwhile, a new governor came to Canada, the Marquis Duquesne, who saw clearly that New France must either control the Gateway of the West, or give up all hold upon the Ohio valley and submit to see Canada severed from Louisiana. Accordingly, in the spring of 1753 Duquesne sent out a force of 1500 men commanded by an able veteran named Marin. This little army crossed Lake Erie at some distance to the west of Niagara River, and landed at Presqu’Isle, where the town of Erie now stands, and there they built a strong blockhouse. From that point they cut a road through the forest to the stream since known as French Creek, and there they erected a second blockhouse and called it Fort Le Bœuf. Here they could resume their canoes and easily float down French Creek to the Allegheny River, and so on, if need

be, to the Gulf of Mexico. At this point the French commander fell dangerously ill, and his place was taken by another skilful veteran, Legardeur de Saint-Pierre.

By these active measures the French were gaining strength daily. It is true that the Indians of the region they were entering were friends of the English, but the red man’s politics were apt to be of a vacillating sort, and truckling to strength was one of their chief characteristics. They resembled the politics of the famous Vicar of Bray, whose conduct was always guided by one unswerving principle, no matter what party might be uppermost, always to remain Vicar of Bray, sir. The red man was usually ready to follow the advice of Mr. Pickwick and shout with whichever mob shouted the loudest. This was seen in the conduct of a feathered potentate whom the English called the Half-King; he came out from his village with a show of fight, but soon made up his mind that discretion was the better part of valour. Fifteen hundred Frenchmen! truly the white father at Quebec must be a mighty chief. Several tribes sent messages seeking to curry favour with the invaders.

It was Duquesne’s intention to have a third fort built at Venango, where French Creek flows

into the Allegheny, and an advance party, commanded by Joncaire, had arrived at that place and seized and fortified an English trading house there. Thus far had things proceeded in the early days of December, 1753, when one evening as Joncaire and his friends were sitting down to supper, some unbidden guests arrived upon the scene. The party consisted of Christopher Gist, a veteran trader who acted as guide, an Indian interpreter named Davison, a French interpreter named Vanbraam, and four wood rangers as servants. The person for whom this little party acted as escort was a tall and stately youth named George Washington, a major in the Virginia militia. Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, who was keeping as keen a watch upon the Ohio valley from Williamsburg as Duquesne was keeping from Montreal, had heard of the crossing of Lake Erie by the French and their approach toward the Gateway of the West. To warn them off was a delicate matter, while to counteract their intrigues with the Indians a wise head was called for. Washington had been in the employ of Lord Fairfax in surveying frontier land, and had made good use of the opportunities for studying Indians. Governor Dinwiddie, moreover, gave him credit for a clear-sightedness that nothing could hoodwink and a courage

that nothing could daunt, and in this the wise old Scotchman was not deceived.

After the party had sat down to supper and the wine had begun to circulate, the Frenchmen grew somewhat confidential, and with their politest smiles assured Washington that they intended to drive the English out of all that country; and they felt sure that they could do it, for although inferior in force, they more than made up for this by their quickness of movement. The next day Washington proceeded to Fort Le Bœuf, where he met the French commander, and gave him a polite letter from Dinwiddie expressing his surprise that he should thus venture to encroach upon English territory in time of peace. The old Frenchman treated Washington with extreme politeness, but said that he should feel it necessary to remain where he was until he should have had time to transmit Dinwiddie’s letter to Montreal and get a reply from Governor Duquesne. Washington’s return to Virginia was marked with adventures and some hair-breadth escapes.¹ When Governor Dinwiddie heard the results of his journey, which were not very different

from what he had anticipated, he made up his mind that as large a force as possible must be collected from Virginia and other colonies, to advance, while there was yet time, and occupy the Gateway of the West; but the governor of a free English colony was at a great disadvantage as compared with a despotic governor of Canada. Dinwiddie must persuade his legislature, and he must notify other governors, who in turn must persuade their legislatures. We need not be surprised that the English were too late. Washington had selected the spot where Pittsburg now stands as the proper place for a commanding fortress, but scarcely had his men begun to work there when they were driven away by a superior force of Frenchmen, who proceeded to build a stout fortress and call it Fort Duquesne. Well might the indignant Dinwiddie exclaim in a letter written at this time, “If our Assembly had voted the money in November which they did in February, it’s more than probable the fort would have been built and garrisoned before the French had approached; but these things cannot be done without money. As there was none in our treasury, I have advanced my own to forward the expedition; and if the independent companies from New York

