With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent

Although war had not yet been declared between England and France, the colonists, after this seizure, by French soldiers, of a fort over which the English flag was flying, henceforth acted as if the two powers were at war. Washington moved forward from Wills Creek with his hundred and fifty men, and surprised a French force which had gone out scouting. Several of the French were killed, and the commander of Fort Duquesne sent despatches to France to say that he had sent this party out with a communication to Washington, and that they had been treacherously assassinated.

This obscure skirmish was the commencement of a war which set two continents on fire. Colonel Fry died a few days after this fight, and Washington succeeded to the command of the regiment, and collected his three hundred men at Green Meadow, where he was joined by a few Indians, and by a company from South Carolina.

The French at Duquesne were quickly reinforced, and the command was given to Coulon de Villiers, the brother of an officer who had been killed in the skirmish with Washington. He at once advanced against the English, who had fallen back to a rough breastwork which they called Fort Necessity, Washington having but four hundred men, against five hundred French and as many Indians.

For nine hours the French kept up a hot fire on the intrenchment, but without success, and at nightfall Villiers proposed a parley. The French ammunition was running short, the men were fatigued by their marches, and drenched by the rain which had been falling the whole day. The English were in a still worse plight. Their powder was nearly spent, their guns were foul, and among them they had but two cleaning rods.

After a parley, it was agreed that the English should march off with drums beating and the honours of war, carrying with them all their property; that the prisoners taken in the previous affair should be set free, two officers remaining with the French as hostages until they were handed over.

Washington and his men arrived, utterly worn out with fatigue and famine, at Wills Creek. This action left the French masters of the whole country beyond the Alleghenies.

The two mother nations were now preparing for war, and, in the middle of January, 1755, Major General Braddock, with the 44th and 48th Regiments, each five hundred strong, sailed from Cork for Virginia; while the French sent eighteen ships of war and six battalions to Canada.

Admiral Boscawen, with eleven ships of the line and one frigate, set out to intercept the French expedition. The greater part of the fleet evaded him, but he came up with three of the French men of war, opened fire upon them, and captured them. Up to this time a pretence of negotiations had been maintained between England and France, but the capture of the French ships brought the negotiations to a sudden end, and the war began.

A worse selection than that of Major General Braddock could hardly have been made. He was a brave officer and a good soldier, but he was rough, coarse, and obstinate. He utterly despised the colonial troops, and regarded all methods of fighting, save those pursued by regular armies in the field, with absolute contempt. To send such a man to command troops destined to fight in thick forests, against an enemy skilled in warfare of that kind, was to court defeat.

As might be expected, Braddock was very soon on the worst possible terms with the whole of the colonial authorities, and the delays caused by the indecision or obstinacy of the colonial assemblies chafed him to madness. At last, however, his force was assembled at Wills Creek. The two English regiments had been raised, by enlistment in Virginia, to 700 men each. There were nine Virginian companies of fifty men, and the thirty sailors lent by Commodore Keppel. General Braddock had three aides-de-camp–Captain Robert Orme, Captain Roger Morris, and Colonel George Washington.

It was the 1st of June, when James Walsham rode with Colonel Washington into the camp, and, three days later, the last companies of the Virginian corps marched in. During the next week, some of the English officers attempted to drill the Virginians in the manner of English troops.

"It is a waste of time," Colonel Washington said to James, one day, when he was watching them, "and worse. These men can fight their own way. Most of them are good shots, and have a fair idea of forest fighting; let them go their own way, and they can be trusted to hold their own against at least an equal number of French and Indians; but they would be hopelessly at sea if they were called upon to fight like English regulars. Most likely the enemy will attack us in the forest, and what good will forming in line, or wheeling on a flank, or any of the things which the general is trying to drum into their heads, do to them? If the French are foolish enough to wait at Fort Duquesne until we arrive, I have no doubt we shall beat them, but if they attack us in the woods it will go hard with us."

