George had to write the Governor April 27: “Desolation and murder still increase, and no prospects of relief. The Blue Ridge is now our frontier, no men being left in this County except a few that keep close with a number of women and children in forts, which they have erected for the purpose. There are now no militia in this County; when there were, they could not be brought to action.”
The prospect now changed. Dinwiddie had not been idle. After Lord Fairfax’s appeals for help had been sent out, the Governor had ordered the Lieutenants of Frederick and the nine counties east of the Blue Ridge and nearest the lower Shenandoah Valley to muster their militia, draft one-half of them, and have them rendezvous at Winchester. Almost to Washington’s surprise, they “actually came.”
By cruel chance, it now seemed that the invaders had begun to leave precisely when the militia commenced to reenforce the small Virginia Regiment. Information was scant and not convincing, but by the end of April it indicated that the raid was over and that the Indians had started back to Fort DuQuesne. Indeed, the Colonel had the embarrassing prospect of more militiamen than he could shelter or use or willingly would feed and pay at the expense of the Colony. In tones almost ludicrously different from those of his recent calls for help, George now wrote the Governor “humbly to offer it to Your Honor’s superior judgment if it would not be advisable to stop all the militia that are ordered from the ten Counties, save about five or six hundred from the adjacent ones?”
There was no stopping the flow of militia once they began to descend on the Valley. Three days brought Washington about 670 militiamen. He had to elaborate his plans for employing them. Otherwise the “quarrelsome fellows” would war among themselves. It was difficult to find employment for all. After the garrisons were drafted and artisans enlisted, the others either should be dismissed or sent to defend the exposed southern part of the western frontier. To make a wise choice, George called the field officers into council on the fourteenth. They were unanimously against attempting to use the militia at a great distance and of one mind in advising the discharge of all not “absolutely necessary to resist a second invasion upon this quarter.” Washington accepted this decision.
When he came to compute the number of militiamen required at the ten places he had chosen as their posts, he found he would need at least 482 of the 877 men, or thereabout, around Winchester and in the town. At sunset on May 16 part of the militia were ready to march to their stations on the basis of a fair drawing of names; the others were going home; from among the whole number, seventy had been employed as carpenters to work in Winchester at six pence per day in addition to their regular pay. The situation thus appeared to be better.
That very night brought mockery, suddenly and incredibly. An express rode into town with letters from Ashby’s, Cocke’s and Pearsall’s forts, all to the same effect: A considerable body of Indians was said to be astir in the region of Patterson Creek and the South Branch. Incautiously, the express let the contents of his dispatches be known to some of the militia. Men under orders to go to the South Branch or to Patterson Creek pictured themselves as scalped already. They deserted en masse. So ruinous were the desertions, fired by reports of the return of the savages, that Colonel Washington had to revise his assignments for guarding the forts and reduce the number of places to be defended. He sent messengers off, also, to the militia officers who were marching men homeward. These leaders were told to reverse their steps and bring back their soldiers to take the place of those who had disappeared, but they could not. The militia had vanished as a fighting force.
Fortunately, the rumors that had produced the final panic of the militia were as untrue as the runaways. No additional murders were committed; no hostile Indians were seen. Washington sent forward militiamen who had not deserted and stationed them where they would encourage and assist the planters in reestablishing themselves.
The decision for the maintenance of a defensive in Virginia had been made by the Burgesses. To secure the frontiers a chain of forts must be constructed and extended southward almost to North Carolina. Over the size, number and location of these forts, conference and argument appeared endless. George’s view was that it was impossible with scanty forces to maintain additional forts on the upper stretches of Patterson Creek or the South Branch of the Potomac because of the distance from Winchester and the difficulties of supply. Fort Cumberland, on the other hand, was so isolated that its garrison neither could serve usefully in the defence of Virginia nor receive and forward promptly information of the enemy’s movements towards the region of the Shenandoah. It might be wise to keep a small number of men on Wills Creek. Chief reliance must be on a fort at Winchester, strong enough to serve as a magazine and as a refuge for the settlers during Indian raids. Roads converged at Winchester; it was the starting point for an advance on Fort DuQuesne. That French stronghold was the supreme objective. Nothing was safe and nothing stable till the enemy was driven from the Ohio.
To connect Fort Cumberland and the new defences at Winchester, George thought another large work might advantageously be erected, but the line between the Valley town and Wills Creek, Washington kept insisting, was the most advanced that could be held in 1756. Based on this line the companies of the Regiment not employed in the main forts could be placed “equidistant,” in Washington’s own words, “or at proper passes along our frontiers.” George had been careful not to protest too vigorously against the extension of the chain of forts as far southward as the General Assembly desired, but he had been no less careful to point out that 1500 men could not cover the whole of the Virginia frontier.
