History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 40

When the a.s.sembly met in October, 1754, they granted twenty thousand pounds for the public exigencies; Maryland and New York also contributed their quotas to the common cause; and Dinwiddie received ten thousand pounds from England. He now enlarged the Virginia forces to ten companies, under the pretext of peremptory orders from England, and made each of them independent, with a view, as was alleged, of terminating the disputes between the regular and provincial officers respecting command. The effect of this upon Washington would have been to reduce him to the grade of captain, and to subject him to officers whom he had commanded; officers of the same rank, but holding the king's commission, would rank before him. This would have been the more mortifying to him, after the catastrophe of the Great Meadows. He, therefore, although his inclinations were still strongly bent to arms, resigned, and pa.s.sed the winter at Mount Vernon. He was now twenty-two years of age.

In the meanwhile Horatio Sharpe, professionally a military man, and Lord Baltimore's lieutenant-governor of Maryland, was appointed by the crown commander-in-chief of the forces against the French. Colonel William Fitzhugh, of Virginia, who was to command in the absence of Sharpe, had endeavored to persuade Washington to continue in the service, retaining for the present his commission of colonel. Replying in November, 1754, he said: "If you think me capable of holding a commission that has neither rank nor emolument annexed to it, you must entertain a very contemptible opinion of my weakness, and believe me to be more empty than the commission itself." Washington was dissatisfied with Dinwiddie's action in this matter.

The population of the American colonies at this period was estimated at 1,485,000, of whom 292,000 were blacks, and the number of fighting men 240,000; while the French population in Canada was not over 90,000.

Virginia was reckoned the first of the colonies in power, Ma.s.sachusetts the second, Pennsylvania the third, and Maryland the fourth; and either one of these had greater resources than Canada. Yet the power of the French was more concentrated; they were better fitted for the emergencies of the war, and they had more regular troops.[471:A] The colonies were not united in purpose; and the Virginians were described by Dinwiddie as "an indolent people, and without military ardor."

Sharpe's appointment was sent over by Arthur Dobbs, Governor of North Carolina, who arrived in Hampton Roads on the first of October. Sharpe, proceeding to Williamsburg, concerted with Dinwiddie and Dobbs a plan of operations against Fort Du Quesne. This plan was abandoned, owing to intelligence of the French being re-enforced by numerous Indian allies.

In February, 1755, General Edward Braddock, newly appointed commander-in-chief of all the military forces in America, arrived in Virginia with a small part of the troops of the intended expedition, the remainder arriving afterwards, being two British regiments, each consisting of five hundred men, the forty-fourth commanded by Sir Peter Halket, the forty-eighth by Colonel Dunbar. Braddock went immediately to Williamsburg to confer with Dinwiddie. Sir John St. Clair, who had come over to America some time before, was already there awaiting the general's arrival.

In compliance with Braddock's invitation, dated the second of March, Washington entered his military family as a volunteer, retaining his former rank. This proceeding aroused his mother's tender solicitude, and she hastened to Mount Vernon to give expression to it.

From Williamsburg Braddock proceeded to Alexandria, then sometimes called Belhaven, the original name, where he made his headquarters, the troops being quartered in that place and the neighborhood until they marched for Will's Creek. On the thirteenth of April the governors of Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, met General Braddock at Alexandria, to concert a plan of operations.

Washington was courteously received by the governors, especially by Shirley, with whose manners and character he was quite fascinated.

Overtaking Braddock (who marched from Alexandria on the twentieth) at Frederictown, Maryland, he accompanied him to Winchester, and thence to Fort c.u.mberland. Early in May Washington was made an aid-de-camp to the general. Being dispatched to Williamsburg to convey money for the army-chest, he returned to the camp with it on the thirtieth.

The army consisted of the two regiments of British regulars, together originally one thousand men, and augmented by Virginia and Maryland levies to fourteen hundred. The Virginia captains were Waggener, c.o.c.k, Hogg, Stephen, Poulson, Peyrouny, Mercer, and Stuart. The provincials included the fragments of two independent companies from New York, one of which was commanded by Captain Horatio Gates, afterwards a major-general in the revolutionary war. Of the remaining provincials one hundred were pioneers and guides, called Hatchetmen: there were besides a troop of Virginia light-horse, and a few Indians. Thirty sailors were detached by Commodore Keppel, commander of the fleet that brought over the forces. The total effective force was about two thousand one hundred and fifty, and they were accompanied by the usual number of non-combatants. The army was detained by the difficulty of procuring provisions and conveyances. The apathy of the legislatures and the bad faith of the contractors, so irritated Braddock that he indulged in sweeping denunciations against the colonies. These led to frequent disputes between him and Washington, who found the exasperated general deaf to his arguments on that subject. The plan suggested by him of employing pack-horses for transportation, instead of wagons, was afterwards in some measure adopted.

