CHAPTER XX
Georgereturned to Alexandria, where his regiment awaited him. He was mad with rage and chagrin. He could have taken censure with humility, feeling sure that whatever mistakes he had made were those of inexperience, not a want of zeal or courage. But to be quietly supplanted, to be asked—after all the hardships and dangers he had passed through, and the exoneration from blame by his countrymen—to take a humiliating place, was more than he felt he ought to bear.
When he reached Alexandria he informed his officers of the resignation of his commission, which would be accepted in a few days; and their reply was an address, which did what all his cares and griefs and hardships had never done—it brought him to tears. A part of the letter ran thus:
“Sir,—We, your most obedient and affectionate officers, beg leave to express our great concern at the disagreeable news we have received of your determination to resign thecommand of that corps in which we have, under you, long served. The happiness we have enjoyed and the honor we have acquired, together with the mutual regard that has always subsisted between you and your officers, have implanted so sensible an affection in the minds of us all that we cannot be silent on this critical occasion.“Your steady adherence to impartial justice, your quick discernment and invariable regard to merit, first heightened our natural emulation to excel. Judge, then, how sensibly we must be affected with the loss of such an excellent commander, such a sincere friend, such an affable companion. How great the loss of such a man! It gives us additional sorrow, when we reflect, to find our unhappy country will receive a loss no less irreparable than our own. Where will it find a man so experienced in military affairs—one so renowned for patriotism, conduct, and courage? Who has so great a knowledge of the enemy we have to deal with? Who so well acquainted with their situation and strength? Who so much respected by the soldiery? Who, in short, so well able to support the military character of Virginia? We presume to entreat you to lead us on to assist in the glorious work of extirpating our enemies. In you we place the most implicit confidence. Your presence only will cause a steady firmness and vigor to actuate in every breast, despising the greatest dangers, and thinking light of toils and hardships, while led on by the man we know and love.”[C]
“Sir,—We, your most obedient and affectionate officers, beg leave to express our great concern at the disagreeable news we have received of your determination to resign thecommand of that corps in which we have, under you, long served. The happiness we have enjoyed and the honor we have acquired, together with the mutual regard that has always subsisted between you and your officers, have implanted so sensible an affection in the minds of us all that we cannot be silent on this critical occasion.
“Your steady adherence to impartial justice, your quick discernment and invariable regard to merit, first heightened our natural emulation to excel. Judge, then, how sensibly we must be affected with the loss of such an excellent commander, such a sincere friend, such an affable companion. How great the loss of such a man! It gives us additional sorrow, when we reflect, to find our unhappy country will receive a loss no less irreparable than our own. Where will it find a man so experienced in military affairs—one so renowned for patriotism, conduct, and courage? Who has so great a knowledge of the enemy we have to deal with? Who so well acquainted with their situation and strength? Who so much respected by the soldiery? Who, in short, so well able to support the military character of Virginia? We presume to entreat you to lead us on to assist in the glorious work of extirpating our enemies. In you we place the most implicit confidence. Your presence only will cause a steady firmness and vigor to actuate in every breast, despising the greatest dangers, and thinking light of toils and hardships, while led on by the man we know and love.”[C]
Deep, indeed, was the conviction which made George resist this letter; but his reply was characteristic: “I made not this decision lightly, and all I ask is that I may be enabled to go with you in an honorable capacity; but to be degraded and superseded, this I cannot bear.”
The governor was very soon made aware that the soldiers bitterly resented his treatment of their young commander, but he had gone too far to retreat. George, as soon as his resignation was accepted, retired to Mount Vernon; and about the time he left his regiment at Alexandria two frigates sailed up the Potomac with General Braddock and landed two thousand regular troops for the spring campaign against the French and Indians.
George spent the autumn and winter at Mount Vernon, where, until then, he had spent but one night in fifteen months. After getting his affairs there in some sort of order he visited his sister at Belvoir, and his mother and Betty at Ferry Farm. All of them noticed a change in him. He had grown more grave, and there was a singular gentleness in his manner. His quick temper seemed to have been utterly subdued. Betty alone spoke to him of the change she saw.
“I think, dear Betty,” he answered, gently, “that no one can go through a campaign such as I have seen without being changed and softened by it. And then I foresee a terrible war with France and discord with the mother-country. We are upon the threshold of great events, depend upon it, of which no man can see the outcome.”
