The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief

by Morrison Heady

"There is time enough," said he, "for making such arrangements; and I have experienced troops on whom I can rely."

Stung to the quick by this uncivil and ungenerous treatment, the Black Hunter, without another word, turned, and, with a kindling eye and proud step, left the tent. When he told his followers of the scornful manner in which the English general had treated their leader, and rejected their offer of service, they staid not, but, with angry and indignant mien, filed out of the camp, and, plunging once more into the wilderness, left the devoted little army to march on to that destruction to which its ill-starred commander seemed so fatally bent on leading it. The contemptuous indifference which always marked the demeanor of Braddock towards these rude but brave and trusty warriors of the woods was very offensive to Washington; the more, as he knew, that, when it came to be put to the test, these men, unskilled though they were in the modes of civilized warfare, would be found far better fitted to cope with the cunning and stealthy enemy they had then to deal with, than those well-dressed, well-armed, well-drilled, but unwieldy regulars.

After having rested a few days at the Little Meadows, the advanced division of the army once more took up the line of march; but, to Washington's disappointment, made scarcely better speed than before, although lightened of nearly all of the heavy baggage. "I found," wrote he a short time after, "that, instead of pushing on with vigor, we were halting to level every mole-hill, and erect bridges over every brook; by which means we were sometimes four days in getting twelve miles." Slowly the long and straggling lines held on their weary way, now scrambling over some rugged steep, now winding along some narrow defile, till at length the silence of that gloomy vale—the Shades of Death—was again broken by the shouts and uproar of a marching army.

For several days, Washington had been suffering much from fever, attended with a racking headache, which had obliged him to travel in a covered wagon. By the time they reached the great crossings of the Youghiogeny, his illness had so increased, that Dr. Craik, his good friend and physician, declared it would be almost certain death for him to travel further; at the same time advising him to stay where he was until his fever should somewhat abate its violence, when he could come up with Dunbar's rear division. His brother officers also, and even his old general, kindly urged him to give up all thought of going on for the present; while, to render his disappointment more bearable, some of them promised to keep him informed, by writing, of every thing noteworthy which should happen in the course of their march. Seeing then; was no help for it, he suffered himself to be left behind: but it was with a sad and heavy heart that, he saw them pass on without him; and when they had vanished, one by one, in the shadows of the neighboring wilds, and the gleaming of their arms could no longer be seen through the openings of the trees and bushes, he turned with a sigh, and said to the men whom Braddock had left to nurse and guard him, "I would not for five hundred pounds miss being at the taking of Fort Duquesne." Here he lay for ten days; his fever, no doubt, much aggravated by his impatience to rejoin his comrades, and the fear lest he should not be well in time to share with them the dangers and honors of the coming contest.

Meanwhile, Braddock pursued his slow and tedious march, and in a few days had passed the Great Meadows, where young Washington, the year before, as you must well remember, had learned his first lessons in the rude art of war. A few miles beyond this, he came to a deserted Indian camp, on the top of a rocky hill, where, to judge from the number of wigwams, at least one hundred and seventy warriors must have lodged. The fires were still burning; which showed but too plainly that the stealthy foe was on the watch, and not far distant. Some of the trees hard by had been stripped of their bark; and on their white, sappy trunks were to be seen, in the rude picture-writing of the Indians, savage taunts and threats of vengeance meant for the English; while intermixed with these were bullying boasts and blackguard slang, written in the French language, as if to force on the notice of those who were to read them the fact, that there were white as well as red men lurking near.

It had almost slipped my mind to tell you, that Braddock, moved perhaps by the advice of Washington, had, before setting out from Fort Cumberland, employed a small party of Indians, with their sachem Yadi at their head, to serve as guides and spies during the campaign. A few days after passing the deserted camp on the rock, four or five soldiers, straggling too far in the rear, were suddenly waylaid by the prowling foe, and all murdered and scalped on the spot.