come soon, I am in hopes the eyes of the other colonies will be opened; and if they grant a proper supply of men, I hope we shall be able to dislodge the French or build a fort on that river.”¹ When we read such letters as this and realize that through the whole seventy years of struggle with New France the difficulty was always the same, we surely cannot much wonder that the British minister at the beginning of Pontiac’s war should have deemed it necessary to resort to such a measure as the Stamp Act. Americans should not forget that while that measure was ill-considered, the evil which it was designed to relieve was most flagrant and dangerous.

In point of fact, in May, 1754, Dinwiddie’s force on the frontier was only the Virginia regiment of about three hundred men under Colonel Joshua Fry, with Major Washington second in command. Fry was detained by sickness at Will’s Creels, about one hundred and forty miles from Fort Duquesne. The advance was slow and difficult, as it was necessary to cut roads through the virgin forests and over the mountains in order to drag cannon and wagons. An advance of a mile in a day was sometimes all that could be accomplished. In spite of these obstacles,

Washington had crossed the mountains and encamped at a spot called Great Meadows with about one hundred and fifty men, when a message came to him from his friend the Half-King, saying that the French were upon the march to meet him. For two or three days Washington watched vigilantly for a surprise, and the reports that came in seemed to indicate that a French force was lurking in the neighbourhood. Presently the Half-King arrived upon the scene, and as everything indicated that the enemy intended a surprise, it was decided to find them if possible and inflict a counter surprise. The result was that presently the French were discovered in a ravine, and there was a brief fight in which the French commander, an ensign named Jumonville, was killed, with nine others, and the remaining twenty-two were captured. After it was all over some of the prisoners informed Washington that they were a party sent from Fort Duquesne by its commander, Contrecœur, to carry a message to Washington. In point of fact, it was a scouting party intended to look out for any approaching party of English, and to warn them to withdraw from this portion of New France. A great outcry was afterward raised by the French at what they chose to call perfidy on Washington’s part, and

an absurd story was circulated to the intent that he had fired upon a flag of truce. The whole case may, however, be properly summed up as a chance encounter between two forces engaged in actual hostilities before any declaration of war. Each side professed to be unwilling to force on hostilities, while each side was eager to strike the other as soon as a proper occasion offered.

After this affray Washington built a rude entrenchment at Great Meadows which he called Fort Necessity. A few days afterward news came of Colonel Fry’s death, and presently other troops arrived from Virginia and South Carolina, until Washington was in command of some three hundred men besides about one hundred and fifty Indians under the Half-King and others.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Canada had not been idle, and the garrison of Fort Duquesne now numbered fourteen hundred men. A force of about six hundred under Coulon de Villiers, brother of the slain Jumonville, marched up the Monongahela in quest of Washington. Villiers arrived at Great Meadows on a rainy day, and a lively firing was kept up until dark. By that time the English found their powder nearly exhausted and their guns foul, while their food

was gone and starvation faced them. Washington therefore accepted the terms offered by the French commander, that the English should march away with the honours of war, with drums beating and colours flying, and that they should be protected from insult, while on the other hand, they should surrender their prisoners of Jumonville’s party. So the English marched away. It was not a very murderous affair, and Washington’s friend, the red man Half-King, sarcastically gave it as his opinion that the Frenchmen had behaved like cowards and the English like fools. It was on the 4th of July that young Washington began his doleful retreat across the mountains into Virginia. The situation seemed to have nothing to retrieve it. At this first outbreak of the struggle with France the enemy seemed to be carrying everything before them. The Gateway of the West was in their possession, and the red flag of England waved nowhere within the limits of what they chose to call New France. Yet Washington even at that early age was already a marvel of fortitude and may have consoled himself with the thought that better days were coming.

