XXIII
The governor was now fully decided to resist the French aggressions, and convened the House of Burgesses after much delay. I was offered full command of a force of three hundred men in six companies, forming a regiment. I consulted his lordship and my half-brother Augustine as to this, and not feeling secure of my fitness for so great a position, and they agreeing, I chose rather to serve as second under Colonel Frye. This being settled, I went about the business of recruiting as lieutenant-colonel.
In considering the new duty to which I was called and what it led me to do, I have asked myself whether I could have done it better, considering the want of supplies and of sufficiency of men.
Mr. John Langdon at one time wrote to me, when commenting on the character of General A——, that what he had been asa very young man he continued to be ever after, and that, although education and opportunity might give a man of strong character the tools for his purposes, they would not seriously alter his nature; he would only be more and more that which he had been.
As I sit in judgment upon the particulars which occasioned the affair at Great Meadows, and later my disaster at Fort Necessity, I am inclined to believe that I could have done no better at fifty than I did at twenty-two. I perceive also that the conditions which at that time surrounded and embarrassed me were on a lesser scale the same as those with which I had to struggle in the later and more important days, which made me old before my time. Such comparisons as these do not readily occur to me, as I am inclined to dwell most upon the needs of the present and upon the possibilities which the future may have in store.
On one occasion, during the march to Yorktown, when bivouacked at the head of the Elk, Colonel Scammel and Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Wynne, both at that time of my military family, led me into expressing myself as to these earlier events, and one ofthem, Lieutenant-Colonel Wynne, I think, remarked that I had then to encounter the same kind of obstacles as those which had perplexed me at the Valley Forge and Morristown, and indeed throughout the War of Independency. I did not encourage such further discussion by these young officers as might readily lead on to the impropriety of criticisms upon Congress. But now, recalling what was then said, I am led to see how remarkably alike were the conditions I had to meet at two periods of my life. Nor can I fail to observe that what General Hamilton liked very often to call “the education of events†was valuable in teaching me moderation and such control of temper as I was to need on a larger field.
While I went about my military preparations, the governor and the House wrangled over the ten thousand pounds he asked for the fitting out of troops. I have observed that men engaged in agriculture as the masters of slaves acquire a great independence of thought and are hard to move to a common agreement even when, as at that time, there is an immediate need for united action.
There was also much distrust of GovernorDinwiddie, and indeed we rarely submitted with entire good will to any of the royal governors. He got his grant at last, but a committee was to confer with him as to how it was to be used—a measure not altogether unwise, but which made him swear we were getting to be too republican and, he feared, would be more and more difficult to be brought to order.
As to my recruiting, the better men were indisposed to join, and I got chiefly a vagabond crew of shoeless, half-dressed fellows, but most of them hunters and good shots. I did better when the governor offered a bounty in land, which as yet we had not, for it was to be about the fine bottoms at the Forks of the Ohio, which were in the hands of the French and the Indians.
I made Van Braam a captain, and thereafter obtained more men and better, for the old warrior promised, I fear, an easy time and all manner of agreeable rewards, with such accounts of the lands they were to have as much delighted the hard-working farmers’ sons.
On April 2 I left Alexandria, with orders to secure tools and build roads, for ColonelFrye to follow me with the artillery and a greater force.
In what I was thus set to do I knew I was to have difficulty, and this it was hard to make Governor Dinwiddie understand, nor do I think he or our rulers in England could form any idea of the country to be traversed, even up to the Forks of the Ohio. From our outlying farms westward to the Mississippi was a great forest land with savannas, and beyond the Ohio vast meadows where buffalo grazed. Through our own hills there were old Indian trails, and as far as to the Ohio were horse-paths used by the traders and their men. There were also many crossing-trails made by horned game to reach water, and apt to mislead any but men accustomed to the woods. Very few knew this mighty wilderness, nor was it easy to make persons unused to the woods comprehend the obstacles and risks an army would find on traversing them with waggons and artillery.
As I have said, I had long ago fixed upon the Forks of the Ohio as an excellent station for a fort. The French were also of this opinion, and in their hands it becameat last Fort Duquesne, and in 1759 was lightly given up by them to General Forbes. At this earlier date our governor, resolving to take my advice, made choice of Captain Trent to build a fort at the Forks, where we prepared to follow and support him. Having failed on a former and easier errand, it was foolish to have expected better things of this man in a more difficult matter. He was given only fifty men, as it was supposed he would not be attacked.
While I was on my way to Wills Creek from Winchester, Contrecœur dropped down-stream from Venango with a great force and took the half-finished fort, Captain Trent being absent at the time. I was near to Wills Creek when I learned of this disaster. Colonel Frye and other detachments were to follow me, but I saw that we were now in a way to be devoured in bits by the larger French forces. Everything I needed was lacking. I had been cursed along the border for my taking of waggons, horses, and food, and when I would have picks, shovels, and axes, it was worse.
I heard while here from Mr. Fairfax, desiring me not to neglect having divine service in the camps for the benefit of theIndians. I did on one occasion, but as Davidson told me they considered it some form of incantation, I did not repeat it. I had also a letter from my mother, meant to have found me earlier. It seemed strange amid anxieties like mine to be asked to send her a good Dutch servant and, if I remember correctly, four pounds of good Dutch butter. I had far other business.
At the Ohio Company’s post at Wills Creek, nothing was ready; only Captain Trent, full of excuses for the failure of horses and boats, and much cast down at the news of the loss of the fort. I sent back for waggons and horses sixty miles to Winchester, and waited as patiently as I could.
On April 23 came the men of Trent’s party, released by the French. The ensign, Mr. Ward, was the only officer with them, and to surrender was all he could do. He told me of hundreds of Chippewas and Ottawas coming to join Contrecœur, and of another force descending the Ohio. To add to my troubles, Trent’s men were disorderly, making my men uneasy by their stories.
At this time I was decently housed in asmall log hut, and here, retiring by myself, I fell to thinking of what I had heard and what I ought to do. The situation demanded serious consideration, but also speedy action.