Frontier Forts and Blockhouses in 1756Click here for larger image sizeFrontier Forts and Blockhouses in 1756(From the original in British Public Records Office)
Click here for larger image size
(From the original in British Public Records Office)
In this year, though a western campaign on Fort Duquesne did not materialize, the line of the old road was greatly strengthened and a blow was struck at the Indianson the Allegheny that was timely and effective. The former was a most important task—of far greater importance than was dreamed at that date. No one then knew the part this road westward from Carlisle was to play in our national development; it could not have been conceived, in 1756, that this route was to be the only fortified highway into the West—the most important military road of equal length on the continent throughout the eighteenth century.
That Fort Lowther at Carlisle was in ruins in 1756 is shown by the following letter written by William Trent to Richard Peters February 15, 1756, which also gives a realistic picture of the state of affairs which compelled the Pennsylvania Assembly to begin the fort-building of that year: “All the people had left their houses, betwixt this and the mountain, some come to town and others gathering into the little forts.[47]They are moving their effects from Shippensburg; every one thinks of flying unless the Government fall upon some effectual method, and that immediately, ofsecuring the frontiers, there will not be one inhabitant in this Valley one month longer. There is a few of us endeavoring to keep up the spirits of the people. We have proposed going upon the enemy tomorrow, but whether a number sufficient can be got, I cannot tell; no one scarce seems to be affected with the distress of their neighbours and for that reason none will stir but those that are next the enemy and in immediate danger. A fort in this town would have saved this part of the country, but I doubt this town in a few days, will be deserted, if this party [of savages] that is out should kill any people nigh here.” Commissioner Young was at Carlisle soon after, putting Fort Lowther into proper condition; he wrote Governor Morris: “I have endeavored to put this large fort in the best possible defense I can; but I am sorry to say the people of this town cannot be prevailed on, to do anything for their own safety.... They seem to be lulled into fatal security, a strange infatuation, which seems to prevail throughout this province.” The fort was not completed in July; Colonel Armstrongwrote Morris on the twenty-third of that month. “The duties of the harvest field have not permitted me to finish Carlisle Fort with the soldiers, it should be done otherwise, the soldiers cannot be so well governed, and may be absent or without the gates at the time of the greatest necessity.” In the same letter Colonel Armstrong—the Washington of Pennsylvania—wrote: “Lyttleton, Shippensburg and Carlisle (the two last not finished) are the only forts now built that will in my opinion be serviceable to the public.” It is significant that these three forts were on the old road westward, showing that this route was of utmost importance in Armstrong’s eyes.
Fort Lyttleton was one of four important forts erected, at Armstrong’s direction, by Governor Morris west of the Susquehanna late in 1755 and early in 1756. It was built “at Sugar Cabins upon the new road”; wrote Morris to Shirley February 9: “It [Fort Lyttleton] stands upon the new road opened by this Province towards the Ohio, and about twenty miles from the settlements, and I have called it Fort Lyttleton, in honor of my friend George. This fortwill not only protect the inhabitants in that part of the Province, but being upon a road that within a few miles joins General Braddock’s road, it will prevent the march of any regulars into the Province and at the same time serve as an advance post or magazine in case of an attempt to the westward.” The site of this fort was on land now owned by Dr. Trout, of McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania—about sixty feet on the north side of the old state road.[48]
Fort Morris at Shippensburg was building in November 1755; “we have one hundred men working,” wrote James Burd, “... with heart and hand every day. The town is full of people, five or six families in a house, in great want of arms and ammunition; but, with what we have we are determined to give the enemy as warm a reception, as we can. Some of our people have been taken prisoners, but have made their escape, and came to us this morning.” There had, as noted, been some sort of fortification here at an earlier date, Fort Franklin. As said previously, Fort Morris was still uncompleted July 23,1756. It was in Fort Franklin, undoubtedly, that the magazine was placed during Braddock’s campaign. Fort McDowell, at McDowell’s Mill, was also erected in 1756, being an important point at the junction of the old road into Virginia and the new road to Raystown. The savage onslaughts of the Indians were felt no more severely in any quarter than near here. At Great Cove, in November 1755, forty-seven persons were murdered or taken captive out of a total population of ninety-three. The strategic position of Fort McDowell at the junction of the roads was emphasized by Colonel Armstrong, who, after saying that Forts Lyttleton, Shippensburg, and Carlisle were the only ones that would be useful to the public, added: “McDowell’s, or thereabouts, is a necessary post; but the present fort is not defensible.”
Fort Loudoun was erected on the old road in 1756, one mile east of the present village of Loudon, Franklin County. The spot was historic even before it was fortified, the settlement here being one of the oldest in that section of the state. This point was a famous rendezvous both in theearly days when the Old Trading Path was the main western highway, and in after days when the path became Forbes’s Road. From here the pack-horse trains started westward into the mountains loaded—two hundred pounds to a horse—with goods which had come this far in wagons from Lancaster and Philadelphia. The site of Fort Loudoun therefore marks the western extremity of the early colonial roadways and the eastern extremity of the “packers’ paths” or trading paths which offered, until 1758, the only route across the mountains.[49]Fort Loudoun was built late in 1755, after considerable debate as to its location. Colonel Armstrong, after examining a spot near one Barr’s, finally determined to locate it “on a place in that neighborhood, near to Parnell’s Knob, where one Patton lives ... as it is near the new road; it will make the distance from Shippensburg to Fort Lyttleton two miles further than by McDowell’s.”