During the ten days which elapsed between his arrival and the start, James was kept hard at work, being for the most part employed galloping up and down the road, urging up the waggoners, and bringing back reports as to their position and progress. On the 10th of June the army started; 300 axemen led the way, cutting and clearing the road; the long train of pack horses, waggons, and cannon followed; the troops marched in the forest on either side, while men were thrown out on the flanks, and scouts ranged the woods to guard against surprise.

The road was cut but twelve feet wide, and the line of march often extended four miles. Thus, day by day they toiled on, crossing the Allegheny Mountains, range after range; now plunging down into a ravine, now ascending a ridge, but always in the deep shadow of the forest. A few of the enemy hovered round them, occasionally killing a straggler who fell behind.

On the 18th of June, the army reached a place called the Little Meadows. So weak were the horses, from want of forage, that the last marches had been but three miles a day, and, upon Washington's advice, Braddock determined to leave the heavy baggage here, with the sick men and a strong guard under Colonel Dunbar; while he advanced with 1200 men, besides officers and drivers.

But the progress was still no more than three miles a day, and it was not until the 7th of July that they arrived within eight miles of the French fort. Between them lay, however, an extremely difficult country with a narrow defile, and Braddock determined to ford the Monongahela, and then cross it again lower down.

The garrison of Fort Duquesne consisted of a few companies of regular troops, some hundreds of Canadians, and 800 Indian warriors. They were kept informed, by the scouts, of the progress of the English, and, when the latter approached the Monongahela, a party under Captain Beaujeu set out to meet them. His force consisted of 637 Indians, 100 French officers and soldiers, and 146 Canadians, in all about 900 men.

At one o'clock in the day, Braddock crossed the Monongahela for the second time. The troops had, all the day, been expecting the attack and had prepared for it. At the second ford the army marched in martial order, with music playing and flags flying. Once across the river they halted for a short time, and then again continued their advance.

Braddock made every disposition for preventing a surprise. Several guides, with six Virginian light horsemen, led the way. Then came the advanced column, consisting of 300 soldiers under Gage, and a large body of axemen, under Sir John Sinclair, with two cannon. The main body followed close behind. The artillery and waggons moved along the road, the troops marched through the woods on either hand, numerous flanking parties were thrown out a hundred yards or more right and left, and, in the space between them and the line of troops, the pack horses and cattle made their way, as they best could, among the trees.

Beaujeu had intended to place his men in ambuscade at the ford, but, owing to various delays caused by the Indians, he was still a mile away from the ford when the British crossed. He was marching forward when he came suddenly upon the little party of guides and Virginian light horsemen. These at once fell back. The Indians raised their war whoop, and, spreading right and left among the trees, opened a sharp fire upon the British.

Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired volley after volley, with great steadiness, at the invisible opponents. The greater part of the Canadians bolted at once, but the Indians kept up their fire from behind the shelter of the trees. Gage brought up his two cannon and opened fire, and the Indians, who had a horror of artillery, began also to fall back.

The English advanced in regular lines, cheering loudly. Beaujeu fell dead; but Captain Dumas, who succeeded him in command, advanced at the head of his small party of French soldiers, and opened a heavy fire.

The Indians, encouraged by the example, rallied and again came forward, and, while the French regulars and the few Canadians who had not fled held the ground in front of the column, the Indians swarmed through the forests along both flanks of the English, and from behind trees, bushes, and rocks opened a withering fire upon them. The troops, bewildered and amazed by the fire poured into them by an invisible foe, and by the wild war whoops of the Indians, ceased to advance, and, standing close together, poured fruitlessly volley after volley into the surrounding forest.

On hearing the firing, Braddock, leaving 400 men in the rear under Sir Peter Halket, to guard the baggage, advanced with the main body to support Gage; but, just as he came up, the soldiers, appalled by the fire which was mowing them down in scores, abandoned their cannon and fell back in confusion. This threw the advancing force into disorder, and the two regiments became mixed together, massed in several dense bodies within a small space of ground, facing some one way and some another, all alike exposed, without shelter, to the hail of bullets.

