George Washington’s resignation as Colonel of the Virginia Regiment in November 1754 did not destroy his ambition for a military career. He quit the service because he felt that Governor Dinwiddie had humiliated him personally and had deprived him of public honors by dividing the troops into Independent Companies. Instead of his former position as Colonel, George would have had that of Colonial Captain only, outranked, as he wrathfully put it, by “every Captain, bearing the King’s commission, every half-pay officer, or other, appearing with such a commission.” He would not endure that, but he still wanted to learn more of “the military art,” and he began to ask himself and his influential friends if there might not be some way by which he could serve in the campaign of 1755 as a volunteer. Especially was he disposed to this when he heard that the next march on Fort DuQuesne was to be under the direction of an experienced British general and not under Colonel Innes or Governor Sharpe, neither of whom he esteemed as a soldier.
Whatever the prospect of new military service as a volunteer, George had his own fortune to advance. For a man not yet twenty-three he was well-to-do, but he had no home of his own. He wanted an establishment, he could afford one, and he had now a prospect of leasing the property he most desired, Mount Vernon. Colonel and Mrs. George Lee (she was the widow of Lawrence Washington) agreed December 17 that George might have the use of the estate and of the eighteen resident slaves at a fixed annual rental of 15,000 pounds of tobacco per annum, or the equivalent in current money of Virginia at the rate of 12s. 6d. per hundredweight of tobacco. As George had little experience in housekeeping and had kind and sympathetic neighbors, it is likely that he consulted often the family at Belvoir and, in particular, the charming Sally Cary Fairfax. His feelings for her may not have been conscious, but he certainly admired her as much as it was proper to regard the wife of a close friend.
George’s share in the settlement of Lawrence’s affairs, his interests in Belvoir, and his numerous activities on his own plantation did not occupy all his thought. He had too deep a devotion to arms, even after his unhappy experience over his commission, to ignore events subsequent to his resignation. Much of interest had occurred during the autumn and winter; still more was in prospect. Both Governor Dinwiddie and Governor Sharpe, now acting Commander-in-Chief, were resolved to press the campaign against the French in 1755 and recover the territory and prestige lost the previous year. Plans for the operations of the spring and summer had five essential aspects: First, the Colonies must have the leadership of officers and troops “from home”; second, the Colonies themselves must supply soldiers of their own and provisions for them and for the forces from England; third, Colonials and Redcoats should seek the assistance of all the Indians who could be won to their side; fourth, to prevent hunger and loss of time when the season for active fighting began, a large store of provisions must be accumulated in advance and transported as far towards the Ohio as practicable; fifth, for the proper storage and custody of these rations, a fort was to be constructed at Wills Creek.
Indian alliances, Colonial recruits, the begrudging supply of stinted funds by suspicious assemblies, the tedious upbuilding of provisions at Wills Creek—all these preparations looked to the arrival of disciplined regulars from England. Well-trained troops led by professional soldiers would be the core of the column that would advance irresistibly to the Ohio and drive away or destroy the French. This was the conviction of Dinwiddie. He had warned the Lords of Trade: “. . . without two Regiments of men from Britain, we shall not be able effectually to defeat the unjust invasion of the French.” By December 12, 1754, he had received confirmation of his hopes that the troops would be sent—that transports had been taken in October and that Capt. Augustine Keppel would convoy them with a fifty-gun ship. Shortly after hearing this good news, Dinwiddie learned also that two additional regiments were to be raised in New England and were to be led by Governor Shirley of Massachusetts and Sir William Pepperell, the first native American ever to be made a baronet.
As this information was printed in the Virginia Gazette, George soon saw it at Mount Vernon. He felt a new stirring of his military ambition, and he admitted that he would like to share in the campaign; but he took no step to recover his commission or volunteer for service. Almost every subsequent issue of the newspaper whetted his appetite for honors. He had just returned from a visit to Col. John Baylor’s plantation and probably to Ferry Farm when word came that a distinguished British officer had reached Williamsburg from England—Sir John St. Clair, baronet of Scotland and former Major of the Twenty-second Foot, who had been assigned as Deputy Quartermaster General of forces in America with local rank as Lieutenant Colonel. George probably learned in February that St. Clair most heartily had damned the road from Winchester to Wills Creek as the worst he ever had traveled. At that outpost, now styled Fort Cumberland, St. Clair had reviewed the Independent Companies and had discharged more than forty of the men as unfit for service. The Deputy Quartermaster General manifestly was a positive officer who knew his own mind.
