XXIX
I find my diaries insufficient as to the events which preceded the battle on the Monongahela, where, in Braddock’s rout, I lost almost all my papers, with my plans and maps, chiefly copies of those I had given the general. This I now regret more than I did at the time when my memory served me better. Finding, as I have noted before, that to write of events recalls particulars, I shall endeavour thus to revive my personal remembrances, but not to record at length the entire history of the defeat of General Braddock.
I do not suppose that any land was ever worse governed than Virginia was under Dinwiddie, and as to military affairs worst of all, but not worse than other colonies. The governors were ignorant of warfare and expected too much from the half-trained militia and their careless officers. These conditions may have seemed to justify the King’s order that all officers holding militia appointments should be outranked by all royal commissions, and even by the King’s officers on half-pay. This was bad enough, but there were also Independent companies raised in time of need; and their officers, being directly commissioned by the governors acting for the King, insisted on their right to outrank gentlemen of the militia, and led the men in their commands to disobey such officers and to consider themselves of a class superiour to the militia. I had already had so sad an experience of the difficulties which arose out of these conditions that I was unwilling to submit to Governor Dinwiddie’s plan of making all the militia Independent companies and with only captains in command. The object to be attained by this awkward expedient was to put a stop to the constant disputes as to precedency and command. As this would reduce me from colonel to captain, I made it clear to the governor that it was not, in my opinion, a step to be advised, but I would consider of it, which, indeed, took me no long time.
In November I resigned my commission, and before it was accepted went to Alexandria, where my regiment then lay. I asked the officers to meet me and explained the cause of my being forced to resign. I was surprised to find that my resolution, which all admitted to be reasonable, met with the most flattering opposition. Indeed, I received soon after a letter from these gentlemen in which, with much more, they said:
We, your obedient and affectionate officers, beg leave to express our great concern at the marked disagreeable news we have received of your determination to resign the command of the corps. Your steady adherence to impartial justice, your quick discernment and invariable regard to merit, enlivened our natural emulation to excel.
As this letter lies before me and I think of the emotion it caused me, I still like to remember that at the close they spoke of me as “one who taught them to despise danger and to think lightly of toil and hardships while led by a man they knew and loved.”
I have been spoken of as wanting in sensibility. If it had been said I lacked means to show what I feel, that were to put the matter more correctly. Even now the recollection of the praise thus given moves me deeply, and recalls the memory of my farewell to those who served with me in the War of Independency. I was but twenty-three when I left the colonial service.
I did so with much reluctance, for my desire was not to leave the military line, as my inclinations were still strongly bent to arms, and of this I assured Colonel Fitzhugh very plainly when he would have had me submit to return to service in the inferiour grade of captain. I preferred my farm to submitting to this degradation.
Among the minor matters which, by degrees, discontented even the most loyal of the upper class of Virginia gentlemen, none was more ill borne than the impertinence and insults to which this order of the King gave rise.