Historic Highways of America Volume IV Part 1

Historic Highways of America.

Vol. 4.

by Archer Butler Hulbert.

PREFACE

The French were invariably defeated by the British on this continent because the latter overcame natural obstacles which the former blindly trusted as insurmountable. The French made a league with the Alleghenies--and Washington and Braddock and Forbes conquered the Alleghenies; the French, later, blindly trusted the crags at Louisbourg and Quebec--and the dauntless Wolfe, in both instances, accomplished the seemingly impossible.

The building of Braddock's Road in 1755 across the Alleghenies was the first significant token in the West of the British grit which finally overcame. Few roads ever cost so much, ever amounted to so little at first, and then finally played so important a part in the development of any continent.

A. B. H.

CHAPTER I

ROUTES OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH WESTWARD

If Providence had reversed the decree which allowed Frenchmen to settle the St. Lawrence and Englishmen the middle Atlantic seaboard, and, instead, had brought Englishmen to Quebec and Frenchmen to Jamestown, it is sure that the English conquest of the American continent would not have cost the time and blood it did.

The Appalachian mountain system proved a tremendous handicap to Saxon conquest. True, there were waterways inland, the Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, James, and Potomac rivers, but these led straight into the mountains where for generations the feeble settlements could not spread and where explorers became disheartened ere the rich empire beyond was ever reached.

The St. Lawrence, on the other hand, offered a rough but sure course tempting ambitious men onward to the great lake system from which it flowed, and the Ottawa River offered yet another course to the same splendid goal. So, while the stolid English were planting sure feet along the seaboard, New France was spreading by leaps and bounds across the longitudes. But, wide-spread as these discoveries were, they were discoveries only--the feet of those who should occupy and defend the land discovered were heavy where the light paddle of the voyageur had glistened brightly beneath the noon-day sun. It was one thing to seek out such an empire and quite another thing to occupy and fortify it. The French reached the Mississippi at the beginning of the last quarter of the seventeenth century; ten years after the middle of the eighteenth they lost all the territory between the Atlantic and Mississippi--though during the last ten years of their possession they had attempted heroically to take the nine st.i.tches where a generation before the proverbial one st.i.tch would have been of twenty-fold more advantage. The transportation of arms and stores upstream into the interior, around the foaming rapids and thundering falls that impeded the way, was painfully arduous labor, and the inspiration of the swift explorers, flushed with fevered dreams, was lacking to the heavy trains which toiled so far in the rear.

There were three points at which the two nations, France and England, met and struck fire in the interior of North America, and in each instance it was the French who were the aggressors--because of the easy means of access which they had into the disputed frontier region. They came up the Chaudiere and down the Kennebec or up the Richelieu and Lake Champlain, striking at the heart of New England; they ascended the St.

Lawrence and entered Lake Ontario, coveted and claimed by the Province of New York; they pushed through Lake Ontario and down the Allegheny to the Ohio River, which Virginia loved and sought to guard. The French tried to guard these three avenues of approach by erecting fortresses on the Richelieu River, on Lakes Champlain, Ontario, and Erie, and on the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. These forts were the weights on the net which the French were stretching from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi. And when that net was drawn taut New England and New York and Virginia would be swept into the sea!

It was a splendid scheme--but the weights were not heavy enough. After interminable blunders and delays the English broke into the net and then by desperate floundering tore it to fragments. They reached the line of forts by three routes, each difficult and hazardous, for in any case vast stretches of forests were to be pa.s.sed; and until the very last, the French had strong Indian allies who guarded these forests with valor worthy of a happier cause. New England defended herself by ascending the Hudson and crossing the portage to Lake George and Lake Champlain. New York ascended the Mohawk and, crossing the famous Oneida portage to Odeida Lake, descended the Onondaga River to Oswego on Lake Ontario.

Virginia spreading out, according to her unchallenged claims, across the entire continent, could only reach the French on the Ohio by ascending the Potomac to a point near the mouth of Wills Creek, whence an Indian path led northwestward over a hundred miles to the Monongahela, which was descended to its junction with the Ohio. The two former routes, to Lake Champlain and to Lake Ontario, were, with short portages, practically all-water routes, over which provisions and army stores could be transported northward to the zone into which the French had likewise come by water-routes. The critical points of both routes of both hostile nations were the strategic portages where land travel was rendered imperative by the difficulties of navigation. On these portages many forts instantly sprang into existence--in some instances mere posts and entrepots, in some cases strongly fortified citadels.

The route from Virginia to the Ohio Valley, finally made historic by the English General Braddock, was by far the most difficult of all the ways by which the English could meet the French. The Potomac was navigable for small boats at favorable seasons for varying distances; but beyond the mountains the first water reached, the Youghiogheny, was useless for military purposes, as Washington discovered during the march of the Virginia Regiment, 1754. The route had, however, been marked out under the direction of Captain Thomas Cresap, for the Ohio Company, and was, at the time of Washington's expedition, the most accessible pa.s.sageway from Virginia to the "Forks of the Ohio." The only other Virginian thoroughfare westward brought the traveller around into the valley of the Great Kanawha which empties into the Ohio two hundred odd miles below the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. It was over this slight trail by Wills Creek, Great Meadows, and the Forks of the Ohio that Washington had gone in 1753 to the French forts on French Creek; and it was this path that the same undaunted youth widened, the year after, in order to haul his swivels westward with the vanguard of Colonel Fry's army which was to drive the French from the Ohio.

Washington's Road--as Nemacolin's Path should, in all conscience, be known--was widened to the summit of Mount Braddock. From Mount Braddock Washington's little force retraced their steps over the road they had built in the face of the larger French army sent against them until they were driven to bay in their little fortified camp, Fort Necessity, in Great Meadows, where the capitulation took place after an all-day's battle. Marching out with the honors of war, the remnant of this first English army crawled painfully back to Wills Creek. All this took place in the summer of 1754.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENGLISH AND FRENCH ROUTES TO THE OHIO (1756) [_From the original in the British Museum_]]

The inglorious campaign ending thus in dismay was of considerably more moment than its dejected survivors could possibly have imagined. Small as were the numbers of contestants on both sides, and distant though the scene of conflict might have been, the peace between England and France was at this moment poised too delicately not to be disturbed by even the faintest roll of musketry in the distant unknown Alleghenies.

Washington had been able neither to fight successfully nor to avoid a battle by conducting a decent retreat because the reinforcements expected from Virginia were not sent him. These "reinforcements" were Rutherford's and Clarke's Independent Companies of Foot which Governor Dinwiddie had ordered from New York to Virginia but which did not arrive in Hampton Roads until the eighth of June. On the first of September these troops were marched to Wills Creek, where, being joined by Captain Demerie's Independent Company from South Carolina, they began, on the twelfth of September, the erection of a fort. The building of this fort by Virginia nearly a hundred miles west of Winchester (then a frontier post) is only paralleled by the energy of Ma.s.sachusetts in building two forts in the same year on the Kennebec River--Fort Western and Fort Halifax. New York had almost forgotten her frontier forts at Saratoga and Oswego, and the important portage between the Hudson and Lake George was undefended while the French were building both Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Frederick (Crown Point) on Lake Champlain. New York and New England could have seized and fortified Lake Champlain prior to French encroachment as easily as Virginia could fortify Wills Creek. Virginia, however, had been a.s.sisted from the royal chest, while the a.s.semblies of the other colonies were in the customary state of turmoil, governor against legislature. The intermediate province of Pennsylvania, home of the peaceful Quakers, looked askance upon the darkening war-clouds and had done little or nothing for the protection of her populous frontiers.

As a result, therefore, the Virginian route to the French, though longest and most difficult, was made, by the erection of Fort c.u.mberland at Wills Creek, at once the most conspicuous.

Fort c.u.mberland, named in honor of the Duke of c.u.mberland, Captain-general of the English Army, was located on an eminence between Wills Creek and the Potomac, two hundred yards from the former and about four hundred yards from the latter. Its length was approximately two hundred yards and its breadth nearly fifty yards; and "is built," writes an eye-witness in 1755, "by logs driven into the ground, and about 12 feet above it, with embrasures for 12 guns, and 10 mounted 4 pounders, besides stocks for swivels, and loop holes for small arms." As the accompanying map indicates, the fort was built with a view to the protection of the store-houses erected at the mouth of Wills Creek by the Ohio Company. This is another suggestion of the close connection between the commercial and military expansion of Virginia into the Ohio basin. Wherever a storehouse of the Ohio Company was erected a fort soon followed--with the exception of the strategic position at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela where English fort building was brought to a sudden end by the arrival of the French, who, on English beginnings, erected Fort Duquesne in 1754. A little fort at the mouth of Redstone Creek on the Monongahela had been erected in 1753 but that, together with the blasted remains of Fort Necessity, fell into the hands of the French in the campaign of 1754. Consequently, at the dawning of the memorable year 1755, Fort c.u.mberland was the most advanced English position in the West. The French Indian allies saw to it that it was safe for no Englishman to step even one pace nearer the Ohio; they skulked continually in the neighboring forests and committed many depredations almost within range of the guns of Fort c.u.mberland.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF FORT c.u.mBERLAND, AND VICINITY; DATED FEBRUARY, 1755 [_Showing buildings of the Ohio Company across the Potomac River_]

(_From the original in British Museum_)]

CHAPTER II

THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN

Governor Dinwiddie's zeal had increased in inverse ratio to the success of Virginian arms. After Washington's repulse at Fort Necessity he redoubled his energies, incited by a letter received from one of Washington's hostages at Fort Duquesne. Colonel Innes was appointed to command the Virginia troops and superintend the erection of Fort c.u.mberland, while Washington was ordered to fill up his depleted companies by enlistments and to move out again to Fort c.u.mberland.

