XI.
HIS FIRST BATTLE.
Washington's report concerning the designs of the French created intense excitement in Virginia and the neighboring Colonies. Governor Dinwiddie could see no other way to maintain the dignity of his government than by a resort to arms. He so reported to his Majesty the King of England. The excitement there became even greater than it was in America. Everybody wanted to fight to vindicate the nation's honor. The popular conversation was a declaration of war against the French.
The British Government was not long in framing instructions to the American Colonies, and orders were issued that they should unite in one confederacy and drive the French out of the land. The king directed Governor Dinwiddie to raise a force in Virginia, and the order was received with great enthusiasm. Washington was appointed to push recruiting, with headquarters at Alexandria. New York and South Carolina pledged two independent companies.
Washington anticipated a rush of volunteers when the governor sent out his call for troops, but the small pay offered did not induce the stalwart yeomanry, and other reliable classes, to relinquish their honorable occupations at home for the hunger and hardships of war. The result was, that a very unreliable class offered to enlist. One writer says:
"There gathered about him a rabble of ragamuffins and worthless fellows, who had spent their lives in tramping up and down the country, without settled homes or occupations. Some were without hats and shoes; some had coats and no shirts, some had shirts and no coats; and all were without arms, or any keen desire to use them if they had them. All this disgusted and disheartened our youthful colonel not a little, for he was young, and had yet to learn that it is of just such stuff that the beginnings of armies are always made."
Washington wrote to Governor Dinwiddie in a very desponding tone, complaining of the want of patriotism in the Colony. Immediately the governor came to his relief by issuing a proclamation, in which he said:
"Two hundred thousand acres of the very best land on the head-water of the Ohio will be appropriated, and divided among those who enlist and serve during the war."
The effect of this order was good, and soon one company was raised and sent forward, under Captain Trent, to occupy the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany Rivers, and there erect a fort, before the French could possess it. This was the spot which Washington recommended to Governor Dinwiddie as an admirable location for a fort.
When the work of recruiting was completed, the governor offered the command of the whole force to Washington, although Colonel Fry was entitled to it by right of seniority. Such was Washington's popularity, that Governor Dinwiddie knew the people would hail the appointment with unfeigned satisfaction. But Washington, with his usual modest estimate of himself, said to a friend: