On July 21 Bouquet wrote General Forbes: “I waited for the return of Captain Ward before replying [to Forbes’s letters of the 14th and 17th inst]. He arrived yesterday evening, his journal being so vague and confused that I could not understand anything from it. Captain Gordon is making an extract from it which I send with this. They are convinced that a waggon road could be made across Laurell Hill, not so bad as that from Fort Littleton to this place, & that there is water and grass all the way, but little forage between the two mountains. The slope of the Alleghany is the worst, the country between that and Laurell Hill is passable, and this last mountain, (of which they have made a sample—) is very easy to cross: all the guides & officers who were on the Ohio agree that from Lawrell Hill onwards there are no further difficulties; it is a chain of hills easy to cross. They have thought it impracticable to continue the road cut by Colonel Burd to join the Braddock road, except by following the whole length of Lawrell Hill, which would make the road longer than if taken through Cumberland; the rest of the country is rendered impassable by marshes, &c. The pack horses have just arrived. We must give them a day’s rest, & on the day after tomorrow Major Armstrong will set out with a party of 100 volunteers to mark out the road, and will send me a man every day (or every two days) to inform me of his progress & observations. There is no spot suitable for the making of a depôt until one comes to the foot of the other slope of Lawrell Hill, which may be about 45 miles from here; there is sufficient water there, and forage, but as it would entail too great a risk to leave his party on the other side of Lawrell Hill, I shall give him instructions to reconnoitre, & to mark out the site of the depot, & then return to Edmund’s Swamp, where I will in the first place send him a reinforcement with provisions, so that he may make an entrenched camp there, which will serve as flying base; and if the report he makes of his route is favourable, I shall send 600 men (in all) to take a post at Loyal Hanny, which I conceive to be the proper place for the chief depôt; from there it will be more easy to push his parties forward than from this place. I hope you will be here before the main detachment marches, and in that case I shall go myself, if you approve. I wish the new levies may be able to join before that time, so as to be able to form the three Pennsylvania battalions, and get them into order. I shall have here the two companies of workmen from Virginia, to be employed in cutting the road as soon as you shall have decided upon your route. I shall await your arrival before beginning, because the pack horses cross without difficulty, and will suffice to carry their provisions. As regards your route the Virginia party continues in full force, and although the secret motive of their policy seems to me not above suspicion of partiality, it nevertheless appears to me an additional reason for acting with double caution in a matter of this consequence, so as to have ample answers for all their clamors, if any accident happens, which they would not fail to attribute to the choice of a fresh route. Captain Patterson, who set out two days after Captain Ward with a party of 13 men to reconnoitre the fort, has returned with them without accomplishing anything. He tried to cross the two mountains in a direct line with the fort, but he found Lawrell Hill impassible, and the different reports agree in the fact that there is no other pass to be found except the Indian Path reconnoitred by Captain Ward. The guide Dunning speaks of a gap he crossed 16 years ago, but no one knows this gap, which he declares he found in ‘Hunting Horses.’ He is marching with the Major and two or three other guides.... The communication with Cumberland is cut, and it is an excellent road.”[67]

On July 20 Forbes wrote, by the hand of St. Clair, to Bouquet asking that all the guides then with him be sent to Carlisle for a conference with the general. Three days later Bouquet answered as follows: “Major Armstrong has three guides (and three Indians) with him: McConnell, Brown and Starrat. I am sending you all that are left there,—Frazer, Walker, Garret, and the two that are at Littleton,—Ohins and Lowry. If those from Cumberland arrive in time, I will send them on afterwards.”