Benjamin Franklin, deputy postmaster-general of the colonies, who, at Governor Shirley's instance, had accompanied him to the congress at Alexandria, visited Braddock at Frederictown, for the purpose of opening a post-route between Will's Creek and Philadelphia. Learning the general's embarra.s.sment, he undertook to procure the requisite number of wagons and horses from the Pennsylvania farmers. Issuing a handbill addressed to their interests and their fears, and exciting among the Germans an apprehension of an arbitrary impressment to be enforced by Sir John St. Clair, "the Hussar," he was soon able to provide the general with the means of transportation.[473:A] It was a long time before Franklin recovered compensation for the farmers; Governor Shirley at length paid the greater part of the amount, twenty thousand pounds; but it is said that owing to the neglect of Lord Loudoun, Franklin was never wholly repaid. Washington and Franklin were both held in high estimation by Braddock, and they were unconsciously co-operating with him in a war destined in its unforeseen consequences to dismember the British empire.

Braddock's army, with its baggage extending (along a road twelve feet wide) sometimes four miles in length, moved from Fort c.u.mberland, at the mouth of Will's Creek, early in June, and advanced slowly and with difficulty, five miles being considered a good day's march. There was much sickness among the soldiers: Washington was seized with a fever, and obliged to travel in a covered wagon. Braddock, however, continued to consult him, and he advised the general to disenc.u.mber himself of his heavy guns and unnecessary baggage, to leave them with a rear division, and to press forward expeditiously to Fort Du Quesne. In a council of war it was determined that Braddock should advance as rapidly as possible with twelve hundred select men, and Colonel Dunbar follow on slowly with a rear-guard of about six hundred,--a number of the soldiers being disabled by sickness. The advance corps proceeded only nineteen miles in four days, losing occasionally a straggler, cut off by the French and Indian scouts. Trees were found near the road stripped of their barks and painted, and on them the French had written many of their names and the number of scalps recently taken, with many insolent threats and scurrilous bravados.

Washington was now (by the general's order) compelled to stop, his physician declaring that his life would be jeoparded by a continuance with the army, and Braddock promising that he should be brought up with it before it reached Fort Du Quesne. On the day before the battle of the Monongahela, Washington, in a wagon, rejoined the army, at the mouth of the Youghiogany River, and fifteen miles from Fort Du Quesne. On the morning of Wednesday, the 9th of July, 1755, the troops, in high spirits, confident of entering the gates of Fort Du Quesne triumphantly in a few hours, crossed the Monongahela, and advanced along the southern margin. Washington, in after-life, was heard to declare it the most beautiful spectacle that he had ever witnessed--the brilliant uniform of the soldiers, arranged in columns and marching in exact order; the sun gleaming on their burnished arms; the Monongahela flowing tranquilly by on the one hand, on the other, the primeval forest projecting its shadows in sombre magnificence. At one o'clock the army again crossed the river at a second ford ten miles from Fort Du Quesne. From the river a level plain extends northward nearly half a mile, thence the ground, gradually ascending, terminates in hills. The road from the fording-place to the fort led across this plain, up this ascent, and through an uneven country covered with woods.[474:A] Beyond the plain on both sides of the road were ravines unnoticed by the English. Three hundred men, under Lieutenant-Colonel Gage, subsequently commander of the British troops at Boston, made the advanced party, and it was immediately followed by another of two hundred. Next came Braddock with the artillery, the main body, and the baggage. Brigadier-General Sir Peter Halket was second in command. No sooner had the army crossed the river, at the second ford, than a sharp firing was heard upon the advanced parties, who were now ascending the hill about a hundred yards beyond the edge of the plain.[475:A]

At an early hour De Beaujeu had been detached from Fort Du Quesne, at the head of about two hundred and thirty French and Canadians, and six hundred and thirty Indian savages, with the design of attacking the English at an advantageous ground selected on the preceding evening.

Before reaching it he came upon the English. The greater part of Gage's command was advanced beyond the spot where the main battle was fought, when Mr. Gordon, one of the engineers in front marking out the road, perceived the enemy bounding forward. Before them with long leaps came Beaujeu, the gay hunting-shirt and silver gorget denoting him as the chief. Halting he waved his hat above his head, and at this signal the Indians dispersed themselves to the right and left, throwing themselves flat on the ground, or gliding behind rocks and trees into the ravines.