While the Colonials were beginning to discover what manner of person St. Clair was, they received information that the two promised regiments were en route and that they were commanded by Col. Sir Peter Halkett and Col. Thomas Dunbar. During the last week in February, George ascertained that on the night of February 19/20, Commodore Keppel’s flagship, the Centurion, had dropped anchor off Hampton along with the Syren and the Norwich, on which last vessel was Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock, His Majesty’s Commander-in-Chief of the forces in North America.
The Virginia Gazette announced also that the General was accompanied by “Captain Orme, Aide-de-Camp and Mr. Shirley, secretary.” George read and envied. These young men were doing exactly what he wanted to do: they were in close daily relationship with an experienced soldier of long service from whom they could learn much of the “military arts” that fascinated George. Soon the young Virginian identified “Mr. Shirley” as William Shirley, son of the Governor of Massachusetts. A little later George found that Braddock was to have another aide-de-camp, Roger Morris, who bore the surname and might be a kinsman of the Governor of Pennsylvania. If they could serve with Braddock as members of his “military family,” why should not a Virginian also? George did not solicit appointment directly, but he took pains to write a letter of congratulations to Braddock on the General’s arrival in America and thereby he let His Excellency know there was such a person as George Washington.
Braddock remained in Williamsburg, hard at work. Newspapers and returning travelers told of vigorous recruiting to fill out the expected British Regiments, and of the organization of Virginia companies of rangers, carpenters and light horse to be commanded by officers of Braddock’s selection. In addition George, of course, heard gossip of Braddock, Keppel and St. Clair, because three such notables could not come to the quiet Virginia capital and not create chatter. Never had there been such planning, such talk of ships and soldiers, such contracts—for two hundred hired wagons, among other things, and 2500 horses. In comparison with George’s expedition of 1754, the scale of everything was trebled or quadrupled; promises made by the Colonials were in proportion.
To the young master of Mount Vernon, the resigned Virginia Colonel, all this was at once far off and familiar. He knew what the preparations involved and forecast, but he was out of the service . . . until March 14, 1755, when this letter was delivered to him:
Sir: The General having been informed that you expressed some desire to make the campaign, but that you declined it upon the disagreeableness that you thought might arise from the regulation of command, has ordered me to acquaint you that he will be very glad of your company in his family by which all inconveniences of that kind will be obviated.
I shall think myself very happy to form an acquaintance with a person so universally esteemed and shall use every opportunity of assuring you how much I am
Sir
Your most obedient servant
ROBERT ORME aid de camp
Williamsburg, Mch. 2, 1755
The opportunity of joining Braddock’s staff came, unfortunately, at a time when George’s military ambitions clashed with his personal economy. The lease and partial equipment of Mount Vernon had involved considerable expense; he had no manager of his property; if he followed his impulse and went again to the Ohio he might lose heavily at the very time he otherwise might profit. The impulse persisted; so did the doubt. Balancing gain and sacrifice, he at length decided to postpone a final answer until he met Braddock and talked with the General.
George did not have long to wait. The last of the transports from Ireland arrived at Hampton with the rear companies and stores of Brad-dock’s command. The men were ordered to proceed on the same vessels to Alexandria, whither Braddock himself took ship with Keppel and Dinwiddie. On March 28 these celebrities disembarked at the proud new town.
Braddock decided quickly that the tall young Virginian was worth attaching to his family. He offered George a Captain’s commission by brevet and had it explained carefully this was the highest position he had authority to fill. In turn, George described his perplexity over entering the service in any capacity and asked whether, if he did join the staff, he could devote to his own affairs the time that would elapse before Braddock was ready to establish headquarters at Wills Creek. When Braddock readily agreed to this, George thanked him and said he would give an early answer to the offer.
