XXII
THE FALL OF THE GREAT FORT
After this there was no doubt as to the value of the American “Provincials,” whether in buckskin or in rags. The Major Lewis battalion had held the enemy while the Major Grant Regulars had retreated; and then Captain Bullitt’s company had saved these, or they would all have been killed in the woods.
General Forbes issued an order complimenting Washington upon his men, and Captain Bullitt was promoted to be a major.
As for Robert, he had been lucky; and as for Scarouady, he went away, disgusted again with the foolishness of fighting with one’s eyes closed.
The useless battle in front of Fort Duquesne had occurred about the middle of September. October passed, with Colonel Bouquet waiting here at Loyalhannon where he had finished the supply-fort named Fort Ligonier.
Washington was bringing on the new Virginia regiment, and General Forbes was on the way from his sick bed.
Washington arrived first. If ever a man was welcome, it was he. The very sight of him gave confidence that the onward march would be made with sense.
But General Forbes was coming on from Raystown in a litter, with the main column. The fifty miles of new road had been found to be very bad, and Fort Duquesne was another fifty miles ahead. November had opened with rain and snow again; the Virginia and Maryland troops were short of clothing and blankets. If fifty days had been spent in getting this far, only fifty miles, when could they all break through the next fifty miles upon a winter trail?
General Forbes arrived in his litter. A council of war was held; and in that even Washington advised that nothing more be done until spring. ’Twas plain to be seen how disappointed he was. All the Virginians knew that if his first advice had been taken, and the march had been made over his and Braddock’s road, through country that had been mapped and explored many a time, before this the army would have been comfortable in Duquesne.
But a lucky thing happened. Since the Major Grant battle the French and Indians had been bolder, and had prowled around Loyalhannon, firing by night on the sentries. One night, after Washington came—in fact, the very night after the council, a trap was set by an advance outpost, with Robert himself in charge.