Washington
Page 19
Encouragement there was, also, in dealing with the pretensions of Dagworthy. George explained more fully to the Governor this revival of the issue of the seniority of royal commissions. Dinwiddie was irritated. He could not see the slightest basis for Dagworthy’s argument. The Governor felt he must renew to his home government his request that the officers of the Virginia Regiment be given King’s commissions. Meantime, he would write General Shirley and ask that the acting British commander issue brevet commissions to Washington, Stephen and Lewis at the rank they held in Virginia service. This would give them a status Dagworthy could not challenge. Until Shirley passed on this request there could be no settlement of the dispute unless the Maryland officer receded from his position.
It was the middle of November when George set out for Winchester via Fredericksburg. At the Rappahannock town, George received reports from Stephen and others of quiet on the frontiers. The greatest need was a large supply of salt for pickling beef. George reasoned that he would do better to get the salt than to proceed in person to the Valley. If all went well, he told himself, he could remain near home, encouraging recruiting, until Dinwiddie received an answer from Shirley. By waiting on the lower Potomac George, moreover, could avoid a clash of authority with Dagworthy.
On December 5, George wrote the Governor for the first time since he had left Williamsburg. He explained that he had come to Alexandria to get salt and to procure recruits and supplies, and then blurted: “I have impatiently expected to hear the result of your Honor’s letter to General Shirley and wish that the delays may not prove ominous. In that case, I shall not know how to act, for I can never submit to the command of Captain Dagworthy, since you have honored me with the command of the Virginia Regiment &c.” George went on to discuss some vexations in supplying the troops and next, as if conscious his absence from Wills Creek might be criticized, he wrote: “As I cannot now conceive that any great danger can be apprehended at Fort Cumberland this winter, I am sensible that my constant attendance there cannot be so serviceable as riding from place to place, making the proper dispositions and seeing that all our necessaries are forwarded up with dispatch. I therefore think it advisable to inform your Honor of it, hoping that it will correspond with your own opinion.”
No news came from Shirley. Such information concerning Dagworthy as reached George from Fort Cumberland was an added blow to the pride of the Virginia Colonel. Stephen still had not formally surrendered command of the fort or of the troops to Dagworthy, but he had not resisted with vigor the exercise of authority by the Captain. George’s friends elsewhere were indignant that the commander of thirty Marylanders should presume to tell five hundred Virginians what they should and should not do.
Washington, about a week before Christmas, journeyed from Alexandria to Winchester. There, on the twenty-seventh, he received a letter Dinwiddie had written almost a fortnight previously. It was a paper to deepen depression. The Governor stated that the express had returned from New York, but that General Shirley had not reached the city when the messenger left. An answer from Shirley concerning Dagworthy’s status might be expected soon by another hand.
Stephen came to Winchester shortly after New Year’s Day, 1756, and brought word that Dagworthy held to the position previously taken. Washington heard from Stephen of other developments at Fort Cumberland—of a renewed petition by Virginia officers to be put on the regular establishment and of a discussion among them of the honors to which their own commanders were or were not entitled if Dagworthy actually had the authority for which he contended. On these matters George did not pass anticipatory judgment, and, as he felt he had done everything he could on the frontier for the time being, he started back to Alexandria during the second week of January. When George left the Shenandoah Valley his resolution was fixed: he would not accept Dagworthy as his superior officer. If he did not receive a favorable answer from Shirley, he would go to Boston in order to ask for a ruling on Dagworthy’s status and to lay before the General a petition his officers had drawn up for inclusion in the regular establishment. In event this appeal was vain, George would resign.