An interview with the General was not all. George must have made several visits to the quarters of the younger officers or often have met them socially, because he soon was on friendly, bantering terms with Orme and Shirley. When George left the company of these young officers, it always was with the feeling that if he joined Braddock he would be associated with pleasant men not much older than himself. Deliberately he debated whether he should accept the invitation to be one of them. Pride and previous utterance led him to exclude even the possibility of accepting a Captain’s commission by brevet. The essential question was whether he could afford to serve as a volunteer aide. He decided about April 1 that he would do this, if he could perform the duty the General expected of him without too great or too prolonged neglect of his private affairs. The bargain struck, George took pains to let his friends know he was to serve as a volunteer and without pay.
Secrecy was not a virtue of military planning at so great a distance from the French. Without being inquisitive, George soon ascertained that Braddock’s plan had been drafted in Britain, chiefly by the Duke of Cumberland, and was covered by instructions and by letters. These provided for attack at three points that formed a concave arc from the Ohio at Fort DuQuesne to Lake Champlain. First, Braddock was to march from Wills Creek to the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela. If, as expected, he made short work of Fort DuQuesne, he was to look to Fort Niagara, near the western end of Lake Ontario and on Niagara River, about two hundred miles north and slightly east of the first objective. In addition, a plan was formulted for an attack on Nova Scotia. It was a plan to appeal to a young soldier because, if its daring was rewarded, it would crush the enemy and terminate in speedy triumph the war with France. Washington had yet to discover how readily even experienced soldiers may be tempted to let their imagination outmarch their armies and their ambition disdain the limitations of their resources. The Virginian had lost his small battles with mud and mountains and haggling farmers who would risk a war to save a wagon. Would these commanders from home show him where he had erred and how he might have won?
Washington heard, also, of the Governors’ other deliberations with Braddock—how they regretfully had told the General the Colonies would not provide a common fund for the support of the campaign, and how they had pledged their Colonies to provide a fund for presents to friendly savages and to make arrangements for garrisoning Fort DuQuesne when Braddock had captured it and had moved on towards Fort Niagara.
In the remembrance of the hunger of his men the previous year, George felt that transportation was the problem of all problems for a successful advance. In his opinion, the mountains would be crossed with minimum difficulty by a large train of pack horses. Braddock was a believer in wheeled transport rather than in pack animals; but he increasingly was disturbed by the difficulty and expense of procuring wagons. In some manner he had misunderstood what was told him about the distance over the mountains to Fort DuQuesne. He thought he had to traverse fifteen miles of rough country. When he learned that he had ahead of him between sixty and seventy miles of mountain and hill he became peevishly sensitive to everything that delayed an early start on the long and toilsome road.
Non-fulfillment of Colonials’ promises to supply wagons shaped Braddock’s next move. He had been induced to send part of the troops through Maryland because he had the assurance that the farmers of that Colony would not rent their wagons for use outside its bounds but would supply vehicles on the Maryland side of the Potomac. Now that he was ready to have the artillery follow the infantry toward the frontier, he found that the wagons promised by Sharpe were not available for the guns. Angrily the General sent an express to St. Clair, who had gone to Winchester and was expecting, when he had repaired the road, to proceed to Wills Creek. After a few days, Braddock impatiently decided to ride to Frederick, Maryland, and see for himself what could be done there to get wagons.
George remained behind to finish his business, and, on May 1, started out to join Braddock in Frederick. A long, roundabout ride it was, and one that fatigued even George, but it carried him to the Maryland village—a place of abundance—just in time to catch Braddock before that officer was departing in disgust and wrath over conditions that in some respects duplicated and in others exceeded those George had to endure the previous year.
The General had arrived at Frederick on the twenty-first; St. Clair had reached the settlement the same day. They found few cattle accumulated for the troops and no wagons ready for the journey to Wills Creek. Braddock, complaining of the cost of everything, was forced at heavy expense to send into the country around Frederick to purchase beeves; and he was compelled to threaten dire things unless the Justices of the Peace procured wagons for the movement of stores and ammunition to Fort Cumberland. At length twenty-five wagons were delivered, but twenty-five only, and some of them not fit for the road. Braddock almost went mad. The expedition was at an end, he swore; he could not go on. He must have not less than 150 wagons and must have them speedily!