Ten miles southwest of Shippensburg,Benjamin Chambers, a noted pioneer, erected Fort Chambers at Falling Spring, the present Chambersburg. It was a private fort completed in 1756; by some means the owner had secured two four-pound cannon which he mounted in his little fort, the roof of which he had already covered with lead. It was feared that Chambers’s little fort would be captured by the savages and the guns turned upon Shippensburg and Carlisle. But their owner repudiated the insinuation and even held the guns from Colonel Armstrong, who was armed with the governor’s order to surrender them. Incidentally, also, he made good his boasts and held the fort with equal pugnacity from the savages. Colonel Chambers was of great assistance to General Forbes in the days of 1758, and, as an aged man, sent his three sons, raised in the lead-roofed fortress with its “Great Guns,” to Boston in 1775 to fight again for the land he had helped to conquer from the Indians in the dark days of Braddock and Forbes. Such men as Benjamin Chambers made Forbes’s Road a possibility. The state road built westward over the track ofForbes’s and Bouquet’s armies is well known in eastern Pennsylvania as the “Chambersburg and Pittsburg turnpike.”[50]
These forts west of the Susquehanna were garrisoned by the eight companies of the second battalion of the Pennsylvania regiment. While the work of completing the forts not yet finished went on, a campaign of more importance than was realized was conceived by ex-Governor Morris and explained to Governor Denny and the Council. It comprised a bold stroke by Lieutenant-colonel Armstrong at the Indian-infested region of Kittanning on the Allegheny. Here the Delaware Captain Jacobs held bloody sway, having, according to the report of an Indian spy who had recently visited the spot, nearly one hundred white prisoners from Virginia and Pennsylvania captive at that point.
Fort Shirley was appointed the place of rendezvous and the little campaign was kept as secret as possible. As the map shows, Fort Shirley (no. 23), Fort Lyttleton (no. 24) and Shippensburg form a triangle, the longest side of which marks the straightline between the two latter posts. Fort Loudoun was near this line between Fort Lyttleton and Fort Morris at Shippensburg. Near Fort Loudoun a branch of the old Kittanning Path ran northwesterly by Fort Shirley and onward to the Allegheny.[51]Over this track the bold band, which rendezvoused at Fort Shirley late in August, was to enter the Indian land. It numbered three hundred and seven men, almost precisely the size of Washington’s party which precipitated war in 1754. But with the gloomy fate of Washington’s band and Braddock’s army in mind this must have been a thoughtful company of men that proceeded from Fort Shirley on the next to the last day of August 1756. Their success was all out of proportion to their expectation but not out of proportion to their bravery. Within a week Kittanning was reached, surrounded when it was darkest before dawn, and savagely attacked in the grey of the misty morning. The town was utterly destroyed, some three score savages killed and eleven prisoners rescued and brought back over the mountains.The moral effect of this dash toward the Allegheny was of exceeding benefit to the whole frontier, and Armstrong—always feared by the Indians—became their especialbête noire. The expedition, having been made from lethargic Pennsylvania, had a wholesome effect upon all the other colonies and did much to cement them into the common league which accomplished much before two years had passed. Armstrong, as one of the builders of the new road through Raystown, as efficient officer in the work of fortifying this route, and now as leader of an offensive stroke at once daring and successful, was slowly being fitted for more useful and more important duties when the flower of Pennsylvania’s frontier should be thrown across the Alleghenies upon Fort Duquesne.
This officer’s opinion, already quoted, that the only forts worth the candle west of the Susquehanna were the three or four which fortified the main route westward from Carlisle to Raystown, appears to have met the approval of those in authority by 1757; on April 10, Governor Denny wrote to the Proprietaries: “Four Forts onlywere to remain over Susquehannah, viz., Lyttleton, Loudoun, Shippensburg, and Carlisle.”[52]If this is considered a backward step it must also be considered as a concentration of energy in a most telling manner. If the frontier from the Susquehanna to the Maryland line could not be held at every point the decision seems to have been that the line of the old road must be secured at all costs, whereupon all the public forts were abandoned save the four which guarded this western highway. But the decision meant more than this. It was in fact an offensive measure. Instead of holding a line of forts at the mountain gaps as a shield to the settlements, the line of the roadway westward was to be protected and even prolonged—a bristling sword-point stretching over the Alleghenies into the very heart of the French and Indian region. This is proved by the building of a new fort yet further west than Lyttleton—at Raystown, near the point where Burd’s road, cut in 1755 toward the Youghiogheny, left the Old Trading Path. This significant undertaking was evidently on the tapis early in the winter. On February 22, Armstrong wrote Burd: “This is all that can possibly be done, before the grass grows and proper numbers unite, except it is agreed to fortify Raystown, of which I, yet, know nothing.” On the fifth of May he addressed a letter to the governor in which he said: “... prompts me to propose to your Honour what I have long ago suggested, to the late Governor and gentlemen commissioners, that is the building a fort at Raystown without which the King’s business and the country’s safety can never be effected to the westward.... ’Tis true this service will require upwards of five hundred men, as no doubt they will be attacked if any power be at Fort Duquesne, because this will be a visible, large and direct stride to that place.” Thus it is clear that every step westward on the new-cut roadway from Fort Lyttleton toward Raystown was a step toward Fort Duquesne, and every fortification built on this track was a “visible, large and direct” stroke at the power of France on the Ohio. A fort was erected at Raystown within the year.