George gradually learned what Shirley had done in answer to Dinwiddie’s letter. The New England Governor and acting Commander-in-Chief wrote Dinwiddie December 4 that he had instructed Governor Sharpe to settle the dispute between Washington and Dagworthy. Sharpe promised compliance and wrote Dagworthy to confine himself to the command of the fort and not interfere with any troops in the barracks or assume any authority over the Virginians who might be posted there. Before Dinwiddie received information to this effect, Dagworthy had boasted at the fort that Sharpe had told him to keep the command. The Captain took care to obey the remainder of Sharpe’s orders, but he said nothing about his orders to leave the Virginia troops to their own officers. Dinwiddie and Washington concluded, therefore, that Sharpe had not carried out the instructions of Shirley but, on the contrary, had written Dagworthy to retain the command previously exercised. When, therefore, Dinwiddie gave his approval to a personal appeal by Washington to Shirley, the Colonel did not permit the weather of midwinter to deter him. He would go to Boston to establish his seniority as readily as he had ridden to Fort Le Boeuf to deliver the message of the Governor.
Washington remembered the fine impression that Shirley had made on him at Alexandria, but he left nothing to chance. He would make his best approach. George planned to appear in a style that befitted the “Colonel of the Virginia Regiment and the Commander-in-Chief of all the forces that now are, and shall be raised &c &c.” He arranged for Capt. George Mercer, his aide, to accompany him and act as paymaster. Capt. Robert Stewart, also, was to ride with his chief. George’s body servant was to be in attendance. A second servant, Thomas Bishop, would be useful. He perfected his arrangements and, during the first days of February 1756, set out from Alexandria.
George and his companions reached Boston February 27. Governor Shirley received George with the courtesy and kindness that had impressed the young man at Alexandria. George delivered formally his officers’ petition to be accepted on the regular establishment. Along with this he doubtless stated his opinion of Dagworthy’s asserted right to command at Fort Cumberland. Shirley was surprised that the issue had arisen, because Sharpe had promised him months before to end the dispute. Now the General listened and questioned Washington concerning recruitment, prospects and support of the war by the southern Colonies. After a time Shirley said that he would consider the question of Dagworthy’s status and would give George his decision later.
Apparently the Governor concluded that he could do nothing about the award of brevet commissions and the inclusion of the Virginia troops in the regular establishment, but on March 5, he called Washington to his office and gave him a paper that read:
Boston, 5 March, 1756
Governor Dinwiddie, at the instance of Colonel Washington, having referred to me concerning the right of command between him and Captain Dagworthy, and desiring that I should determine it, I do therefore give it as my opinion, that Captain Dagworthy, who now acts under a commission from the Governor of Maryland, and where there are no troops joined, can only take rank as a provincial Captain and of course is under the command of all field officers, and, in case it should happen, that Colonel Washington and Captain Dagworthy should join at Fort Cumberland, it is my order that Colonel Washington shall take the command.
W. SHIRLEY.
In a letter to Sharpe the General directed that Dagworthy either be removed from Fort Cumberland or else be informed that if he remained he had “put himself under the command of Colonel Washington.” Shirley told Sharpe that Roger Morris had informed him Braddock had named Colonel Innes to command at Fort Cumberland and had so announced officially. “If that be so,” Shirley wrote, “the matter must remain on the same foot [Braddock] put it upon.”
It seemed a clear-cut victory for George, but there was one unhappy disclosure: On February 23, Shirley had appointed Sharpe to head all the troops to be raised in
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. At the very minute Shirley was giving George seniority over Dagworthy, an express was spurring towards Maryland, with a commission under which the man whom George believed to be responsible for Dagworthy’s stand would have control of him—and of the next expedition against Fort DuQuesne. The vindicated senior of Captain Dagworthy and the new subordinate of Governor Sharpe wasted no time in Boston after he received Shirley’s decision. Once across the Potomac again, George scarcely paused before setting off for Williamsburg to report to Dinwiddie.