The winter was passed in hard work at Mount Vernon. Only by ceaseless labor could George control his restlessness. The military fever was kindled in his veins, and, do what he could, there was no subduing it, although he controlled it. Torn between the desire to serve his country as a military man and the sense of a personal and undeserved affront, he scarcely knew what to do. One day, in the fever of his impatience, he would determine to go to Alexandria and enlist as a private in his old corps. Then reason and reflection, which were never long absent from him, would return, and he would realize that his presence under such circumstances would seriously impair the discipline of the corps. And after receiving the officers’ letter, and hearing what was said and done among them, he was forced to recognize, in spite of his native modesty, that his old troops would not tolerate that he should be in any position which they conceivedinadequate to his deserts. Captain Vanbraam told him much of this one night when he rode from Alexandria to spend the night with George.
“General Braddock is a great, bluff, brave, foolish, hard-drinking, hard-riding Irishman. He does not understand the temper of our soldiers, and has not the remotest conception of Indian fighting, which our enemies have been clever enough to adopt. I foresee nothing but disaster if he carries out the campaign on his present lines. There is but one good sign. He has heard of you, Colonel Washington, and seems to have been impressed by the devotion of your men to you. Last night he said to me, ‘Can you not contrive to get this young colonel over to see me? I observe one strange thing in these provincial troops: they have exactly the same confidence in Colonel Washington now as before his disastrous campaign, and as a soldier I know there must be some great qualities in a commander when even defeat cannot undo him with his men, for your private soldier is commonly a good military critic; so now, my little Dutch captain,’ bringing his great fist down on my back like the hammer on the anvil, ‘do you bring him to see me. If he will take a place in my military family, by gad it is his.’ And, my youngcolonel,” added Vanbraam in his quiet way, “I am not so sure it is not your duty to go, for I have a suspicion that this great swashbuckler will bring our troops to such a pass in this campaign that only you can manage them. So return with me to-morrow.”
“Let me sleep on it,” answered George, with a faint smile.
Next evening, as the general sat in his quarters at the Alexandria Tavern, surrounded by his officers, most of them drinking and swaggering, the general most of all, a knock came at the door, and when it was opened Captain Vanbraam’s short figure appeared, and with him George Washington, the finest and most military figure that General Braddock ever remembered to have seen. Something he had once heard of the great Condé came to General Braddock’s dull brain when he saw this superb young soldier: “This man was born a captain.”
When George was introduced he was received with every evidence of respect. The general, who was a good soldier after a bad pattern, said to him at once:
“Mr. Washington, I have much desired to see you, and will you oblige me by giving me, later on, a full account of your last campaign?” The other officers took the hint, and, in a little while,George and the general were alone. They remained alone until two o’clock in the morning, and when George came out of the room he had entered as a private citizen he was first aide-de-camp on General Braddock’s staff.
As he walked back to Captain Vanbraam’s quarters in the dead of night, under a wintry sky, he was almost overwhelmed with conflicting feelings. He was full of joy that he could make the campaign in an honorable position; but General Braddock’s utter inability to comprehend what was necessary in such fighting filled him with dread for the brave men who were to be risked in such a venture.
Captain Vanbraam was up waiting for him. In a few words George told what had passed.
“And now,” he said, “I must be up and doing, although it is past two o’clock. I must bid my mother good-bye, and I foresee there will be no time to do it when once I have reported, which I promised to do within twenty-four hours. By starting now I can reach Ferry Farm to-morrow morning, spend an hour with her, and return here at night; so if you, captain, will have my horses brought, I will wake up my boy Billy”—for, although Billy was quite George’s age, he remained ever his “boy.”
Next morning at Ferry Farm, about teno’clock, Betty, happening to open the parlor door, ran directly into George’s arms, whom she supposed to be forty-five miles off. Betty was speechless with amazement.
“Don’t look as if you had seen a rattlesnake, Betty,” cried George, giving her a very cruel pinch, “but run, like a good child as you are, though flighty, and tell our mother that I am here.”
