Historic Highways of America Volume III Part 4

"_1st._ That the mouth of _Red-Stone_ is the first convenient place on the River Monongahela.

"_2nd._ The stores are already built at that place for the provisions of the Company, wherein the Ammunition may be laid up, our great guns may be also sent by water whenever we shall think it convenient to attack the Fort.

"_3rd._ We may easily (having all these conveniences) preserve our men from the ill consequences of inaction, and encourage the _Indians_ our Allies, to remain in our interests."[6]

Thus Washington's march must be looked upon as the advance of a vanguard opening the road, bridging the streams, preparing the way for the commanding officer and his army. Nor was there, now, need for haste--had it been possible or advisable to hasten. The landing of the French at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela already thwarted Governor Dinwiddie's object in sending out the expedition, "to prevent their [French] building any Forts or making any Settlem'ts on that river, [Ohio] and more particularly so nigh us as that of the Logstown [fifteen miles below the forks of the Ohio]." Now that a fort was building, with an army of a thousand men (as Washington had been erroneously informed) encamped about it, nothing more was to be thought of than a cautious advance.

And so Washington gave the order on the 29th of April, three score men having been sent ahead to widen the Indian trail. The march was difficult and exceedingly slow. In the first ten days they covered but twenty miles. Yet each mile must have been antic.i.p.ated seriously by the young commander. He knew not whether his colonel with reinforcements or the enemy were nearest. Governor Dinwiddie wrote him (May 4) concerning reinforcements, as follows:

"The Independ't Compa from So. Car. arriv'd two days ago; is compleat; 100 Men besides Officers, and will re-embark for Alex^a next Week, thence proceed imediately to join Col^o. Fry and You. The two Independ't Compa's from N. York may be Expected in ab'^t ten days. The N. Car. Men, under the Com'^d of Col^o. Innes, are imagin'd to be on their March, and will probably be at the Randezvous ab'^t the 15^{th}. Inst."...

"I hope Capt. McKay who Com'ds the Independ't Compa., will soon be with You And as he appears to be an Officer of some Experience and Importance, You will, with Col^o. Fry and Col^o. Innes, so well agree as not to let some Punctillios ab'^t Com'd render the Service You are all engag'd in, perplex'd or obstructed."[7]

Relying implicitly on Dinwiddie, Washington pushed on and on into the wilderness, opening a road and building bridges for a colonel and an army that was never to come. As he advanced into the Alleghanies he found the difficulty of hauling wagons very serious, and long before he reached the Youghiogheny he determined to test the possibility of transportation down that stream and the Monongahela to his destination at the mouth of Redstone creek.

May 11th, he sent a reconnoitering force forward to Gist's, on Laurel Hill, the last spur of the Alleghanies, to locate a French party, which, the Indians reported, had left Fort Duquesne, and to find if there was possibility of water transportation to the month of Redstone creek, where a favorable site for a fort was to be sought.

Slowly the vanguard of the army felt its way to Little Meadows and across the smaller branch of the Youghiogheny, which it bridged at Little Crossings. On the 16th, according to the French version of Washington's _Journal_, he met traders who informed him of the appearance of French near Gist's and expressed doubts as to the possibility of building a wagon road from Gist's to the mouth of Redstone creek. This made it imperatively necessary for the young lieutenant-colonel to attempt to find a water pa.s.sage down the Youghiogheny.

The day following, much information was received both from the front and the rear, perhaps most vividly stated in the _Journal_ as follows:

"The Governor informs me that Capt. McKay, with an independent company of 100 men, excluding the officers, had arrived, and that we might expect them daily; and that the men from New-York would join us within ten days.

"This night also came two _Indians_ from the _Ohio_ who left the French fort five days ago; They relate that the French forces are all employed in building their Fort, that it is already breast-high, and of the thickness of twelve feet, and filled with Earth, stones, &c. They have cut down and burnt up all the trees which were about it and sown grain instead thereof. The _Indians_ believe they were only 600 in number, although they say themselves they are 800: They expect a greater number in a few days, which may amount to 1,600. Then they say they can defy the _English_."[8]

Arriving on the eastern bank of the Youghiogheny the next day, the river being too wide to bridge and too high to ford, Washington put himself "in a position of defence against any immediate attack from the Enemy,"

and went straightway to work on the problem of water transportation.

