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Chapter 13:
Conquest of the valley of the
West.—
William Pitt's ministry continued.
1757-1758.
the Protestant nations compared Frederic to
Gustavus Adolphus, as the defender of the Reformation and of freedom.
With a vigor of hope like his own,
Pitt, who, eight days before the battle of
Rossbach, had authorized Frederic to place Ferdinand of
Brunswick at the head of the
English army on the continent, planned the conquest of the colonies of
France.
Consulted through the under secretaries,
Franklin gave full advice on the conduct of the
American war, criticised the measures proposed by others, and recommended and enforced the conquest of
Canada.
In the House of Commons,
Lord George Sackville, a man perplexed in action and without sagacity in council, of unsound judgment yet questioning every judgment but his own, restless and opinionated, made the apology of
Loudoun.
‘Nothing is done, nothing attempted,’ said
Pitt with vehement asperity.
‘We have lost all the waters; we have not a boat on the lakes.
Every door is open to
France.’
Loudoun
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was recalled, and added one more to the military of-
ficers, who advised the magisterial exercise of British authority, and voted in parliament to sustain it by fire and sword.
In 1746 the
Duke of
Bedford, then at the head of the admiralty, after considering ‘the conduct and principles’ of the
Northern colonies, had declared officially that it would be imprudent ‘to send twenty thousand colonists to plunder the Canadians and conquer their country, on account of the independence it might create in those provinces, when they should see within themselves so great an army possessed of so great a country by right of conquest.’
He had, therefore, advised ‘to place the chief dependence on the fleet from
England, and to look on the
Americans as useful only when joined with others.’
But
Pitt, rejecting the coercive policy of his predecessors, their instructions for a common fund, and their menaces of taxation .by parliament, invited the
New England colonies, and New York, and
New Jersey, each without limit, to raise as many men as possible, believing them ‘well able to furnish at least twenty thousand,’ for the expedition against
Montreal and
Quebec, while
Pennsylvania and the southern colonies were to aid in conquering the
West.
He assumed that
England should provide arms, ammunition and tents; he ‘expected and required’ nothing of the colonists, but ‘the levying, clothing, and pay of the men;’ and for these expenses he promised that the king should ‘strongly recommend to parliament to grant a proper compensation.’
Moreover, in December, 1757, he obtained the king's order that every provincial officer of no higher rank than
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colonel should have equal command with the
British,
according to the date of their respective commissions.
Pitt was a friend to liberty everywhere, and sought new guarantees for freedom in
England.
It was during the height of his power, that a bill was carried through the House of Commons, extending the provisions for awarding the writ of habeas corpus to all cases of commitment; and when the law lords obtained its rejection by the peers, he was but the more confirmed in his maxim, that ‘the lawyers are not to be regarded in questions of liberty.’
In a like spirit,
Pitt now frowned upon every attempt against the rights of
America.
Charles Townshend and others, ever disposed to cavil at the promise of recompense, as contrary to their plan of taxation by parliament and a surrender of authority, were compelled to postpone their complaint, that the
Americans, in peace the rivals of
England, assumed in war to be allies, rather than subjects.
Of the designs, secretly maturing at the Board of Trade by Halifax and
Rigby, the colonies were unsuspicious.
The genius of
Pitt and his respect for their rights, the prospect of conquering
Canada and the
West, and unbounded anticipations of future greatness, roused their most active zeal.
In some of them, especially in
New England, their contributions exceeded a just estimate of their ability.
The thrifty people of
Massachusetts disliked a funded debt, and avoided it by taxation.
In addition to the sums expected from
England, their tax, in one year of the war was, on personal estate, thirteen shillings and fourpence on the pound of income, and on two hundred pounds income from
real estate was seventy-two pounds, besides various excises and a poll tax of nineteen
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shillings on every male over sixteen.
Once, in
1759, a colonial stamp-tax was imposed by their legislature.
The burden cheerfully borne by
Connecticut was similarly heavy.
The
Americans, powerful in themselves, were further strengthened by an unbroken communication with
England.
The unhappy
Canadians, who had not enjoyed repose enough to fill their garners by cultivating their lands, were cut off from regular intercourse with
France.
‘I shudder,’ said
Montcalm, in February, 1758, ‘when I think of provisions.
The famine is very great.’
‘For all our success,’ thus he appealed to the minister, ‘New France needs peace, or sooner or later it must fall; such are the numbers of the
English, such the difficulty of our receiving supplies.’