By the date George started from Mount Vernon to the capital, March 25, it was known generally that Sharpe had received command of all the forces to be raised in the south for another march to the Ohio. Sharpe had himself notified both the Governor of Virginia and Stephen, who still had in his care the Virginia troops at Fort Cumberland. Dinwiddie had been prompt to extend congratulations, but Stephen was chagrined. He wrote that Captain Dagworthy boasted of influence with the new commander and strutted more than ever. Actually, Sharpe undertook to execute Shirley’s instruction that the Captain accept Washington’s orders or leave the fort; but the Governor of Maryland believed George had created the tangle by staying away from Fort Cumberland after Dagworthy had been instructed to confine himself to command of the fort and not to interfere with the Virginia troops. Before many weeks were past, George was to confess: “I know that the unhappy difference about the command . . . has kept me from Fort Cumberland. . . .” At the moment, however, he was in no mood to admit that he had evaded a test of authority with Dagworthy. On the contrary, he felt aggrieved anew that his rival’s friend and patron, Sharpe, had been put over him. It was futile to continue! When he reached Williamsburg he would resign.
When Washington arrived in Williamsburg March 30 the General Assembly was in session. The Burgesses realized that the recruiting of volunteers had not filled the Virginia Regiment and would not. A draft was unavoidable. Sentiment was strong for the construction of a long chain of small forts to protect the frontier, a policy which Washington believed the Colony could not execute without a far larger number of men than there was any reason to believe Virginia would call to service. Few hours were given Washington at the capital. There was not time, in fact, to explain to the Governor why he once again had resolved to resign. When the Colonel had been in Williamsburg only a day or two, an express brought bloody news: French and Indians had broken into the frontier settlements. Details were few; danger was acute. George started back to his command.
On the long, familiar road, George had time for reflection. Immediately ahead there might be excitement and tragedy. Then, sooner or later, there would be another offensive. With that in prospect, Washington’s ambition triumphed over his pique and disappointment. Resignation seemed no longer to be demanded by his pride. If there was to be a march to Fort DuQuesne, he must share it—and, at the least, must be second in command. George did what more than once he had found effective—he asked directly for the position he wanted. He wrote a formal request to Shirley to commission him as second officer in the new enterprise.
George reached Winchester April 6 and found the people in “a general consternation.” Indians had overrun most of the back settlements and murdered an unreckoned number of persons with the cruelty of hell’s own tortures. Nearly all the frontier families had abandoned their homes and fled to Winchester or to the nearest of the few garrisoned stockades. George was almost helpless. In Winchester he could not muster more than forty armed men. Gunpowder was low. The greater part of supplies and provisions of the Regiment were at Fort Cumberland. From that base, Winchester virtually was cut off. Washington had endured and survived the raids of the previous autumn, but his experience then did not equip him to stop panic or deafen him to the horrible stories of murder and pillage.
Relief of a sort came suddenly. On the seventh, into George’s quarters strode Richard Pearis, Indian trader and interpreter: He and some companions had run into a small party of Indians with whom they had exchanged fire for about half an hour. One of Pearis’s men had been killed and two wounded, but the Virginians had hit several of the enemy and had slain the leader, a Frenchman. Pearis produced the scalp and a bag taken from the dead man. This bag contained instructions from the commander at Fort DuQuesne and identified the slain officer as the Sieur Douville. The instructions, signed by Dumas—a well-known officer who had distinguished himself in the battle of the Monongahela—bade Douville conform to the usages of honor and humanity and restrain the savages. At the same time, he was to undertake to burn the magazines at Conococheague, far inside the settlements. The very boldness of this design made the outcome of the first skirmish all the more pleasing to Washington. He forwarded Douville’s scalp to Dinwiddie, with the recommendation that the men who took it be rewarded as Indians would have been for the same feat. The Colonel proceeded to send out scouting parties, but the killing of Douville appeared to have discouraged the raiders. Although frightened settlers continued to flee, no additional murders were reported for several days.