By the 20th, a canoe having been provided, Washington set out on the Youghiogheny with four men and an Indian. By nightfall they reached "Turkey Foot" (Confluence, Pennsylvania), which Washington mapped for the site of a fort. Below "Turkey Foot" the stream was found too rapid and rocky to admit of any sort of navigation and Washington returned to camp on the 24th, with the herculean hardships of an entire overland march staring him in the face. Information was now at hand from Half King concerning alleged movements of the French; thus the letter read:

"To any of his Majesty's officers whom this May Concern.

"As 'tis reported that the French army is set out to meet M. George Washington I exhort you my brethren, to guard against them, for they intend to fall on the first _English_ they meet; They have been on their march these two days, the Half King and the other chiefs will join you within five days, to hold a council, though we know not the number we shall be. I shall say no more; but remember me to my brethren the English.

Signed, The Half King."

At two o'clock of that same May day (24th) the little vanguard came down the eastern wooded hills that surround Great Meadows, and looked across the waving gra.s.ses and low bushes which covered the field they were soon to make cla.s.sic ground. Immediately upon arriving at the future battle-field, information was secured from a trader confirming Half King's alarming letter. Below the roadway, which pa.s.sed the meadow on the hillside, the lieutenant-colonel found two natural intrenchments near a branch of Great Meadows Run, perhaps old courses of the brook through the swampy land. Here the troops and wagons were placed.

Great Meadows may be described as two large basins, the smaller lying directly westward of the larger and connected with it by a narrow neck of swampy ground. Each is a quarter of a mile wide, and the two a mile and a half in length.

The old roadway descends from the southern hills, coming out upon the meadows at the eastern extremity of the western basin. It traverses the hillside south of the western meadow. The natural intrenchments or depressions behind which Washington huddled his army on this May afternoon were at the eastern edge of the western basin. Back of him was the narrow neck of lowland which soon opened into the eastern basin.

Behind him to his left on the hillside his newly made road crept eastward into the hills. The Indian trail followed the edge of the forest westward to Laurel Hill, five miles distant, and on to Fort Duquesne.

On this faint opening into the western forest the little band and its youthful commander kept their eyes as the sun dropped behind the hills, closing an anxious day and bringing a dreaded night. How large the body of French might have been, not one of the one hundred and fifty men knew. How far away they might be, no one could guess. Here in this forest meadow the little vanguard slept on their arms, surrounded by watchful sentinels, with fifty-one miles of forest and mountain between them and the nearest settlement at Wills Creek. The darkling forests crept down the hills on either side as though to hint by their portentous shadows of the dead and dying that were to be.

But the night waned and morning came. With increasing energy, as though nerved to duty by the dangers which surrounded him, the twenty-two-year-old commander Washington gave his orders promptly. A scouting party was sent on the Indian trail in search of the coming French. Squads were set to threshing the forests for spies. Hors.e.m.e.n were ordered to scour the country and keep look-out for French from neighboring points of vantage.

At night all returned, none the wiser for their vigilance and labor. The French force had disappeared from the face of the earth. It may be believed that this lack of information did not tend to ease the intense strain of the hour. It must have been plain to the dullest that serious things were ahead. Two flags, silken emblems of an immemorial hatred, were being brought together in the Alleghanies. It was a moment of utmost importance to Europe and America. Quebec and Jamestown were met on Laurel Hill; and a spark struck here and now was to "set the world on fire."

However clearly this may have been seen, Washington was not the man to withdraw. Indeed, the celerity with which he precipitated England and France into war made him the most criticized man on both continents.

Another day pa.s.sed--and the French could not be found. On the following day Christopher Gist arrived at Great Meadows with the information that M. la Force with fifty men (whose tracks he had seen within five miles of Great Meadows) had been at his house on "Mount Braddock," fifteen miles distant. Acting on this reliable information, Washington at once dispatched a scouting party in pursuit.

The day pa.s.sed and no word came to the anxious men in their trenches in the meadows. Another night, silent and cheerless, came over the mountains upon the valley, and with the night came rain. Fresh fears of strategy and surprise must have arisen as the cheerless sun went down.

Suddenly, at eight in the evening, a runner brought word that the French were run to cover. Half King, while coming to join Washington, had found La Force's party in "a low, obscure place."

It was now time for a daring man to show himself. Such was the young commander at Great Meadows.

"That very moment," wrote Washington in his _Journal_, "I sent out forty men and ordered my ammunition to be put in a place of safety, fearing it to be a stratagem of the French to attack our camp; I left a guard to defend it, and with the rest of my men set out in a heavy rain, and in a night as dark as pitch."