Before Betty could move a step in marched Madam Washington, stately and beautiful as ever. And there were the three boys, all handsome youths, but handsomer when they were not contrasted with the elder brother; and then, quite gayly and as if he were a mere lad, George plunged into his story, telling his mother that he was to make the campaign with General Braddock as first aide-de-camp, and trying to tell her about the officers’ letter, which he took from his pocket, but, blushing very much, was going to return it, had not Betty seized it as with an eagle’s claw.
“Betty,” cried George, stamping his foot, “give me back that letter!”
“No, indeed, George,” answered Betty, with calm disdain. “Do not put on any of your grand airs with me. I have heard of this letter, and I mean to read it aloud to our mother. Andyou may storm and stamp and fume all you like—’tis not of the slightest consequence.”
So George, scowling and yet forced to laugh a little, had to listen to all the compliments paid him read out in Betty’s rich, ringing young voice, while his mother sat and glowed with pride, and his younger brothers hurrahed after the manner of boys; and when Betty had got through the letter her laughing face suddenly changed to a very serious one, and she ran to George and kissed him all over his cheeks, saying:
“Dear George, it makes me so happy that I both want to laugh and cry—dear, dear brother!”
And George, with tender eyes, kissed Betty in return, so that she knew how much he loved her.
When Madam Washington spoke it was in a voice strangely different from her usually calm, musical tones. She had just got the idol of her heart back from all his dangers, and she was loath to let him go again, and told him so.
“But, mother,” answered George, after listening to her respectfully, “when I started upon my campaign last year you told me that you placed me in God’s keeping. The God to whom you commended me then defended me from all harm, and I trust He will do so now. Do not you?”
Madam Washington paused, and the rare tears stole down her cheeks.
“You are right, my son,” she answered, presently. “I will not say another word to detain you, but will once more give you into the hands of the good God to take care of for me.”
That night, before twelve o’clock, George reported at Alexandria to General Braddock as his aide.
On the 20th of April, near the time that George had set out the year before, General Braddock began his march from Alexandria in Virginia to the mountains of Pennsylvania, where the reduction of Fort Duquesne was his first object. There were two magnificent regiments of crack British troops and ten companies of Virginia troops, hardy and seasoned, and in the highest spirits at the prospect of their young commander being with them. They cheered him vociferously when he appeared riding with General Braddock, and made him blush furiously. But his face grew very long and solemn when he saw the immense train of wagons to carry baggage and stores which he knew were unnecessary, and the general at that very moment was storming because there were not more.
“These,” he said, “were furnished by Mr. Franklin, Postmaster-General of Pennsylvania,and he sends me only a hundred and fifty at that.”
“A hundred too many,” was George’s thought.
The march was inconceivably slow. Never since George could remember had he so much difficulty in restraining his temper as on that celebrated march. As he said afterwards, “Every mole-hill had to be levelled, and bridges built across every brook.” General Braddock wished to march across the trackless wilderness of the Alleghanies as he did across the flat plains of Flanders, and he spent his time in constructing a great military road when he should have been pushing ahead. So slow was their progress that in reaching Winchester George was enabled to make a détour and go to Greenway Court for a few hours. The delight of Lord Fairfax and Lance was extreme, but in a burst of confidence George told them the actual state of affairs.
“What you tell me,” said the earl, gravely, “determines me to go to the low country, for if this expedition results disastrously I can be of more use at Williamsburg than here. But, my dear George, I am concerned for you, because you look ill. You are positively gaunt, and you look as if you had not eaten for a week.”
“Ill!” cried George, beginning to walk up anddown the library, and clinching and unclinching his lists nervously. “My lord, it is my heart and soul that are ill. Can you think what it is to watch a general, brave but obstinate, and blind to the last degree, rushing upon disaster? Upon my soul, sir, those English officers think, I verily believe, that the Indians are formed into regiments and battalions, with a general staff and a commissary, and God knows what!” And George raved a while longer before he left to ride back to Winchester, with Billy riding after him. This outbreak was so unlike George, he looked so strange, his once ruddy face was so pallid at one moment and so violently flushed at another that the earl and Lance each felt an unspoken dread that his strong body might give way under the strain upon it.
George galloped back into Winchester that night. Both his horse and Billy’s were dripping wet, and as he pulled his horse almost up on his haunches Billy said, in a queer voice:
“Hi, Marse George, d’yar blood on yo’ bridle. You rid dat boss hard, sho’ nough!”