“Between the French and the earthquakes,” wrote Horace Walpole in 1758 to Mr. Conway, “you have no notion how good we have grown; nobody makes a suit of clothes now but of sackcloth turned up with ashes.” The years 1756 and 1757 were crowded with disappointments. With the miscarriage of the three campaigns of 1755, Governor Shirley became the successor of the forgotten Braddock and assembled a council of war at New York composed of Governors Shirley, Hardy, Sharpe, Morris, and Fitch, Colonels Dunbar and Schuyler, Majors Craven and Rutherford, and Sir John St. Clair. As though in very mockery, the king’s instructions to the betrayed and sacrificed Braddock were read to the council, after which General Shirley announced a scheme for campaigns to be conducted during the newyear. The new “generalissimo” proposed four campaigns: one army of five thousand men was to assemble at Oswego, four thousand of whom were to be sent to destroy, first, Fort Frontenac, then Forts Niagara, Presque Isle, La Bœuf, and Detroit; a second army of three thousand provincials was to march over Braddock’s Road against Fort Duquesne; an army of one thousand men was to advance to Crown Point on Lake Champlain and erect a fort there; a fourth army of two thousand men was to “carry fire and sword” up the Kennebec River, across the portage, and down Rivière Chaudière to its mouth near Quebec. The Council agreed, as councils will, to all this Quixotic program; insisting, however, that ten thousand men should be sent to Crown Point and six thousand to Oswego.
In spite of Shirley’s earnestness things moved very slowly, and the bickering between governors and assemblies and the jealousy of men out of power of those in power retarded every movement. The deadlock in Pennsylvania resulted in the abandonment of that province and Virginia so far as offensive measures were concerned,and the two governors busied themselves in fortifying their smoking frontiers, as described above. And finally the northern campaigns toward the lakes came to a sudden stand when General Shirley was superseded in his command by Lord Loudoun who, lacking the sense to forward Shirley’s plans, officiously altered them completely at a time when everything depended on quick and concerted action. As a result, Loudoun moved northward at a snail’s pace.
It seemed as though affairs in America were momentarily paralyzed by the shock of the tremendous conflict now opened on the continent. On the eighteenth of May England had declared war on France and twenty-two days later France responded, and the most terrible conflict of the eighteenth century opened, in which the great Frederick eventually humbled, with England’s help, the three empresses whose hatred he had drawn upon himself. But while Louis sent an army of one hundred thousand against Frederick, he had yet twelve thousand to hurry over to New France to make good the successes of 1755. These sailed under that best and bravest ofFrenchmen since the days of Champlain, Montcalm, on the third of April. In three months Montcalm had swept down Lake Champlain to Fort Ticonderoga. Then, as if to make sport of his antagonist—Loudoun, who had abandoned Shirley’s Oswego scheme—Montcalm returned to Montreal, hurried with three thousand soldiers down the St. Lawrence and across to Oswego, which surrendered at once with its twelve hundred defenders. The outwitted Loudoun crawled slowly up to Lake George; the winter of 1756-57 came on, and the two commanders glared at each other across the narrow space of snow and ice that separated them. The two important campaigns planned by Shirley were utter failures, and the westward campaign against Fort Duquesne was not even attempted. The French were strengthening everywhere. “Whoever is in or whoever is out,” exclaimed Chesterfield, “I am sure we are undone both at home and abroad.... We are no longer a nation.” But one of Shirley’scoupshad succeeded; Winslow captured Beauséjour. In the west Armstrong had razed the Indian town of Kittanning on the Allegheny. On the other hand these minor successes were far overbalanced by the destruction of Oswego and Fort Bull, between the Mohawk and Lake Oneida, and the menacing position Montcalm had assumed with the strengthening of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Frontenac.
Pitt, a fine example of a man too powerful to hold office with peace, was forced into the premiership again near the end of this black year of 1756. Parliament refused to support him, the Duke of Cumberland, captain-general of the army, opposed him, and the king hated him; early in April 1757 he was dismissed. England had found her man but the pigmies in power shrank from acknowledging him. With that sublime confidence which once or twice in a century betokens latent genius, Pitt exclaimed: “I am sure I can save this country, and that nobody else can.” Meantime Chesterfield was sighing: “I never saw so dreadful a time.” The year of 1757 dragged on as gloomily as its predecessor. Montcalm, master of the situation, pushed southward upon Fort William Henry onLake George, and General Webb at Fort Edward. Loudoun abandoned the scene and went gallantly sailing with the fleet against Louisbourg. Fort William Henry surrendered and Montcalm spread terror to Albany and New York. Had he pressed his advantage it is questionable if he could not have occupied the whole Hudson Valley. Why he did not could have been explained better in Quebec than in New York. It was ever the foe behind Montcalm that was his worst enemy, and which eventually compassed his ruin.
