George found, further, that the Governor of Virginia now had lost standing with the General and shared in Braddock’s eyes the undependability of the soldiers of the Old Dominion. One of Dinwiddie’s contractors had failed to deliver cattle he had promised; Michael Cresap had repeated his father’s performance of 1754 and had not sent to Wills Creek an adequate supply of flour; Thomas Cresap had attempted to sell pickled meat so bad that it was condemned and buried. In wrath and desperation, Braddock had been compelled to return wagons all the way to Winchester for provisions and had been forced to dispatch 300 pack horses to the Conococheague for flour. Only the 150 vehicles promised by Franklin and about 500 of the desired 1500 pack animals had been delivered in specific and punctual performance of contracts. Little had been accomplished with the Indians. The soldiers had found some of the Indian girls not unattractive and altogether obliging, with the result that patrols had to be organized to scour the woods where assignations were being held. Stern and still sterner penalties had been imposed on soldiers who gave or sold liquor to the Indians. Most of the savages were offended by the severity of the camp regulations; the troops, in turn, were demoralized by the presence of native women. Drunkenness, theft and gambling were increasing.
Braddock had fixed his order of march and had designated Major Chapman to move with five hundred men to the Little Meadows, in order to improve the trail, construct a small fort and establish an advanced store of provisions. This was the only action Braddock took toward the establishment of an advance base. In every other respect he proposed to move his men, artillery and wagons directly to the Ohio from Fort Cumberland, which thus became his general base. This projected march from Wills Creek to Fort DuQuesne was in six stages. The distance to be covered was about 110 miles, the greater part of it through rough, heavily wooded country. The column had to be self-sustaining because the country itself would supply nothing.
The march of Chapman’s advanced force was under way when George rode into camp. British officers were appalled by the difficulties presented on this first stretch of a long, long road. Such warnings as George and the frontiersmen had felt themselves free to give Braddock had failed to prepare the General for the realities of the road. Concern and irritation increased in the camp—concern because a bloody flux had shown itself widely among the soldiers and irritation because Braddock had lost all patience and no longer could argue anything without wrath. Consideration and every quality of moderation were thrown away. Convinced more than ever of slothfulness, rascality and lack of truth among the Colonials, the General would concede no virtue to any of them otherwise than to admit that Franklin had kept the contract to deliver 150 wagons. Braddock often renewed his arraignment of the Virginians and Marylanders before George, who would defend them against sweeping allegations. George’s resentment would have been even greater had he seen the dispatches the General was sending the home government: The Virginians were “very indifferent men”; there was “want of honesty and inclination to forward the service”; the promises of the people of Virginia and Maryland were “not to be depended on”—and so, endlessly.
On June 10 Lt. Col. Ralph Burton reported to Braddock that he had taken two days to move the train of artillery and wagons five miles and reminded the General that the road over which they had passed at so slow a pace was better than they could expect farther on. The horses available simply could not haul the loads they had. It was found that the wagons brought from England had too much weight of their own and carried shafts too wide for the light American horse. The return of these wagons to Fort Cumberland for exchange left the expedition with small net gain in vehicles. The “King’s wagons” had been fitted and used to carry powder. The Colonial wagons had to be protected against the weather when it was decided to use them for the explosive. Two days were devoted to preparing the vehicles and shifting the powder.
Then the column started again. George watched, counselled, and in the memory of his own difficulty in crossing the mountains, became convinced that success demanded a further reduction of transport. More particularly there had to be an increase in the number of pack animals at the front, even though it was manifest that the inferior creatures supplied for the expedition would carry only half the load that could be borne by strong horses.
Washington was unhappily accurate in his forecast. The first “division” marched about five miles on the thirteenth and went into camp, but the second “division” did not cover that distance until the fourteenth. Men and horses were so worn that Braddock had to order a day’s rest. George shared the day of idleness, but he did not get refreshment. Instead he developed fever and sharp pains in his head, symptoms that might mean typhoid fever or the bloody flux, or, as he hoped, merely a brief indisposition. He found he could not remain in his saddle. Much as he disliked it, he had to get permission to ride in one of the wagons while the column passed through the dense woods known as the “Shades of Death,” beyond which were the Little Meadows.
There George found Sir John St. Clair. He was ashamed to have spent eight days in covering twenty miles, but he blamed his slow advance on the size of his train and on the fact that the road was “either rocky or full of bogs.” St. Clair was convinced that Braddock could not get to Fort DuQuesne until more wagons and supplies were at hand and a road from Shippensburg was opened. The probability of meeting increased opposition, as a result of slow approach, became a serious consideration in the General’s planning.