To avenge the death of their comrades, a squad of regulars went out in quest of the enemy, and soon came in sight of a small party of Indians, who held up the boughs of trees before them, and stood their rifles on the ground, as a sign that they were friends. Not understanding this, however, and the distance being too great for them to make out who they were, the blundering regulars fired, and one of the party fell dead on the spot,—a youthful warrior, who proved to be the son of the sachem Yadi. When Braddock heard of this melancholy accident, he was deeply grieved. He forthwith sent for the bereaved father, and, to his praise be it ever recorded, endeavored, by kind words and liberal presents, to console him, and make some little amends for his heavy loss; and, as a still further token of his regard, he ordered the hapless youth to be buried with all the honors of war. The body, borne on a bier, was followed by the officers, two and two; while the soldiers, drawn up in two lines, with the grave between them, stood facing each other, with the points of their muskets turned downward, and their chins resting in the hollow of the breeches. When the body was lowered, they fired three volleys over the grave, and left the young warrior to his long sleep on the hillside, with his bright hatchet and trusty rifle beside him. All this was very soothing to the sorrow and gratifying to the fatherly pride of the old sachem, and made him ever after a loving friend and faithful ally of the English. I have told you this little story to show you, that this testy and obstinate old general, with all his faults, was far from being the hard, unfeeling man that he sometimes seemed; and also as a tribute that every historian should pay to the memory of one whose misfortune it has been to be blamed so much, and pitied so little.

By this time, Washington had so far regained his strength as to admit of his being borne along in a covered wagon; and, setting out accordingly, in five days came up with the advance division, where it lay encamped in a beautiful spot about two miles from the Monongahela, and fifteen miles from Fort Duquesne. Here he was joyfully welcomed by both officers and men, with whom his generosity, and frank, manly bearing, had made him a great favorite. Shortly after his arrival, Mr. Gist and two Indian scouts, who had been sent out to reconnoitre or spy out the enemy, came back with the cheering tidings, that the re-enforcements had not yet come down from Canada, and that the garrison in the fort was at present too weak to stand a single hour's siege. But what gave him a little uneasiness was a lofty column of smoke, rising from a deep and densely wooded hollow, where they were quite sure the watchful enemy was lurking, and hatching some mischief for the English.

Now, the fort and the camp lay on the same side of the river; and the most direct route between them was by a narrow mountain pass, rising abruptly from the water's edge on the left, and, on the right, shut in by a steep and lofty hill, whose stony sides were overgrown with laurel and stunted cedars and pines. As it was altogether out of the question to drag their wagons and artillery along this pass, it was resolved to cross the river, first at a point just over against the camp, and then, moving down along the opposite bank, recross it at another point five miles below; at both of which places the fords were shallow, and the banks not high.

At last, the 9th of July, 1755,—a day ever to be remembered in American annals,—began to dawn. Long before its first red light had streaked the east, a hum in the camp told that the little army was, even at that hour, all astir, and big with the bustle of preparation. Officers and men were in the highest hopes, and looked forward with confidence to the coming evening, when they were to plant their victorious banners on the ramparts of Fort Duquesne. Although they had marched thus far without serious molestation, yet Col. Washington's fears of an ambuscade were not a whit diminished; for he felt quite certain that they should never reach the French fort without an attempt being made to surprise, or drive them back. Full of these apprehensions, he went to Gen. Braddock, and, pointing out to him the danger hanging over them, urged him by all means to send out the Virginia rangers to scour the woods and thickets, front and flank, and beat up the enemy, should any chance to be lurking near with the design of drawing them into an ambuscade. No advice, as it afterwards turned out, could have been more timely: but, coming from a raw provincial colonel, Braddock cast it aside with angry impatience; and when the line of march was formed, as if to show in what light esteem he held it, he ordered the rangers to the rear, to guard the baggage. Before daybreak, a large party of pioneers, or road-cutters, with a small guard of regulars, numbering in all about three hundred, had gone on before to open a passage for the army through the woods, and make the fords more passable by levelling the banks.