If official jealousies were now the bane of New France, incapacity until now had handicapped her enemies. When Pitt was forced out of office in April, England was “left without a government.” “England has been long in labor,” said the Prussian Frederick, “and at last she has brought forth a man.” Her hour was long delayed, but early in 1758 Pitt was again made Secretary of State with old Newcastle First Lord of the Treasury. “It was a partnership of magpie and eagle. The dirty work of government, intrigue, bribery, and all the patronage that did not affect the war,fell to the share of the old politician. If Pitt could appoint generals, admirals, and ambassadors, Newcastle was welcome to the rest. ‘I will borrow the Duke’s majorities to carry on the government,’ said the new secretary.”[53]
Seldom indeed has the elevation of one man to power produced such almost instantaneous results as did the elevation of Pitt. The desperateness of England’s condition undoubtedly intensified, by contrast, the successes which came when he assumed full power. England had been fighting, not France and her allies, but the stars; all the bravery and sturdiness of her soldiers and sailors could not counteract the ignorance and incapacity of those who had heretofore commanded them. Now, capacity and ability were in league; like an electric shock the realization of this significant union passed from man to man. The people felt it, and the army and navy; the political pigmies about the throne felt it, as well as the king. Pitt, vain as any genius, asked for the latter’s confidence; the reply was “deserve it and you shallhave it”—and a Hanoverian king of England kept his word. “I shall now have no more peace,” he had sighed when Pelham died; and had not the reins of power soon passed into the hands of Pitt it is doubtful if he ever could have had peace with honor. It was the skilful surgeon’s knife that England needed, and no time for men who feared the sight of blood; the “Great Commoner” proved the skilful surgeon and at once gave England a motto Pelham never knew: “Neither fleet nor army should eat the bread of the nation in idleness.”
Pitt at once displayed a prime qualification for his post of honor by choosing with unfailing discernment men who should lead both fleets and armies from idleness into action. His American campaign of 1758 embraced three decisive movements, an attack on Louisbourg—stepping-stone to Quebec—an invasion upon Montcalm on Lake Champlain, and an expedition to Fort Duquesne. For these three movements he chose two of the three leaders. The two he chose completed their assignments with utmost courage and success. The third, Abercrombie, whom Pitt could not preventsucceeding the incompetent Loudoun—met with defeat. As if to reaffirm his sagacity, Ferdinand of Brunswick, whom Pitt sent to Frederick the Great in the place of the disgraced Duke of Cumberland, was also signally victorious over the foes who had compelled the king’s brother, the year before, to sign a convention in which he promised to disband his army.
Admiral Boscawen set Amherst down before Louisbourg with fourteen thousand men at the beginning of June, young Wolfe leading the army up from the boats over crags which the French had left unguarded because they were, seemingly, inaccessible. At the same time Abercrombie was gathering his army, of equal strength, at the head of Lake George, preparatory to proceeding northward upon Fort Ticonderoga.
The command, of the Fort Duquesne campaign was given by Pitt to Brigadier John Forbes, a Scot, ten years younger than his century. Of Forbes little seems to be known save that he began life as a medical student; abandoning his profession for that of arms he made a brave and good officer. That Pitt chose him to retrievethe dead Braddock’s mistakes speaks loudly of his commanding abilities; the numerous quotations from his correspondence given elsewhere in this monograph will present a clearer picture of this almost unknown hero than has ever yet been drawn. “Though a well-bred man of the world,” writes Parkman, “his tastes were simple; he detested ceremony, and dealt frankly and plainly with the colonists, who both respected and liked him.”[54]The correspondence between Forbes and his chief assistant, Lieutenant-colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss, commanding the regiment of Royal Americans, is convincing proof of the democratic plainness and whole-hearted earnestness of Braddock’s successor.
The condition of the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania during the years succeeding Braddock’s defeat has been previously reviewed, and the greatness of the task now thrown upon General Forbes’s shoulders can be readily conceived. Yet there was much in his favor; the colonies were quite aroused to the danger. Pennsylvania and Virginia were at last ready to putshoulder to shoulder in an attempt to drive the French from the Ohio. Pennsylvania promised Forbes twenty-seven hundred men; sixteen hundred were to come from Virginia and other of the southern provinces. Twelve hundred Highlanders from Montgomery’s regiment were given Forbes, also the Royal American regiment, made up largely of Pennsylvania Germans and officered by men brought for the purpose from Europe. The force, when at last gathered together, amounted to between six and seven thousand men. The very proportions of this army were its principal menace. No one believed that Fort Duquesne, far away in the forests beyond the mountains, could hold out against this formidable array. That the French, now being attacked simultaneously in the east and in the north, could send reënforcements to the Ohio was no more likely. But there still lay the Alleghenies, their crags and gorges. Could this large body of troops cross them and take provisions sufficient to support men and horses? As with Braddock, so now with Forbes, it was the mere physical feat ofthrowing an army three hundred miles into the forests that was the crucial problem. Fort Duquesne could have been captured with half of Forbes’s army; Wolfe had hardly more than that at Quebec in the year succeeding. If Forbes could move this army, or any considerable fraction of it, across the mountains, there was no reasonable doubt of his success.