Men and officers were alike new to warfare like this. They had been taught to fight in line against solid masses of the enemy, and against an invisible foe like the present they were helpless. The Virginians alone were equal to the emergency. They at once adopted their familiar forest tactics, and, taking their post behind trees, began to fight the Indians in their own way.

Had Braddock been a man of judgment and temper, the fortunes of the day might yet have been retrieved, for the Virginians could have checked the Indians until the English troops were rallied and prepared to meet the difficulty; but, to Braddock, the idea of men fighting behind trees was at once cowardly and opposed to all military discipline, and he dashed forward on his horse, and with fierce oaths ordered the Virginians to form line. A body of them, however, under Captain Waggoner, made a dash for a huge fallen tree, far out towards the lurking places of the Indians, and, crouching behind it, opened fire upon them; but the regulars, seeing the smoke among the bushes, took them for the enemy and, firing, killed many and forced the rest to return.

A few of the soldiers tried to imitate the Indians, and fight behind the trees, but Braddock beat them back with the flat of his sword, and forced them to stand with the others, who were now huddled in a mass, forming a target for the enemy's bullets. Lieutenant Colonel Burton led 100 of them towards a knoll from which the puffs came thickest, but he fell wounded, and his men, on whom the enemy instantly concentrated their fire, fell back. The soldiers, powerless against the unseen foe, for afterwards some of the officers and men who escaped declared that, throughout the whole fight, they had not seen a single Indian, discharged their guns aimlessly among the trees.

They were half stupefied now with the terror and confusion of the scene, the rain of bullets, the wild yells which burst ceaselessly from their 600 savage foemen; while the horses, wild with terror and wounds, added to the confusion by dashing madly hither and thither. Braddock behaved with furious intrepidity. He dashed hither and thither, shouting and storming at the men, and striving to get them in order, and to lead them to attack the enemy. Four horses were, one after the other, shot under him. His officers behaved with equal courage and self devotion, and in vain attempted to lead on the men, sometimes advancing in parties towards the Indians, in hopes that the soldiers would follow them. Sir Peter Halket was killed, Horne and Morris, the two aides-de-camp, Sinclair the quartermaster general, Gates, Gage, and Gladwin were wounded. Of 86 officers, 63 were killed or disabled, while of non-commissioned officers and privates only 459 came off unharmed.

James Walsham had been riding by the side of Washington when the fight began, and followed him closely as he galloped among the troops, trying to rally and lead them forward. Washington's horse was pierced by a ball and, staggering, fell. James leaped from his horse and gave it to the colonel, and then, seeing that there was nothing for him to do, withdrew a short distance from the crowd of soldiers, and crouched down between the trunks of two great trees growing close to each other; one of which protected him, for the most part, from the fire of the Indians, and the other from the not less dangerous fire of the English. Presently, seeing a soldier fall at a short distance from him, he ran out and picked up his musket and cartridge box, and began to fire at the bushes where the puffs of smoke showed that men were in hiding.

After three hours' passive endurance of this terrible fire, Braddock, seeing that all was lost, commanded a retreat, and he and such officers as were left strove to draw off the soldiers in some semblance of order; but at this moment a bullet struck him, and, passing through his arm, penetrated his lungs, and he fell from his horse. He demanded to be left where he lay, but Captain Stewart of the Virginians, and one of his men, bore him between them to the rear.

The soldiers had now spent all their ammunition, and, no longer kept in their places by their general, broke away in a wild panic. Washington's second horse had now been shot, and as, trying to check the men, he passed the trees where James had taken up his position, the latter joined him.

In vain Washington and his other officers tried to rally the men at the ford. They dashed across it, wild with fear, leaving their wounded comrades, cannon, baggage, and military chest a prey to the Indians.