George took advantage of this breathing spell to plan for the future: At the earliest possible date he would undertake a sharp offensive. To succeed in this, he must have the aid of courageous Redmen immediately. “Indians are the only match for Indians,” Washington said, “and without these we shall ever fight upon unequal terms.” Looking beyond the instant crisis Washington reasoned that troops of the type of his own Virginia Regiment had to be the backbone of any permanent force. As he did not think it possible to procure volunteers, he reasoned that the new draft should be of able-bodied marksmen for a term of eighteen to twenty months. By the end of that period, George somewhat grimly observed, two campaigns would have brought “matters nearly to a crisis one way or other.” The General Assembly was expected to vote £20,000 and authorize an increase of his command, by means of the draft, to two thousand men. All these troops George wished to incorporate into a single regiment, under his own direction, rather than to see them organized into two regiments, with someone else as colonel of the second.
On April 18 Colonel Innes arrived from Williamsburg, which he had visited after some months in North Carolina. Innes was not unwelcome per se at Winchester, but he was the bearer of a letter from Dinwiddie that infuriated Washington. The Governor enclosed a commission to hold courts martial, and then went brusquely on: “I hope the affairs of the Regiment are not in so bad a condition as represented here. The Assembly were greatly inflamed, being told that the greatest immoralities and drunkenness have been much countenanced, and proper discipline neglected; I am willing to think better of our officers and therefore suspend my judgment till I hear from you.”
Washington wrote the Governor a vigorous denial. Then he made his indirect confession that pride and a desire to avoid possible humiliation at the hands of Dagworthy might have been responsible in part, for what now was alleged: “I . . . know that the unhappy difference about the command, which has kept me from Fort Cumberland, has consequently prevented me from enforcing the orders, which I never fail to send.”
George was in this state of mind—sensitive, humiliated and half convinced of error—when, on April 19, a sergeant of the Virginia Regiment brought a most alarming report from Lieut. William Stark at Edwards’s Fort. Stark reported a losing engagement in which two officers and fifteen men had been left, some of them dead, in the hands of the enemy. Stark’s letter indicated that many French were participating and that they had surrounded, and were preparing to storm, the feeble defences.
Edwards’s Fort was on Cacapon River in Hampshire County, distant not more than twenty miles from Winchester. The first attack might be preliminary; the town itself might be the real objective of a powerful raid. Washington called into council Colonel Innes and those officers of the Virginia Regiment in Winchester. What did the council recommend? Judgment was unanimous. The militia of Frederick and adjoining counties must be raised immediately; when a strong force was available, it should take the offe
nsive.
Washington accepted these recommendations. Capt. William Peachey was hurried off to notify the Governor and ask for a muster of the militia. Lord Fairfax was urged to call on the militia of Frederick and the adjacent counties to move to Winchester as rapidly as possible. Washington did all that was recommended, but he felt that reliance of any sort on the militia was worse than doubtful.
Bad news followed bad. From several outposts George received expresses that informed him of isolation, threatened attack and shortage of provisions. The story was one of gloom, danger and murder. Indians and French were believed to be prowling almost every road; attack on Winchester appeared imminent. Every day, every hour—almost every minute as it seemed to George—brought new alarms, but no report of reenforcements. One express after another was dispatched with appeals for help from other counties. George sent a second officer to Williamsburg to explain the situation and ask for arms and ammunition.
He had learned from Williamsburg that the General Assembly probably would pass a bill for the erection of a new and longer chain of forts. His most recent information was, also, that the total armed force to be authorized by the lawmakers was to consist of only 1500 men. On the twenty-fourth George wrote a letter in which he put these two probabilities together and discussed the defensive policy of Virginia with as much of calm logic as if he had been, on an untroubled day, at the Governor’s Palace or in the council chamber of the capitol. He did not muster all his arguments at the moment and had to return to the subject three days later; but in the two papers he disclosed ability to rid his eyes of the motes of the day and fix them in undeviating scrutiny on a single issue. His argument was not in vain. The bill for erecting the forts had been passed before his letters reached Williamsburg, but the measure was forthwith amended to authorize what he particularly recommended, a strong fort at Winchester.