The
Canadian war-parties were on the alert; in March a body of
Iroquois and other Indians waylaid a detachment of about two hundred rangers in the forests near Fort Carillon, as the
French called
Ticonderoga, and brought back one hundred and forty-six scalps, with three prisoners, as ‘living messages.’
But what availed such small successes?
In the general dearth, the soldiers could receive but a half-pound of bread daily; the inhabitants of
Quebec but two ounces daily.
Words could not describe the misery of the people.
The whole country was almost bare of vegetables, poultry, sheep, and cattle.
In the want of bread and beef and other necessaries, twelve or fifteen hundred horses were distributed for food.
Artisans and daylaborers became too weak for toil.
On the recall of Loudoun,
Henry Seymour Conway desired to be employed in
America, but was refused by the king.
Lord George Sackville was
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invited to take the command, but declined.
Three
several expeditions were set in motion.
The circumspect, impenetrable
Jeffrey Amherst, a man of solid judgment and respectable ability in action, with
James Wolfe, was to join the fleet under
Boscawen, for the siege of
Louisburg; the conquest of the
Ohio valley was intrusted to
Forbes; and against
Ticonderoga and
Crown Point,
Abercrombie, a friend of
Bute, was commander-in-chief, though
Pitt selected the young Lord Howe to be the soul of the enterprise.
None of the officers won favor like
Howe and
Wolfe.
To high rank and great connections
Howe added manliness, humanity, a capacity to discern merit, and judgment to employ it. As he reached
America, he adopted the austere simplicity befitting forest warfare.
Wolfe, then thirty-one years old, had been eighteen years in the army; was at
Dettingen and
Fontenoy, and won laurels at Laffeldt.
Merit made him at two-and-twenty a lieutenant-colonel, and his active genius improved the discipline of his battalion.
He was at once authoritative and humane, severe yet indefatigably kind; modest, but aspiring and conscious of ability.
The brave soldier dutifully loved and obeyed his widowed mother, and his gentle nature saw visions of happiness in scenes of domestic love, even while he kindled at the prospect of glory, as ‘gunpowder at fire.’
On the twenty-eighth day of May, Amherst, after a most unusually long passage, reached
Halifax.
The fleet had twenty-two ships of the line and fifteen frigates; the army at least ten thousand effective men.
Isaac Barre, who had lingered a subaltern eleven years till
Wolfe rescued him from hopeless
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obscurity, was in the expedition as a major of
brigade.
For six days after the
British forces, on their way from
Halifax to
Louisburg, had entered Chapeau Rouge Bay, the surf, under a high wind, made the rugged shore inaccessible, and gave the
French time to strengthen and extend their lines.
The sea still dashed heavily, when, before daybreak, on the eighth of June, the troops, under cover of a random fire from the frigates, attempted disembarking.
Wolfe, the third brigadier, who led the first division, would not allow a gun to be fired, cheered the rowers, and, on coming to shoal water, jumped into the sea; and, in spite of the surf which broke several boats and upset more, in spite of the well-directed fire of the
French, in spite of their breast-work and rampart of felled trees whose interwoven branches made one continued wall of green, the
English reached the land, took the batteries, drove in the
French, and on the same day invested
Louisburg.
At that landing, none was more gallant than
Richard Montgomery; just oneandtwenty; Irish by birth; an humble officer in
Wolfe's brigade; but also a servant of humanity, enlisted in its corps of immortals.
The sagacity of his commander honored him with well deserved praise and promotion to a lieutenancy.
On the morning of the twelfth, an hour before dawn,
Wolfe, with light infantry and Highlanders, took by surprise the lighthouse battery on the northeast side of the entrance to the harbor; the smaller works were successively carried.
On the twenty-third, the
English battery began to play on that of the
French on the island near the centre of the mouth of the harbor.
Science, sufficient force, union
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among the officers, heroism pervading mariners and
soldiers, carried forward the siege, during which
Barre by his conduct secured the approbation of
Amherst and the friendship of
Wolfe.
Of the French ships in the port, three were burned on the twenty-first of July; in the night following the twenty-fifth, the boats of the squadron, with small loss, set fire to the Prudent, a seventy-four, and carried off the Bienfaisant.
Boscawen was prepared to send six English ships into the harbor.
But the town of
Louisburg was already a heap of ruins; for eight days, the
French officers and men had had no safe place for rest; of their fifty-two cannon, forty were disabled.
They had now but five ships of the line and four frigates.
It was time for the
Chevalier de Drucour to capitulate.
The garrison became prisoners of war, and, with the sailors and marines, in all five thousand six hundred and thirty-seven, were sent to
England.