Forbes was much more delayed in getting his expedition off than was either of his two colleagues, Abercrombie and Amherst. Little dreaming that it would not be until the middle of June that his stores would arrive from England, Forbes had in March settled upon Conococheague (Williamsport, Maryland) as a convenient point of rendezvous for his army.[55]In this he acted upon the advice of his quartermaster-general, Sir John St. Clair, who was sent forward to examine routes and provide forage, but for whom, however, Forbes had little respect. Some time later St. Clair urged Forbes to alter this plan and make the new outpost on Burd’s Road toward the Youghiogheny, Raystown, the point ofrendezvous. The difficulty of the route from Conococheague to Fort Cumberland undoubtedly induced St. Clair to advise this change of base; later Governor Sharpe had a road cut from Fort Frederick to Fort Cumberland, but that was not until late in June. Following St. Clair’s advice, Forbes changed his original plan and Raystown (Bedford, Pennsylvania) became the base of supplies and point of rendezvous. On the twenty-third of April Colonel Bouquet, commanding the Royal Americans, wrote Forbes of his arrival at New York and in less than a month this exceedingly efficient officer was on his way over the old road westward through Shippensburg and Carlisle. He was at Lancaster May 20, and wrote Forbes: “I arrived here this morning, and found Mr Young waiting for money to clear Armstrong’s Path the Commissioners having disappointed him.”[56]On the twenty-second he wrote again outlining the route and stages on the road to Raystown:
“The first Stage (from Lancaster)Shippensburg2dFort Loudon3Fort Littleton4 18 miles 1/2 way to Rays Town, where I shall have a stockade Erect’d5 17 miles at Rays Town where we shall Build a Fort.”[57]
General Forbes reached Philadelphia by the middle of April but found himself as yet without an army. The raising of the provincials progressed slowly; his Highlanders were not yet arrived from South Carolina; his stores and ammunition had not come from England. However, on May 20, he wrote Bouquet giving orders concerning the formation of magazines and ordered him to contract for one hundred and twenty wagons to transport provisions “backwards to Rays town,” and to select at that point a site for a fort. He added: “By all means have the road reconnoitred from Rays town to the Yohageny”—the road Burd had completed to the summit ofAllegheny Mountain in 1755. It is plain that Forbes intended, at this time, to march to Fort Cumberland by way of Carlisle and Bedford, and go on to Fort Duquesne over Braddock’s Road. In this case he much needed Burd’s road to the Youghiogheny—for the same reasons that Braddock did. There is no evidence that Forbes conceived the plan of using a new road westward from Raystown until he and Bouquet came to realize that, with that point as a rendezvous, the Fort Cumberland route would necessitate a long detour from a direct line toward Fort Duquesne.
Bouquet pushed on westward. He left Fort Lowther, at Carlisle, June 8, and was writing Forbes from Fort Loudoun on the eleventh. On the twenty-second he reached the Juniata and wrote Forbes on the twenty-eighth from his “Camp near Raes Town,” which now became the rendezvous of the summer’s campaign. Here Fort Bedford was built, making the most westernly fort in the chain of fortresses built through central Pennsylvania. It was one of the leading features of General Forbes’s plan to extend this chain of forts all theway to the Ohio. “It was absolutely necessary,” he wrote to Pitt, explaining this feature of his campaign, “that I should take precautions by having posts along my route, which I have done from a project that I took from Turpin’s Essay,Sur la Guerre. Last chapter 4thBook, IntitledPrincipe sur lequel on peut établir un projet de Campagne, if you take the trouble of Looking into this Book, you will see the General principles upon which I have proceeded.”[58]
The Highlanders did not arrive from South Carolina until the seventh of June, and the army stores and artillery did not arrive from England until the fourteenth. The work of raising the provincial troops was not forwarded with any greater despatch. In general terms Forbes did not get fairly started from the seaboard until three weeks later than Braddock had left Fort Cumberland. Thus, though personally blameless, Forbes began his campaign under an almost fatal handicap. And, with this army converging from many points upon Fort Bedford, arose the vital question of routes to be pursued.
So many are the versions of the story of the building of Forbes’s Road through Pennsylvania that it was with utmost interest that the present writer took up the task of examining the only sources of reliable information: the correspondence of General Forbes, Colonel Bouquet, and Sir John St. Clair, as preserved in the Bouquet Papers at the British Museum, and at the British Public Records Office. While these letters were supplemented by frequent personal interviews which have never been recorded, yet the testimony given by them is overwhelming that, until the very last, both men, Forbes and Bouquet, were quite undecided what route to Fort Duquesne was most practicable; both were open to conviction, and were equally disinterested parties, thinking only of the good of the cause to which both soon gave their lives.No one can read this voluminous correspondence and believe for one moment that General Forbes was prejudiced in favor of a Pennsylvania route by Pennsylvania intriguers, as has been frequently asserted;[59]nor that the brave Swiss Bouquet was at any time determined to guide the army whose van he bravely led by any but the most expeditious and practicable thoroughfare. That both men knew of the bitter factional fight which was waging, this correspondence makes very clear; that both were made doubly proof against factional arguments, because of this knowledge, is equally plain.
Before entering upon a consideration of the Forbes-Bouquet-St. Clair correspondence, it must be always remembered that General Forbes had originally planned to make the campaign by the old Braddock Road from Virginia and had issued orders for the assembling of both provincial and regular troops at “Conegochieque” (Conococheague), on the road built by Governor Sharpe from Alexandria to Fort Frederick in 1754, over which Dunbar’s columnmarched.[60]It was undoubtedly his purpose to march south from Philadelphia over the old Monoccasy road to the Potomac and then westward over the Braddock routes which converged upon Fort Cumberland. From there the main track of Braddock’s army offered an open way toward Fort Duquesne. As previously suggested it was the advice of Sir John St. Clair, his quartermaster-general, that influenced Forbes to alter his plan and march straight westward from Philadelphia toward Lancaster and the Pennsylvania frontier. Whatever may have induced St. Clair to give this advice, it is sure he had learned some lessons from the disastrous campaign of 1755 when he led Braddock through a country quite devoid of carriages, horses, and produce; Pennsylvania, on the other hand, was the granary of America;[61]and, if a road was lacking, horses and wagons were not, and it was better to lack what could be provided than to lack that which could not possibly be obtained.