The French occupied the centre of the Indian semicircle, and a fierce attack was commenced. Gage's troops, recovering from their first surprise, opened a fire of grape and musketry. Beaujeu and twelve others fell dead upon the spot; the Indians, astonished by the report of the cannon, began to fly. Rallied by Dumas, who succeeded Beaujeu, they resumed the combat: the French in front, the Indians on the flank. For a time the issue was doubtful: cries of "Vive le Roi" were answered by the cheers of the English. But while the officers of the Forty-fourth led on their men with waving swords, the enemy, concealed in the woods and ravines, secure and invisible, kept up a steady, well-aimed, and fatal fire. Their position was only discovered by the smoke of their muskets.

Gage, not reinforcing his flanking parties, they were driven in, and the English, instead of advancing upon the hidden enemy, returned a random and ineffectual fire in full column.

In the mean time Braddock sent forward Lieutenant-Colonel Burton with the vanguard. And while he was forming his men to face a rising ground on the right, the advanced detachment, overwhelmed with consternation by the savage war-whoop and the mysterious danger, fell back upon him in great confusion, communicating a panic from which they could not be recovered. Braddock now came up and endeavored to form the two regiments under their colors, but neither entreaties nor threats could prevail.

The baggage in the rear was attacked, and many horses killed; some of the drivers fell, the rest escaped by flight. Two of the cannon flanking the baggage for some time protected it from the Indians; the others fired away most of their ammunition, and were of some service in awing the enemy, but could do but little execution against a concealed foe.

The enemy extended from front to rear, and fired upon every part at once. The general finding it impossible to persuade his men to advance, many officers falling, and no enemy appearing in sight, endeavored to effect a retreat in good order, but such was the panic that he could not succeed. They were loading as fast as possible and firing in the air.

Braddock and his officers made every effort to rally them, but in vain; in this confusion and dismay they remained in a road twelve feet wide, enclosed by woods, for three hours, huddled together, exposed to the insidious fire, doing the enemy little hurt, and shooting one another.

None of the survivors could afterwards say that they saw one hundred of the enemy, and many of the officers that were in the heat of the action would not a.s.sert that they saw one.[477:A]

The Virginia troops preserved their presence of mind, and behaved with the utmost bravery, adopting the Indian mode of combat, and fighting each man for himself behind a tree. This was done in spite of the orders of Braddock, who still endeavored to form his men into platoons and columns, as if they had been manoeuvring in the plains of Flanders or parading in Hyde Park. Washington and Sir Peter Halket in vain advised him to allow the men to shelter themselves: he stormed at such as attempted to take to the trees, calling them cowards, and striking them with his sword. Captain Waggoner, of the Virginia troops, resolved to take advantage of the trunk of a tree five feet in diameter, lying athwart the brow of a hill. With shouldered firelocks he marched a party of eighty men toward it, and losing but three men on the way, the remainder throwing themselves behind it, opened a hot fire upon the enemy. But no sooner were the flash and report of their muskets perceived by the mob behind, than a general discharge was poured upon them, by which fifty were killed and the rest compelled to fly.[477:B]

The French and Indians, concealed in deep ravines, and behind trees, and logs, and high gra.s.s, and tangled undergrowth, kept up a deadly fire, singling out their victims. The mounted officers were especially aimed at, and shortly after the commencement of the engagement, Washington was the only aid not wounded. Although still feeble from the effects of his illness, on him now was devolved the whole duty of carrying the general's orders, and he rode a conspicuous mark in every direction. Two horses were killed under him, four bullets penetrated his coat, but he escaped unhurt, while every other officer on horseback was either killed or wounded. Dr. Craik afterwards said: "I expected every moment to see him fall. His duty and situation exposed him to every danger. Nothing but the superintending care of Providence could have saved him from the fate of all around him." Washington, writing to his brother, said: "By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation, for I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was levelling my companions on every side."

More than half of the army were killed or wounded, two-thirds of them, according to Washington's conjecture, by their own bullets; Sir Peter Halket was killed on the field; Shirley, Braddock's secretary, was shot through the head; Colonels Burton, Gage, and Orme, Major Sparks, Brigade-Major Halket, Captain Morris, etc., were wounded. Out of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed and thirty-seven wounded.