The visitor who toned down Braddock was a soft-spoken man of forty-nine, regarded as one of the ablest as well as suavest of Philadelphia leaders. He was Benjamin Franklin, who had come to Frederick in an effort to assuage the wrath of Braddock and St. Clair against Pennsylvania and he believed he had removed some of their prejudices. Now, in desperation, the General appealed to Franklin: would he undertake to contract in Pennsylvania for 150 wagons and 1500 horses to be delivered by May 10 at Fort Cumberland? Franklin agreed to make the effort, whereupon Braddock advanced £800 from the army chest for the initial expenses.
Braddock, reaching Winchester May 3, lingered unwillingly there because he had been led to believe, from what Dinwiddie had told him at Williamsburg, that Indian Chiefs would meet him in the Valley town and would join in a council designed to strengthen alliances against the French. The General found no Indians at the rendezvous and heard that none had been there. As excessively hot weather was added to disappointment, Braddock probably was boiling inwardly and outwardly, but, of course, he was unwilling to stir until he was convinced that no Indians were on the road to attend the council.
Braddock left Winchester for Wills Creek May 7 in the conviction that longer waiting for the Indians would be time wasted. With his staff and the Virginia Troop of Light Horse, he reached Cresap’s on the eighth. All hands rested on the ninth; but on the tenth they were astir. Dunbar’s Regiment started early; later Braddock climbed into his chariot and gave the nod. Off rolled the vehicle. George, Orme, and the others attended at a slow trot; the Virginia Troop acted as guard and escort. The ride was pleasant through the greenery of early May and without dust. Not far from Wills Creek, George and his companions passed the Forty-eighth Regiment on the road. The men gazed at the fat gentleman in the carraige; the drums beat the “Grenadiers’ March”; the Colonials marveled: A new style of war had come to the wilderness.
Fort Cumberland now was a formidable-looking structure, but crudely put together. To George, the setting was familiar, but there were differences from his earlier experiences at the outpost. Never had George seen so many soldiers at the Fort, or so many supplies. That was the principal difference. The next was the contrast between a professional commander and staff and the extemporized, inexperienced organization George had known under Fry and later under Innes. A third difference was symbolized by twelve words written in the orderly book of Headquarters that day, May 10, 1755: “Mr. Washington is appointed aid de camp to His Excellency General Braddock.” That meant new honor, new authority, new opportunity.
George’s duties as aide to General Braddock scarcely accorded at the outset with the distinction the young Virginian attached to the post. His principal regular assignment was to see that the orderly book was written up carefully. Further, in common with all other officers, George was supposed to wait on the General at the morning levee, held daily between ten and eleven o’clock. Then and always, Washington received the fullest consideration of Braddock, who soon formed an attachment for him and gave him patronage any of the Southern Governors would have coveted: in the hands of his new assistant the General placed several blank commissions for ensigns, and authorized him to fill them out in the name of young men he approved. This pleasing evidence of Braddock’s goodwill was appreciated, but the selection of a few ensigns for these commissions, and the discharge of his trivial routine duties occupied only a small part of George’s time.
George doubtless saw before many days what some of his comrades-in-arms already had observed—that something besides horses and wagons was lacking. Beneath the show of strict conformity to military standards, and of blunt, open dealing on the part of the General, there was much slowness, inefficiency, stupidity, lack of resourcefulness and some laziness. As one officer subsequently wrote, Braddock “was a man of sense and good natured too, though warm and a little uncouth in his manner—and peevish—withal very indolent and seemed glad for anybody to take business off his hands.” Young Washington, in the still-sensitive memory of the difficulties of transportation in 1754, wondered whether it would be possible for Braddock to get the artillery over the mountains. If that could be done, George believed the military task beyond the ridges could be discharged with ease and honor. A second concern was that of assistance from the Indians. Besides the certainty of delay and the uncertainty of Indian allegiance, a third difficulty developed during the first days at Wills Creek. As a result of high temperature and poor packing, much salt meat spoiled. Braddock at once set up a public market but offerings were far below the requirements of the camp.
Although Braddock advanced some gold for the encouragement of his feeble trade, funds for these purposes were running low because of the high prices demanded for everything. He had now to replenish his stock of money, and on May 15 he gave George instructions to proceed to Hampton and to get £4000 from the Paymaster of the expedition, John Hunter. George got back to Wills Creek with the money on May 30, the fifteenth day after his departure. He had made excellent time and found himself at the journey’s end in “tolerable health,” as he put it, though he was somewhat worn.