The weeks after the departure of the savages brought Washington some mild satisfaction and, as always, a measure of new distress, personal and official. On May 12 the King proclaimed more liberal regulations on the subject of rank. Recognition of a sort was given Colonial general and field officers. They remained the juniors of all officers of like insignia and royal commission, but in North America they were to take rank as the “eldest Captains.” There was gratification, besides, in the assurances friends were giving George that charges now being raised of immorality and drunkenness in the Regiment were not leveled against him. Another development made Washington feel “much affected” because his whole future as a soldier might be involved. In a communication received from Dinwiddie during the last week of April, George read: “Letters from Britain leave us still in uncertainty as to peace or war. Two Generals are appointed for America—Lord Loudoun and General Abercrombie—and it’s thought they will bring over two Battalions, but whether for this place or New York remains uncertain; but it’s further said His Majesty intends to send blank commissions for the Americans. If so, I doubt not you will be taken care of.”
On April 16 Shirley had learned through private letters that Lord Loudoun had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s forces in North America and that Gen. Daniel Webb was coming over at once to assume direction of military affairs until Loudoun arrived. Shirley had felt that as his notification was unofficial, he should go ahead with his preparations for the campaign of 1756. In that spirit he wrote Sharpe on May 16 that he would name Washington second in command of the Ohio expedition “if there is nothing in the King’s orders, which I am in continual expectation of, that interferes with it.”
Washington did not wait for these developments. As soon as it was apparent that Loudoun was to be the man to decide on operations and the subordinates who were to participate in them, he wrote Dinwiddie and asked the Governor to recommend him to the new Commander-in-Chief. “His Honor” almost was grieved that Washington had thought this necessary. “You need not have wrote me,” he said, “to recommend you to the Earl of Loudoun.” The Governor explained: “I wrote fully to General Abercrombie, who is second in command, and my particular friend, in your favor, which I think much better than writing to his Lordship, as I know the influence he has with him.” In the letter to Abercromby, the Governor praised Washington as a “very deserving Gentleman,�
� for whom, had Braddock lived, he doubtless would “have provided . . . handsomely in the regulars.” Dinwiddie went on to say of Washington: “If his Lordship will be so kind as to promote him in the British establishment, I think he will answer my recommendation.”
Washington left Winchester June 4 and rode to Williamsburg to settle his accounts and discuss plans for the new forts. Arriving on the sixth, he found the Governor ailing. Unless his health improved during the summer, said Dinwiddie, who was sixty-three, he would ask permission to go home. There was another and a sure indication that the old Scot was failing: He readily referred troublesome decisions to the young commander. When Washington rode away from the capital on June 10 he had more authority and responsibility than ever had been assigned him officially. As respected fundamental strategy, Dinwiddie had been compelled to reiterate, and Washington to agree, that Virginia must remain on the defensive in 1756 unless regulars and artillery could be made available by Loudoun. At the same time, regardless of the delays and supineness of adjoining Colonies, Virginia must do her part for her own people and, if possible, make her advanced settlements secure. Washington’s Regiment therefore was to be recruited to full strength by a draft; the chain of forts was to be completed along the whole of the frontier.
On his arrival at Winchester, Washington intended to remain for a few days and then proceed to Fort Cumberland, but it was July 1, or later, when once again he established temporary headquarters on Wills Creek. The Indians had made no new raids of any magnitude, though the prospect of their return at any time could not be disregarded. When Washington had heard the little there was to tell, he held a council on plans for the forts, and he put into effect the first of a series of orders for stiffer discipline. Then, shortly after July 13, he returned to Winchester, and, amid recurring alarms, proceeded to work on the three heavy tasks that were his lot—recruitment, discipline and fort building.
A draft was the positive phase of recruitment but it was not all that Washington had hoped it would be. Too much was expected of ignorant men. Low pay, fatiguing service and severe hardships were discouragements that vigilance could not overcome. As late as August 1, the total of Regiment, rangers and scouts was not more than 926 of an authorized 1500 and a needed 2000. Discipline remained a grim business for the Virginia commander. Building forts was hampered by lack of faith. Both Dinwiddie and Washington did what they could to execute the will of the General Assembly, but the Governor did not believe George had sufficient men to construct the forts, and the Colonel did not think they were worth building as the lawmakers planned them.
One of Washington’s substantial conclusions during the summer was that Fort Cumberland should not remain in the care and charge of Virginia, which was to centre her frontier defences on Winchester. Maryland was to build a new fort far to the east of Wills Creek; therefore, George could see no reason for maintaining troops and keeping stores on that remote stream. When Governor Sharpe was on the frontier during July, George explained this to the Maryland commander, who made no objection. Dinwiddie would not have it so. Cumberland, he said, was a “King’s fort” which could not be abandoned without the consent of the home government or of the new Commander-in-Chief for North America.
By orders “from home,” proclamation was made in Williamsburg on August 7 of the official declaration of war by Britain against France on May 17, 1756. This was repeated in Winchester on August 15 by the young soldier whose skirmish with a French youth in May 1754 had been the “first shot” of a war that was to shape the lines of empire on the richest of continents. With the leading citizens of the town, Washington marched three companies of the Virginia Regiment to the fort, where the declaration was read aloud. Toasts were drunk, the cannon thrice discharged, and three rounds of musketry fired.