The whole number of killed was estimated at four hundred and fifty-six, wounded four hundred and twenty one, the greater part of whom were brought off; the aggregate loss, eight hundred and seventy-seven. The enemy's force, variously estimated, did not exceed eight hundred and fifty men, of whom six hundred, it was conjectured, were Indians. The French loss was twenty-eight killed, including three officers, one of whom, Beaujeu, was chief in command; and twenty-nine badly wounded, including two officers. The French and Indians being covered by ravines, the b.a.l.l.s of the English pa.s.sed harmless over their heads; while a charge with the bayonet, or raking the ravines with cannon, would have at once driven them from their lurking places, and put them to flight, or, at the least, dispersed them in the woods. Any movement would have been better than standing still.

During the action, or ma.s.sacre, of three hours, Braddock had three horses killed under him, and two disabled. At five o'clock in the afternoon, while beneath a large tree standing between the heads of two ravines, and in the act of giving an order, he received a mortal wound.

Falling from his horse, he lay helpless on the ground, surrounded by the dead. His army having fired away all their ammunition, now fled in disorder back to the Monongahela. Pursued to the water's edge by a party of savages, the regulars threw away arms, accoutrements, and even clothing, that they might run the faster. Many were tomahawked at the fording-place; but those who crossed were not pursued, as the Indians returned to the harvest of plunder. The provincials, better acquainted with Indian warfare were less disconcerted, and retreated with more composure.

Not one of his British soldiers could be prevailed upon to stay and aid in bearing off the wounded general. In vain Orme offered them a purse of sixty guineas. Braddock begged his faithful friends to provide for their own safety, and declared his resolution to die on the field. Orme disregarded these desperate injunctions; and Captain Stewart, of the Virginia Light-horse, (attached to the general's person,) and his servant, together with another American officer, hastening to Orme's relief, brought off Braddock, at first on a small tumbrel, then on a horse, lastly by the soldiers.

According to Washington's account, in a letter written to Dinwiddie: "They were struck with such an inconceivable panic, that nothing but confusion and disobedience of orders prevailed among them. The officers in general behaved with incomparable bravery, for which they greatly suffered, there being upwards of sixty killed and wounded, a large proportion out of what we had. The Virginia companies behaved like men and died like soldiers; for, I believe, out of three companies on the ground that day, scarcely thirty men were left alive. Captain Peyrouny, a Frenchman by birth, and all his officers down to a corporal, were killed. Captain Poulson had almost as hard a fate, for only one of his escaped. In short, the dastardly behavior of the regular troops (so called) exposed those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death; and, at length, in spite of every effort to the contrary, they broke and ran like sheep before hounds, leaving the artillery, ammunition, provisions, baggage, and, in short, everything a prey to the enemy; and when we endeavored to rally them in hopes of regaining the ground and what we had left upon it, it was with as little success as if we had attempted to have stopped the wild bears of the mountains, or the rivulets with our feet; for they would break by in spite of every effort to prevent it."

Braddock was brave and accomplished in European tactics; but not an officer of that comprehensive genius which knows how to bend and accommodate himself to circ.u.mstances. Burke says that a wise statesman knows how to be governed by circ.u.mstances: the maxim applies as well to a military commander. Braddock, headstrong, pa.s.sionate, irritated, not without just grounds, against the provinces, and pursuing the policy of the British government to rely mainly on the forces sent over, and to treat the colonial troops as inferior and only secondary, rejected the proposal of Washington to lead in advance the provincials, who, accustomed to border warfare, knew better how to cope with a savage foe.[480:A] Braddock, however, showed that although he could not retrieve these errors, nor reclaim a degenerate soldiery, he could at any rate fall like a soldier.[480:B]

Although no further pursued, the remainder of the army continued their flight during the night and the next day. Braddock continued for two days to give orders; and it was in compliance with them that the greater part of the artillery, ammunition, and other stores were destroyed. It was not until the thirteenth that the general uttered a word, except for military directions. He then bestowed the warmest praise on his gallant officers, and bequeathed, as is said, his charger, and his body-servant, Bishop, to Washington.[480:C] The dying Braddock e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in reference to the defeat, "Who would have thought it?" Turning to Orme he remarked, "We shall better know how to deal with them another time;" and in a few moments expired, at eight o'clock, in the evening of Sunday, the 13th of July, 1755, at the Great Meadows. On the next morning he was buried in the road, near Fort Necessity, Washington, in the absence of the chaplain, who was wounded, reading the funeral service. Washington retired to Mount Vernon, oppressed with the sad retrospect of the recent disaster. But his reputation was greatly elevated by his signal gallantry on this occasion. Such dreary portals open the road of fame.