Much had happened during his absence. All the troops intended for the expedition had arrived or soon would. The artillery had experienced much trouble in reaching Fort Cumberland because of the usual shortage of wagons and teams. Had not Lt. Col. Thomas Gage impressed vehicles and horses as he went forward, he might never have reached Wills Creek. The last contingent known to be on the road, Dobbs’s North Carolina Company, tramped into quarters the day of George’s return. There then were in the camp the two British Regiments of seven hundred men each, three Independent Companies, and one North Carolina, one Maryland and nine Virginia companies, together with sixty regulars of the artillery train and thirty seamen accustomed to the use of block and tackle in moving heavy guns. The Maryland Company had made a favorable impression on St. Clair, in spite of the fact that recruits from the Colony for the regulars had included some convicts and a number of servants who had scurried to the colors in the hope of terminating their indenture. The Virginia troops had been well drilled by Ensign Allen of the regulars, but, in the judgment of Orme, “their languid, spiritless and unsoldierlike appearance, considered with the lowness and ignorance of most of their officers, gave little hope of their future good behavior.”
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 and 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 through 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.
The Captains and lieutenants were able to restore a confused line, but it was for a few minutes only. Bulking above the heads of the crouching troops, the mounted leaders were ideal targets for the invisible marksmen. Down the officers tumbled from their steeds, dead or wounded. Most of those who escaped with their lives lost their horses. Colonel Gage kept his saddle, but he found few subordinates to help him rally men who had no idea how to fight an enemy they could not see. Now Sir John St. Clair rode up to ascertain what was happening—and got the information in the form of a bullet through his body.
In rear of what had been the right flank the fire was heavier every minute. With front and both flanks thus enveloped, the British were within a half-moon of yelling adversaries. Suddenly the rumor spread that the French and Indians were attacking the baggage train. Stunned men under triple fire from an unseen foe did not stop to ask whether the rumor had probability. They concluded instantly that if the enemy was closing on their rear, they soon would be surrounded, scalped, massacred. With one impulse, Gage’s men ran eastward, carried St. Clair’s workers along, abandoned the two six-pounders—and stumbled into the uncertain files of Burton’s vanguard which had been advancing to their support up the twelve-foot road. The situation was completely beyond the control of the few officers who remained on horseback.
Now Braddock rode up, attended by George. The General had waited only a few minutes at the point where he had halted the column. Then he had started for the front. At first he was half paralyzed by the indescribable confusion and the unfamiliar ground. Braddock could not decide, on the instant, what to do or how to do it. While he hesitated, St. Clair made his way through the press of men and called to the General for God’s sake to take the northern hill in order to keep the army from being surrounded. Before the Quartermaster could say more, he lost consciousness because of his wound.
Capt. Thomas Waggener, a veteran of Fort Necessity, had kept his men together and now undertook to lead them up the hill to the trunk of a great fallen tree that he thought he could use as a parapet. He succeeded in getting there with the loss of three men only, but to his amazement he found himself subjected to the fire of British who mistook his company for French. Some of the regular officers concluded that he and his soldiers were attempting to run away, and they discouraged those who were willing to reenforce him. In getting back under fire, the Captain lost all except thirty of his men.
Braddock at last realized that the hill must be wrested from the savages and that the two six-pounders must be recaptured. He sent George off to find officers and tell them to organize one party of 150 to charge up the hill and another party of like size to recover the cannon. George managed to stay in his saddle despite his weakness. During the action, he had two horses shot under him, but he found another and skillfully made his way through the woods. His tall figure was a mark for hidden riflemen. One of them sent a bullet through his hat; another bullet, a third, and still another slit his uniform with hot lead.
Braddock again and again undertook to rally the men, to form a line and lead them against the hidden enemy and the high ground north of the road. Nothing could be done. The survivors would not budge. At last, in desperation, he decided to withdraw to the right and east in order to cover his wagons. The General did not proceed far with this. Already five bullets had struck the horses he had ridden; now it was his turn. A missile crashed through his right arm and penetrated his lungs. After he was placed on the ground he remained conscious, but of course, could not direct the withdrawal to the wagons.
