“Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty look before a fall.” He was too proud to learn from those who were abundantly able to teach him. He was too haughty to listen to any warnings of danger from those who were far wiser than himself, but whom he regarded as ignorant and cowardly. He, in command of well drilled British regulars, had nothing to fear and nothing to learn from colonists, Frenchmen, or Indians.
General Braddock, at the head of his two highly disciplined and well uniformed regiments, commenced his march across the wide, rugged mountain ranges. From the eastern declivities, where the water commenced running into the Atlantic, to the western slopes where the gushing springs flowed into the Ohio, was a distance of more than one hundred miles. The path was narrow. In many places torrents were to be bridged, obstructions removed, and the trail widened through the vast masses of rock, by the corps of engineers. Thus there would be presented to the keen eyes of the Indians, who were sent by the French, to watch and report the progress of the foe, a straggling, broken line of men and wagons four miles in length.
There was something exceedingly exasperating in the contemptuous manner in which the British court and cabinet treated the colonial officers. It seemed to be, with them, an established principle that an Englishman must, of necessity, be superior to an American. Governor Dinwiddie reduced Colonel Washington to the rank of a captain, and placed over him officers whom he had commanded. This degradation was, of course, not to be submitted to by a high-minded man. Washington at once resigned his commission, and retired from the army.
Governor Sharpe, the crown-appointed Governor of Maryland, received, from the king, the appointment of Commander-in-Chief of the forces employed against the French. He was well acquainted with Washington’s exalted character, and valuable experience, and yet he had the presumption to write, urging him to accept the office of captain of a Virginia company, intimating to him that he might nominally hold his former commission as colonel. Washington replied:
“This idea has filled me with surprise; for if you think me capable of holding a commission that has neither rank nor emolument annexed to it, you must entertain a very contemptible opinion of my weakness, and believe me to be more empty than the commission itself.”
When General Braddock landed at Alexandria, in Virginia, with his two regiments, hearing of the fame of Washington, and of his previous excursions across the mountains, he invited him to take part in the campaign, as one of his staff, retaining his former rank. The chivalric spirit of Washington was roused; for the pageantry of war was quite conspicuous from his quiet retreat at Mount Vernon.
British ships of war, with their gay banners, and transports crowded with troops, were continually sailing by his door, to Alexandria, which was but a few miles above. The booming of cannon, and the music of well-trained bands, woke the echoes of those vast forests. Washington mounted his horse, and rode to Alexandria. The love of adventure, of heroic military achievements, inspired him. He eagerly accepted the offer of Braddock, to become a member of the general’s military household, but without any emolument or any distinct command. The position recognized his full rank, and gave him the opportunity of acquiring new experience, and of becoming acquainted with the highest principles of martial tactics as then practised by the armies of Europe.
His widowed mother entreated him not again to expose himself to the perils of a campaign. But he found the temptation too strong to be resisted. On the 20th of April, 1755, the army commenced its march, from Alexandria. Washington was announced as one of the general’s aides. Benjamin Franklin, then forty-nine years of age, visited the army when it had reached Fredericktown. Braddock was so confident of the success of the expedition, that he said to Franklin:
“After taking Duquesne, I shall proceed to Niagara; and having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow time. And I suppose it will, for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days. Then I can see nothing which can obstruct my march to Niagara.”[35]
Franklin, with his customary good sense and modesty, replied, “To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with these fine troops, so well provided with artillery, the fort, though completely fortified, and assisted with a very strong garrison, can probably make but a very short resistance. The only danger I apprehend, of obstruction to your march, is from the ambuscades of the Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them. And the slender line, nearly four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attacked by surprise on its flanks, and to be cut, like thread, into several pieces, which, from their distance, cannot come up in time to support one another.”