The green and bosky scene of battle was strewn with the wounded and the dead. Toward evening the forest resounded with the exulting cries and war-whoop of the returning French and Indians, the firing of small arms, and the responsive roar of the cannon at the fort. A lonely American prisoner confined there listened during this anxious day to the various sounds, and with peering eye explored the scene. Presently he saw the greater part of the savages, painted and blood-stained, bringing scalps, and rejoicing in the possession of grenadiers' caps, and the laced hats and splendid regimentals of the English officers. Next succeeded the French, escorting a long train of pack-horses laden with plunder. Last of all, just before sunset, appeared a party of Indians conducting twelve British regulars, naked, their faces blackened, their hands tied behind them. In a short while they were burned to death on the opposite bank of the Ohio, with every circ.u.mstance of studied barbarity and inhuman torture, the French garrison crowding the ramparts of the fort to witness the spectacle.

The remains of the defeated detachment retreated to the rear division in precipitate disorder, leaving the road behind them strewed with signs of the disaster. Shortly after, Colonel Dunbar marched with the remaining regulars to Philadelphia. Colonel Washington returned home, mortified and indignant at the conduct of the regular troops.

FOOTNOTES:

[470:A] Chalmers' Revolt, ii. 353.

[471:A] Chalmers' Revolt, ii. 273.

[473:A] Gordon's Hist. of Pa.; Braddock's Expedition, 163.

[474:A] A plan of the ground is given in Washington's Writings, ii. 90.

[475:A] The surprise of the Roman army under t.i.turius Sabinus on his march, by the Gauls (as described by Caesar) resembles Braddock's defeat in several particulars.

"At hostes, posteaquam ex nocturno fremitu vigiliis que de profectione eorum senserunt, collocatis insidiis bipart.i.to in silvis opportuno atque occulto loco, a millibus pa.s.suum circiter duobus, Romanorum adventum expectabant: et c.u.m se major pars agminis in magnam convallem demisisset, ex utraque parte ejus vallis subito se ostenderunt, novissimosque premere et primos prohibere ascensu atque iniquissimo nostris loco proelium committere coeperunt." Lucius Cotta was the Washington of that defeat: but he fell in the general ma.s.sacre. "At Cotta qui cogita.s.set haec posse in itinere accidere, atque ob eam causam profectionis auctor non fuisset, nulla in re communi saluti deerat, et in appellandis cohortandisque militibus, imperatoris, et in pugna, militis officia praestabat."

The following sentence describes the war-whoop: "Tum vero suo more victoriam conclamant, atque ululatum tollunt, impetuque in nostros facto, ordines perturbant."

[477:A] Bancroft, iv. 189.

[477:B] Braddock's Expedition, 231.

[480:A] Chalmers' Hist. of Revolt, ii. 276. True to his unvarying prejudice against the colonies, he justifies the conduct of Braddock.

[480:B] The History of Braddock's Expedition, by Winthrop Sargent, Esq., is full, elaborate, and authentic. The volume, a beautiful specimen of typography, was printed, 1856, by Messrs. J. B. Lippincott & Co., for the Pennsylvania Historical Society. I am indebted to Townsend Ward, Esq., Librarian, for a copy of it.

[480:C] Gilbert, a slave, is said to have been with Washington at the battle of the Monongahela, and at the siege of York. John Alton is likewise mentioned as a servant attending him during Braddock's expedition.

CHAPTER LXII.

1755-1756.

St.i.th--Davies visits England and Scotland--Patriotic Discourse-- Waddel, the Blind Preacher--Washington made Colonel of Virginia Regiment--Indian Incursions--Washington visits Boston.

DURING the year 1755 died the Rev. William St.i.th, president of the College of William and Mary, and author of an excellent "History of Virginia," from the first settlement to the dissolution of the London Company. He was of exemplary character and catholic spirit, a friend of well-regulated liberty, and a true patriot.

The Rev. Samuel Davies, during the year 1754, went on a mission to England and Scotland for the purpose of raising a fund for the endowment of a college at Princeton, New Jersey. His eloquence commanded admiration in the mother country. The English Presbyterians he found sadly fallen away from the doctrines of the Reformation, and their clergy, although learned and able, deeply infected with the "modish divinity"--Socinianism and Arminianism. In Scotland, where he met a warm welcome, he found the young clergy no less imbued with the "modish divinity," and the cause of religion and the spiritual independence of the kirk lamentably impaired by the overweening influence of secular patronage. Davies was of opinion that in genuine piety the Methodists, who commenced their reform in the Church of England, ranked the highest.