On May 20, Forbes wrote Bouquet from Philadelphia that it was time the magazines were being formed. One week later (May 21), Sir John St. Clair wrote Bouquet from Winchester: “Governor Sharpe has been here with me and is returned to Frederick Town in Maryland.” It would seem that Sir John’s change of mind concerning the advisability of Forbes opening a new route westward dated from Governor Sharpe’s visit; for, on the day following (May 28), he writes Bouquet: “I am not anxious about the cutting the Road to Rays Town from Fort Cumberland, it may be done in 4 days, or in 2, if the two Ends are gone upon at the same time; but I am afraid you will have a deal of work from Fort Loudon to Rays Town, which I am afraid will be Troublesome.” On the cover of this letter Bouquet made the following memorandum: “The Officer Commanding the Virginia Troops, soon to March into Pennsylvania, is to take Directions from Henry Pollan living upon the Temporary line, or in his absence, from any Sensible person about his House, for the nearest and best Waggon Road From said Pollans or the WidowMcGaws to Fort Loudon, to which place the Troops are to March, Shippensburg being much out of the Way.”[62]
Bouquet reached Carlisle on the twenty-fourth of May, and wrote Forbes as follows on the day after: “I shall order Washington’s Regiment to Fort Cumberland and as soon as we take post at Reas Town 300 of them must cut the Road along the Path from Fort Cumberland to Reas Town and join us.”
The evident plan of Sir John St. Clair to divert Bouquet from the route he had originally outlined is disclosed further in a letter written from Winchester on May 31, in which he says: “I cannot send ColoByrd to you as all the Cherokees have resolved never more to go to Pennsylvania, on account of the Soldiers of fort Loudon, taking up arms against them, by CaptTrent’s Instigation.” Under the same date, however, Bouquet wrote St. Clair and in the letter gave the order which he had preserved in form of a memorandum on the back of St. Clair’s letter of May 28. Sir John, however, became more and moreinsistent that the Virginia and Maryland routes should be employed; on June 6 he wrote Bouquet that “the Pattomack has as much water in it as the Po at Cremona,” intending to show how useful the stream would be for transporting army stores to Fort Cumberland. On June 9—when Washington arrived at Winchester—St. Clair wrote Bouquet: “I send you this by John Walker who is the best Woodsman I ever knew, he will be usefull in reconnoitering the road to be cut on the other Side of the Mountain, but do not attempt it too far to the Right.” In this letter St. Clair again reiterates the threat that the Cherokees will not go into Pennsylvania. And in a postscript, written in French, he adds a parting shot: “I think you will have some trouble to find a road from the mountain to the great falls of the Yougheogany.” On June 11 St. Clair again wrote: “I had great dependence on John Walker the Guide for finding the Road from the Allegheny Ridge to the great Crossing, I detained him the other day, on purpose, to know if he wou’d attempt to find it. The answer that he made me, was, that he knewthat Country very well, having hunted there many years, that the Hills run across the line the Road ought to go and are very steep: That he was sent by ColoDunbar, from the great Crossing, to acquaint ColoBurd, of the defeat of the Army, and that the year after he was taken prisoner by the Shanese, and carried [over] that Road, to the french fort; and that the Shanese (who he was acquainted with and speaks their Language) told him, that was the best way to get out of these Mountains and Laurell Thicketts. On the whole he says that the Road may be made, with a great deal of labor, & time, but that it must be reconoiter’d, when the leaves are off the Trees; being impossible to do it at this season. Considering all these Circumstances and the Season of the Year advancing so fast, and the Small Number of Indians we have left, I must send you my opinion (which always was that if I was to carry a Convoy from Lancaster to fort Cumberland I would pass by, or near Reas Town). That we have not time to reconoitre the Road in question, and open it, without taking up more time than we haveto spare, and which wou’d give the french and Indians too favorable an opportunity of attacking on that laborious Work. I think it will be more eligible to fall down on fort Cumberland, and get on from thence to the great Crossing, after making a Block house, at the little meadows. This will advance us 40 miles from fort Cumberland, and a deposite may be made at that place.”
No one can read this strange letter without realizing Bouquet’s unhappy situation: a vacillating know-nothing for quartermaster-general, and a commander-in-chief detained from coming to the front. Bouquet wrote to Forbes, who answered that the course of the proposed new road should be examined before that route was abandoned. “I have yours of the 14th,” wrote Forbes on June 19, “from Fort Loudon and I am sorry that you are obliged to change our Route, and shall be glad to find the road proposed by GovrSharp practicable, in which case I should think it ought to be sett about immediately.[63]... I suppose you will reconnoitre the road across the Allegany mountains from Reas townand if found unpracticable, that the Fort Cumberland Garrison should open the old road[64]forward towards the Crossing of the Yohagani.... I find we must take nothing by report in this country, for there are many who have their own designs in representing things, so I am glad you have proceeded to Reas town, where you will be able to judge of the roads and act accordingly.... Let there be no stops put to the roads as that is our principall care at present.” No one can believe that the author of this letter was the blindly prejudiced man some have painted him.
