Virginia’s elections were decentralized and entirely public. The governor’s order for elections went to every county sheriff, who scheduled the polling in their respective counties within the next thirty days. Most sheriffs selected the day when the county court sat, since many citizens came to the county seat then for business and socializing. Ministers announced elections at the end of Sunday services. Eligible voters—free white males who owned or leased one hundred acres of raw land, or twenty-five acres of improved land with a house—assembled at the courthouse. Because many owned or leased land, the body of voters was relatively large.26
On Election Day, with the candidates present, the sheriff called each voter by name. The voter announced his preferred candidate. That candidate rose, bowed, and thanked the voter. The polling could become rowdy, particularly in close races, as candidates ordinarily treated voters to food and drink (called “swilling the planters with bumbo,” or rum). Though the candidates were expected to behave with dignity, their advocates avidly canvassed voters.27
For the December 1755 elections, Washington pursued a confusing course. When George William Fairfax declared for Fairfax County, Washington could not run there. Opposing a Fairfax was unthinkable. Instead, Washington took time from his military duties to assist George William’s cause, lingering in Alexandria through November and December. His advocacy for his friend goaded a smaller man into knocking Washington down with a stick. When Washington did not immediately retaliate, the town vibrated with anticipation of a duel. In the morning, however, Washington apologized for provoking the other man. It was a humble action by the colony’s leading soldier, known to be fearless in battle. When Adam Stephen heard of the episode, he reported to Washington that “we all were ready and violent to run and tear your enemies to pieces.” In any event, George William doubtless appreciated Washington’s help, since he won by a mere twelve votes out of several hundred cast.28
Washington’s presence in Fairfax County meant he missed the Frederick County poll in Winchester, even though he was listed as a candidate there. Indeed, Washington made no visible effort to win votes in Frederick, not even mentioning his candidacy to friends. Adam Stephen expressed frustration at not knowing Washington was on that ballot. As a Frederick County landowner, Stephen could have voted for him. Unsurprisingly, Washington drew only forty votes out of more than five hundred cast, though his friends insisted that he would have won if he had campaigned.29
Washington never explained how his name came to be on the Frederick County ballot, or why he neglected that election. Perhaps it was a case of miscommunication, his name submitted by friends who incorrectly thought Washington would campaign for the seat. Or maybe he thought initially that he could win in Frederick, but then decided that 1755 was not his year. Or the candidacy might have been a trial balloon launched by the deliberate Washington, who realized that he had to serve the Fairfax interests first but also wanted his name to circulate in political circles. Or maybe he had a deal with the Fairfaxes, that he would support George William in 1755 in return for their support for him the next time around. Any of these explanations, or some other, could be true.
After the election, Washington returned to his military drudgery. With discipline still inconsistent, Washington agitated with Dinwiddie for new military statutes with a death penalty for deserters. Then he sighed to Adam Stephen, “You must go on in the old way of whipping them stoutly.”30
His dissatisfaction covered his officers as well. In early January 1756, Washington lectured them to discharge their duties conscientiously, insisting that “it is the actions, and not the commission, that make the officer—and that there is more expected from him than the title.” Annoyed that one captain’s wife “sows sedition among the men, and is chief of every mutiny,” he demanded that the captain send her from the camp or “I shall take care to drive her out myself and suspend you.”31
Also annoying was the continuing standoff with Maryland’s Captain Dagworthy. Desperate for a solution, Washington argued for Virginia to build its own frontier fort so he would no longer have to deal with the presumptuous Marylander at Fort Cumberland.32
Washington resolved to carry this grievance to a higher authority, Massachusetts governor William Shirley, the British commander in chief in America. Traveling to Boston would allow the Virginia colonel to cut a figure, militarily and politically, across much of British North America. George Washington—about to celebrate his twenty-fourth birthday—would start to make himself a continental character.