Before he was permitted, however, to see such better days, the cup of disaster must be drained to its dregs. Nothing could be clearer than that

the possession of Fort Duquesne by the French and their infliction of a slight defeat upon the English would have an immediate and disastrous effect upon most of the Indian tribes in the Ohio valley. Dinwiddie therefore at once prepared to assume the offensive and carry the war on a larger scale into the enemy’s country. But he found himself impeded at every step by the Virginia House of Burgesses. Those canny planters were loath to put much money into the governor’s hands lest he should make an improper use of it. At one time they would refuse the appropriation asked for, at another time they would grant a sum too small to be of much use, and yet again they would grant a sufficient sum, while attaching to the bill a rider concerning some long-disputed question which they knew would elicit an angry veto from the governor. Similarly in Pennsylvania the Assembly refused money for military purposes in order to wring from the governor some concession with regard to the long-vexed question of taxing proprietary lands. Moreover, the Assembly at Philadelphia was not quite sure that it was worth while to raise troops for taking Fort Duquesne from the French if it should thereby fall into the possession of Virginia. It was with difficulty that these representative bodies could be made to see anything that required any breadth of

vision. Moreover, they were used to contending against their governors; in the eyes of most representatives that was the sole object for which legislatures existed, but they were not accustomed to devote much thought to the French as enemies, nor had they as yet learned very well what it meant to be invaded by Indians. On the other hand, New York and Massachusetts were somewhat more forward inasmuch as they had a keen perception of what was involved in warfare against Frenchmen and Indians. Here too, however, the zeal of the governors far outran the efficiency of the legislatures. Shirley, in particular, a veteran lawyer of great sense and more than average insight, appreciated the nature of the threatened struggle more keenly than any of the other governors except Dinwiddie.

In fact, something was happening of the sort that people never quite see until they can look backward. The English colonies had insensibly drifted into a continental state of things. The crisis had been hastened by the wholesale incoming of the Scotch-Irish and Germans. The bulging of the centre of the English line toward the Ohio valley had brought things to a pass where it was no longer a conflict between New France and New England in the narrower sense,

but between New France and the entire world of English America. Under these circumstances the next war that should break out must be a continental affair; it would concern Louisiana and Georgia as well as New York and Canada; and yet, here were the people of these colonies profoundly ignorant and almost culpably careless of each other’s interests, ready to throw away all the advantages of numerical strength and interior lines and give away the victory to an inferior enemy rather than cooperate with one another in defeating him. Obviously, the crying need of the time was some feasible plan for a federal Union. In the event of a war, it was important to insure the aid of the Six Nations, and to this end it was necessary to let them know how much support they might expect from the English colonies. For this purpose a congress was called to assemble at Albany in the summer of 1754 in order to consider the situation. It was the second congress that assembled on American soil, the first having been the one called by Leisler at New York in 1690.¹ It is significant that even on this verge of a mighty conflict only the four New England colonies with New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were represented

at the Albany Congress. The deliberations were chiefly memorable for a plan of union drawn up by Benjamin Franklin which, if it had been adopted, might perhaps have averted the Revolution of twenty years later.¹ This plan would have created a true federal Union, the government of which would have operated directly upon individuals, as our present federal Union does, and not upon states only, as the Continental Congress did. Franklin’s plan would have created a Continental government with taxing power for continental purposes only, leaving otherwise intact the local self-government. There would have been a president or governor-general appointed by the Crown to serve as chief executive in purely continental matters.²

This plan of federation was rejected with small ceremony by the colonies. In some cases no notice was taken of it; in others it was treated with contempt. There were few people as yet who saw any meaning in the demand for a closer union, and nothing but a long experience of distress and disaster would have taught them the need of it. This rejection of the Albany plan left the colonies

in a very embarrassing position. On the brink of a great war there was no single power in the country which could raise men and money for the common defence. Of course, there were but few who anticipated war, or were alive to the situation. It was at this moment that it occurred to Shirley that if the colonists could not create for themselves a continental taxing power it would be necessary for Parliament to fulfil that function. This would involve a direct tax, and while Shirley recognized the American unwillingness to submit to taxation by any other authority than that of the colonial Assemblies, he nevertheless thought that a stamp tax might be received with acquiescence because it had so few annoying features. It was by such considerations as these that the British official mind was prepared for the Stamp Act of eleven years later. As it was, the colonies had to flounder through a great war as best they could.

