George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[185] the wagoners was Daniel Morgan, famed in village

chap. VIII.} 1755.

groups as a wrestler; skilful in the use of the musket; who emigrated, as a day-laborer, from New Jersey to Virginia, and husbanded his wages so that he had been able to become the owner of a team; all unconscious of his future greatness. At Will's Creek, which took the name of Cumberland, Washington, in May, joined the expedition as one of the generals aids.

Seven-and-twenty days passed in the march of the army from Alexandria to Cumberland, where, at last, two thousand effective men were assembled; among them, two independent companies from New York, under the command of Horatio Gates. ‘The American troops,’ wrote Braddock, ‘have little courage, or good-will. I expect from them almost no military service, though I have employed the best officers to drill them;’¹ and losing all patience, he insulted the country as void of ability, honor, and honesty. ‘The general is brave,’ said his secretary, young Shirley,² ‘and in pecuniary matters honest, but disqualified for the service he is employed in;’ and Washington found him ‘incapable of arguing without warmth, or giving up any point he had asserted, be it ever so incompatible with reason or common sense.’

From Cumberland to the fork of the Ohio the distance is less than one hundred and thirty miles. In the last day of May, five hundred men were sent forward to open the roads, and store provisions at Little Meadows. Sir Peter Halket followed with the first brigade, and June was advancing before the general was in motion with the second. ‘Braddock is ’