3. Crown Point and Ticonderoga controlled the route to Canada by the way of Lake George and Lake Champlain, and also offered a safe starting-point for French expeditions against New York and New England.
4. Niagara lay on the portage between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and thus protected the great fur trade of the upper lakes and the West.
5. Quebec being the strongest fortification in Canada, gave control of the St. Lawrence, and largely decided the possession of that province.
We thus see why these points were so persistently attacked by the English, and so obstinately defended by the French. We shall speak of them in order.
1. FORT DU QUESNE.
The First Expedition (1755) was commanded by General Braddock, Washington acting as aide-de-camp. The general was a regular British officer, proud and conceited. Washington warned him of the dangers of savage warfare, but his suggestions were received with contempt.
[Footnote: "The Indians," said Braddock, "may frighten continental troops, but they can make no impression on the king's regulars!">[
The column came within ten miles of the fort, marching along the Monongahela in regular array, drums beating and colors flying. Suddenly, in ascending a little slope, with a deep ravine and thick underbrush on either side, they encountered the Indians lying in ambush. The terrible war-whoop resounded on every hand. The British regulars huddled together, and, frightened, fired by platoons, at random, against rocks and trees. The Virginia troops alone sprang into the forest and fought the savages in Indian style. Washington seemed everywhere present. An Indian chief with his braves especially singled him out.
[Footnote: Fifteen years after, this old Indian chief came "a long way" to see the Virginia officer at whom he fired a rifle fifteen times without hitting him, during the Monongahela fight. Washington never received a wound in battle.]
Four balls passed through his clothes. Two horses were shot under him. Braddock was mortally wounded and borne from the field. At last, when the continental troops were nearly all killed, the regulars turned and fled disgracefully, abandoning everything to the foe. Washington covered their flight and saved the wreck of the army from pursuit.