Fortunately, only about fifty of the Indians followed as far as the ford, the rest being occupied in killing the wounded and scalping the dead. Dumas, who had now but twenty Frenchmen left, fell back to the fort, and the remnants of Braddock's force continued the flight unmolested.

Chapter 10: The Fight At Lake George

Fortunate was it, for the remnant of Braddock's force, that the Indians were too much occupied in gathering the abundant harvest of scalps, too anxious to return to the fort to exhibit these trophies of their bravery, to press on in pursuit; for, had they done so, few indeed of the panic-stricken fugitives would ever have lived to tell the tale. All night these continued their flight, expecting every moment to hear the dreaded war whoop burst out again in the woods round them.

Colonel Washington had been ordered, by the dying general, to press on on horseback to the camp of Dunbar, and to tell him to forward waggons, provisions, and ammunition; but the panic, which had seized the main force, had already been spread by flying teamsters to Dunbar's camp. Many soldiers and waggoners at once took flight, and the panic was heightened when the remnants of Braddock's force arrived. There was no reason to suppose that they were pursued, and even had they been so, their force was ample to repel any attack that could be made upon it; but probably their commander saw that, in their present state of utter demoralization, they could not be trusted to fight, and that the first Indian war whoop would start them again in flight. Still, it was clear that a retreat would leave the whole border open to the ravages of the Indians, and Colonel Dunbar was greatly blamed for the course he took.

A hundred waggons were burned, the cannon and shells burst, and the barrels of powder emptied into the stream, the stores of provisions scattered through the woods, and then the force began its retreat over the mountains to Fort Cumberland, sixty miles away. General Braddock died the day that the retreat began. His last words were:

"We shall know better how to deal with them next time."

The news of the disaster came like a thunderbolt upon the colonists. Success had been regarded as certain, and the news that some fourteen hundred English troops had been utterly routed, by a body of French and Indians of half their strength, seemed almost incredible. The only consolation was that the hundred and fifty Virginians, who had accompanied the regulars, had all, as was acknowledged by the English officers themselves, fought with the greatest bravery, and had kept their coolness and presence of mind till the last, and that on them no shadow of the discredit of the affair rested. Indeed, it was said that the greater part were killed not by the fire of the Indians, but by that of the troops, who, standing in masses, fired in all directions, regardless of what was in front of them.

But Colonel Dunbar, not satisfied with retreating to the safe shelter of Fort Cumberland, to the amazement of the colonists, insisted upon withdrawing with his own force to Philadelphia, leaving the whole of the frontier open to the assaults of the hostile Indians. After waiting a short time at Philadelphia, he marched slowly on to join a force operating against the French in the region of Lake George, more than two hundred miles to the north. He took with him only the regulars, the provincial regiments being under the control of the governors of their own states.

Washington therefore remained behind in Virginia with the regiment of that colony. The blanks made in Braddock's fight were filled up, and the force raised to a thousand strong. With these he was to protect a frontier of three hundred and fifty miles long, against an active and enterprising foe more numerous than himself, and who, acting on the other side of the mountain, and in the shade of the deep forests, could choose their own time of attack, and launch themselves suddenly upon any village throughout the whole length of the frontier.

Nor were the troops at his disposal the material which a commander would wish to have in his hand. Individually they were brave, but being recruited among the poor whites, the most turbulent and troublesome part of the population, they were wholly unamenable to discipline, and Washington had no means whatever for enforcing it. He applied to the House of Assembly to pass a law enabling him to punish disobedience, but for months they hesitated to pass any such ordinance, on the excuse that it would trench on the liberty of free white men.

The service, indeed, was most unpopular, and Washington, whose headquarters were at Winchester, could do nothing whatever to assist the settlements on the border. His officers were as unruly as the men, and he was further hampered by having to comply with the orders of Governor Dinwiddie, at Williamsburg, two hundred miles away.

"What do you mean to do?" he had asked James Walsham, the day that the beaten army arrived at Fort Cumberland.

"I do not know," James said. "I certainly will not continue with Dunbar, who seems to me to be acting like a coward; nor do I wish to go into action with regulars again; not, at least, until they have been taught that, if they are to fight Indians successfully in the forests, they must abandon all their traditions of drill, and must fight in Indian fashion. I should like to stay with you, if you will allow me."

"I should be very glad to have you with me," Washington said; "but I do not think that you will see much action here. It will be a war of forays. The Indians will pounce upon a village or solitary farm house, murder and scalp the inhabitants, burn the buildings to the ground, and in an hour be far away beyond reach of pursuit. All that I can do is to occupy the chief roads, by which they can advance into the heart of the colony, and the people of the settlements lying west of that must, perforce, abandon their homesteads, and fly east until we are strong enough to again take up the offensive.

"Were I in your place, I would at once take horse and ride north. You will then be in plenty of time, if inclined, to join in the expedition against the French on Fort George, or in that which is going to march on Niagara. I fancy the former will be ready first. You will find things better managed there than here. The colonists in that part have, for many years, been accustomed to Indian fighting, and they will not be hampered by having regular troops with them, whose officers' only idea of warfare is to keep their men standing in line as targets for the enemy.

"There are many bodies of experienced scouts, to which you can attach yourself, and you will see that white men can beat the Indians at their own game."

Although sorry to leave the young Virginian officer, James Walsham thought that he could not do better than follow his advice, and accordingly, the next day, having procured another horse, he set off to join the column destined to operate on the lakes.

The prevision of Washington was shortly realized, and a cloud of red warriors descended on the border settlements, carrying murder, rapine, and ruin before them. Scores of quiet settlements were destroyed, hundreds of men, women, and children massacred, and in a short time the whole of the outlying farms were deserted, and crowds of weeping fugitives flocked eastward behind the line held by Washington's regiment.

But bad as affairs were in Virginia, those in Pennsylvania were infinitely worse. They had, for many years, been on such friendly terms with the Indians, that many of the settlers had no arms, nor had they the protection in the way of troops which the government of Virginia put upon the frontier. The government of the colony was at Philadelphia, far to the east, and sheltered from danger, and the Quaker assembly there refused to vote money for a single soldier to protect the unhappy colonists on the frontier. They held it a sin to fight, and above all to fight with Indians, and as long as they themselves were free from the danger, they turned a deaf ear to the tales of massacre, and to the pitiful cries for aid which came from the frontier. But even greater than their objection to war, was their passion of resistance to the representative of royalty, the governor.

Petition after petition came from the border for arms and ammunition, and for a militia law to enable the people to organize and defend themselves; but the Quakers resisted, declaring that Braddock's defeat was a just judgment upon him and his soldiers for molesting the French in their settlement in Ohio. They passed, indeed, a bill for raising fifty thousand pounds for the king's use, but affixed to it a condition, to which they knew well the governor could not assent; viz, that the proprietary lands were to pay their share of the tax.

To this condition the governor was unable to assent, for, according to the constitution of the colony, to which he was bound, the lands of William Penn and his descendants were free of all taxation. For weeks the deadlock continued. Every day brought news of massacres of tens, fifties, and even hundreds of persons, but the assembly remained obstinate; until the mayor, aldermen, and principal citizens clamoured against them, and four thousand frontiersmen started on their march to Philadelphia, to compel them to take measures for defence.

Bodies of massacred men were brought from the frontier villages and paraded through the town, and so threatening became the aspect of the population, that the Assembly of Quakers were at last obliged to pass a militia law. It was, however, an absolutely useless one. It specially excepted the Quakers from service, and constrained nobody, but declared it lawful for such as chose to form themselves into companies, and to elect officers by ballot. The company officers might, if they saw fit, elect, also by ballot, colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors. These last might then, in conjunction with the governor, frame articles of war, to which, however, no officer or man was to be subjected, unless, after three days' consideration, he subscribed them in presence of a justice of the peace, and declared his willingness to be bound by them.