From Farm House to the White House Part 32

"The golden opportunity has been lost, perhaps never more to return.

Between building a new road and sending forward regulars to meet the Indians, our hope of success is small indeed. Small parties of Indians will effectually demoralize the English by keeping them under continual alarms, and attacking them in ambuscade."

The advance party was under the command of Major Grant, a conceited, overbearing officer, who was as ignorant of Indian tactics as a baby.

Besides, his extreme self-confidence made him boastful and reckless, as he subsequently found to his sorrow and shame. One of Washington's biographers says of Grant:

"He was instructed to find out all he could about the enemy, without suffering the enemy to find out more than he could help about himself, and by all possible means to avoid a battle. But instead of conducting the expedition with silence and circ.u.mspection, he marched along in so open and boisterous a manner as made it appear he meant to give the enemy timely notice of his coming, and bully him into an attack even while yet on the way. The French, keeping themselves well-informed by their spies of his every movement, suffered him to approach almost to their very gates without molestation. When he got in the neighborhood of the fort, he posted himself on a hill overlooking it, and began throwing up intrenchments in full view of the garrison. As if all this were not imprudence enough, and as if bent on provoking the enemy to come out and give him battle on the instant, whether or no, he sent down a party of observation to spy out yet more narrowly the inside plan and defences of the fort, who were suffered not only to do this, but even to burn a house just outside the walls, and then return to their intrenchments without a hostile sign betokening the unseen foe so silent, yet watchful, within.

"Early the next morning, as if to give the enemy warning of the threatened danger, the drums of the regulars beat the _reveille_, and the bag-pipes of the Highlanders woke the forest-echoes far and wide with their wild and shrilly din."

During all this time there was silence in the fort, and no sign of the enemy anywhere around.

"No enemy is here; they have fled before us," said Major Grant to General Forbes. "The English regulars have frightened them out of their wits, and they have taken leg-bail."

"An ill.u.s.tration of the old adage, 'discretion is the better part of valor,'" answered Forbes.

"And these are the heroic French and terrible savages of which that young American colonel tells so much!" continued Major Grant in a derisive manner. "All I regret is, that they did not stay to fight."

"It is too serious a joke to fit out this expedition and march through this wilderness for nothing," added General Forbes. "We ought to have one chance at the foe, if nothing more."

"Well, I am not disappointed in the least," responded Grant. "All this talk about the bravery of the French and the savagery of Indians is buncomb, and that is all. I will raise the English flag over the fort without a drop of blood being shed. Let me advance with the regulars; and Captain Lewis, with his Americans, remain behind with the baggage.

We will show you how a fort can be taken."

"Your order shall be obeyed," replied Captain Lewis, although he looked with contempt upon the braggart whom he addressed.

General Braddock's blunder was repeated on that day. The regulars moved forward, and marched directly into an Indian ambuscade.

With unearthly yells the savages sprang from their hiding places, and poured a terrific fire into the faces of the regulars. At the same time the French rushed out of their fort, sending volley after volley of leaden death into their ranks. The English stood their ground for a moment, then broke and retreated in confusion. The savages, emboldened by their success, rushed on to more fearful slaughter, and between musket and tomahawk, butchery reigned supreme.

Major Lewis, who was left behind with the baggage, leaving fifty men under the charge of Captain Bullit to guard it, rushed forward with his Virginia force to the relief of the regulars. His timely aid checked the advance of the foe; but, in a hand to hand fight with an Indian warrior, he was taken prisoner, though not until the warrior lay dead at his feet.

Major Grant was taken prisoner, and would have been tomahawked on the spot but for the interposition of a French officer.

The retreat became a complete rout, the savages pursuing with their accustomed yells. Captain Bullit determined to resist the pursuit of the enemy by piling the baggage across the road for a barricade. Behind this, with his fifty men, he poured a deadly fire into the foe as they approached, volley after volley, checking their advance by striking terror to their hearts for a moment. Perceiving that he could not long hold out, he resorted to a strategy that would have been regarded barbarous if adopted by Indians. Irving speaks of it as follows:

"They were checked for a time, but were again pressing forward in greater numbers, when Bullit and his men held out the signal of capitulation, and advanced, as if to surrender. When within eight yards of the enemy, they suddenly leveled their arms, poured a most effectual volley, and then charged with the bayonet. The Indians fled in dismay, and Bullit took advantage of this check to retreat, with all speed, collecting the wounded and scattered fugitives as he advanced."

The whole of the straggling army did not reach Fort Loyal Harman at Laurel Hills until the fifth day of November. Many of the soldiers, especially the wounded, suffered terribly on the retreat.

Washington was at Raystown when the attack was made upon the advance.

Why and for what he was there, except by order of the commander, General Forbes, we know not. But he joined the beaten and demoralized army at Fort Loyal Harman.

"Braddock's folly repeated must end in Braddock's defeat and shame," he remarked, on hearing of the disaster. "The result is no worse than I feared."

"Your Virginians fought bravely," remarked General Forbes to Washington, evidently thinking that he had underrated their valor and efficiency.

"I am not surprised to hear it," replied Washington. "I knew that they would prove themselves equal to the occasion."