On the twenty-seventh of July, the
English took possession of
Louisburg, and, as a consequence, of Cape Breton and Prince Edward's Island.
Thus fell the power of
France on our eastern coast.
Halifax being the
English naval station,
Louisburg was deserted.
The harbor still offers shelter from storms; the coast repels the surge; but only a few hovels mark the spot which so much treasure was lavished to fortify, so much heroism to conquer.
Wolfe, whose heart was in
England, bore home the love and esteem of the army.
The trophies were deposited with pomp in the cathedral of
St. Paul's; the churches gave thanks;
Boscawen, himself a member of parliament, was honored by a unanimous tribute from the House of Commons.
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New England, too, triumphed; for the praises
awarded to
Amherst and
Wolfe recalled the deeds of her own sons.
On the surrender of
Louisburg, the season was too far advanced to attempt
Quebec.
Besides, a sudden message drew
Amherst to
Lake George.
The summons of
Pitt had called into being a numerous and well equipped provincial army.
Massachusetts, which had entered upon its alarm list more than forty-five thousand men, of whom more than thirty-seven thousand were by law obliged to train and in case of an invasion to take the field, had ten thousand of its citizens employed in the public service; but it kept its disbursements for the war under the control of its own commissioners.
Pownall, its governor, complained of the reservation, as an infringement of the prerogative, predicted confidently the nearness of American independence; and after vain appeals to the local legislature, repeated his griefs to the
Lords of Trade.
The Board, in reply, advised dissimulation.
‘The dependence which the colony of
Massachusetts Bay ought to have upon the sovereignty of the crown,’ thus they wrote
Pownall, ‘stands on a very precarious foot; and unless some effectual remedy be applied at a proper time, it will be in great danger of being totally lost.’
The letter was sent without the knowledge of
Pitt, who never invited a province to the utmost employment of its resources with the secret purpose of subverting its liberties, as soon as victory over a foreign foe should have been achieved with its concurrence.
Such a policy belonged only to the Board of Trade, where
Halifax still presided, and
Oswald, Soame Jenyns,
Rigby, and
William Gerard Hamilton sat as members.
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But the proposal of a change in the colonial
administration, cherished by Halifax from his first entrance into office and never abandoned, was reserved till the peace should offer the seemingly safe ‘occasion’ for interposition.
Meantime nine thousand and twenty-four provincials, from
New England, New York, and
New Jersey, assembled on the shore of
Lake George.
There were the six hundred
New England rangers, dressed like woodmen; armed with a firelock and a hatchet; under their right arm a powder-horn; a leather bag for bullets at their waist; and to each officer a pocket compass as a guide in the forests.
There was
Stark, of
New Hampshire, now promoted to be a captain.
There was the generous, openhearted
Israel Putnam, a Connecticut major, leaving his good farm round which his own hands had helped to build the walls; of a gentle disposition, brave, and artless.
There were the chaplains, who preached to the regiments of citizen soldiers a renewal of the days when
Moses with the rod of God in his hand sent Joshua against Amalek.
By the side of the provincials rose the tents of the regular army, six thousand three hundred and sixty-seven in number; of the whole force
Abercrombie was commander-in-chief; but the general confidence rested solely on
Howe.
Early in the spring,
Bradstreet, of New York, had proposed an attempt upon
Fort Frontenac; Lord Howe overruled objections; and the gallant provincial was to undertake it, as soon as the army should have established itself on the north side of the lake.
On the fifth day of July, the armament of more than fifteen thousand men, the largest body, of
European
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origin, that had ever been assembled in
Amer-
ica, struck their tents at daybreak, and in nine hundred small boats and one hundred and thirty-five whale-boats, with artillery mounted on rafts, embarked on
Lake George; the fleet, bright with banners, and cheered by martial music, moved in procession down the beautiful lake, beaming with hope and pride, though with no witness but the wilderness.
They passed over the broader expanse of waters to the first narrows; they came where the mountains, then mantled with forests, step down to the water's edge; and in the richest hues of evening light, they halted at Sabbath-day Point.
Long afterwards,
Stark remembered, that on that night
Howe, reclining in his tent on a bear-skin, and bent on winning a hero's name, questioned him closely as to the position of
Ticonderoga and the fittest mode of conducting the attack.
On the promontory, where the lake, through an outlet or river less than four miles long, falling in that distance about one hundred and fifty-seven feet, enters
Champlain, the
French had placed Fort Carillon, having that lake on its east, and on the south and southwest the bay formed by the junction.