Chapter 11
A Wilderness of Difficulties
Washington’s journey to Boston was an opportunity to see other colonies and to be seen, but also to meet a high official who had impressed the young Virginian. When Governor Shirley had conferred with General Braddock in Alexandria, Washington wrote of Shirley that “every word and every action discovers the gentleman and great politician.” The Dagworthy quarrel provided a pretext for meeting with this paragon.1
Washington secured Governor Dinwiddie’s permission for the round-trip journey of 1,100 miles. Because the Indians rarely raided in winter, Washington could be spared from the frontier. Always conscious of appearances, he recruited two subordinates to make up his entourage. All wore fresh blue uniforms of Washington’s design, set off with scarlet waistcoats and cuffs, and silver lace trim. Two mounted servants sported livery matching the Washington coat of arms, red on a white field.2
Newspapers in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston noted Washington’s arrivals and departures. He cloaked the purpose of his trip—to vault over the presumptuous Captain Dagworthy—with the tale that he was consulting with Shirley about “measures proper to be taken with several tribes of Indians to the southward, and particularly the Cherokees.” A Boston newspaper hailed his arrival with a gently candid review of his career, calling him “a gentleman who has deservedly a high reputation for military skill, integrity, and valor,” adding, “though success has not always attended his undertakings.”3
Washington stopped first in Philadelphia, British America’s largest city, which held 3,000 homes, many built of brick, plus lighted streets, a hospital, a gracious government building, and two libraries. Its port bustled with ships arriving and departing.4 Washington called on fifty-year-old Benjamin Franklin, the leading member of Pennsylvania’s assembly and deputy postmaster for all the colonies. Despite their age difference, both men had practical, determined minds and supported vigorous action against the French. Also, each was part of a syndicate to develop western lands.5
While Virginia’s soldiers shivered on the frontier, Washington gambled and danced in the continent’s finest drawing rooms. In New York, his flirtation with Miss Polly Philipse, the sister-in-law of his host, set tongues wagging. Everywhere, he shopped. Accustomed to ordering goods from Britain, then waiting a year for them to arrive, overpriced and sometimes broken or ill fitting, Washington spent freely among Philadelphia’s tailors, jewelers, hatters, and saddle-makers. He twice viewed an acclaimed exhibition called Microcosm of the World in Miniature, which depicted a Roman temple, muses and mythological figures, stars and clouds, and mechanical human figures, powered by more than twelve hundred wheels and pinions.6
Dinwiddie paved Washington’s way by writing to Shirley that the Dagworthy face-off “makes such noise here” that he (Dinwiddie) “thought it necessary to send” Washington to request Shirley’s intercession. Dinwiddie’s letter transformed Washington from a whiny provincial seeking advancement into the emissary of Britain’s largest American colony on a matter of policy. And Washington won some relief: Shirley granted him precedence over Dagworthy in the chain of command, though not a king’s commission. Shirley thus proved to be the deft politician Washington thought he was, appeasing the Virginians without disturbing the army’s policy against colonists as officers.7
Washington returned home with broader perspectives. He experienced, firsthand, the tensions between the Quakers
and non-Quakers of Pennsylvania, and the commercial focus of New Yorkers and New Englanders. He learned that his military exploits brought him recognition. He was known, the essential foundation of a political career, and the journey made him better known. Later that spring, colonial newspapers reported his movements on the frontier.8
The journey home brought the news that Maryland governor Horatio Sharpe would command the king’s forces in the southern colonies. Wary of this new superior who had sponsored the despised Dagworthy, Washington considered resigning, but resolved against it. In turn, Sharpe appointed him second-in-command for the southern colonies.9
As trees leafed out for spring, Indian raids resumed on the frontier. Although Adam Stephen proclaimed that Virginia’s soldiers had learned bushfighting, they were not yet good at it. Washington reported that the enemy had returned “in greater numbers; committed several murders not far from Winchester; and even are so daring as to attack our forts in open day.” A raiding party killed a settler, carried off his wife and six children, and burned six farms. Washington buried the dead man.10
* * *
Washington’s respect for his Indian foes only grew. They moved so silently that they could close, undetected, within a few yards of Virginians. They were swift to attack, strong in combat, skilled with weapons. And then they disappeared. “Their cunning and craft are not to be equaled,” he wrote to Dinwiddie, adding, “They prowl about like wolves, and like them, do their mischief by stealth.” He doubted that Virginians could ever defeat them. Only other Indians were a match, he wrote to the Speaker of the House of Burgesses, “and without these, we shall ever fight on unequal terms.”11
Washington, with but forty soldiers in Winchester, feared an attack. He begged for fighters from pro-British tribes on the colony’s southern boundary, the Catawba and Cherokee. He resisted building more forts, arguing that they would require “an inconceivable number of men” he did not have. Also, he wanted no more castoffs in the regiment, but “active, resolute men—men who are practiced to arms and are marksmen.”12
Recognizing that Virginia’s arms were failing, the burgesses proposed to add another thousand-man regiment. Washington lobbied the governor and the House Speaker to have any additional men placed under his command. Colonel Washington was playing politics.13
Word reached him that colonial officials were losing confidence in him. Dinwiddie wrote in early April about reports that in the regiment, “the greatest immoralities and drunkenness have been much countenanced and proper discipline neglected.” Colonel Fairfax confirmed that the burgesses were considering an inquiry into officers’ misbehavior. House Speaker John Robinson reported that Williamsburg was rife with “terrible reports” about the regiment. Washington understood this was an attack on him; he had appointed most of the officers and supervised all of them.14
In a self-righteous letter to the governor, Washington defended himself but not his officers, admitting they had “the seeds of idleness very strongly engrafted in their natures.” He insisted that he had “both by threats and persuasive means, endeavored to discountenance gaming, drinking, swearing, and irregularities of every other kind.” He blamed Dagworthy for any misconduct at Fort Cumberland, since Washington had not visited that fort for months. He concluded with a wan pledge to “act with a little more rigor in the future.”
To Speaker Robinson, he ascribed military setbacks to the pusillanimous residents of Frederick County. Only fifteen had responded to his militia call, and some of those refused to serve. A second letter to Robinson offered some contrition. “My experience may have led me into innumerable errors,” he admitted, closing with his fifth threat to resign in seven months.15
The men in Williamsburg had reason to be impatient with Washington. Through many winter weeks, while regimental discipline frayed, he had gallivanted through Philadelphia, New York, Newport, and Boston, nominally pressing his dispute with Dagworthy. Garrison duty on the Virginia frontier was harsh and unpleasant in good weather, long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. It was miserable in freezing winters. Washington always tried to avoid it.
