A NEW CAMPAIGN
As already told, affairs in the colonies looked blue indeed, and some hardy pioneers who had risked their all in making their homes in this new country were afraid that ere long they would be forced to either give in to the Indians or come under French rule. Three campaigns had been fought, and still the French were masters, and held Louisburg, Crown Point, Ticonderoga, Frontenac, and the long chain of posts from Niagara to the Ohio and thence to the Mississippi. The English fort at Oswego had been destroyed and the French had compelled the Six Nations, the most powerful Indian organization ever known, either to remain neutral or else give them aid.
To add to English alarm, the war in Europe also took a turn in favor of the French. This brought a storm of protests upon the English ministry, and George II. was compelled to make a change. As a consequence William Pitt was placed in entire control of foreign and colonial affairs.
Pitt was a man of both wisdom and action, and his plans for a new campaign in America aroused the colonies as they had not been aroused before. An army of fifty thousand men, English regulars and colonial militia, was gathered, and it was resolved that a three-headed campaign should be instituted at once, one against Louisburg, another against Ticonderoga and a third against Fort Duquesne.
The first blow was struck early in June, 1758, when the English appeared before Louisburg with thirty-eight ships of war and an army of fourteen thousand men. There was a vigorous attack, and something of a siege, and late in July the place capitulated, and this fall also included the capture of the islands of Prince Edward and Cape Breton.
The advance upon Ticonderoga was not so successful, although a portion of the troops under gallant Israel Putnam, afterwards so famous in the Revolution, dispersed some of the French and captured a hundred and forty-eight prisoners. Following this, an attack was made upon Fort Frontenac, located where the city of Kingston, Canada, is now situated, and here the English laid the fort in ruins and captured nine vessels carrying guns and supplies.
The people of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were anxious that the attack on Fort Duquesne be made at once, but as we already know, the armies, especially such as had to march through the wilderness, moved very slowly. The command of this expedition was placed in the hands of General Forbes, a gallant officer but one who was far from being in proper health for such an undertaking. This general left Philadelphia early in July with the main portion of his command, and after a hard march reached Raytown, ninety miles eastward of Fort Duquesne, and now known as Bedford.
While General Forbes was thus moving westward Colonel Washington, who had been ordered to join the main command, gathered together all his available troops and moved northward from Winchester to Fort Cumberland, called in these pages by its, then, common name of Will's Creek.
The spring had passed slowly to those of the Morris family located at Winchester. Strange to say although Joseph Morris' wound healed it seemed next to impossible for the pioneer to get back his strength, and the most he could do was to walk around the rooms of the Gibson home, or around the dooryard, supported by his wife or others.
"My legs won't support me," he said. "They feel as if they'd let me down in a heap at any minute."