HEADQUARTERS AND PORT OF SUPPLY
As the passage of four years marked physical growth in Alexandria, so it made a difference between a lad barely seventeen and an officer in His Majesty's Militia. Early in November 1753, Major George Washington, aged twenty-one, and an Adjutant General of the Colony, was sent by the Royal Governor to the Ohio to "visit" the commandant of the French forces and deliver a letter asking him to withdraw from the lands "known to be the property of the Crown of Great Britain." Up to town came Major Washington to busy himself acquiring the "necessaries" for the expedition. Once equipped, he set out from Alexandria and was gone about two months, returning on January 11, 1754. January 16 found him in Williamsburg making his report to the Governor. The report was of such a nature that His Excellency alerted the Virginia troops; it was deemed of such importance as to be published in both Williamsburg and London gazettes.
When Washington returned he carried a commission from His Excellency of a lieutenant colonelcy in the Virginia regiment "whereof Joshua Fry, Esquire, was Colonel," and joined his command in Alexandria. The market square took on a militant atmosphere. "Two Companies of Foot, commanded by Captain Peter Hog and Lieutenant Jacob Van Braam, five subalterns, two Sergeants, six Corporals, one Drummer and one hundred and twenty Soldiers, one Surgeon, one Swedish Gentleman, who was a volunteer, two wagons, guarded by one Lieutenant, Sergeant, Corporal and twenty-five soldiers," were all under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Washington.[28]
Many brave young men newly outfitted in the colorful uniforms of His Majesty's Militia, short clothes and white wigs, drilling in the market square, swaggering around the town, filling up the new City Tavern. Dances and dinners for the officers were the order of the day. Then came the command for Washington to join Fry in defending British possessions against the French, who had continued their depredations despite the earlier diplomatic parley, and had not removed from the lands claimed as the property of Great Britain.
Came April 2, and from the market place crowded with citizens, "Every thing being ready," the commander, aged twenty-two, gave the order and the company set forth to the strident beats of one drummer.[29] As the creaking wheels of the two wagons and the tramp of marching feet faded out of hearing, Alexandria had sent her sons off to her first war.
While Lieutenant Colonel Washington was occupied in so spectacular a fashion, the town trustees were not without their troubles, also. People were delinquent about complying with the Assembly laws. In June 1754, the trustees ordered that various lots not built upon be put up at auction and sold to the highest bidder. They were in earnest about this dereliction on the part of purchasers, and seven lots were forfeited at this time. Among those paying such a penalty was George Washington's half-brother, Augustine Washington.
By December 1754, public buildings were well under way, the courthouse lot was ordered "paled in with Posts and Rails in a workman-like manner," and John Carlyle, John Dalton, George Johnston and William Ramsay were appointed to see what was necessary to be done to the finishing of the courthouse.
Within the year, his expedition defeated, Washington was back at Mount Vernon, and very irritated by army orders demoting colonials of the same grade and rank below the British regulars. Despite a vote of commendation by the Burgesses and the sum of £50 voted for his services, he threw up his commission.
The French continued hostilities, stirring up the Indians and causing no end of trouble. His Majesty's government became sufficiently exercised to dispatch an officer of the line, Major General Edward Braddock, two warships in which were stowed a fine arsenal of powder, rifles, and cannon, and two regiments of regulars. Word reached Alexandria in February of Braddock's arrival in Williamsburg and that he and the Governor were in conference. The first result of this conference was a letter to "Mr. George Washington" written on March 2, 1755, and dispatched in the person of General Braddock's aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Robert Orme, requesting the presence of Mr. Washington as a member of the General's military family. This, thought the Governor and the General, would do away with any unpleasantness due to difference in rank. A second decision reached in Williamsburg was one that resounded along the Atlantic seaboard—to call a conference of the colonial governors to consider ways, and especially means, of waging the coming campaign. Alexandria was chosen as a meeting place and the day set was April 14, 1755.
In the meantime, the English warships Sea Horse and Nightingale under command of Admiral Keppel arrived in Alexandria. Two of His Majesty's regiments disembarked from the sea-grimed ships and the Redcoats in formation marched to the "northwest of the town" led by Colonel Sir Peter Halket and Colonel Dunbar. The humbler citizens had never seen such a sight; neither had the Redcoats, and up went British noses for all things Colonial. The regulars promptly dubbed the militia "Bobtails."