Perhaps a war was never precipitated under stranger circ.u.mstances.

Contrecoeur, commanding at Fort Duquesne, was made aware by his Indian scouts of Washington's progress all the way from the Potomac. The day before Washington arrived at Great Meadows, Contrecoeur ordered M. de Jumonville to leave Fort Duquesne with a detachment of thirty-four men, commanded by La Force, and go toward the advancing English. To the English (when he met them) he was to explain he had come to order them to retire. To the Indians he was to pretend he was "traveling about to see what is transacting in the King's Territories, and to take notice of the different roads." In the eyes of the English the party was to be an emba.s.sy. In the eyes of the Indians, a party of scouts reconnoitering. This is clear from the orders given by Contrecoeur to Jumonville.

Three days later, on the 26th, this "emba.s.sy" was at Gist's plantation, where, according to Gist's report to Washington, they "would have killed a cow and broken everything in the house, if two _Indians_, whom he [Gist] had left in charge of the home, had not prevented them."

From Gist's, La Force had advanced within five miles of Great Meadows, as Gist ascertained by their tracks on the Indian trail. Then--although the English commander was within an hour's march--the French retraced their steps to the summit of Laurel Hill, and, descending deep into the obscure valley on the east, built a hut under the lee of the precipice and rested from their labors! Here they remained throughout the 27th, while Washington's scouts were running their legs off in the attempt to locate them, and the young lieutenant-colonel was in a fever of anxiety at their sudden, ominous disappearance. Now they were found.

What a march was that! The darkness was intense. The path, Washington wrote, was "scarce broad enough for one man." Now and then it was lost completely and a quarter of an hour was wasted in finding it. Stones and roots impeded the way, and were made trebly treacherous by the torrents of rain which fell. The men struck the trees. They fell over each other.

They slipped from the narrow track and slid downward through the soaking, leafy carpet of the forest.

Enthusiastic tourists make the journey today from Great Meadows to the summit of Laurel Hill on the track over which Washington and his hundred men floundered and stumbled that wet May night a century and a half ago.

It is a hard walk but exceedingly fruitful to one of imaginative vision.

From Great Meadows the trail holds fast to the height of ground until Braddock's Run is crossed near "Braddock's Grave." Picture that little group of men floundering down into this mountain stream, swollen by the heavy rain, in the utter darkness of that night! From Braddock's Run the trail begins its long climb on the sides of the foothills, by picturesque Peddler's Rocks, to the top of Laurel Hill, two thousand feet above.

Washington left Great Meadows about eight o'clock. It was not until sunrise that Half King's sentries at "Washington's Spring" saw the vanguard file out on the narrow ridge, which, dividing headwaters of Great Meadow Run and Cheat river, makes an easy ascent to the summit of the mountain. The march of five miles had been accomplished, with great difficulty, in a little less than ten hours--at the rate of _one mile in two hours_!

Forgetting all else for the moment, consider the young leader of the floundering, stumbling army. There is not another episode in all Washington's long, eventful life that shows more clearly his strength of personal determination and daring. Beside this all-night march from Great Meadows to Washington's Spring, Wolfe's ascent to the Plains of Abraham at Quebec was a pastime. A man in full daylight today can walk over Washington's five-mile course to Laurel Hill in one-fifth of the time that little army needed on that black night. If a more difficult ten-hour night march has been made in the history of warfare in America, who led it and where was it made? No feature of the campaign shows more clearly the unmatched, irresistible energy of this twenty-two-year-old boy. For those to whom Washington, the man, is "unknown," there are lessons in this little path today, of value far beyond their cost.

Whether Washington intended to attack the French before he reached Half King, is not known; at the spring a conference was held and it was immediately decided to attack. Washington did not know and could not have known that Jumonville was an amba.s.sador. The action of the French in approaching Great Meadows and then withdrawing and hiding was not the behavior of an emba.s.sy. Half King and his Indians were of opinion that the French party entertained evil designs, and, as Washington afterwards wrote, "if we had been such fools as to let them [the French] go, they would never have helped us to take any other Frenchmen."

Two scouts were sent out in advance; then, in Indian file, Washington and his men with Half King and a few Indians followed and "prepared to surround them."