The situation was desperate but not altogether hopeless. Two hundred men were held together by uninjured commanders and by officers returning from the surgeons with bandaged wounds. These troops, keeping their heads, still were able to hold the enemy at a distance, though they were deaf to every order to mount the eminence or to rush out and put the six-pounders into action.
Those officers who had received the order to withdraw to the wagons undertook to do so and carry their commands with them. They were powerless. The men in the road stayed where they were and continued their blind fire. Orders no longer meant anything. Hopelessly the men continued to ram home their charges and to level their pieces aimlessly. Ammunition was almost exhausted; few officers remained on their feet; the cannon were deserted; the rain of bullets from hidden marksmen did not cease or even diminish. That same paralyzing, fiendish whoop of the savages rang through woods carpeted with dead and dying men. Frightened soldiers plunged past comrades of stouter heart and gave themselves to mad panic. Many of the troops threw away arms, even parts of their clothing, to speed their flight down to the river. Soon the straggling men were choking the passageway that led to the crossing.
When all hope of rallying the soldiers on the right bank was gone, George’s first duty was to get the wounded General safely across the river. Washington found a little cart that had not lost its team and into this put Braddock, who still was master of himself. In the company of the best of the troops, Washington then descended to the bank and, under fire, conveyed the hard-breathing commander over the ford. Had George looked back while he was crossing, he would have seen some battle-maddened Indians plunge into the water and kill exhausted fugitives there. Otherwise, there was no immediate pursuit. Most of the savages remained on the battlefield to plunder the wagons, rob the dead, and scalp the wounded and the slain. If the savages had not stopped to pillage, they might have confronted the survivors from the right bank at the upper ford. Had the French and their allies done that, then all the British who had escaped from the battleground might have been starved or slaughtered.
With Burton and Orme, George now shared the task of trying to restore order among the survivors. High ground was chosen, about a quarter of a mile from the river and some two hundred yards from the road—a position strong enough to be held till Colonel Dunbar came up. Burton made an appeal to the soldiers and prevailed upon the least shaken of them to serve as outposts. Braddock observed this, approved it, and directed George to ride farther back along the line of the morning advance and rally the men who had fled in that direction.
Obediently, George turned his horse’s head. Beyond the upper ford, he found Lieutenant Colonel Gage. How the commander of the advance party got that far to the rear, George did not ascertain. Gage had with him eighty men, whom he apparently had rallied and now had under some discipline. George, about sundown, recrossed the upper ford to return to Braddock. On the way back to the hill the officers had agreed to make their stronghold, George met a grim cavalcade—Braddock and such of the troops as had held to their duty after the first panic was overcome. The other soldiers had slipped away from the eminence and were trying to put more distance between them and the enemy.
Nothing remained except to retreat as quickly as possible without further loss. Colonel Dunbar was supposed to be at no great distance; he could cover the retreat and could forward provisions and liquor to the hungry and exhausted men. For sending orders to Dunbar, Braddock looked once more to young Washington. Having been on horseback for more than twelve mad hours of incredible strain, George had to set out again. He did, though he had to muster all his moral courage to undertake it.
It seemed impossible for any human being to keep his saddle after twenty-four hours and more of riding, fighting, and witnessing the horrors of the battlefield. George gripped his saddle with exhausted knees and held fast to his bridle-rein. The resolution that had carried him through the snow-covered wilderness and over the floating ice of the Allegheny did not fail him now. Late in the morning of July 10, George’s horse staggered into the area of Dunbar’s wagons, near “Rock Fort” seven miles northwest of Great Meadows, the Virginian so fatigued and overwrought that he scarcely was able to discharge his mission.
Rumor of bad news had spread through the camp after nine o’clock that day. The whisper was that Braddock’s force had been wiped out. About noon, Colonel Dunbar lost his head and ordered the drummers to beat “To arms.” Instead of bringing the men to their places, this spread panic among cowardly soldiers and teamsters. Some of them broke for the rear as if the enemy were about to open fire. The impulse to retreat gripped even officers. Fortunately, Dunbar recovered sufficient self-command to resolve to hold his position at least for the next night. The wagons for which George brought orders were hitched, loaded with supplies, and sent forward.