On the same day that Washington sent his excuses to the House Speaker, Indian raiders ambushed a forty-man patrol, killing a captain and fifteen soldiers. At a council of war, the regiment’s officers decided they had too few soldiers to retaliate. Washington could only order that bushes surrounding Winchester be hacked to the ground to deny cover to attackers.16
Washington wrote an impassioned letter to the governor. Though he ordinarily strove for self-control, this letter reveals him perilously near a breaking point over the settlers’ plight:
What can I do? If bleeding, dying! would glut their insatiate revenge—I would be a willing offering to savage fury: and die by inches to save a people! I see their situation, know their danger, and participate [in] their sufferings; without having it in my power to give them further relief, . . . I see inevitable destruction in so clear a light, that, unless vigorous measures are taken by the Assembly, . . . the poor inhabitants that are now in forts, must unavoidably fall; while the remainder of the county are flying before the barbarous foe.
Yet Washington also saw the dire situation through the lens of his career. He despaired that he had “distant prospects, if any . . . of gaining honor and reputation in the Service.” But for the urgency of the crisis, he continued, he would resign immediately, admitting that “the murder of poor innocent babes, and helpless families, may be laid to my account here!”17
Two days later, after raiders murdered three families within twelve miles of Winchester, Washington again wrote frantically to the governor. “Every day we have accounts of such cruelties and barbarities as are shocking to human nature. . . . no road is safe to travel: and here, we know not the hour how soon we may be attacked.” There was talk in the regiment, he confessed, of capitulating to the French.18
Gone was the self-possessed officer who had traveled triumphantly to Boston. His inability to pacify the frontier tortured him. Having known mostly failure in uniform, he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Senior figures in Williamsburg sent reassuring messages. “Our hopes dear George,” wrote Speaker Robinson, “are all fixed on you for bringing our affairs to a happy issue.” Colonel Fairfax, who knew Washington’s dread of any smudge on his reputation, reported soothingly that “your health and success was toasted at almost all tables at Williamsburg.”19
Those were mere words. Washington needed Indian warriors, but Virginia had no Indian allies willing to fight. The General Assembly approved expanding the regiment to fifteen hundred men, but it was an empty gesture; recruiting was impossible so long as Virginia paid and provisioned so poorly. Moreover, the assembly required service only until December of the year; that meant, Washington pointed out to Dinwiddie, that “by the time they shall have entered the service, they will claim a discharge.”20
One thing the governor could do was summon county militias. The part-time soldiers flooded into Winchester from eastern counties, but they lacked supplies and weapons, resisted discipline, then left in large groups. Washington feared that their “spirit of desertion” was infecting the regiment. Indeed, in May of 1756, the regiment’s numbers sank to barely three hundred, one-fifth of its authorized strength. A council of war resolved to send home all militia “except what were absolutely necessary.”21
Stung by criticism of the regiment’s discipline, Washington turned to brutality. Courts-martial sentenced three defendants to one thousand lashes each, a punishment that could be fatal, while others were sentenced to four hundred or two hundred fifty lashes. Pressing for the maximum penalty for a sergeant convicted of cowardice and two soldiers who deserted multiple times, Washington pledged, “I shall make it my particular care to see them executed.” Adam Stephen, now lieutenant colonel, reported that he had “wheeled” two deserters “till they pissed themselves and the spectators shed tears for them.”
22
The Indian attacks continued. “Desolation and murder still increase,” Washington wrote to the governor in late April. Knowing that his soldiers would never track down the raiders, Washington ordered them to “waylay and act by stratagem” rather than plunge through the forest and stumble into ambushes.23
The new tactics did not help. In late June, two hundred Shawnees destroyed a fort at the far end of the Shenandoah valley, taking one hundred fifty captives. In July, raiders killed ten settlers at a small fort at the mouth of the Conococheague River, and six more near Fort Cumberland. Through the summer, the regiment suffered at least a hundred casualties in more than twenty actions. The colonial press reported a drumbeat of Indian depredations. One newspaper reported an Indian band taking fifty captives and killing forty in a raid, adding that the Indians “are committing outrages every minute.”24
Dinwiddie and Washington agreed that the best strategy was to capture Fort Duquesne and cut off French support for the raiders.25 But Washington’s forces were too weak to do it. The remaining option was to build frontier forts, which Washington thought was futile. To block the raiders, the forts had to be spaced at fifteen- or eighteen-mile intervals, with at least eighty soldiers in each. That meant more than twenty forts and more than 2,000 soldiers, a manpower level the regiment could never reach. Having no better option, the governor and council nevertheless dictated that forts be built.
Constructing stockades across roughly two hundred and fifty miles, from the Great Cacapon River to the Mayo River, strained the regiment. When the soldiers resisted the work, Washington issued extra rum rations and pay, which increased expenses. Men building forts could not patrol for raiders. Washington’s choice, he wrote, was to “neglect the inhabitants and build the forts, or neglect the forts and mind the inhabitants.”26
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