Bouquet was, however, not to be contented with an examination of one route westward; his scouts were out in three directions: on Braddock’s Road, on the Old Trading Path running westward from Raystown (now Bedford), and also on the upper path toward the Allegheny by way of the Indian Frank’s Town. In all this Forbes seconded him as shown by his letter of June 27: “I approve much of your trying to pass the Laurel Hill leaving the Yohageny to the left, as also of knowingwhat can be done by the path from Franks town or even from the head of the Susquehannah, For I have all along had in view to have partys, to fall upon their Settlements about Venango and there abouts while we are pushing forward our principale Design.” In the meantime old Sir John kept up his current of objections, so wretchedly ill-timed; he wrote thus from Carlisle June 30: “I shall be glad you may find a Waggon Road leaving the Yougheagany on the left, it is what I never cou’d find, I think the Experiment is dangerous at present and going on an uncertainty when by falling down upon fort Cumberland, we have our Road opened; should [the wagon road] be made use of, then the Collums of our army would be too far assunder.” St. Clair had been pushing the opening of the road from Fort Frederick to Fort Cumberland in the expectation that the army would consequently “fall down” to the more southernly westward road even before reaching Fort Cumberland. Three days previous to the last letter quoted he wrote Bouquet: “I have this morning [June 27] received the report that the road from fortFrederick to Fort Cumberland is practicable.”
Bouquet evidently laid the sum and substance of St. Clair’s letters before General Forbes who, on July 6, delivered himself in reply as follows: “Sir John St. Clair was the person who first advised me to go by Raes town, why he has altered his sentiments I do not know, or to what purpose make the road from Fort Frederick to Cumberland, as most certainly we shall now all go by Raes town, but I am afraid that Sir John is led by passions, he says he knows very well that we shall not find a road from Raes town across the Allegany, and that to go by Raes town to F. Cumberland is a great way about, but this he ought to have said two months ago or hold his peace now. Pray examine the Country tother side of the Allegany particularly the Laurell Ridge that he says its impossible we can pass without going into Braddock’s old road. What his views are in those suggestions I know not, but I should be sorry to be obliged to alter ones schemes so late in the day, particularly as it was SirJohns proper business to have forseen and to have foretold all this. Who to the Contrary was the first adviser. Let the road to Fort Cumberland from Raes town be finished with all Diligence because if we must go by Fort Cumberland it must be through Raes town as it is now too late to make use of the road by Fort Frederick and I fancy you will agree that ... there is no time to be lost.” General Forbes wrote an interesting letter to Pitt under the date of July 10. Speaking of Raystown he writes: “The place having its name from one Rae, who designed to have made a plantation there several years ago.” Speaking of the country he observes: “Being an immense Forest of 240 miles in Extent, intersected by several ranges of mountains, impenetrable almost to any thing human save the Indians (if they be allowed the appelation) who have foot paths or tracks through those desarts, by the help of which, we make our roads.... I am in hopes of finding a better way over the Alleganey Mountain, than that from fort Cumberland which General Braddock took. If so I shall shorten both my march, and my labor of the road about 40 miles,which is a great consideration. For were I to pursue MrBraddock’s route, I should save but little labour, as that road is now a brush wood, by the sprouts from the old stumps, which must be cut down and made proper for Carriages as well as any other passage that we must attempt.” Yet his letter to Bouquet on the day after, July 11, says that Forbes was not stickling for the new road: “I shall hurry up the troops, directly,” he wrote, “so pray see for a road across the Alligeny or by Fort Cumberland, which Garrison may if necessary be clearing Braddocks old road.” However, lest he be put under the necessity of taking the longer route, he wrote again to Bouquet by James Grant: “that the Road over the Allegany may be reconnoitred, for he (Forbes) is unwilling to be put under the necessity of making any Detour.”
On July 14 General Forbes wrote Bouquet from Carlisle: “I ... have all along thought the road from F. Frederick to Cumberland superfluous, if we could have done without it, which I am glad to understand we can do by Raes town. It would have been double pleasure if from thencewe could have got a good road across the Laurell hill, But by CaptWards journal I begin to fear it will be difficult, altho I would have you continue to make further tryalls, for I should be very sorry to pass by Fort Cumberland. I am sensible that some foolish people have made partys to drive us into that road, as well as into the road by Fort Frederick, but as I utterly detest all partys and views in military operations, so you may very well guess, how and what arguments I have had with SirJohn St Clair upon that subject. But I expect Governor Sharp here this night when I shall know more of this same road. I hope your second detachment across the Allegeny have been able to ascertain what route we must take, and that consequently you are sett about clearing of it.... I have sent up Major Armstrong with one Demming an old Indian trader who has been many a time upon the road from Raes town to Fort duquesne, he says there is no Difficulty in the road across the Laurell Hill and that He leaves the Yohageny all the way upon his left hand about 8 miles, and that it is only 40 miles from the Laurell Hill to Fort duquesne, along the top of the Chestnut ridge.... As I presume you may want Forage, and as SirJohn has confessed that he had provided none but at Fort Cumberland (I suppose on purpose to drive me into that road, for what purpose I know not) If you therefore think it necessary, send Waggons to Fort Cumberland for part of it.... Let me hear immediately your resolution about the road.”
To this Bouquet replied that he had sent orders to have Braddock’s Road reconnoitred and cleared; “at all events it may serve to deceive the Enemy.” He was daily in expectation of news from his exploring parties on Laurel Hill and promised Forbes to forward their report as soon as he received it.
Washington had now reached Fort Cumberland and was soon in correspondence with Bouquet at Raystown thirty-four miles to the northward. July 16 he wrote: “I shall direct the officer, that marches out, to take particular pains in reconnoitring General Braddock’s road, though I have had repeated information, that it only wantssuch small repairs, as could with ease be made as fast as the army would march.”[65]On the twenty-first he wrote: “The bridge is finished at this place, and tomorrow Major Peachey, with three hundred men, will proceed to open General Braddock’s road. I shall direct them to go to George’s Creek, ten miles in advance. By that time I may possibly hear from you ... for it will be needless to open a road, of which no use will be made afterwards.”[66]Thus it is clear that, as late as July 20, Washington at Fort Cumberland, Bouquet at Raystown, and Forbes at Carlisle were all in doubt as to the army’s route.