George did not go with the convoy; his powerful will could not drive his exhausted body any longer. He had to remain at Dunbar’s to rest, but, when he awakened on the morning of the eleventh, he found new anxiety in the confusion of the camp and in the virtual disappearance of all discipline. Demoralization was so general that Dunbar probably deserved credit for being able to comply with a further order from Braddock to send to him additional wagons and two companies of infantry.
In the evening, Braddock and the main body of wounded and unhurt survivors arrived at Dunbar’s Camp. The General had been transferred from the cart to a hand-litter and, when soldiers refused to carry him, he had been forced about 3 P.M. on the tenth to mount a horse. How he endured the agony of his wound on the long ride none could understand; but he retained consciousness and undertook to give orders. He directed that available teams be assigned for the wounded, the two six-pounder cannon that had been left with Dunbar, and such indispensable provisions as could be conveyed by the remaining animals. Everything else was to be destroyed. Then the crippled army was to be removed farther from the victorious enemy.
Braddock had not been talkative at any time after he left the Monongahela, but his orders and his few remarks indicated that he had suffered no loss of memory through shock and that he knew what was happening around him. “Who would have thought it?” he asked, in reference to the defeat. Now, after he had traversed approximately one mile of the road between Rock Fort and Great Meadows, he received an inquiry from Dunbar concerning some doubtful question. This seemed to make Braddock realize that he should not attempt to direct the retreat. He called Dunbar to him and in a few words turned over the command to the Colonel. About two miles west of Great Meadows, Braddock called a halt. To Orme, Braddock gave new instructions: he must acquaint Keppel promptly with what had happened, and must tell him that “nothing could equal the gallantry and good conduct of the officers nor the bad behavior of the men.” In that pride of his corps and with that shame of his troops, the General died about 9 P.M. on July 13.
George was charged with the burial of the defeated General. George had by no means recovered from his own strain but he had strength enough to perform the last services for a man who had admired him and had given him coveted opportunity. On the morning of the fourteenth, he selected a place in the road near the head of the column and there had a squad dig a short, deep trench. He chose that spot because the French Indians might hear of the death of Braddock and seek to find the grave in order that they might disinter and maltreat the body. When the ground was ready, George had the General’s corpse brought forward with such honors of war as the condition of the troops permitted. Then, when the column began to move eastward again, he had all the wagons pass over the grave and all the footmen tramp the earth down, so that no mark of the burial should remain. The device was successful. French and Indians learned that Braddock had expired but they did not find his grave.
On the brief remainder of the march to Fort Cumberland, George’s particular care was for the comfort of his fellow staff-officers, Morris and Orme, and of their traveling-companion, Colonel Burton. All three were on horse-litters, and by the morning of the sixteenth, they were safe at the fort. The wounded who reached Wills Creek numbered twenty-three officers and 364 men. The final list of casualties was to show sixty-three officers and 914 men killed or wounded, a total of 977 in a force of 1459. Virginians had sustained losses that almost destroyed the three participating companies.
These Virginia casualties became the more serious in the face of what George heard of plans. He knew by mid-July that Dunbar intended to leave Fort Cumberland and proceed to Philadelphia. This meant, as George wrote Dinwiddie, “there will be no men left here unless it is the poor remains of the Virginia troops who survive and will be too small to guard our frontiers.” More than that Washington did not say concerning Dunbar’s decision, which was based on the belief that the situation was hopeless.
On the death of Braddock, George’s appointment as a volunteer aide had come to an end. He still was willing to work to redeem the disaster, but he felt that as the army had been “drove in thus far”—to Wills Creek—he was at liberty to go home when his strength permitted. By the twenty-second, he was able to undertake the journey. On July 26 he had the joy of drawing rein on his own lawn.
All the way back to Fort Cumberland and to Mount Vernon George heard the complaints of soldiers who felt they had been led into the wilderness to be slaughtered. Officers who survived the battle had praise for their corps and contempt for the alleged cowardice of the ranks. Criticism from other sources now became audible. George began to discover what Colonial Governors and public men thought of the campaign, and for months afterward he read comment on a defeat so overwhelming that it stunned the strongest. There was no disposition to take one inclusive view in England and another in America. Different men emphasized different mistakes of strategy and tactics, but geography did not shape the critique except in two particulars. One of these concerned blame of the Colonials for failing to furnish a sufficient number of horses and wagons; the other had to do with the superior attitude most of the British officers assumed in dealing with the Colonials.