Braddock did not wait for counsel. He sought it. George received a summons to the commander’s tent. The Virginian still was sick; but he had a clear head for the question the General put to him: What should be done next? George argued that if Braddock would push on with a chosen detachment, supported by artillery, Fort DuQuesne could be taken from its few defenders before French reenforcements arrived. While a lightly equipped English column was moving rapidly forward, the wagons could follow slowly and in safety because the advanced force would be between the trains and the enemy.
The next day, June 17, sicker than before, George probably heard that Braddock was talking of the plan he had suggested. St. Clair knew of it; so did Halkett and Dunbar. Apparently, none of these had any intimation that the design was not the General’s but the young aide’s. George was exceedingly proud and too discreet to boast that the army now was to proceed as he, an uncommissioned Colonial, had recommended.
As preparations were made to organize the advanced detachment, George had to steel himself to proceed with it. His pain was ceaseless; at intervals he may have been delirious. When the troops actually took the road, George felt what he subsequently described as “the most infinite delight”; a fortunate company was about to sweep on to the Ohio and to plant the flag of England on the parapet of Fort DuQuesne. Pain and fever did not yield to patriotic impulse. Braddock knew of the aide’s illness and unhappiness and considerately notified the Virginian that when he was strong enough to go forward a wagon would be at his command. Later that same day, George received written orders not to go on! Although he had to obey, he appealed to the General for one concession: Would Braddock promise that he would be brought to the front before the fort was reached? The commander gave word of honor but coupled with the promise the surgeon’s warning that if George persisted in going forward immediately he would be risking his life. Grimly and reluctantly George had to yield and had to stay at Little Meadows while the drums beat and his comrades rode away.
To the wretchedness of George’s pain and fever there now was added the feeling of separation from the scene of action, and of loneliness besides. Definite relief of mind consequently was afforded on the twenty-second by the arrival of Dunbar and his command, though as it proved, the Colonel was bristling with resentments. Dunbar felt that he had been deceived by the General. He felt keenly the handicap put on him by the organization of the advanced column. As soon as Braddock had set out with Halkett for Fort DuQuesne, Dunbar discovered that the General had taken the best wagon horses and many spare animals an
d had left him only a sufficient number to move two-thirds of the wagons at a given time with full teams of four. The distance between the fast-moving men at the front and Dunbar’s heavily burdened force was certain to be increased hourly.
Dunbar had a bitterness to keep fresh and he scarcely could have shown affectionate concern for a sick member of his commander’s “family,” but with Dunbar was Dr. Murdock, a surgeon whom George could trust. Braddock had sent back positive command that George should be given Doctor James’s Powders, a patent medicine. The prescribed treatment was administered. To the restless young patient Doctor James’s Powders seemed, in George’s own words, “the most excellent medicine in the world, for it gave me immediate ease. . . .” Almost from that date the fever diminished.
As George’s fever fell, his interest in the movement of the troops ahead rose higher than ever. His desire to rejoin them became more intense every time an express or a returning drover brought news from the front. Indian and French scouts were harassing Braddock’s column. Other Indians had penetrated close to Fort Cumberland and into Frederick County, Virginia, and had scalped and slain white families. A nearer concern to George was the humiliating slowness of the advance of Braddock’s men. By the twenty-sixth George was sufficiently improved to proceed in a covered wagon to the Great Crossing of the Youghiogheny but there he had to remain because the physician did not think he had regained sufficient strength to cover the twenty-five miles that now separated him from the advanced force. Not until July 1/2 could the first of Dunbar’s wagons be dragged despairingly to a camp between the Great Crossing of the Youghiogheny and the site of George’s battle of the previous July. Probably on July 1, a messenger arrived with orders from Braddock to forward beeves and one hundred pack horses loaded with flour.
Doubtless by the bearer of this order, the officers at Dunbar’s camp were given news of Braddock’s advance. Progress had been slow, as George had apprehended. The men had felt that their numbers were too small for the work they had to do. Poor food caused grumbling. Still more complaint was made because the men had nothing to drink but water. Struggle with road and river had carried Braddock and his men by nightfall of June 30 no farther than one mile beyond Stewart’s crossing of the Youghiogheny north of Gist’s.
George did not attempt to go with Adam Stephen and the guard of a hundred men for the train of pack-horses that carried the flour from Dunbar’s camp to Braddock’s force. He still was far too weak for the long rides on horseback, but the next time wagons started for the front, George climbed feebly into one of them. On the eighth Washington had his reward for the pain of his journey. He reached the army about two miles from the east bank of the Monongahela and not more than twelve miles from Fort DuQuesne. George found, as always, a hearty welcome at Headquarters that were busy with important decisions after a march that had been arduous but not costly in life. He had arrived in time: One more day’s march, that of the ninth and then . . . Fort DuQuesne and “the land in the Fork,” which he had said, when first he had seen it, “I think extremely well situated for a fort”. . . . He had come back to share in taking it . . . and in holding it!
