Washington

by Douglas Southall Freeman

  Washington’s responsibility at the time of the debacle was limited by his position. As a volunteer aide-de-camp he had no troops under his command. According to the letter of military usage, he discharged his duty when he delivered the General’s orders and set an example of courage and diligence in action. There remains the moral question whether he did all he should have done in making his experience available to Braddock. Obviously, the three matters that related most directly to the lessons George had learned in 1754 were, first, the employment of pack horses instead of wagons; second, the necessity of fighting the French Indians in their own way, and, third, the wisdom or unwisdom of making the final advance with a part only of the small army, in light order. George was correct in urging pack animals, though shortage of transport was not decisive. He did all that a volunteer aide-de-camp could do in warning his seniors concerning the tactics of their forest foe. In advising Braddock to divide the army and to hasten forward with a small, light column, George was incorrect in some of his reasoning; but Braddock’s acceptance of George’s plan did not give him inferiority of force on the day of battle, nor, probably, would rejection by Braddock of the advice of Washington, and the consequent employment of the entire army, have changed the outcome.

  George’s military conscience was clear.

  CHAPTER / 4

  At the time, George Washington was not of mind nor of mood to consider Braddock’s strategy. The nearer realities of fatigue and humiliation absorbed the young Virginian. Old resentments rose again; George’s military experience seemed to be a succession of unregarded sacrifices. He would not have it so another time! Never would he engage on the same terms. Command must be his, and under conditions he would himself impose.

  Both Dunbar and Sharpe considered a westward advance impractical, and Colonel Dunbar had the troops leave Fort Cumberland and proceed to Philadelphia. Dinwiddie protested: Dunbar had no authority whatsoever for carrying them to Philadelphia—to go into “winter quarters” in the middle of August! As Dinwiddie saw it, the British had opened an easy road of French advance from the Ohio to the Virginia frontier. The worst seemed to be in prospect when Indians appeared in Maryland and on the northwestern frontier of Virginia and began to murder isolated families.

  It was manifest from the hour the General Assembly met on August 5 that what was left of the Virginia Regiment must be augmented, equipped and assigned the task of dealing with the savages and with any French who might descend on the frontier. This prospect aroused George’s interest and led him to consider a journey to Williamsburg, but he was discouraged by continued physical weakness and conviction that he could not get a new command on terms he would care to accept. He abandoned the idea of visiting the capital and began to devote such energies as he possessed to his private affairs and the musters he was expected to hold as District Adjutant.

  As August slipped by and the exposure of the frontier became apparent, George underwent a slight change of mind. On August 13 he received a letter from his friend and cousin, Warner Lewis, who had been in Williamsburg the previous week: The General Assembly had voted £40,000 for the defence of the Colony; there was talk of raising as many as four thousand men to repel the French and Indians. “Everyone of my acquaintance,” Lewis wrote, “profess[es] a fondness for your having the command of the men now to be raised.”

  Within a week George had more positive information: He learned that Dinwiddie was willing to name him commander of the forces to be raised. He felt that he should go to Williamsburg and hear what the Governor might propose. Before George reached Williamsburg, Dinwiddie issued commissions to Captains of most of the sixteen companies that were to be formed into a regiment. This must have been a disappointment to George. When he had written Lewis of the conditions under which he might accept command he had put first “having the officers in some measure appointed with my advice, and with my concurrence.”

  Dinwiddie offered George command of the enlarged Regiment and met the other conditions he had imposed—that he have a military chest and two needed assistants, one an aide-de-camp and the other a secretary. If Commissary Charles Dick resigned, as he had indicated he would, Colonel Washington would be free to name his successor. Finally, there was a new distinction: George would not only be in charge of the Regiment but also “commander of all the forces that now are or may be employed in the country’s service.” Everything was offered except that which George considered most essential, a voice in the selection of his subordinate officers.