Laurel Hill, the most westerly range of the Alleghanies, trends north and south through western Pennsylvania. In Fayette county, about one mile on the summit northward from the c.u.mberland Road, lies Washington's Spring where Half King encamped. The Indian trail coursed along the summit northward fifteen miles to Gist's. On the eastern side, Laurel Hill descends into a valley varying from a hundred to five hundred feet deep. Nearly two miles from the spring, in the bottom of a valley four hundred feet deep, lay Jumonville's "emba.s.sy." The attacking party, guided by Indians, who had previously wriggled down the hillside on their bellies and found the French, advanced along the Indian trail and then turned off and began stealthily creeping down the mountainside.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEDGE FROM WHICH WASHINGTON OPENED FIRE UPON JUMONVILLE'S PARTY]

Washington's plan was, clearly, to surround and capture the French. It is plain he did not understand the ground. They were encamped in the bottom of a valley two hundred yards wide and more than a mile long.

Moreover, the hillside on which the English were descending abruptly ended on a narrow ledge of perpendicular rocks thirty feet high and a hundred yards long.

Coming suddenly out on the rocks, Washington leading the right division of the party and Half King the left, it was plain in the twinkling of an eye that it would be impossible to achieve a bloodless victory.

Washington therefore gave and received first fire. It was fifteen minutes before the astonished but doughty French, probably now surrounded by Half King's Indians, were compelled to surrender. Ten of their number, including the "amba.s.sador" Jumonville, were killed outright and one wounded. Twenty-one were taken prisoners. One Frenchman escaped, running half clothed through the forests to Fort Duquesne with the evil tidings.

"We killed," writes Washington, "Mr. de Jumonville, the Commander of that party, as also nine others; we wounded one and made twenty-one prisoners, among whom were _M. La Force, M. Drouillon_ and two cadets.

The Indians scalped the dead and took away the greater part of their arms, after which we marched on with the prisoners under guard to the _Indian_ camp.... I marched on with the prisoners. _They informed me that they had been sent with a summons to order me to retire._ A plausible pretence to discover our camp and to obtain knowledge of our forces and our situation! It was so clear that they were come to reconnoiter what we were, that I admired their a.s.surance, when they told me they were come as an Emba.s.sy; their instructions were to get what knowledge they could of the roads, rivers, and all the country as far as the Potomac; and instead of coming as an Emba.s.sador, publicly and in an open manner, they came secretly, and sought the most hidden retreats more suitable for deserters than for Emba.s.sadors; they encamped there and remained hidden for whole days together, at a distance of not more than five miles from us; they sent spies to reconnoiter our camp; the whole body turned back 2 miles; they sent the two messengers mentioned in the instruction, to inform M. de Contrecoeur of the place where we were, and of our disposition, that he might send his detachments to enforce the summons as soon as it should be given. Besides, an Emba.s.sador has princely attendants, whereas this was only a simple petty _French_ officer, an Emba.s.sador has no need of spies, his person being always sacred: and seeing their intention was so good, why did they tarry two days at five miles' distance from us without acquainting me with the summons, or at least, with something that related to the Emba.s.sy? That alone would be sufficient to excite the strongest suspicions, and we must do them the justice to say, that, as they wanted to hide themselves, they could not have picked out better places than they had done. The summons was so insolent, and savored of so much Gasconade, that if it had been brought openly by two men it would have been an excessive Indulgence to have suffered them to return.... They say they called to us as soon as they had discovered us; which is an absolute falsehood, for I was then marching at the head of the company going towards them, and can positively affirm, that, when they first saw us, they ran to their arms, without calling, as I must have heard them had they so done."[9]

In a letter to his brother, Washington wrote: "I fortunately escaped without any wound; for the right wing where I stood, was exposed to, and received all the enemy's fire; and it was the part where the man was killed and the rest wounded. I heard the bullets whistle; and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound." The letter was published in the _London Magazine_. It is said George II. read it and commented dryly: "He would not say so if he had been used to hear many." In later years Washington heard too much of the fatal music, and once, when asked if he had written such rodomontade is said to have answered gravely, "If I said so, it was when I was young." Aye, but it is memorials of that daring young Virginian, to whom whistling bullets were charming, that we seek in the Alleghanies today. We catch a similar glimpse of his ardent, boyish spirit in a letter written from Fort Necessity later.

Speaking of strengthening the fortifications, Washington writes: "We have, with nature's a.s.sistance, made a good intrenchment, and by clearing the bushes out of these meadows, prepared a charming field for an encounter." Over and above the anxieties with which he was ever beset, there shines out clearly the exuberance of boyish zest and valor--soon to be hardened and quenched by innumerable cares and heavy responsibilities.