On the north, wet meadows obstructed access; so that the only approach by land was from the northwest.
On that side, about a half-mile in front of the fort,
Montcalm marked out his lines, which began near the meadows and followed the sinuosities of the ground till they approached the outlet.
This the road from
Lake George to
Ticonderoga crossed twice by bridges, between which the path was as a cord to the large arc made by the course of the water.
Near the bridge at the lower falls, less than two miles from the fort, the
French had built saw-mills, on ground which
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offered a strong military position.
On the first of July,
Montcalm sent three regiments to occupy the head of the portage; but they had been recalled.
On the morning of the fifth, when a white flag on the mountains gave warning that the
English were embarked, a guard of three pickets was stationed at the landingplace, and De Trepezee, with three hundred men, was sent still further forward, to watch the movements of the enemy.
After a repose of five hours, the
English army, an hour before midnight, was again in motion, and by nine the next morning disembarked on the west side of the lake, about a mile above the rapids, in a cove sheltered by a point which still keeps the name of Lord Howe.
The three French pickets precipitately retired.
Immediately on landing, as the enemy had burnt the bridges, the army, leaving behind its provisions, artillery and all heavy baggage, formed in four columns, the regulars in the centre and provincials on the flanks, and began its march round the bend along the west side of the outlet, over ground uneven and densely wooded.
‘If these people,’ said
Montcalm, ‘do but give me time to gain the position I have chosen on the heights of Carillon, I shall beat them.’
The columns, led by bewildered guides, broke and jostled each other; they had proceeded about two miles, and an advanced party was near
Trout Brook, when the right centre, where Lord Howe had command, suddenly came upon the party of De Trepezee, who had lost his way and for twelve hours had been wandering in the forest.
The worn-out stragglers, less than three hundred in number, fought bravely, but were soon overwhelmed; some were killed; some drowned in the stream; one hundred and fifty-nine
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surrendered.
But Lord Howe, foremost in the skir-
mish, was the first to fall, expiring immediately.
The grief of his fellow-soldiers and the confusion that followed his death, spoke his eulogy;
Massachusetts soon after raised his monument in
Westminster Abbey; America long cherished his memory.
The
English passed the following night under arms in the forest.
On the morning of the seventh,
Abercrombie had no better plan than to draw back to the landing-place.
An hour before noon,
Bradstreet, with a strong detachment, rebuilt the bridges, and took possession of the ground near the saw-mills; on which the general joined him with the whole army, and encamped that night not more than a mile and a half from the enemy.
Early the next day,
Abercrombie sent Clerk, the
chief engineer, across the outlet to reconnoitre the
French lines, which he reported to be of flimsy construction, strong in appearance only.
Stark, of
New Hampshire, as well as some English officers, with a keener eye and sounder judgment, saw well finished preparations of defence.
But the general, apprehending that
Montcalm already commanded six thousand men, and that
De Levi was hastening to join him with three thousand more, gave orders, without waiting for cannon to be brought up, to storm the breastworks that very day. For that end, a triple line was formed out of reach of cannon-shot; the first consisted, on the left, of the rangers; in the centre, of the boatmen; on the right, of the light infantry; the second, of provincials, with wide openings between their regiments; the third, of the regulars.
Troops of
Connecticut and
New Jersey formed a rear guard.
During these arrangements,
Sir William Johnson arrived with foul
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hundred and forty warriors of the Six Nations, who
gazed with inactive apathy on the white men that had come so far to shed each other's blood.
On the sixth of July,
Montcalm called in all his parties, which amounted to no more than two thousand eight hundred French and four hundred and fifty Canadians.
That day he employed the second battalion of
Berry in strengthening his post.
The next day, his whole army toiled incredibly; the officers giving the example, and planting the flags on the breastwork.
In the evening,
De Levi returned from an intended expedition against the Mohawks, bringing with him four hundred chosen men; and at night, all bivouacked along the intrenchment.
On the morning of the eighth, the drums of the
French beat to arms, that the troops, now thirty-six hundred and fifty in number, might know their stations, and then, without pausing to return the fire of musketry from English light troops on the declivities of the mountain, they resumed their work.
The right of their defences rested on a hillock, from which the plain between the lines and the lake was to have been flanked by four pieces of cannon; but the battery could not be finished; the left extended to a scarp surmounted by an abattis.
For a hundred yards in front of the intermediate breastwork, which consisted of piles of logs, the approach was obstructed by felled trees with their branches pointing outwards, stumps, and rubbish of all sorts.