  Would Colonel Washington accept? With all thanks to the Governor for the compliment paid him, he would not. Dinwiddie was not prepared for George’s refusal, but the Scotch Governor was not to be downed. At length, he offered a compromise: As he had named the Captains, George might select the field officers. This meant much, not only as the vindication of a principle but also because it assured George the continuing service of Adam Stephen and Andrew Lewis, whom he had tested. Probably, also, at some stage of the negotiations and without the Governor’s knowledge, members of the committee charged with the expenditure of funds made a financial proposal that appealed to Washington: he could have pay of 305. a day, £100 yearly for his table, an allowance for batmen and a commission of 2 per cent on all funds he handled. When all the considerations were weighed, George concluded that if he stood to lose reputation by assuming a difficult command, he might lose still more in public esteem by persistent refusal.

  Once he said “Yes,” August 31, 1755, all his energies were given to his new duties. He issued recruiting orders promptly to the officers in Williamsburg and left September 3 with a small amount of public funds to resume active duty.

  The new Commander-in-Chief found trouble at the first town he reached after he left Williamsburg. When he arrived in Fredericksburg September 5, he learned that as volunteers had not been forthcoming, some vagrants had been drafted. The recruits had protested so violently that it had been necessary to lock them in jail to prevent desertion. This had incensed friends of the prisoners, who had broken into the building, released the mutineers, and defied the militia officers. A more ominous beginning to the campaign for new troops George scarcely could have experienced. It convinced him that drafted men would be worthless as soldiers unless they were under strong officers who would have the weapon of positive and punitive law. Major Lewis, who had the firmness and vigor to control the men, was directed to come to Fredericksburg and assume command there.

  George had another disillusioning experience in Fredericksburg. He had been told by Dinwiddie that it would be well to retain Dick, who had threatened to cancel an agreement he had made to deliver provisions and supplies at Wills Creek. George saw Dick and on September 6 talked fully with him. He was not satisfied that Dick’s heart was in the enterprise. Thus, the old difficulty of provisioning the army, the old problem of getting food to the frontier, was rising once more. It seemed to be one of the essential things that somehow never were well done.

  From Fredericksburg George rode to Alexandria where he found a situation scarcely better. At the regular muster of the militia an effort had been made to get recruits for the Regiment. Not a man stepped forward. The new officers who had accepted commissions to raise troops began to express apprehension of failure as soon as they had the coveted papers in their hands. No men, no discipline, no clothing, no organization, no money—within a week after Washington had taken command, more and more of the story of the spring of 1754 was repeating itself.

  George hurried on to Winchester and to Wills Creek and Fort Cumberland. This badly placed defence was not yet complete and still was exposed to easy rifle-fire from woods that had been left standing across the creek. The garrison consisted of the survivors of the Virginia Regiment, together with the Maryland Company of Capt. John Dagworthy, who had been with Braddock’s army. Many had deserted, but 198 rank and file remained. Stephen was nominally in command but he did not have the men under firm discipline. With his usual amiability in his treatment of officers, Washington set his subo
rdinates to their duties. After that, orders were issued in steady flow—to deal with drunkenness, swearing and obscene language, to terminate traffic in liquor, to complete the work on the fort and, in general, to improve discipline.

  As soon as he had put affairs in order at Fort Cumberland, Washington started up the Shenandoah Valley, past Winchester, and over the Allegheny Mountains. By September 25, he reached Fort Dinwiddie. Its condition was bad enough to dishearten. Troops who had erected the stockade had answered so many alarms that they had not had time to build the bastions. Ammunition was low. There was no salt for fresh meat and no prospect of pickling any beef for winter unless salt, tools and implements were sent.

  Far worse were conditions to the west. On the Greenbrier River the approach of Indian raiders in August had caused settlers to hurry to a feeble little fort. About sixty persons had been huddling there when the Indians descended on them. The defenders in four days lost thirteen and perhaps more before the savages made off. The Indians, in addition, took perhaps a dozen lives, carried off two girls, burned eleven houses and slaughtered or drove with them horses and cattle estimated to number five hundred.