“Hold your tongue!” shouted George, in a tone that Billy had never heard from him before; and then, in the next minute, he said, confusedly, “I did not mean to speak so, but my head is in a whirl; I think I must be ill.”
And as he spoke he reeled in his saddle, and would have fallen had not Billy run forward and caught him. He staggered into the house where he had lodgings, and got into his bed, and by midnight he was raving with fever.
Billy had sense enough to go for Dr. Craik, George’s old acquaintance, who had volunteered as surgeon to General Braddock’s staff. He was a bright-eyed, determined-looking man, still young, but skilled in his profession. By morning the fever was reduced, and Dr. Craik was giving orders about the treatment as he sat by George’s bedside, for the army was to resume its march that day.
“Your attack is sharp,” said the doctor, “but you have an iron constitution, and with ordinary care you will soon be well.”
George, pale and haggard, but without fever, listened to the doctor’s directions with a half-smile. The troops were already on the move; outside could be heard the steady tramp of feet, the thunder of horses’ hoofs, the roll of artillery-wagons, and the commotion of an army on the move. In a few moments the doctor left him, saying:
“I think you will shortly be able to rejoin the army, Colonel Washington.”
“I think so, too,” answered George.
As soon as the doctor was out of the room George turned to Billy and said:
“Help me on with my clothes, and as soon as the troops are well out of the town fetch the horses.”
When the soldiers halted at noon, General Braddock, sitting under a tree by the road-side, was asking Dr. Craik’s opinion of the time that Colonel Washington could rejoin, when around the corner of a huge bowlder rode George with Billy behind him. He was very pale, but he could sit his horse. He could not but laugh at the doctor’s angry face, but said deprecatingly to him:
“I would have fretted myself more ill had I remained at Winchester, for I am not by nature patient, and I have been ill so little that I do not know how to be ill.”
“I see you don’t,” was the doctor’s dry reply.
For four days George kept up with the army, and managed, in spite of burning fevers, of a horrible weakness and weariness, of sleepless nights racked with pain, to ride his horse. On the fifth he was compelled to take to a covered wagon. There, on a rough bed, with Billy holding his burning head, he was jolted along for ten days more, each day more agonizing than the one before. In that terrible time master andman seemed to have changed places. It was George who was fretful and unreasonable and wildly irritable, while Billy, the useless, the lazy, the incorrigible, nursed him with a patience, a tenderness, a strange intelligence that amazed all who saw it, and was even dimly felt by George. The black boy seemed able to do altogether without sleep. At every hour of the day and night he was awake and alert, ready to do anything for the poor sufferer. As the days passed on, and George grew steadily worse, the doctor began to look troubled. In his master’s presence Billy showed no sign of fear, but he would every day follow Dr. Craik when he left, and ask him, with an ashy face:
“Marse doctor, is Marse George gwi’ die?”
“I hope not. He is young and strong, and God is good.”
“Ef he die, an’ I go home, what I gwi’ say when mistis come out and say, ‘Billy, wh’yar yo’ Marse George?’” And at that Billy would throw himself on the ground in a paroxysm of grief that was piteous to see. The doctor carefully concealed from the soldiers George’s real condition. But after four or five days of agony a change set in, and within the week George was able to sit up and even ride a little. The wagons had kept with the rear division of the army,but George knew that General Braddock, with twelve hundred picked men, had gone ahead and must be near Fort Duquesne. On the fourteenth day, in the evening, when the doctor came he found his patient walking about. He was frightfully thin and pale, but youth and strength and good habits were beginning to assert themselves. He was getting well.
“Doctor,” said he, “this place is about fifteen miles from Fort Duquesne. I know it well, and from this hour I emancipate myself from you. This day I shall report for duty.”