The English army, obeying the orders of a commander who remained out of sight and far behind during the action, rushed forward with fixed bayonets to carry the lines, the regulars advancing through the openings between the provincial regiments, and taking the lead.
Montcalm, who stood just within the
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trenches, threw off his coat for the sunny work of the
July afternoon, and forbade a musket to be fired till he commanded; then, as the
English drew very near in three principal columns to attack simultaneously the left, the centre and the right, and became entangled among the rubbish and broken into disorder by clambering over logs and projecting limbs, at his word a sudden and incessant fire from swivels and small arms mowed down brave officers and men by hundreds.
Their intrepidity made the carnage terrible.
The attacks were continued all the afternoon, generally with the greatest vivacity.
When the
English endeavored to turn the left, Bourlamarque opposed them till he was dangerously wounded; and
Montcalm, whose rapid eye watched every movement, sent reinforcements at the moment of crisis.
On the right, the grenadiers and Scottish Highlanders charged for three hours without faltering and without confusion; many fell within fifteen steps of the trench; some, it was said, upon it. About five o'clock, the columns which had attacked the
French centre and right, concentrated themselves on a salient point between the two; but
De Levi flew from the right, and
Montcalm himself brought up a reserve.
At six, the two parties nearest the water turned desperately against the centre, and, being repulsed, made a last effort on the left.
Thus were life and courage prodigally wasted, till the bewildered
English fired on an advanced party of their own, producing hopeless dejection; and after losing, in killed and wounded, nineteen hundred and sixty-seven, chiefly regulars, they fled promiscuously.
The British general, during the confusion of the battle, cowered safely at the saw-mills, and when his
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presence was needed to rally the fugitives, was no-
where to be found.
The second in command gave no orders; while
Montcalm, careful of every duty, distributed refreshments among his exhausted soldiers, cheered them by thanks to each regiment for their incredible valor, and employed the coming night in strengthening his lines.
The
English still exceeded the
French fourfold.
Their artillery was near and could easily force a passage.
The mountain over against
Ticonderoga was in their possession.
‘Had I to besiege Fort Carillon,’ said
Montcalm, ‘I would ask no more than six mortars and two pieces of artillery.’
But
Abercrombie, a victim to the ‘extremest fright and consternation,’ hurried the army that same evening to the landingplace with such precipitancy, that but for
Bradstreet's alertness, it would have rushed into the boats in a confused mass.
On the morning of the ninth the
British general embarked, and did not rest till he had placed the lake between himself and
Montcalm.
Even then he sent artillery and ammunition to
Albany for safety.
The news overwhelmed
Pitt with melancholy; but
Bute, who insisted that ‘
Abercrombie and the troops had done their duty,’ comforted himself in ‘the numbers lost’ as proof of ‘the greatest intrepidity,’ thinking it better to have cause for ‘tears’ than ‘blushes;’ and reserved all his sympathy for the ‘broken-hearted commander.’
Prince George expressed his hope one day by ‘superior help’ to ‘restore the love of virtue and religion.’
While
Abercrombie wearied his army with lining out a useless fort, the partisans of
Montcalm were present everywhere.
Just after the retreat of the
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English, they fell upon a regiment at the Half-way
Brook between
Fort Edward and
Lake George.
A fortnight later, they seized a convoy of wagoners at the same place.
To intercept the
French on their return, some hundred rangers scoured the forests near Woodcreek, marching in Indian file,
Putnam in the rear, in front the
commander Rogers, who, with a British officer, beguiled the way by firing at marks.
The noise attracted hostile Indians to an ambuscade.
A skirmish ensued, and
Putnam, with twelve or fourteen more, was separated from the party.
His comrades were scalped; in after-life he used to relate how one of the savages gashed his cheek with a tomahawk, bound him to a forest-tree, and kindled about him a crackling fire; how his thoughts glanced aside to the wife of his youth and the group of children that gambolled in his fields; when the brave French officer,
Marin, happening to descry his danger, rescued him from death, to be exchanged in the autumn.
Better success awaited
Bradstreet.
From the majority in a council of war, he extorted a reluctant leave to proceed against
Fort Frontenac.
At the
Oneida carrying-place,
Brigadier Stanwix placed under his command twenty-seven hundred men, all
Americans, more than eleven hundred of them New Yorkers, nearly seven hundred from
Massachusetts.
There, too, were assembled one hundred and fifty warriors of the Six Nations; among them Red
Head, the renowned war-chief of
Onondaga.