It is not in the heart of man, aroused at two o’clock in the morning, to have cheer or conscious, pulsing courage; but when the British camp began to stir at that hour on July 9 there was confidence as well as expectancy in the minds of those who knew the plan for marching on Fort DuQuesne. Even soldiers of cautious mind felt that if the troops, artillery and wagons could get across the Monongahela unresisted, the remainder of the campaign would be easy.
George’s responsibility was neither for strategy nor for tactics but for being mounted and afield on the day of all days in his twenty-three years. His fever and his pain were gone; but they had left him so weakened that he did not know whether he could endure the jolt of a fast-moving horse. He determined to try it, and, to lessen his ordeal, he procured cushions and tied them into his saddle.
Starting his mixed column was such slow work that watches pointed to eight o’clock when Braddock reached the first crossing. Passage of the river was easy. When it had been completed, Braddock formed his line of march and set off down a road that had been cut roughly parallel to the stream. The General, George and others had proceeded a mile only when a messenger brought fine news: Colonel Gage presented his compliments to His Excellency and begged to report that he had completed the second crossing without encountering opposition and had taken position as ordered, on the right bank where his guns commanded the lower ford. En route to the first shallow, Gage had flushed thirty Indians, who had made off. At the second crossing the men of the advance guard had noticed that the water was muddy, as if there had been recent passing, and they had seen many footprints on the river bank. If these particulars were reported to Braddock, no importance was attached to them.
The march along the left bank continued without incident until, at length, the head of the column halted at a point slightly downstream from the mouth of Turtle Creek, which flowed into the Monongahela from the opposite side. As George and his companions looked, they saw on the other bank a sandy bluff about twelve feet high through which St. Clair’s men busily were cutting an incline at the point chosen for the passage of the troops. The advanced parties were across the river at the place where a vigilant enemy might have repelled them. Braddock proceeded, in spite of this clear advantage, to do what his English and German seniors had said an officer should do in a like situation: he ordered all the vehicles drawn up properly on the bank and posted pickets on the high ground behind him. Then he and his officers had opportunity of examining the country ahead of them as far as it was visible from their position.
Inspection was as deliberate as the prospect was beautiful. Completion of the passageway through the bluff occupied St. Clair’s men until almost 2 P.M. When the incline at last was ready, Braddock sent Captain Morris to order Gage and St. Clair to start down the ridge with their detachments and open a road as they advanced. After the last of the advanced parties had cleared the other side of the ford, Braddock gave the word for his column to cross. It was easily and flawlessly done—in George’s eyes the most thrilling sight of his entire life.
As the men came up the incline from the river the line of march was complete. In front were the guides and a few of Stewart’s Company of Virginia Light Horse. Behind them was the engineer who was blazing the trees that had to be felled to provide a roadway. His task was not difficult. The woods were so open that a vehicle could be driven almost anywhere among the trees. Besides, orders were to prepare a twelve-foot road—no wider. All that was needed now, in the judgment of the responsible officers was room enough for the guns and wagons. The men could look after themselves. Gage’s covering party followed in files four deep. On the flanks were the grenadier companies, spread in parties of twenty men, each under a sergeant. Next were the carpenters and pioneers, and then the two six-pounders with the ammunition wagon and a guard. Together, these men were the advanced force. Closing on them now was Lieutenant Colonel Burton with the vanguard, most of the wagons and part of the guns. The rearguard, with the remainder of the cannon, was under Colonel Halkett. If the proper intervals were being observed, everything was in the best style of the regular establishment.
Half-past two o’clock and close to 1500 men confidently in motion; then, suddenly, the sound of firing from the front! George was stiff in the saddle at the first crash. So was every officer.
Harry Gordon, the engineer, had ridden ahead of the advanced guard to find the guides and had been looking for them when they hurried back and reported the enemy close at hand. The engineer had seen about three hundred men, French and Indians, approaching on the run. At their head was an officer who wore a piece of decorative armor at his neck. He, too, was looking vigilantly ahead but had not yet discovered the British. When the French commander caught a glimpse of the grenadiers, he motioned with his arms. His men then divided to encircle the head and flanks of the British column. An Indian warwhoop swelled thr
ough the woods and froze the blood of the soldiers who never before had heard that sound. After their first startled fright, the grenadiers delivered a volley and then loaded and fired again. Some of their bullets brought down the conspicuous French officers and a number of Indians, but the Redmen and their white comrades did not intend to form line of battle and exchange volleys with the British in the woods. Before most of the English soldiers saw a single rifleman, the French and Indians disappeared, quickly and mysteriously. The hair-raising whoops continued. Down both flanks the fire spread. Soon it began to strike the British from the high ground on the right of the halted column. All except one of the English flanking parties ran in; one company of grenadiers and one of carpenters were in danger of being cut off. The whole of the advanced force fell back fifty or sixty yards.
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