The next morning, the 9th of July, 1755, dawned beautifully, and the first long lances of light revealed a splendid sight on the banks of the Monongahela. On one side flowed the great river in majestic beauty. Following the shores was a kind of natural esplanade, while a little way off the rich woods, within which dwelt forever a purple twilight, overhung this charming open space. And along this open space marched, in exquisite precision, two thousand of England’s crack troops—cavalry, infantry, and artillery—and a thousand bronzed Virginia soldiery to the music of the fife and drum. Often in after-years George Washington was heard to say that the most beautiful sight his eyes ever rested on was the sight of Braddock’s army at sunrise onthat day of blood. Officers and men were in the highest spirits; they expected within a few hours to be in sight of Fort Duquesne, where glory, as they thought, awaited their coming. Even George’s apprehensions of the imprudence of this mode of attack were soothed. He rode by General Braddock’s side, and was by far the most conspicuous figure there for grace and nobility. His illness seemed to have departed in a night, and he was the same erect, soldierly form, fairly dwarfing every one contrasted with him. As the general and his first aide rode together, General Braddock said, confidently:
“Colonel Washington, in spite of your warning, see how far we have come upon our way without disaster. The danger of an attack by Indians is now passed, and we have but to march a few miles more and glory is ours.”
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when there was one sharp crack of a gun, followed by a fierce volley, and fifty men dropped in their tracks. But there was no enemy visible. The shots were like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.
“The Indians,” said George, in a perfectly composed voice, reining up his horse.
“I see no Indians,” cried General Braddock, excitedly. “There is disorder in the ranks; havethem closed up at once, and march in double time. We will soon find the enemy.”
But the firing from the invisible foe again broke forth, this time fiercer and more murderous than before. General Braddock, riding to the head of the first regiment, which had begun to waver, shouted the order for them to reform and fire. The veteran troops, as coolly as if on parade, closed up their ranks, and gave a volley, but it was as if fired in the air. They saw no enemy to fire at. Meanwhile the Virginia troops, after the first staggering effect of a terrific musketry fire poured into them by an unseen enemy, suddenly broke ranks, and, each man running for a tree, they took possession of the skirts of the woods. On seeing this General Braddock galloped up to George.
“Colonel Washington,” he cried, violently, “your Virginia troops are insubordinate! They have scattered themselves through the woods, and I desire them formed again in columns of fours to advance.”
“Sir,” answered George, in agony, “the ravines are full of Indians—many hundreds of them. They can slaughter us at their pleasure if we form in the open. The Virginians know how to fight them.”
“You are an inexperienced soldier, sir, andtherefore I excuse you. But look at my English veterans—see how they behave—and I desire the Virginians to do the same.”
At that moment George’s horse fell upon his knees, and the next he rolled over, shot through the heart. The English regiments had closed up manfully, after receiving several destructive volleys, returning the fire of their assailants without seeing them and without producing the smallest effect. But suddenly the spectacle of half their men dead or wounded on the ground, the galloping about of riderless horses, the shrieks of agony that filled the air, seemed to unman them. They broke and ran in every direction. In vain General Braddock rode up to them, actually riding over them, waving his sword and calling to them to halt.
The men who had faced the legions of Europe were panic-stricken by this dreadful unseen foe, and fled, only to be shot down in their tracks. To make it more terrible, the officers were singled out for slaughter, and out of eighty-six officers in a very little while twenty-six were killed and thirty-seven wounded. General Braddock himself had his horse shot under him, and as he rolled on the ground a cry of pain was wrung from him by two musket-balls that pierced his body. Of his three aides, two lay welteringin their blood, and George alone was at his side helping him to rise.
Rash and obstinate as General Braddock might be, he did not lack for courage, and in that awful time he was determined to fight to the last.
“Get me another horse,” he said, with difficulty, to George. “Are you, too, wounded?”
“No, general, but I have had two horses shot under me. Here is my third one—mount!” And by the exertion of an almost superhuman strength he raised General Braddock’s bulky figure from the ground and placed him in the saddle.
“I am badly wounded,” said General Braddock, as he reeled slightly; “but I can sit my horse yet. Your Virginians are doing nobly, but they should form in columns.”
Besotted to the end, but seeing that the Virginians alone were standing their ground, General Braddock did not give a positive order, and George did not feel obliged to obey this murderous mistake. But General Braddock, after a gasp or two, turned a livid face towards George.
“Colonel Washington, the command is yours. I am more seriously wounded than I thought.” He swayed forward, and but for George would have fallen from his horse.
The panic was now at its height. Men, horses, wagons, all piled together in a terrible mêlée,made for the rear; but there, again, they were met by a hail of bullets. Staggered, they rushed back, only to be again mowed down by the hidden enemy. The few officers left commanded, begged, and entreated the men to stand firm; but they, who had faced death upon a hundred fields, were now so mad with fear that they were incapable of obedience. George, who had managed to have General Braddock carried to the rear with the aid of Dr. Craik, had got another horse, and riding from one end of the bloody field to the other, did all that mortal man could do to rally the panic-stricken men, but it was in vain. His clothes were riddled with bullets, but in the midst of the carnage around him he was unharmed, and rode over the field like the embodied spirit of battle.
The Virginians alone, cool and determined, fought steadily and sold their lives dearly, although picked off one by one. At last, after hours of panic, flight, and slaughter, George succeeded in bringing off the remnant of the Virginians, and, overtaking the fleeing mob of regular troops some miles from the scene of the conflict, got them across the ford of the Monongahela. They were safe from pursuit, for the handful of Frenchmen could not persuade their Indian allies to leave the plunder of the battle-field forthe pursuit of the enemy. The first thing that George did was to send immediately for wagons, which had been left behind, to transport the wounded. General Braddock, still alive but suffering agonies from his wounds, was carried on horseback, then in a cart, and at last, the jolting being intolerable, on a litter upon the shoulders of four sturdy backwoodsmen. But he was marked for death. On the third day of this terrible retreat, towards sunset, he sank into a lethargy. George, who had spent every moment possible by his side, turned to Dr. Craik, who shook his head significantly—there was no hope. As George dismounted and walked by the side of the litter, the better to hear any words the dying soldier might utter, General Braddock roused a little.
“Colonel Washington,” he said, in a feeble voice, “I am satisfied with your conduct. We have had bad fortune—very bad fortune; but”—here his mind began to wander—“yonder is the smoke rising from the chimneys; we shall soon be home and at rest. Good-night, Colonel Washington—”
GEORGE DID ALL THAT MORTAL MAN COULD DO“GEORGE DID ALL THAT MORTAL MAN COULD DO”
“GEORGE DID ALL THAT MORTAL MAN COULD DO”
“GEORGE DID ALL THAT MORTAL MAN COULD DO”
The men with the litter stopped. George, with an overburdened heart, watched the last gasp of a rash but brave and honorable soldier, and presently gently closed his eyes. Thatnight the body of General Braddock, wrapped in his military cloak, was buried under a great oak-tree in the woods by the side of the highway, and before daylight the mournful march was resumed.
The news of the disaster had preceded them, and when George, attended only by Captain Vanbraam and a few of his Virginia officers, rode into Williamsburg on an August evening, it was with the heaviest heart he had ever carried in his bosom. But by one of those strange paradoxes, ever existing in the careers of men of destiny, the events that had brought ruin to others only served to exalt him personally. His gallant conduct in battle, his miraculous escape, his bringing off of the survivors, especially among the Virginia troops, and the knowledge which had come about that had his advice been heeded the terrible disaster would not have taken place—all conspired to make him still more of a popular hero. Not only his own men adored him, and pointed out that he had saved all that could be saved on that dreadful day, but the British troops as well saw that the glory was his, and the return march was one long ovation to the one officer who came out of the fight with a greater reputation than when he entered it. Everywhere crowds met him with acclamationsand with tears. The streets of the quaint little town of Williamsburg were filled with people on this summer evening, who followed the party of officers, with George at their head, to the palace. George responded to the shouts for him by bowing gracefully from side to side.
Arrived at the palace he dismounted, and, just as the sentry at the main door presented arms to him, he saw a party coming out, and they were the persons he most desired to see in the world and least expected. First came the Earl of Fairfax with Madam Washington, whom he was about to hand down the steps and into his coach, which had not yet driven up. Behind them demurely walked Betty, and behind Betty came Lance, carrying the mantles of the two ladies.
The earl and Madam Washington, engaged in earnest conversation, did not catch sight of George until Betty had rushed forward, and crying out in rapture, “George, dear George!” they saw the brother and sister clasped in each other’s arms.
Madam Washington stood quite still, dumfounded with joy, until George, kissing her hand tenderly, made her realize that it was indeed he, her best beloved, saved from almost universal destruction and standing before her. She, thecalmest, the stateliest of women, trembled, and had to lean upon him for support; the earl grasped his hand; Lance was in waiting. George was as overcome with joy as they were.
“But I must ask at once to see the governor,” said he, after the first rapture of meeting was over. “You, my lord, must go with me, for I want friends near me when I tell the story of sorrow and disaster.”
Four days afterwards, the House of Burgesses being in session, Colonel Washington was summoned by the Speaker to read his report of the campaign before it, and to be formally designated as commander-in-chief of the forces. The facts were already known, but it was thought well, in order to arouse the people to the sense of their danger, and to provide means for carrying on the war in defence of their frontiers, that Colonel Washington should make a public report, and should publicly receive the appointment of commander-in-chief of the next expedition. The House of Burgesses, then as ever, proudly insistent of its rights, had given the governor to understand that they would give him neither money nor supplies unless their favorite soldier should have the command in the next campaign—and, indeed, the attitude of the officersand soldiery made this absolutely necessary. Even the governor had realized this, and, disheartened by the failure of his much-heralded regulars, was in a submissive mood, and these haughty colonial legislators, of whose republican principles Governor Dinwiddie already complained much, took this opportunity to prove that without their co-operation but little could be done.
The large hall of the House of Burgesses, but dimly lighted by small diamond-paned windows, was filled with the leading men of the colony, including Lord Fairfax. Ladies had been admitted to the floor, and among them sat in majestic beauty Madam Washington, and next to her sat Betty, palpitating, trembling, blushing, and with proud, bright eyes awaited the entrance of her “darling George,” as she called him, although often reproved for her extravagance by her mother.
At last George entered this august assembly. His handsome head was uncovered, showing his fair hair. He wore a glittering uniform, and his sword, given him by Lord Fairfax, hung at his side. He carried himself with that splendid and noble air that was always his characteristic, and, quietly seating himself, awaited the interrogatory of the president. When this was made herose respectfully and began to read from manuscript the sad story of Braddock’s campaign. It was brief, but every sentence thrilled all who heard it. When he said, in describing the terrible story of the 9th of July, “The officers in general behaved with incomparable bravery, for which they suffered, upwards of sixty being killed or wounded,” a kind of groan ran through the great assemblage; and when he added, in a voice shaken with emotion, “The Virginia companies behaved like men and died like soldiers; for, I believe, out of three companies on the ground that day scarce thirty men were left alive,” sobs were heard, and many persons, both men and women, burst into tears.
His report being ended, the president of the House of Burgesses arose and addressed him:
“Colonel Washington: We have listened to your account of the late campaign with feelings of the deepest and most poignant sorrow, but without abandoning in any way our intention to maintain our lawful frontiers against our enemies. It has been determined to raise sixteen companies in this colony for offensive and defensive warfare, and by the appointment of his excellency the governor, in deference to the will of the people and the desire of the soldiers, you are hereby appointed, by this commissionfrom his excellency the governor, which I hold in my hand, commander-in-chief of all the forces now raised or to be raised by this colony, reposing special confidence in your patriotism, valor, conduct, and fidelity. And you are hereby invested with power and authority to act as you shall think for the good of the service.
“And we hereby strictly charge all officers and soldiers under your command to be obedient to your orders and diligent in the exercise of their several duties.
“And we also enjoin and require you to be careful in executing the great trust reposed in you, by causing strict discipline and order to be observed in the army, and that the soldiers be duly exercised and provided with all necessaries.
“And you are to regulate your conduct in every respect by the rules and discipline of war, and punctually to observe and follow such orders and directions as you shall receive from his excellency the governor and this or other House of Burgesses, or committee of the House of Burgesses.”
A storm of applause broke forth, and George stood silent, trembling and abashed, with a noble diffidence. He raised one hand in deprecation, and it was taken to mean that he would speak, and a solemn hush fell upon the assembly. But in the perfect silence he felt himselfunable to utter a word, or even to lift his eyes from the floor. The president sat in a listening attitude for a whole minute, then he said:
“Sit down, Colonel Washington. Your modesty is equal to your valor, and both are above comparison. Your life would not have been spared, as if by a miracle, had not the All-wise Ruler of the heavens and the earth designed that you should fulfil your great destiny; and one day, believe me, you shall be called the prop, the stay, and the glory of your country.”
THE END