Harder service it now promised to be. A few days before Washington announced the proclamation of war disaster had befallen the King’s arms in northern New York. After a winter of suffering and hunger, the survivors of three regiments and of detachments of the Royal Artillery had been trapped in three feeble forts at Oswego, subjected to serious casualties, and compelled to surrender. This was an unhappy introduction to the new Commander-in-Chief, Lord Loudoun, who had landed in New York on July 23.
In spite of pains taken to settle the estate of Lawrence Washington, the obscure provisions of his will had prevented this. What was worse, a controversy had arisen between Col. George Lee and the Washington brothers over the property to be divided between them and Lawrence’s widow, who had married Lee. At length, the parties to the dispute arranged to meet about the middle of September in an effort to reach a final adjustment. George asked to go to Alexandria if conditions on the frontier permitted. The Governor consenting, Washington arrived at Mount Vernon about September 15—and rode squarely into disappointment. Several of the men whose presence was necessary for the conference regarding the estate had been summoned to Williamsburg as Burgesses to attend a session the Governor had advanced in date because of the disaster at Oswego.
In spite of postponement that would necessitate another journey, a week at home, where John Augustine (“Jack”) Washington and his bride, Hannah Bushrod, now were residing, would have been delightfully acceptable had not George found himself involved in a matter that seemed to concern his character as a man and his reputation as an officer. For some months the Virginia Gazette had been publishing at irregular intervals a series of numbered articles, signed “L. & V.,” and printed under the heading “The Virginia Centinel.” “The Virginia Centinel. No. X” occupied nearly the whole of the front page of the Virginia Gazette of September 3, 1756. Bombast and pseudo-scholarship ran through it. Nowhere did the anonymous author give a hint of his identity unless it was in a line that suggested as author some militia officer who had been to Winchester the previous spring and had not been treated acceptably there. The profession of the soldier was declared noble, but “no profession in the world can secure from contempt and indignation a character made up of vice and debauchery.” The “Centinel” left no doubt that he was speaking of the Virginia Regiment, even if he did not call it by name: “. . . when nothing brave is so much as attempted, but very rarely, or by accident, or for necessary self defence; when men whose profession it is to endure hardships and dangers cautiously shun them, and suffer their country to be ravaged in their very neighborhood; then, certainly, censure cannot be silent; nor can the public receive much advantage from a Regiment of such dastardly debauchees.”
In his usual sensitiveness, Washington took every word of this to himself, but with one difference: Previously, he would have ridden to Williamsburg and returned his commission or he would have written that he would not continue to serve when he was subjected to such censure. This time, instead of resolving he would resign, he asked himself whether he should. Nor did he become so absorbed in the controversy or so depressed by it that he neglected other things. He wrote Austin a letter in which he answered the charges of “The Virginia Centinel.” This he forwarded to his half-brother and, with it, money to pay for its insertion in the Virginia Gazette if Austin considered publication desirable.
Still in uncertainty of mind concerning his probable action, Washington received at Winchester bad news from the southern part of the Virginia frontier. That region had been subjected to Indian raids at intervals since June 25, when a force of French and Indians under de Belestre had appeared at the palisade Ephraim Vause had erected near the Roanoke River. Its defenders were a handful of ill-disciplined rangers under newly commissioned Capt. John Smith, who negligently permitted men to leave the place until the French commander realized those who remained were too few to defend it. De Belestre closed in, and, when two of the garrison had been killed and five wounded, he offered the survivors terms, which they accepted. Now, late in September, came word of new raids in Augusta.
The situation was one that Washington felt he must examine in person; so he rode up the Shenandoah Valley to Vause’s Fort. The country was ideal for ambuscade
, with neither settlers nor patrols to give warning of the presence of savages; but George’s good fortune attended him. He found Peter Hog at his post, but scarcely more than that could be said of the Captain. His company had dwindled to eighteen men, too few to do much work on the fort which was to be erected near the one Vause had built. Hog himself had degenerated as a commander during a long period of detached duty. His discipline was lax in some things and in others non-existent. The waste of manpower and feebleness of discipline shocked Washington.
MAP / 3
WASHINGTON’S TOUR OF
THE FRONTIER, 1756
The pass at Vause’s farm was of great importance, George saw, and if it were defended properly it would protect all of Bedford and the greater part of Augusta. His disgust with misuse of the position led him to explode later with: “They have built three forts here, and one of them, if no more, erected in my opinion in a very out-of-the-way place. This they call Fort Trial.” Washington continued southward, because he now resolved to make his inspection of the Virginia defences complete by going on to the forts in Halifax, next the North Carolina line. He found nothing to change his impression of the worthlessness of the militia and the inadequacy of the chain of feeble forts. Discontent, half-despair accumulated on the long, lonely road from Winchester to the North Carolina line. Militia were undependable; employment of them was wasteful; the Regiment was not strong enough, even when recruited fully, to do the work expected of it; there was censure and insinuation even in times of hardship and trial. At the southern end of the projected long line of forts, all these things had grown into an acute irritant.
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