Early in July, Washington, with his troops, marching from Winchester, reached Fort Cumberland. Two of his companies he dressed in Indian costume. To Colonel Bouquet he wrote:
“My men are bare of regimental clothing, and I have no prospect of supply. So far from regretting this want, during the present campaign, if I were left to pursue my own inclinations, I would not only order the men to adopt the Indian dress, but cause the officers to do it also, and be the first to set the example myself. Nothing but the uncertainty of obtaining the general approbation causes me to hesitate a moment to leave my regimentals in this place, and proceed as light as any Indian in the woods. It is an unbecoming dress, I own; but convenience rather than show, I think, should be consulted.”
Notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of Washington, it was decided to cross the mountains by a new route. With immense labor, a road had been cut for the passage of wagons and artillery, along which Braddock’s army had passed. Slight repairs would put this road in good condition. Washington presented an accurate estimate, showing that the whole army could be at Fort Duquesne in thirty-four days, with a supply of provisions remaining on hand for eighty-seven days. But Colonel Bouquet was firm in his resolution to open a new route, from Raystown, through Pennsylvania. Washington, after an interview with Bouquet, wrote, on the 2d of August, to a friend, Major Halket:
“I have just returned from a conference with Colonel Bouquet. I find him fixed—I think I may say unalterably fixed—to lead you a new way to the Ohio, through a road every inch of which is to be cut, at this advanced season, when we have scarce time to tread the beaten track, universally confessed to be the best passage through the mountains. If Colonel Bouquet succeeds in this point, all is lost—all is lost indeed. Our enterprise will be ruined, and we shall be stopped at the Laurel Hill this winter; the southern Indians will turn against us, and these colonies will be desolated by such an accession to the enemy’s strength. These must be the consequences of a miscarriage; and a miscarriage is almost the necessary consequence of an attempt to march the army by this new route.”
Quite a large band of Indians were engaged as allies of the English on this expedition. They were led by a very intelligent and distinguished chief, called Scarvoyadi. There were several tribes who recognized his chieftainship. They had kept aloof, for some time, from military alliance with either party. At length, with some hesitancy, they joined the English. Washington considered the aid of these bold warriors as of the utmost importance. He knew that they were proud, and would quickly discern and keenly feel any insult. He therefore urged that they should be treated with consideration, and that they should be consulted on important questions.
But the British officers had but very little respect for ignorant savages. Many of the warriors, disgusted with the long delay, deliberately shouldered their muskets and marched back through the wilderness to their homes. They were ready at once to respond to the invitations of the French, who ever treated them as equals. Scarvoyadi, who still personally adhered to the English, wrote to the Governor and Council of Pennsylvania, in reference to the defeat of Braddock, as follows:
“As to the defeat at the Monongahela, it was owing to the pride and ignorance of that great general who came from England. He is now dead. But he was a bad man when he was alive. He looked upon us as dogs. He would never hear anything we said to him. We often endeavored to advise him, and tell him of the danger he was in. But he never appeared pleased with us. That was the reason why a great many of our warriors left him.”[47]
We have no space here to allude to the great and successful campaign in the north, against Canada, with which Washington had no connection. But operations went on very slowly on the frontiers of Virginia. General Forbes, who was commander-in-chief, was long detained in Philadelphia. Colonel Bouquet, who was to command the advance, assembled his corps of British regulars at Raystown, in the heart of Pennsylvania. There were about three thousand five hundred American troops, Provincials, as they were called, at other appointed places of rendezvous.
Washington summoned his two regiments of Virginia troops to meet at Winchester. They numbered about nineteen hundred men. There were also about seven hundred friendly Indians, who came into his camp, lured by the high reputation of Washington and the prospect of the plunder of Fort Duquesne.
But when the American young men, from their scattered farm-houses in the wilderness, some of them distant two hundred miles, arrived at the rendezvous, they found themselves destitute of everything needful for so momentous a campaign. They were in want of horses, arms, ammunition, tents, field equipage, and almost everything else essential to the enterprise.