Indeed it was only by objections urged in the very strongest manner that the inconsiderate Governor was deterred from launching another dest.i.tute and ill-equipped expedition into the snow-drifted Alleghenies.

But there was activity elsewhere than in Virginia during the winter of 1754-5. Contrecoeur, commanding at Fort Duquesne, sent clear reports of the campaign of 1754. The French cause was strengthening. The success of the French had had a wonderful effect on the indifferent Indians; hundreds before only half-hearted came readily under French domination.

All this was of utmost moment to New France, possibly of more importance than keeping her chain of forts to Quebec unbroken. As Joncaire, the drunken commander on the Allegheny, had told Washington in 1753, the English could raise two men in America to their one--but not including their Indians.

It is, probably, impossible for us to realize with what feelings the French antic.i.p.ated war with England on the American continent. The long campaigns in Europe had cost both nations much and had brought no return to either. Even Marshal Saxe's brilliant victories were purchased at a fabulous price, and, at the end, Louis had given up all that was gained in order to pose "as a Prince and not as a merchant." But in America there was a prize which both of these nations desired and which was worth fighting for--the grandest prize ever won in war! Between the French and English colonies lay this black forest stretching from Maine through New York and Pennsylvania and Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico. It seemed, to the French, the silliest dream imaginable for the English to plan to pierce this forest and conquer New France. To reach any of the French forts a long pa.s.sage by half-known courses through an inhospitable wilderness was necessary; and the French knew by a century of experience what a Herculean task it was to carry troops and stores over the inland water and land ways of primeval America. But for the task they had had much a.s.sistance from the Indians and were favored in many instances by the currents of these rivers; the English had almost no Indian allies and in every case were compelled to ascend their rivers to reach the French. However, the formation of the Ohio Company and the lively days of the summer of 1754 in the Alleghenies aroused France as nothing else could; here was one young Virginian officer who had found his way through the forests, and there was no telling how many more there might be like him. And France, tenfold more disturbed by Washington's campaign than there was need for, performed wonders during the winter of 1754-5. The story of the action at Fort Necessity was transmitted to London and was represented by the British amba.s.sadors at Paris as an open violation of the peace, "which did not meet with the same degree of respect," writes a caustic historian, "as on former occasions of complaint: the time now nearly approaching for the French to pull off the mask of moderation and peace."[1] As if to confirm this suspicion, the French marine became suddenly active, the Ministry ordered a powerful armament to be fitted at Brest; "in all these armaments," wrote the Earl of Holderness's secret agent, "there appeared a plain design to make settlements and to build forts; besides, that it was given out, they resolved to augment the fortifications at Louisburg, and to build more forts on the Ohio."[2]

But there was activity now in England, too. Governor Sharpe of Maryland, but lately appointed Commander-in-chief in America, had only a hint of what was being planned and was to have even less share in its accomplishment; in vain his friends extolled him as honest--"a little less honesty," declared George II, characteristically, "and a little more ability were more to be desired at the moment." And the rule worked on both sides of the Atlantic. American affairs had long been in the hands of the Secretary of the Board of Trade, the Duke of Newcastle, as perfect an a.s.s as ever held high office. He had opposed every policy that did not accord with his own "time serving selfishness" with a persistency only matched by his unparalleled ignorance. Once thrown into a panic, it is said, at a rumor that a large French army had been thrown into Cape Breton, he was asked where the necessary transports had been secured.

"Transports," he shrieked, "I tell you they marched by land!"

"By land, to the island of Cape Breton?" was the astonished reply.

"What, is Cape Breton an island? Are you sure of that?" and he ran away with an "Egad, I will go directly and tell the King that Cape Breton is an island!" It is not surprising that a government which could ever have tolerated such a man in high office should have neglected, then abused, and then lost its American colonies.

But Newcastle gave way to an abler man. The new campaign in North America was the conception of the Captain-general of the British Army, the Duke of c.u.mberland, hero of Culloden.