  This hurried tour of inspection dramatized the impossibility of George’s task in defending a long frontier with a handful of men. Recruiting had to be expedited. Lives depended on it. So did the security of the Colony, and, in part, the recovery of the Ohio. The experience of his first month in command convinced him that he had a multitude of perplexities some of which must be discussed with the Governor and with the Burgesses’ committee on expenditures. Washington stopped at Alexandria only long enough to issue some essential orders, and then took the road to the capital.

  George had proceeded as far as the plantation of his friend Col. John Baylor on October 7 when an express pushed up the lane with a dispatch from Stephen. This bore date of Winchester, October 4, and began: “Matters are in the most deplorable situation at Fort Cumberland.” There followed some information about items of less importance at the fort and then: “Unless relief is sent to the back inhabitants immediately none will stay on this side Monocasy or Winchester.” George read on: “I have reason to believe Captain Dagworthy will look upon himself as commanding officer after you have joined the troops.”

  That sentence may or may not have stuck in Washington’s mind at the moment. The rest of the letter shaped instant duty: he must report the situation to the Governor; he must tell His Honor he could not proceed to Williamsburg; and he must go back full speed to Fredericksburg and thence to the frontier.

  Within less than three hours after he wrote the Governor, George rode into Fredericksburg where he met Stephen, who, like himself, had started for Williamsburg. The Lieutenant Colonel had an even worse situation to report than described in his letter. Washington listened, put the new information in focus, left Fredericksburg late on the eighth and proceeded to Winchester. When he arrived there he found a madhouse. Except at Fort Necessity and on the dreadful day of Braddock’s defeat, he never had encountered so much confusion and panic. Facing it, he kept his head and went instantly to work.

  On the eleventh George wrote the Governor of the situation and of his inability under existing statutes to compel the obedience of the militia. Less than six weeks after his appointment to command, he was so discouraged that he talked of quitting. He told Dinwiddie: “I must with great regret decline the honor that has been so generously intended me; and for this only reason I do it—the foreknowledge I have of failing in every point that might justly be expected from a person invested with full power to exert his authority.”

  About 8 P.M. that evening a fear-stricken express staggered into Win-Chester with a report that Indians had reached a plantation about twelve miles from the town and that the settlers in that neighborhood were fleeing. George strengthened the guard and sent two scouts to ascertain how numerous the Indians were and in what direction they were moving. On the morning of October 12 another express dashed into Winchester, “ten times more terrified,” as George judged him, than the man who had arrived the previous evening.

  The next day brought a change for the better. Although George received information that the militia on the South Branch intended to leave their post, reports from scouts were that the Indians were leaving the stream. Major Lewis, with the recruits from Fredericksburg, was within one day’s march of Winchester. Capt. Thomas Waggener arrived on the morning of the thirteenth with thirty men after a rapid advance from Alexandria. George now sent out expresses on all the roads to assure fleeing farmers that danger was past and posted public notice that the Indians were believed to have returned home and that the frontiers soon would be well guarded. Preparations were made, also, for Washington himself to proceed to Fort Cumberland to strengthen its garrison.

  Wills Creek was reached on October 25. Fort Cumberland was intact, though Indians had come almost within gunshot. Families of nearby settlements had been victims of cruelty that made survivors blanch. On one farm, the unburied bodies of a scalped woman, a small boy and a young man lay near a burned house. A party of soldiers found three persons who had been brained with stakes, scalped and thrown into a fire that had half consumed the victims. Adequate security, in Washington’s opinion, depended on four things—recruiting the Regiment to full strength, strengthening the militia law, a successful effort to procure the services of friendly Indians, and erection of a few small, temporary forts to serve as cover for rangers and their provisions.

