Forbes was much more delayed in getting his expedition off than was either of his two colleagues, Abercrombie and Amherst. Little dreaming that it would not be until the middle of June that his stores would arrive from England, Forbes had in March settled upon Conococheague (Williamsport, Maryland) as a convenient point of rendezvous for his army.[55] In this he acted upon the advice of his quartermaster-general, Sir John St. Clair, who was sent forward to examine routes and provide forage, but for whom, however, Forbes had little respect. Some time later St. Clair urged Forbes to alter this plan and make the new outpost on Burd’s Road toward the Youghiogheny, Raystown, the point of rendezvous. The difficulty of the route from Conococheague to Fort Cumberland undoubtedly induced St. Clair to advise this change of base; later Governor Sharpe had a road cut from Fort Frederick to Fort Cumberland, but that was not until late in June. Following St. Clair’s advice, Forbes changed his original plan and Raystown (Bedford, Pennsylvania) became the base of supplies and point of rendezvous. On the twenty-third of April Colonel Bouquet, commanding the Royal Americans, wrote Forbes of his arrival at New York and in less than a month this exceedingly efficient officer was on his way over the old road westward through Shippensburg and Carlisle. He was at Lancaster May 20, and wrote Forbes: “I arrived here this morning, and found Mr Young waiting for money to clear Armstrong’s Path the Commissioners having disappointed him.”[56] On the twenty-second he wrote again outlining the route and stages on the road to Raystown:
| “The first Stage (from Lancaster) | Shippensburg |
| 2d | Fort Loudon |
| 3 | Fort Littleton |
| 4 18 miles 1/2 way to Rays Town, where I shall have a stockade Erect’d | |
| 5 17 miles at Rays Town where we shall Build a Fort.”[57] | |
General Forbes reached Philadelphia by the middle of April but found himself as yet without an army. The raising of the provincials progressed slowly; his Highlanders were not yet arrived from South Carolina; his stores and ammunition had not come from England. However, on May 20, he wrote Bouquet giving orders concerning the formation of magazines and ordered him to contract for one hundred and twenty wagons to transport provisions “backwards to Rays town,” and to select at that point a site for a fort. He added: “By all means have the road reconnoitred from Rays town to the Yohageny”—the road Burd had completed to the summit of Allegheny Mountain in 1755. It is plain that Forbes intended, at this time, to march to Fort Cumberland by way of Carlisle and Bedford, and go on to Fort Duquesne over Braddock’s Road. In this case he much needed Burd’s road to the Youghiogheny—for the same reasons that Braddock did. There is no evidence that Forbes conceived the plan of using a new road westward from Raystown until he and Bouquet came to realize that, with that point as a rendezvous, the Fort Cumberland route would necessitate a long detour from a direct line toward Fort Duquesne.
Bouquet pushed on westward. He left Fort Lowther, at Carlisle, June 8, and was writing Forbes from Fort Loudoun on the eleventh. On the twenty-second he reached the Juniata and wrote Forbes on the twenty-eighth from his “Camp near Raes Town,” which now became the rendezvous of the summer’s campaign. Here Fort Bedford was built, making the most westernly fort in the chain of fortresses built through central Pennsylvania. It was one of the leading features of General Forbes’s plan to extend this chain of forts all the way to the Ohio. “It was absolutely necessary,” he wrote to Pitt, explaining this feature of his campaign, “that I should take precautions by having posts along my route, which I have done from a project that I took from Turpin’s Essay, Sur la Guerre. Last chapter 4th Book, Intitled Principe sur lequel on peut établir un projet de Campagne, if you take the trouble of Looking into this Book, you will see the General principles upon which I have proceeded.”[58]
The Highlanders did not arrive from South Carolina until the seventh of June, and the army stores and artillery did not arrive from England until the fourteenth. The work of raising the provincial troops was not forwarded with any greater despatch. In general terms Forbes did not get fairly started from the seaboard until three weeks later than Braddock had left Fort Cumberland. Thus, though personally blameless, Forbes began his campaign under an almost fatal handicap. And, with this army converging from many points upon Fort Bedford, arose the vital question of routes to be pursued.
CHAPTER IV
THE OLD OR A NEW ROAD?
So many are the versions of the story of the building of Forbes’s Road through Pennsylvania that it was with utmost interest that the present writer took up the task of examining the only sources of reliable information: the correspondence of General Forbes, Colonel Bouquet, and Sir John St. Clair, as preserved in the Bouquet Papers at the British Museum, and at the British Public Records Office. While these letters were supplemented by frequent personal interviews which have never been recorded, yet the testimony given by them is overwhelming that, until the very last, both men, Forbes and Bouquet, were quite undecided what route to Fort Duquesne was most practicable; both were open to conviction, and were equally disinterested parties, thinking only of the good of the cause to which both soon gave their lives. No one can read this voluminous correspondence and believe for one moment that General Forbes was prejudiced in favor of a Pennsylvania route by Pennsylvania intriguers, as has been frequently asserted;[59] nor that the brave Swiss Bouquet was at any time determined to guide the army whose van he bravely led by any but the most expeditious and practicable thoroughfare. That both men knew of the bitter factional fight which was waging, this correspondence makes very clear; that both were made doubly proof against factional arguments, because of this knowledge, is equally plain.