Inspired by his eloquence in council, two-and-forty of them took
Bradstreet for their friend and grasped the hatchet as his companions.
At
Oswego, towards which they moved with celerity, there remained scarce a vestige of the
English fort; of the
French there was no memorial
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but ‘a large wooden cross.’
As the Ameri-
cans gazed with extreme pleasure on the scene around them, they were told that farther west, in ‘
Genesee and Canasadaga, there were lands as fertile, rich and luxuriant as any in the universe.’
Crossing Lake Ontario in open boats, they landed, on the twentyfifth of August, within a mile of
Fort Frontenac.
It was a quadrangle, mounted with thirty pieces of cannon and sixteen small mortars.
On the second day, such of the garrison as had not fled surrendered.
Here, also, were military stores for
Fort Duquesne and the interior dependencies, with nine armed vessels, each carrying from eight to eighteen guns.
Of these, two were sent to
Oswego.
After razing the fortress, and destroying such vessels and stores as could not be brought off, the
Americans returned to
Lake George.
There the main army was wasting the season in supine inactivity.
The news of the disastrous day at
Ticonderoga induced
Amherst, without orders, to conduct four regiments and a battalion from
Louisburg.
They landed in September at
Boston, and at once entered on the march through the greenwood.
In one of the regiments was
Lieutenant Richard Montgomery, who remained near the northern lakes till 1760.
When near
Albany, Amherst hastened in advance, and on the fifth of October came upon the
English camp.
Early in November, dispatches arrived, appointing him commander-in-chief.
Returning to
England,
Abercrombie was screened from censure, maligned the
Americans, and afterwards assisted in parliament to tax the witnesses of his pusillanimity.
Canada was exhausted.
‘Peace, peace,’ was the
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cry; ‘no matter with what boundaries.’
‘I have not
lost courage,’ wrote
Montcalm, ‘nor have my troops; we are resolved to find our graves under the ruins of the colony.’
Pitt, who had carefully studied the geography of
North America, knew that the success of
Bradstreet had gained the dominion of
Lake Ontario and opened the avenue to
Niagara; and he turned his mind from the defeat at
Ticonderoga, to see if the banner of
England was already waving over
Fort Duquesne.
For the conquest of the
Ohio valley he relied mainly on the central provinces.
Loudoun had reported the contumacy of
Maryland, where the Assembly had insisted on an equitable assessment, ‘as a most violent attack on his Majesty's prerogative.’
‘I am persuaded,’ urged
Sharpe on his official correspondent in
England, ‘if the parliament of Great Britain was to compel us by an act to raise thirty thousand pounds a year, the upper class of people among us, and, indeed, all but a very few, would be well satisfied.’
And he sent ‘a sketch of an act’ for ‘a poll-tax on the taxable inhabitants.’
But that form of raising a revenue throughout
America, being specially unpalatable to English owners of slaves in the
West Indies, was disapproved ‘by all’ in
England.
While the officers of Lord Baltimore were thus concerting with the Board of Trade a tax by Parliament,
William Pitt, though entreated to interpose, regarded the bickerings between the proprietary and the people with calm impartiality, blaming both parties for the disputes which withheld
Maryland from contributing her full share to the conquest of
Fort Duquesne.
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After long delays,
Joseph Forbes, who had the
command as brigadier saw twelve hundred and fifty Highlanders arrive from
South Carolina.
They were joined by three hundred and fifty Royal
Americans.
Pennsylvania, animated by an unusual military spirit which seized even
Benjamin West, known afterwards as a painter, and
Anthony Wayne then a boy of thirteen, raised for the expedition twenty-seven hundred men. Their
senior officer was
John Armstrong, already famed for his display of courage and skill at
Kittanning.
With
Washington as their leader,
Virginia sent two regiments of about nineteen hundred, whom their beloved commander praised as ‘really fine corps.’
Yet, vast as were the preparations,
Forbes would never, but for
Washington, have seen the
Ohio.
The Virginia chief who at first was stationed at
Fort Cumberland, clothed a part of his force in the hunting shirt and Indian blanket, which least impeded the progress of the soldier through the forest; and he entreated that the army might advance promptly along
Braddock's road.
But the expedition was not merely a military enterprise; it was also the march of civilization towards the
West, and was made memorable by the construction of a better avenue to the
Ohio.
This required long continued labor.
September had come, before
Forbes, whose life was slowly ebbing, was borne in a litter as far as
Raystown.
‘See how our time has been misspent,’ cried
Washington, angry at delay, and obstinately opposed to the opening the new route which
Armstrong, of
Pennsylvania, as obstinately advocated.