On July 25 Washington wrote Bouquet from Fort Cumberland: “I do not incline to propose any thing that may seem officious, but would it not facilitate the operation of the campaign, if the Virginian troops were ordered to proceed as far as the Great Crossing, and construct forts at the most advantageous situations as they advance, opening the road at the same time? In such a case, I should be glad to be joined by that part of my regiment at Raystown. Major Peachey, who commands the working party on Braddock’s road, writes to me, that he finds few repairs wanting. Tonight I shall order him to proceed as far as Savage River, and then return, as his party is too weak to adventure further.... I shall most cheerfully work on any road, pursue any route or enter upon any service, that the General or yourself may think me usefully imployed in, or qualified for, and shall never have a will of my own, when a duty is required of me. But since you desire me to speak my sentiments freely, permit me to observe, that after having conversed with all the guides, and having been informed by others, who have a knowledge of the country, I am convinced that a road, to be compared with General Braddock’s, or indeed, that will be fit for transportation even by packhorses, cannot be made. I have no predilection for the route you have in mind, not because difficulties appear therein, but because I doubt whether satisfaction can be given in the execution of the plan. I know not what reports you may have received from your reconnoitring parties; but I have been uniformly told, that, if you expect a tolerable road by Raystown, you will be disappointed, for no movement can be made that way without destroying our horses. I should be extremely glad of one hour’s conference with you, when the General arrives. I could then explain myself more fully, and, I think, demonstrate the advantages of pushing out a body of light troops in this quarter. I would make a trip to Raystown with great pleasure, if my presence here could be dispensed with for a day or two, of which you can best judge.”

[Click here for larger image size]

[The dotted line to the Youghiogheny shows the line of Burd’s Road]
(From the original in the British Museum)

With Washington’s letter came also one from General Forbes, written July 23. From it these extracts are to the point: “As I disclaim all parties (factions) myself, I should be sorry that they were to Creep in amongst us. I therefore conceive what the Virginia folks would be at, for to me it appears to be them, and them only, that want to drive us into the road by Fort Cumberland, no doubt in opposition to the Pennsylvanians who by Raes town would have a nigher Communication (than them) to the Ohio. Sir John St. Clair was the first person that proposed and enforced me in to take the road by Raes town, I having previous to this ordered our Army to assemble at Conegochegue which I was obliged afterwards to alter to Raestown at his Instance, altho he then declared that he nor nobody else knew any thing of the road leading from the Laurell hill, but as he has represented it of late impracticable to me, I was therefore pressing to have the Communication opened from Raes town to Fort Cumberland. Sir John I am afraid had got a new light at Winchester, and I believe from thence proceeded to the opening the road from Fort Frederick to Fort Cumberland. I put the Question fairly to him yesterday morning by asking him if he knew of any Intention of making me change measures and forcing me into the Fort Cumberland road, when he knew that it was at his Instance solely, that I had changed it to Raes town; I showed him Capt Ward’s Journal & description of the road from Raestown to the top of the Laurell Hill, telling him at the same time, that if an easy road could be found there, or made there, that I was amazed he should know nothing off it, which was evident by his telling me of late that the Laurel hill was impracticable, he appeared nonplused, but rather than appear ignorant, he said that there were many Indian Traders that knew those roads very well; I stopt him short by saying if that was the case, that I was very sorry he had never found them out, or never thought it worth his while to examine them. In short he knows nothing of the matter. Coll Byrd in a paragraph of his letter from Fort Cumberland, amongst other things writes, that he has upwards of sixty Indians waiting my arrival, and ready to accompany me, but they will not follow me unless I go by Fort Cumberland. This is a new system of military Discipline truly; and shows that my Good friend Byrd is either made the Cats Foot of himself, or he little knows me, if he imagines that Sixty scoundrels are to direct me in my measures. As we are now so far advanced as Raestown I should look fickle in my measures, in changing, to go by Fort Cumberland, without being made thoroughly sensible of the impracticability of passing by the shortest way over the Laurell Hill to the Ohio. The difference at present in the length of road the one way and the other stands thus—

“From Raestown to Fort Cumberland, 34 miles or upwards

“From Fort Cumberland to Fort Duquesne by Genl Braddocks, 125 miles in all 160 to which add the passage of rivers &c and the last 8 miles not cut.