"Braver fellows never met a foe on the battlefield," continued General Forbes. "Our defeat would have been more b.l.o.o.d.y and shameful but for them."

"And if they had formed the advance, they would not have been caught in an Indian ambuscade," remarked Washington suggestively.

In this unfortunate battle the British lost twenty-one officers and two hundred and seventy-three privates in killed and wounded, more than one-third of the advance under Grant.

"Well," continued General Forbes, "this snow and freezing weather will compel us to go into winter quarters here. After this defeat we are not in a condition to attack the fort immediately."

"Our prospects are not very flattering, it must be confessed," remarked Washington, without expressing his opinion of the unnecessary and foolish blunder that had brought them into this plight. Had he led his Virginia rangers in advance, such a disgraceful record would not have been made.

Washington prophesied that, between building a new road and sending regulars in advance, defeat was inevitable, and now General Forbes proposed to fulfil his prophecy.

"What is your advice, Colonel Washington, under the circ.u.mstances?"

inquired General Forbes, evidently designing to atone somewhat for his previous shabby treatment of the young Virginia hero. "Is it wise to march against the fort at this late season and in this rough weather?"

Washington was not at all disposed to give advice after all his previous counsels had been treated with contempt; therefore he prolonged the conversation without gratifying the commanding general with an explicit statement of his opinions. In the midst of their interview two or three prisoners were brought in, and they gave such an account of the weakness and dest.i.tution of the French garrison that Washington advised an immediate advance upon the fort.

"Is it possible?" said General Forbes, doubting the statement.

"It is _possible_," answered Washington. "It is an easy matter to find out, however."

"We are not exactly prepared for such a movement now," replied the general.

"I am at your service, general, with my rangers," answered Washington, in a tone which showed that he coveted the business. We strongly suspect that Washington was thinking of his promised bride, and desired to close the campaign against Duquesne that he might claim her. To go into winter quarters, and leave the fort to be captured another season, would put off his wedding-day far beyond his wishes. The understanding was, that he would not be married until after the fall of Duquesne.

"Your brave and generous offer is accepted, without conditions," General Forbes immediately replied, only too glad now to impose the labor and risk upon provincial troops.

"I will be ready to move to-morrow," added Washington with his usual promptness.

"As soon as you please, and in what manner you please. The whole thing is in your hands."

"Very well, sir; we march to-morrow," added Washington as he hurried away.

On the next day he took up the line of march towards Duquesne, proceeding with extreme caution as he approached the vicinity of the fort. The locality of the recent battle was marked by the dead bodies of their fallen brothers, a sickening spectacle to behold. Around them, too, were scattered the bones of comrades who fell in the first battle, three years before, a melancholy reminder of the defeat and death which followed the blundering of conceited officers.

No sign of the enemy appeared. Silence reigned supreme. Scouts reported no trace of the foe. Still the "rangers" moved forward with the utmost caution. Indians could not surprise them now.

Coming in sight of the fort, they saw that it was deserted. No flag floated over its walls. On the double-quick, Washington led his troops into it, and not a Frenchman or Indian was found. The wooden buildings were burned to ashes, together with such baggage and other material as the occupants could not carry away in boats. Not a cannon, gun, or cartridge remained. Washington planted the English flag upon the walls of the fort with his own hand, on the twenty-fifth day of November, 1758.

It was learned, subsequently, that on account of the signal victories of the British army in Canada, no reinforcements or provisions were received at Duquesne. As the French garrison was in urgent need of both, the commander concluded, on the approach of Washington's command, that the better part of valor would be to abandon it; hence its evacuation.

Washington adopted immediate and vigorous measures to rebuild the fort, to which he gave the name of Fort Pitt, in honor of the great English statesman, through whose influence the British Government finally ordered the capture of the fort. Leaving a sufficient number of troops to garrison it, he returned to Laurel Hill, whence he wrote to the Governor of Virginia, in behalf of his needy soldiers at Duquesne, as follows:

"Considering their present circ.u.mstances," he writes: "I would by no means have consented to leave any part of them there, had not the general given me express orders.... By their present nakedness, the advanced season, and the inconceivable fatigues of an uncommonly long and laborious campaign, they are rendered totally incapable of any sort of service; and sickness, death, and desertion must, if they are not speedily supplied, greatly reduce their numbers. To replace them with equally good men will, perhaps, be found impossible."

Irving says, "One of the first offices of the army, after taking possession of the fort, was to collect and bury, in one common tomb, the bones of their fellow-soldiers who had fallen in the battles of Braddock and Grant. In this pious duty it is said every one joined, from the general down to the private soldier; and some veterans a.s.sisted, with heavy hearts and frequent e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of poignant feeling, who had been present in the scenes of defeat and carnage."

The fall of Duquesne brought to an end the domination of the French on the Ohio, as Washington predicted, restoring peace to the frontier.

Hostile Indians hastened to cast in their allegiance to the English, who had become conquerors, thus laying aside both tomahawk and scalping-knife, at least for a season.

Washington resolved to abandon military life and retire to his estate at Mount Vernon, exchanging the hardships of war for the blessings of peace. He sent in his resignation, whereupon the officers of his command presented him with a flattering testimonial, from which we make the following extracts: