A Soldier of Virginia: A Tale of Colonel Washington and Braddock's Defeat

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

MY FIRST TASTE OF WARFARE

Whatever defects Dinwiddie may have had, indecision was certainly not one of them, and the very next day the machinery was set in motion for the advance against the French. Colonel Joshua Fry was selected to head the expedition, and Colonel Washington made second in command. Colonel Fry at one time taught mathematics at William and Mary, but found the routine of the class-room too humdrum, and so sought a more exciting life. He had found it along the borders of the frontier, and in 1750 was made colonel of militia and member of the governor's council. Two years later, he was sent to Logstown to treat with the Indians, and made a map of the colony. He knew the frontier as well as any white man, and because of this was chosen our commander.

Not a moment was to be lost, for Colonel Washington, while at Fort le Boeuf, had observed the great preparations made by the French to descend the Allegheny in the spring and take possession of the Ohio valley, but we hoped to forestall them. The triangle between the forks of the Ohio was admirably adapted for fortification, and it was proposed to throw up a fort there so that the French would get a warm reception when their canoes came floating down the river, and be forced to retreat to the Lakes. Dinwiddie's energy was wide-felt, and the whole colony was soon astir.

He convened the House of Burgesses, laid Colonel Washington's report before it, and secured a grant of £10,000 for purposes of defense; he urged the governors of the other colonies, from the Carolinas north to Jersey, to send reinforcements at once to Will's Creek, whence the start was to be made; he sent messengers with presents to the Ohio Indians, pressing them to take up the hatchet against the French, and authorized the enlistment of three hundred men. William Trent, an Indian trader, and brother-in-law of Colonel George Croghan, was commissioned to raise a company of a hundred men from among the backwoodsmen along the frontier, and started at once for the Ohio country to get his men together and begin work on the fort, the main body to follow so soon as it could be properly equipped.

Long before this I had secured my uniform and accoutrements,—which my three shillings a day were far from paying for,—and was kept busy superintending the storage of wagons or drilling under Captain Adam Stephen, in whose company I was, at Alexandria. The men were for the most part poor whites, who had enlisted because they could earn their bread no other way, and promised to make but indifferent soldiers. We were provided with ten cannon, all four-pounders, which had been presented by the king to Virginia, and eighty barrels of powder, together with small-arms, thirty tents, and six months' provision of flour, pork, and beef. These were forwarded to Will's Creek as rapidly as possible, but at the best it was slow work, and April was in sight before the expedition was ready to move. During near all of this time, Colonel Washington was virtually in command, for Colonel Fry was taken with a fever, which kept him for the most part to his bed. There seemed no prospect of his improvement, so he ordered the expedition to advance without him, he to follow so soon as he could sit a horse. That time was never to come, for he died at Will's Creek on the last day of May.

So at last the advance commenced, and from daylight to sunset we fought our way through the forest. It rained almost incessantly, and I admit the work was more severe than I had ever done, for the bridle-paths were too narrow to permit the passage of the guns and wagons, and a way had to be cut for them; yet all the men were in good spirits, animated by the example of Colonel Washington and the other officers. Those I came to know best were of Captain Stephen's company, and a braver, merrier set of men it has never been my privilege to meet. We were drawn from all the quarters of the globe. There was Lieutenant William Poison, a Scot, who had been concerned in the rebellion of '45, and so found it imperative to come to Virginia to spend the remainder of his days, though at the first scent of battle he was in arms again. There was Ensign William, Chevalier de Peyronie, a French Protestant, driven from his home much as the Fontaine family, and who had settled in Virginia. There was Lieutenant Thomas Waggoner, whom I was to know so well a year later. And above all, there was Ensign Carolus Gustavus de Spiltdorph, a quiet, unassuming fellow, but brave as a lion, who lies to-day in an unmarked grave on the bank of the Monongahela. I can see him yet, with his blue eyes and blond beard, sitting behind a cloud of smoke in one corner of the tent, listening to our wild talk with a queer gleam in his eyes, and putting in a word of dry sarcasm now and then. For when the day's march was done, those of us who were not on duty gathered in our tent and talked of the time when we should meet the French. And Peyronie, because, though a Frenchman, he had suffered most at their hands, was the most bloodthirsty of us all.

Then the first blow fell. It was the night of the twentieth of April, and our force had halted near Colonel Cresap's house, sixteen miles from Will's Creek. I was in charge of the sentries to the west of the camp. The weather had been cold and threatening, with a dash of rain now and then, and we had made only five miles that day, the guns and wagons miring in the muddy road, which for the most part was through a marsh. As evening came, the rain had set in steadily, and the sentries protected themselves as best they could behind the trees or under hastily constructed shelters. I had just made my first round and found all well, when I heard a sentry near by challenge sharply.

"What is it?" I cried, hastening to him, and then I saw that he had stopped a horseman. The horse was breathing in short, uncertain gasps, as though near winded.

"A courier from the Ohio, so he says, sir," answered the sentry.

"With an urgent message for Colonel Washington," added the man on horseback.