The representations of the royal governors and of the viceroy of Canada created some excitement both in England and in France. In England a couple of regiments, each of five hundred men, were shipped for Virginia under command of Major-General Edward Braddock. When this was learned at Versailles a force of three thousand men was started for Canada under

Baron Dieskau. The health of Duquesne was failing, and with Dieskau’s expedition there came a new viceroy for Canada, the last of her French governors, Vaudreuil, a younger son of the former governor of that name. The expedition did not get clear of European waters without adventure. It was well understood by the British government that the squadron gathering at Brest had troops on board destined for America. Accordingly, a powerful force of eighteen or twenty ships of the line was sent out to intercept and capture any French vessels bound for America. The greater part of the French squadron, however, got away, but three of its ships, having fallen behind through stress of weather, were in the neighbourhood of Cape Race when the British fleet overtook them. As the British ship Dunkirk came abreast of the French ship Alcide, a red flag was suddenly hoisted upon the British flagship as a signal for fighting; whereupon the French captain of the Alcide called out, “Is this peace or war?” He was answered by Richard Howe, captain of the Dunkirk, “I don’t know; but you’d better get ready for war.” Scarcely had the words been uttered when the Dunkirk and other English ships opened fire, and the Alcide, with one of her companions, was forced to surrender. This little incident at

sea was the naval counterpart to Washington’s passage at arms with Jumonville in the mountains.

It was in February, 1755, that General Braddock arrived at Governor Dinwiddie’s house at Williamsburg. The spring was spent in preparations for the campaign that was to wrest Fort Duquesne from the enemy and recover the Gateway of the West. The figure of Braddock has long been well known to all Americans, a British bulldog, brave, obstinate, and honest, but more than ordinarily dull in appreciating an enemy’s methods, or in freeing himself from the precise traditions in which he had been educated. His first and gravest mistake, however,—that of underrating his Indian foe,—is one that has been shared by many commanders, to their confusion, and by many writers. The fighting qualities of the red man have often been ill appreciated, and in particular he has been ignorantly accused of cowardice because of his stealthy methods and unwillingness to fight in the open. In point of fact, his method of fighting was closely adapted to the physical conditions of the American wilderness, and it was just what was produced by survival of the fittest during thousands of years of warfare under such conditions. When white men came to America, they were at

first able to wreak wholesale destruction upon the natives without regard to numbers or conditions. Such was the case when the Pequots, the Stamford Indians, and the Narragansetts were swept out of existence.¹ This was largely because of the European superiority in arms, but in later days, when this disparity had been done away with, white men were apt to find Indians quite as formidable enemies as they cared to deal with, and in order to achieve success it was found necessary to adopt the Indian methods, abandoning solid columns and lines of battle, so as to fight in loose order and behind trees or earthworks. It is interesting to see that in these later days when the increase in the power and precision of death-dealing weapons has greatly increased the dangerousness of the battlefield, there has been a tendency to recur to Indian methods in so far as concerns looseness of order and the use of various kinds of cover. In the eighteenth century there was nobody so ill fitted to fight with Indians as a European regular, trained in European manuals of war and inured to European discipline. Braddock’s fatuity was well illustrated in his reply to Dr. Franklin, when the latter informed him that the Indians, as

antagonists, were by no means to be despised: “These savages may, indeed,” said Braddock, “be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible that they should make any impression.”¹

Many stories of Braddock’s arrogance and ill-temper have come down to us, but if we consider the obstacles that were thrown in the way of military promptness, by which zealous men like Shirley and Dinwiddie were so often goaded to anger, we need not wonder that Braddock’s temper was sometimes not altogether at its best. He scolded a good deal about the legislatures, and sometimes let fall exasperating remarks about the lack of zeal and rectitude in public servants. For such insinuations there was sometimes apparent ground, especially when the member of a legislature showed himself more intent upon annoying the governor than upon attacking the enemy.