The most general complaint was of Braddock’s overconfidence in an unfamiliar country where warfare was different in almost every way from that for which he had been trained. Nearly everyone agreed that Braddock should have heeded the warnings of the Colonial officers. They told him, as plainly as they dared, that stand-up fighting and line fire would not avail in a heavily wooded country, where the men scattered and hid themselves while firing from shelter. Instead of changing his tactics, “General Braddock,” as Adam Stephen said in accurate epitome, “unhappily placed his confidence and the whole dependence on the Regiments.”
Doubtless to his last hour, Braddock believed that the failure to provide promptly the wagons, horses, flour and meat needed for the expedition denied him an early start that would have assured easy capture of Fort DuQuesne. Governor Dinwiddie was of the same mind, though he blamed Braddock, not the Colonies, for the delay. That the teams and the supplies were not placed at the disposal of Braddock when he expected them, none could deny; but so far as the Colonial governments were responsible, the reason was inexperience, not rascality. Had the Governors been informed accurately of what they could do, through contractors above the average in honesty, Braddock would have known what was practicable and what was not. It does not follow that he would have been sufficiently wise to use his wagons to establish a series of advance bases to one of which he might have withdrawn, after a disaster, without having to abandon the entire country west of the Allegheny Mountains. In war, good transportation never was a satisfactory substitute for good sense.
This, too, must be remembered: Vexatious as was the delayed arrival of the wagons, the nature of the country was such that, regardless of supplies, advance was not possible until the roads had been dried by the sun of May. Braddock at Fort Cumberland consequently did not have to chafe in idleness crying for more vehicles much more than a fortnight longer than he would have had to wait, in the best of conditions, for General Mud to retreat. Moreover, if the French figures of their own strength are correct Braddock stood on the defensive with something over 1400 men, speaking one language, to receive the attack of not more than 900 French, Canadians and Indians, a majority of whom could not communicate with one another. Delay did not give Braddock inferiority of force on the day of battle.
On the day of battle, what Braddock lacked primarily, in approaching the field, was not more wagons but more Indians. It is easy to exaggerate this failure of Braddock. Had he been diplomatic instead of blunt, skillful instead of inept, he scarcely could have been expected to overcome the advantage the French had gained before he reached America. Everything indicated that the defeat of Washington at Fort Necessity in 1754 led the Shawnees and the Mingoes to conclude that the French would win the war. Even those tribes of the Six Nations that had long and friendly ties with England found it prudent to remain neutral if not openly to espouse the cause of Britain’s adversary. Braddock’s country thus had lost temporarily the support of the Indians before he so much as had a chance to woo them. He needed allies in order to win a victory; he could not hope to regain the allies until he had won the victory. It was an impossible situation.
Braddock was entirely ignorant of the type of combat that prevailed in America. What was worse, he was not a man to learn. He lacked all originality of mind and exemplified the system that produced and schooled him, a system traditional, methodical and inflexible. A man of his training was not apt to fail to do everything the regulations and the accepted tactics prescribed. It was still less likely he would do anything more. Braddock believed that the tactics in which he had been drilled for forty years were close to perfection; but he did not even apply well the tactics in which he and his troops were trained. He was inexcusably careless in not making certain that Gage had reconnoitred thoroughly before proceeding towards Fort DuQuesne from the lower ford. The result contains a warning to every soldier: Great dangers often are rendered small by vigilance; lesser dangers always are enlarged by negligence.
On either side of Braddock’s advanced parties, at the time Gage met the enemy, there chanced to be ravines sufficiently deep to serve as natural trenches for the French and Indians. These ravines were close enough to afford the enemy a perfect field of fire against the head and flanks of the British column. Braddock’s guides and engineers had not discovered them or else, finding them empty, had disregarded them. Once the French and their savage allies had occupied the gulleys without being observed, the question was whether the British would charge and clear the ground. If they did not, the only other question was that of the slaughter the British would endure before they broke and ran.
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.