On November 14, 1754, King George opened Parliament with the statement that "His princ.i.p.al view should be to strengthen the foundation, and secure the duration of a general peace; to improve the present advantages of it for promoting the trade of his good subjects, and protecting those possessions which const.i.tute one great source of their wealth and commerce." Only in this vague way did His Majesty refer to the situation in America, lest he precipitate a debate; but Parliament took the cue and voted over four million pounds--one million of which was to be devoted to augmenting England's forces "by land and sea."

c.u.mberland's plan for the operations against the French in America had, sometime before, been forwarded to the point of selecting a Generalissimo to be sent to that continent. Major-General Edward Braddock was appointed to the service, upon the Duke of c.u.mberland's recommendation, on September 24.

Edward Braddock was a lieutenant-colonel of the line and a major of the Foot Guards, the choicest corps of the British army--a position which cost the holder no less than eighteen thousand dollars. He was born in Ireland but was not Irish, for neither Scot, Irish, nor Papist could aspire to the meanest rank of the Foot Guards. He was as old as his century. His promotion in the army had been jointly due to the good name of his father, Edward Braddock I, who was retired as Major-general in 1715, to his pa.s.sion for strict discipline, and to the favor of His Grace the Duke of c.u.mberland. Braddock's personal bravery was proverbial; it was said that his troops never faced a danger when their commander was not "greedy to lead." In private life he was dissolute; in disposition, "a very Iroquois," according to Walpole. Yet certain of his friends denied the brutality which many attributed to him. "As we were walking in the Park," one of Braddock's admirers has recorded, "we heard a poor fellow was to be chastized; when I requested the General to beg off the offender. Upon his application to the general officer, whose name was Dury, he asked Braddock, How long since he had divested himself of brutality and the insolence of his manner? To which the other replied, 'You never knew me insolent to my inferiors. It is only to such rude men as yourself that I behave with the spirit which I think they deserve.'"[3] And yet, when his sister f.a.n.n.y hanged herself with a silver girdle to her chamber door, after losing her fortune at the gaming tables, the brute of a brother observed, "I always thought she would play till she would be forced to tuck herself up." On the other hand it need not be forgotten that Braddock was for forty-three years in the service of the famed Coldstream Guards; that he probably conducted himself with courage in the Vigo expedition and in the Low Countries, and was a survivor of b.l.o.o.d.y Dettingen, Culloden, Fontenoy, and Bergen-op-Zoom. In 1753 he was stationed at Gibraltar where, "with all his brutality," writes Walpole, "he made himself adored, and where scarce any governor was endured before."[4]

Two months and one day after Braddock's commission was signed he received two letters of instructions, one from the King and one from the Duke of c.u.mberland. "For your better direction in discharge of y^e Trust thereby reposed in You," reads the King's letter, "We have judged it proper to give You the following Instructions." The doc.u.ment is divided into thirteen heads:

1. Two regiments of Foot commanded by Sir Peter Halket and Colonel Dunbar, with a train of artillery and necessary ships were ordered to "repair to North America."

2. Braddock ordered to proceed to America and take under his command these troops, cultivating meanwhile "a good understanding & correspondence with Aug. Keppel Esq^r." who was appointed commander of the American squadron.

3. Orders him also to take command of and properly distribute 3000 men which the Governors of the provinces had been ordered to raise to serve under Governor Shirley and Sir William Pepperell; informs him that Sir John St. Clair, deputy Quarter Master General, and Jas. Pitcher Esq^r., "our commissary of y^e musters, in North America," had been sent to prepare for the arrival of the troops from Ireland and for raising the troops in America. Upon Braddock's arrival he should inform himself of the progress of these preparations.

4. Provisions for the troops from Ireland had been prepared lest, upon arrival in America, they should be in want.

5. "Whereas, We have given Orders to our said Gov^{rs} to provide carefully a sufficient Quant.i.ty of fresh victuals for y^e use of our Troops at their arrival, & y^t they should also furnish all our officers who may have occasion to go from Place to Place, with all necessaries for travelling by Land, in case there are no means of going by Sea; & likewise, to observe and obey all such orders as shall be given by You or Persons appointed by you from time to time for quartering Troops, impressing Carriages, & providing all necessaries for such Forces as shall arrive or be raised in America, and y^t the s^d several Services shall be performed at the charge of y^e respective Governments, wherein the same shall happen. It is our Will & Pleasure y^t you should, pursuant thereto, apply to our s^d Governors, or any of them, upon all such Exigencies."

6. The Governors had been directed "to endeavor to prevail upon y^e a.s.semblies of their respective Provinces to raise forthwith as large a sum as can be afforded as their contribution to a common Fund, to be employed provisionally for y^e general Service in North America."

Braddock was urged to a.s.sist in this and have great care as to its expenditure.

7. Concerns Braddock's relations with the colonial governors; especially directing that a Council of War which shall include them be formed to determine, by majority vote, matters upon which no course has been defined.