The energetic Shirley made a visit to Braddock’s camp at Alexandria, in the course of which a comprehensive plan of procedure was agreed upon, which involved operations on the Niagara River and Lance Champlain and the

northeastern frontier as well as in the Alleghany Mountains. For the present we will confine our story to the latter.

At the outset a mistake was made in the choice of a route. For a force like Braddock’s, wagons were indispensable, and wagons were far more common in Pennsylvania than in Virginia. A route corresponding with the general direction of the Pennsylvania railroad would not only have been much shorter than the route through Virginia, but it would have been, at least in its earlier stages, a route through a population which could furnish wagons. By adopting this route Braddock would have made the Pennsylvanians feel some personal interest in the acquisition of Fort Duquesne; whereas, when he decided to march through Virginia it only tended to confirm Pennsylvanians in the impression that Fort Duquesne, if conquered, was to pass into Virginian hands. After a while Benjamin Franklin went about among the farmers, and by pledging his own personal credit obtained a fair supply of horses and wagons.¹

Braddock’s force at length set out in detachments and marched along the banks of the Potomac River to the old trading station

of the Ohio Company known as Will’s Creek. It had lately been fortified, and received the name of Fort Cumberland. This was the rendezvous of the army. The two regiments from England had been increased by further enlistments in Virginia of nine companies of militia of fifty men each to a total of fourteen hundred men. Braddock despised these militia, and had small respect either for partisan guerilla forces or for Indian auxiliaries. The services of the chief Scarroyaddy, or of the noted frontiersman Black Jack, were at his disposal at the cost of a few civil words only, but he treated these worthies so superciliously that they went off on business of their own.

In spite of these instances of indiscretion, however, it is not correct to say, as has often been said, that Braddock neglected all precaution and was drawn into an ambuscade. Such statements are samples of the kind of exaggeration that is apt to grow up about events that create great public excitement. Braddock made mistakes enough, but he was not absolutely a fool. During the whole of the march flanking parties were kept out on each side of the creeping column, while scouts in all directions ranged through the depths of the woods. The column, which consisted of about twenty-two hundred men, sometimes extended

for four miles along a road hardly fit to be called a bridle-path, on the average scarcely four yards in width. The march began on June 10, and eight days later the force had advanced only thirty miles from Fort Cumberland. By that time the rear of the column was so heavily encumbered with sick men that its power of marching had almost come to an end. It was therefore decided to leave with the rear column of about one thousand men most of the heavier wagons and other impedimenta, and to proceed somewhat more quickly toward Fort Duquesne with an advance guard of twelve hundred. But in spite of this diminution of labour, the difficulties of the road were such that the 7th of July had arrived when the advance column approached Turtle Creek, a stream that flows into the Monongahela about eight miles south of Fort Duquesne. Meanwhile, its progress had been detected and watched, as was to have been expected, by French and Indian scouts. At the fortress Contrecœur still governed, with Beaujeu second in command. The force consisted of five or six hundred Frenchmen, partly regulars and partly Canadian militia, with eight hundred Indians, some of them baptized converts from the northeast, some of them wild Ojibways led by Charles de Langlade, the

conqueror of the Demoiselle, and the rest, Ottawas under their renowned chieftain, the long-headed and ferocious Pontiac. When the approach of Braddock’s column to the mouth of Turtle Creek was announced at the French fortress Captain Beaujeu volunteered to go out with a strong party and lay an ambuscade for the English. With this end in view he took some two hundred and fifty Frenchmen and over six hundred Indians and stole through the woods between the fortress and Turtle Creek, but he never succeeded in preparing the desired ambuscade, nor did Braddock’s force march into an ambuscade, in any proper sense of the word. So sensible was Braddock of the great danger of the road between Turtle Creek and Fort Duquesne, on the right bank of the Monongahela, that he forded the latter stream and proceeded down the opposite bank for five or six miles, when he again crossed the river and brought his column on to a rising ground along which the narrow road ran toward the fortress. His column was then in its usual condition a few Virginian guides in front, then the advance under Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Gage, among whose men were two lieutenants destined in later days to play inglorious parts, Horatio Gates and Charles Lee. Behind Gage came Sir John