But
Forbes preserved a clear head and a firm will, or as he himself expressed it, was ‘actuated by the spirits’ of
William Pitt; and he
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decided to keep up the direct connection with
Phila-
delphia as essential to present success and future security.
While
Washington, with most of the Virginians, joined the main army,
Bouquet was sent forward with two thousand men to Loyal
Hanna.
There he received intelligence that the
French post was defended by but eight hundred men, of whom three hundred were
Indians.
Dazzled by vague hopes of glory,
Bouquet, without the knowledge of his superior officer, entrusted to
Major Grant, of
Montgomery's battalion, a party of eight hundred, chiefly Highlanders and
Virginians, of
Washington's command, with orders to reconnoitre the enemy's position.
The men, who were all accustomed to the mountains, and of whom the Virginians were clad in the light Indian garb, easily scaled the successive ridges, and took post on a hill near
Fort Duquesne.
Not knowing that
Aubry had arrived with a reinforcement of four hundred men from
Illinois,
Grant divided his troops in order to tempt the enemy into an ambuscade, and at daybreak of the fourteenth of September, discovered himself by beating his drums.
A large body of French and Indians, commanded by the gallant
Aubry, immediately poured out of the fort, and with surprising celerity attacked his troops in detail, never allowing him time to get them together.
They gave way and ran, leaving two hundred and ninety-five killed or prisoners.
Even
Grant, who in the folly of his vanity had but a few moments before been confident of an easy victory, gave himself up as a captive; but a small party of Virginians, under the command of
Thomas Bullitt, arrested the precipitate flight, and saved the detachment
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from utter ruin.
Of these, on their return to
the camp, the coolness and courage were publicly extolled by
Forbes; and in the opinion of the whole army, regulars as well as provincials, their superiority of discipline reflected honor on
Washington.
Not till the fifth of November did
Forbes himself reach Loyal
Hanna; and there a council of war determined for that season to advance no further But on the twelfth,
Washington gained from three prisoners exact information of the weakness of the
French garrison on the
Ohio, and it was resolved to proceed.
Two thousand five hundred men were picked for the service.
For the sake of speed, they left behind every convenience except a blanket and a knapsack, and of the artillery took only a light train.
Washington, who, pleading a ‘long intimacy with these woods’ and familiarity ‘with all the passes and difficulties,’ had solicited the responsibility of leading the party, was appointed to command the advance. brigade, the pioneers of
America in its course to the
West.
His party was of provincials, and they toiled cheerfully at his side.
Forbes, now sinking into the grave, had consumed fifty days in marching as many miles from
Bedford to Loyal
Hanna.
Fifty miles of the wilderness still remained to be opened in the late season, through a soil of deep clay, or over rocky hills white with snow, by troops poorly fed and poorly clad.
But
Washington infused his own spirit into the men whom he commanded, and who thought light of hardships and dangers while ‘under the particular directions’ of ‘the man they knew and loved.’
Every encampment was so planned as to hasten the issue.
On the thirteenth the veteran
Armstrong, who had proved his superior skill in leading troops rapidly and secretly
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through the wilderness, pushed forward with one
thousand men, and in five days threw up defences within seventeen miles of
Fort Duquesne.
On the fifteenth,
Washington, who followed, was on
Chestnut Ridge; on the seventeenth, at
Bushy Run. ‘All,’ he reported, ‘are in fine spirits and anxious to go on.’
On the nineteenth,
Washington left
Armstrong to wait for the
Highlanders, and, taking the lead, dispelled by his vigilance every ‘apprehension of the enemy's approach.’
When on the twenty-fourth, the general encamped his whole party among the hills of
Turkey Creek within ten miles of
Fort Duquesne, the disheartened garrison, then about five hundred in number, set fire to the fort in the night time, and by the light of its flames went down the
Ohio.
On Saturday, the twenty-fifth of November, the little army moved on in one body, and at evening the youthful hero could point out to
Armstrong and the hardy provincials, who marched in front, to the
Highlanders and Royal
Americans, to
Forbes himself, the meeting of the rivers; and the
British flag was planted in triumph over the ruined bastions of the fortress.
As the banners of
England floated over the waters, the place, at the suggestion of
Forbes, was with one voice called
Pittsburg.
It is the most enduring monument to
William Pitt.