  In settling such of these matters as had to be arranged north of the Potomac, Washington moved fast because he had encountered a stubborn man who had raised a contentious issue, John Dagworthy, Captain of the Maryland Company at Fort Cumberland. In 1746 Dagworthy had received a royal commission as Captain and had undertaken to raise a company to share in the Canadian expedition. He worked hard and had 103 officers and men in his company, one of five raised in New Jersey, but those troops saw no active service. After they were discharged, Dagworthy and another captain went to England, with the endorsement of the Council of New Jersey, to see if they could continue as officers of the regular establishment. They did not succeed in this ambition, but Dagworthy effected an arrangement whereby he received a sum of money in lieu of half pay or further service. He was not, apparently, required to return the document by which he had been commissioned in 1746. Sometime after his return to America, Dagworthy removed to Maryland. He was residing there when, in August 1754, Governor Sharpe undertook to raise a company for the defence of the frontier. Command of this small force was given Dagworthy. It participated in Braddock’s campaign, during the course of which Dagworthy asserted that his royal commission of 1746-48 still obtained and therefore gave him seniority over Colonial officers. Braddock had to sustain this contention and, indeed, to admit that Dagworthy, by date of commission, outranked all except two Captains of the regiments from England. With the defeat of Braddock and the scattering of the forces, Dagworthy’s contention temporarily was forgotten, but about October 1, 1755, he returned to Fort Cumberland, where some thirty survivors of his Maryland Company were included in the garrison. Command of the fort had been vested by Dinwiddie and then by Braddock in Colonel Innes, who, on leaving the post, had assigned the command to Stephen as senior officer present. Dagworthy insisted that he outranked Stephen and had authority to direct affairs at the fort. He did not push his argument to the point where he actually gave orders to the Virginia Regiment, but he contrived to take over the fort itself from Stephen and he demanded and received all the honors due the commander.

  There was no disposition on the part of George or of Dinwiddie to discredit Dagworthy, but neither would admit the validity of Dagworthy’s assertion of the right of command. There was a question in their minds whether his royal commission had not lapsed when he was given a flat sum on expiration of service instead of being put on half pay. However that might be, Dagworthy, as the Virginians saw it, would have been entitled to command if, but only if, he had been sent to Fort Cumberland by the King’s ord
er to serve where regular and Colonial troops were stationed together. He had not come to the fort under orders “from home” but by direction of the Governor of Maryland. Dagworthy, in George’s eyes, was the Captain of thirty Maryland soldiers—that and no more. So firmly was Washington convinced of this, and so fully determined to maintain his seniority, that he resolved he would surrender his commission before he would accept Dagworthy’s pretensions to command. At the same time, George remembered that Braddock had recognized Dagworthy’s commission and reasoned that he might have to accept the Captain’s orders so long as he was at Fort Cumberland. In the circumstances, it was desirable to leave the fort before this issue came to a test.

  Another reason for finishing speedily all official business on Wills Creek was a letter from Dinwiddie concerning better regulation of the Virginia troops. The Governor wrote that he realized the defects of the existing military statutes and had called the General Assembly to meet on October 27 and correct them. He hoped George would be in attendance to explain the need of stronger laws. Washington could not possibly get to Williamsburg by the date the session opened, but he determined to go there as fast as he might.

  As the revised bill stood when George arrived from the frontier, it provided the death penalty for mutiny, desertion, the refusal of an officer to obey his superior, and and any act of violence by such an officer against the person of a senior. Lesser punishment might be meted out at the discretion of a court martial. If such a court decreed death, two-thirds of the members had to concur. Execution could not be carried out until the Governor had reviewed and approved the sentence. Provision was made for the apprehension of deserters and the reward of persons who captured the culprits and returned them to their command. Some defects of this act may have been apparent to George when he first read its terms. Others were to be brought to light by test, but, despite imperfections, the act was so much stronger than the law it replaced that Washington was encouraged.