St. Clair with the working party, followed by a couple of cannon, and these, in turn, by the wagons with powder and tools. Behind these came the principal part of the column, while both flanks and rear were very strongly guarded with flanking parties. The situation would not have been particularly dangerous if the British regulars had known how to separate and fight under cover. It was owing to this internal faultiness, and not to any ambush, that Braddock’s column came to grief.

When the opposing forces met it was simply the meeting of the two heads of columns in a narrow woodland road. Who can ever forget that moment when Gage’s light horsemen quickly fled back and those behind could catch a glimpse through the trees of a young Frenchman wearing a brilliant red gorget and bounding lightly along the road, till, on seeing his enemy, he turned and waved his hand? That brief glimpse of Captain Beaujeu at the moment of his death will forever live in history. At the third volley he dropped dead. Gage’s men delivered fire with admirable coolness, but its effect was slight, for the enemy, in two bifurcating columns, passed to right and to left of the English, all the time pouring in a galling fire from behind trees and bushes. Never were the conditions of a battle more simple. The English were torn to pieces because

they stood in solid line where they could be seen; and if anything were needed to make it impossible to miss them, it was their bright scarlet coats. On the other hand, no matter how diligently the British loaded and fired, they could see nothing to aim at. One officer who had been in the thickest of the fight, literally wedged in among falling bodies, said after the battle that he had not caught sight of an Indian during the whole of the battle. They were fighting simply against puffs of smoke which seemed to come from all points of the compass. For a time the cannon were diligently plied and split many tree trunks. Many of the regulars fired wildly and hit their own comrades. The Virginians, who scattered and fought in Indian fashion, suffered but little and did more than their share of execution. Some of the regulars tried to imitate these tactics, but wherever Braddock saw anything of the sort going on he would strike them with the flat of his sword and force them back into the ranks. As for the general himself, he performed prodigies of valour, and was forever in the most exposed places, while he had four horses shot under him and at last fell from the fifth with one of his lungs badly torn by a bullet. Washington’s fighting was equally desperate. Two horses were killed under him and his clothes

were partly torn from his back by bullets. He seemed to bear a charmed life. It is needless to enlarge further upon such a scene. Let it suffice to say, that out of a total force of thirteen hundred and seventy-three all but four hundred and fifty-nine were killed or wounded; and in addition to these, out of eighty-six officers only twenty-three escaped unhurt. The whole affair was as thickly fraught with horror as anything that is likely to happen in modern warfare. The utter fatuity of the affair, the hopeless feeling of brave men drawn up for slaughter without understanding the means of defence, has in it something peculiarly intolerable. The gallant Braddock, as he lay half-dazed upon his death-bed, was heard to murmur, “Who would ever have thought it?” and again, after an interval, “We shall know better how to do it next time.”¹

The skilful retreat from this field of blood added much to the credit of the youthful Washington, and marked him out as an officer likely to have a brilliant future. As for the rear column, which had been left under command of Colonel Dunbar, it retreated to Fort Cumberland, and presently abandoned the campaign, a most ill judged and reprehensible proceeding which threw open the

frontier to all the horrors of Indian invasion. The events of the past twelve months had done all that twelve months could do in destroying the influence of the English among the Ohio tribes. Washington’s disaster at Great Meadows had gone far toward undermining their allegiance, Braddock’s insolence had seasoned their contempt with a spice of anger, and now at last this headlong overthrow of an English army had convinced the red men that good medicine was all on the side of the Great White Father on the St. Lawrence.

Thus inauspiciously for the English began the mighty war that was to put an end to the dominion of Frenchmen in America, yet it must be remembered that no declaration of war had as yet been made public. These deeds of blood were the deeds of a time of so-called peace.¹