America raised to his name statues that have been wrongfully broken, and granite piles, of which not one stone remains upon another; but, long as the
Monongahela and the
Alleghany shall flow to form the
Ohio, long as the
English tongue shall be the language of freedom in the boundless valley which their waters traverse, his name shall stand inscribed on the gateway of the
West.
The twenty-sixth was observed as a day of public
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thanksgiving for success, and when was success of
greater importance?
The connection between the sea side and the world beyond the mountains was established for ever; a vast territory was secured; the civilization of liberty and commerce and religion was henceforth ‘to maintain the undisputed possession of the
Ohio.’
‘These dreary deserts,’ wrote
Forbes, ‘will soon be the richest and most fertile of any possessed by the
British in
North America.’
On the twenty-eighth, a numerous detachment went to Braddock's field, where their slaughtered comrades, after more than three years, lay yet unburied in the forest.
Here and there a skeleton was found resting on the trunk of a fallen tree, as if a wounded man had sunk down in the attempt to fly In some places, wolves and crows had left signs of their ravages; in others, the blackness of ashes marked the scene of the revelry of cannibals.
The trees still showed branches rent by cannon; trunks dotted with musket balls.
Where the havoc had been the fiercest, bones lay whitening in confusion.
None could be recognised, except that the son of
Sir Peter Halket was called by the shrill whistle of a savage to the great tree near which his father and his brother had been seen to fall together; and while
Benjamin West and a company of Pennsylvanians formed a circle around, the Indians removed the thick covering of leaves, till they bared the relics of the youth lying across those of the older officer.
The frames of the two, thus united in death, were wrapped in a Highland plaid, and consigned to one separate grave, amidst the ceremonies that belong to the burial of the brave.
The bones of the undistinguishable multitude, more than
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four hundred and fifty in number, were indiscrimin-
ately cast into the ground, no one knowing for whom specially to weep.
The chilling gloom of the forest at the coming of winter, the religious awe that mastered the savages, the grief of the son fainting at the fearful recognition of his father, the groups of soldiers sorrowing over the ghastly ruins of an army, formed a sombre scene of desolation.
How is all changed!
The banks of the broad and placid
Monongahela smile with orchards and teeming harvests and gardens; with workshops and villas; the victories of peace have effaced the memorials of war; a railroad that sends its cars over
the Alleghanies in fewer hours than the army had taken weeks for its un-resisted march, passes through the scene where the carnage was the worst; and in all that region no sounds now prevail but of life and activity and joy.
Two regiments composed of Pennsylvanians, Marylanders, and
Virginians, remained as a garrison, under the command of
Mercer; and for
Washington, who at twenty-six retired from the army after having done so much to advance the limits of his country, the next few weeks were filled with happiness and honor.
The people of Frederictown had chosen him their representative.
On the last day of the year, ‘the affectionate officers’ who had been under him expressed, with ‘sincerity and openness of soul,’ their grief at ‘the loss of such an excellent commander, such a sincere friend, and so affable a companion,’ ‘a man so experienced in military affairs, one so renowned for patriotism, conduct and courage.’
They publicly acknowledged to have found in him a leader, who had ‘a quick discernment and invariable regard for merit, an earnestness to inculcate genuine
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sentiments of true honor and passion for glory;’
whose ‘example inspired alacrity and cheerfulness in encountering severest toils;’ whose zeal for ‘strict discipline and order gave to his troops a superiority which even the regulars and provincials publicly acknowledged.’
On the sixth of the following January, the woman of his choice was bound with him in wedlock.
The first month of union was hardly over, when, in the
House of Burgesses, the speaker, obeying the resolve of the
House, publicly gave him the thanks of
Virginia for his services to his country; and as the young man, taken by surprise, hesitated for words, in his attempt to reply,—‘Sit down,’ interposed the speaker; ‘your modesty is equal to your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess.’
After these crowded weeks,
Washington, no more a soldier, retired to
Mount Vernon with the experience of five years of assiduous service.
Yet not the quiet of rural life by the side of the
Potomac, not the sweets of conjugal love, could turn his fixed mind from the love of glory; and he revealed his passion by adorning his rooms with busts of Eugene and
Marlborough, of
Alexander, of
Caesar, of Charles the Twelfth; and of one only among living men, the king of
Prussia, whose struggles he watched with painful sympathy.
Thus
Washington had ever before his eyes the image of Frederic.
Both were eminently founders of nations, childless heroes, fathers only to their countries.
The one beat down the dominion of the aristocracy of the
Middle Ages by a military monarchy; the
Providence which rules the world had elected the other to guide the fiery coursers of revolution along nobler paths, and to check them firmly at the goal