On July 21 Bouquet wrote General Forbes: “I waited for the return of Captain Ward before replying [to Forbes’s letters of the 14th and 17th inst]. He arrived yesterday evening, his journal being so vague and confused that I could not understand anything from it. Captain Gordon is making an extract from it which I send with this. They are convinced that a waggon road could be made across Laurell Hill, not so bad as that from Fort Littleton to this place, & that there is water and grass all the way, but little forage between the two mountains. The slope of the Alleghany is the worst, the country between that and Laurell Hill is passable, and this last mountain, (of which they have made a sample—) is very easy to cross: all the guides & officers who were on the Ohio agree that from Lawrell Hill onwards there are no further difficulties; it is a chain of hills easy to cross. They have thought it impracticable to continue the road cut by Colonel Burd to join the Braddock road, except by following the whole length of Lawrell Hill, which would make the road longer than if taken through Cumberland; the rest of the country is rendered impassable by marshes, &c. The pack horses have just arrived. We must give them a day’s rest, & on the day after tomorrow Major Armstrong will set out with a party of 100 volunteers to mark out the road, and will send me a man every day (or every two days) to inform me of his progress & observations. There is no spot suitable for the making of a depôt untilone comes to the foot of the other slope of Lawrell Hill, which may be about 45 miles from here; there is sufficient water there, and forage, but as it would entail too great a risk to leave his party on the other side of Lawrell Hill, I shall give him instructions to reconnoitre, & to mark out the site of the depot, & then return to Edmund’s Swamp, where I will in the first place send him a reinforcement with provisions, so that he may make an entrenched camp there, which will serve as flying base; and if the report he makes of his route is favourable, I shall send 600 men (in all) to take a post at Loyal Hanny, which I conceive to be the proper place for the chief depôt; from there it will be more easy to push his parties forward than from this place. I hope you will be here before the main detachment marches, and in that case I shall go myself, if you approve. I wish the new levies may be able to join before that time, so as to be able to form the three Pennsylvania battalions, and get them into order. I shall have here the two companies of workmen from Virginia, to be employed in cutting the road as soonas you shall have decided upon your route. I shall await your arrival before beginning, because the pack horses cross without difficulty, and will suffice to carry their provisions. As regards your route the Virginia party continues in full force, and although the secret motive of their policy seems to me not above suspicion of partiality, it nevertheless appears to me an additional reason for acting with double caution in a matter of this consequence, so as to have ample answers for all their clamors, if any accident happens, which they would not fail to attribute to the choice of a fresh route. Captain Patterson, who set out two days after Captain Ward with a party of 13 men to reconnoitre the fort, has returned with them without accomplishing anything. He tried to cross the two mountains in a direct line with the fort, but he found Lawrell Hill impassible, and the different reports agree in the fact that there is no other pass to be found except the Indian Path reconnoitred by Captain Ward. The guide Dunning speaks of a gap he crossed 16 years ago, but no one knows this gap, which he declares he found in ‘HuntingHorses.’ He is marching with the Major and two or three other guides.... The communication with Cumberland is cut, and it is an excellent road.”[67]
On July 20 Forbes wrote, by the hand of St. Clair, to Bouquet asking that all the guides then with him be sent to Carlisle for a conference with the general. Three days later Bouquet answered as follows: “Major Armstrong has three guides (and three Indians) with him: McConnell, Brown and Starrat. I am sending you all that are left there,—Frazer, Walker, Garret, and the two that are at Littleton,—Ohins and Lowry. If those from Cumberland arrive in time, I will send them on afterwards.”
On July 25 Washington wrote Bouquet from Fort Cumberland: “I do not incline to propose any thing that may seem officious, but would it not facilitate the operation of the campaign, if the Virginian troops were ordered to proceed as far as the Great Crossing, and construct forts at the most advantageous situations as theyadvance, opening the road at the same time? In such a case, I should be glad to be joined by that part of my regiment at Raystown. Major Peachey, who commands the working party on Braddock’s road, writes to me, that he finds few repairs wanting. Tonight I shall order him to proceed as far as Savage River, and then return, as his party is too weak to adventure further.... I shall most cheerfully work on any road, pursue any route or enter upon any service, that the General or yourself may think me usefully imployed in, or qualified for, and shall never have a will of my own, when a duty is required of me. But since you desire me to speak my sentiments freely, permit me to observe, that after having conversed with all the guides, and having been informed by others, who have a knowledge of the country, I am convinced that a road, to be compared with General Braddock’s, or indeed, that will be fit for transportation even by packhorses, cannot be made. I have no predilection for the route you have in mind, not because difficulties appear therein, but because I doubt whether satisfaction can be given inthe execution of the plan. I know not what reports you may have received from your reconnoitring parties; but I have been uniformly told, that, if you expect a tolerable road by Raystown, you will be disappointed, for no movement can be made that way without destroying our horses. I should be extremely glad of one hour’s conference with you, when the General arrives. I could then explain myself more fully, and, I think, demonstrate the advantages of pushing out a body of light troops in this quarter. I would make a trip to Raystown with great pleasure, if my presence here could be dispensed with for a day or two, of which you can best judge.”