XXXV
On the 21st we entered the colony of Penn, and on the 30th June dropped down from the hills to Stewart’s Crossing on the Youghiogheny. Here St. Clair, sent on in advance, had cleared the ground for a camp.
We had been all of ten days in marching twenty-four miles. Day after day, as Croghan and I uneasily hung about the flanks and the rear, we saw the long line of red-coated, cumbered men, sweating in heavy uniforms, with waggons and cannon, slowly moving through the silent woods, so full, to our minds, of peril.
I had been ill for some days, but at the Youghiogheny River I fell worse of a sudden with a fever and pain in the head. The general was most kind and at last ordered me to remain, leaving me a guard and my dear Dr. Craik. Colonel Dunbar’s division had been left behind, to his great indignation, and was to follow slowly withthe baggage-train. I was in the utmost gloom at my detention, being in a way responsible for the new movement. The chance to be, by ill luck, laid up while a battle might take place much disturbed me. I wrote my brother Jack I would not miss it for five hundred pounds.
While I lay in bed most impatient, the detachment went on, and soon after I had this letter from Christopher Gist, who was acting as guide:
Respected Sir: We are moving along as solemn as a box-turtle, one day two miles, which any smart turtle might compass. The pickets are doubled, and men sleep with their arms, for, good Lord! if a branch cracks they give an alarm, and if a poor devil strays there is a scalp gone, for every step of our march is watched. Still I am sure there are no big parties out, for I have been off in advance and been within half a mile of the fort, and came nigh to losing my hair, but with decent good fortune we have the place. I should be easier with a few hundred of our own people in the advance and on our skirts, but they are kept in the rear, the Lord knows why.
Respected Sir: We are moving along as solemn as a box-turtle, one day two miles, which any smart turtle might compass. The pickets are doubled, and men sleep with their arms, for, good Lord! if a branch cracks they give an alarm, and if a poor devil strays there is a scalp gone, for every step of our march is watched. Still I am sure there are no big parties out, for I have been off in advance and been within half a mile of the fort, and came nigh to losing my hair, but with decent good fortune we have the place. I should be easier with a few hundred of our own people in the advance and on our skirts, but they are kept in the rear, the Lord knows why.
Captain Orme also wrote to me of frequent night alarms, and of the general’sconfidence at being now but thirty miles from the fort. Here two days’ halt was made to await fresh supplies from Dunbar.
On July 4, being stronger, I started in the rear of a party of one hundred men just come up from Colonel Dunbar with provisions. I was set upon going with them, but was too weak to ride a horse and must needs use a waggon. As the road was much cut up, my bones were almost jolted through the small cover left on them. On the 8th I reached the camp, now but thirteen miles from Duquesne.
My journey took me through the Great Meadows, near where was my little fight, and past the ruined palisadoes of Fort Necessity. I saw them with great interest, and felt some sense of gratification that now I might pay up my score against those who had both humbled and insulted my King and myself.
Once, as my waggon approached the rear-guard, we came upon a dozen or more stragglers. Some had fallen out tired, and some were loitering to gather berries. I cried out to warn them of the danger they were in, and, in fact, about a quarter of an hour later they ran after us, crying, “Indians!” Theymay have had cause, but all the strange noises of the woods alarmed them, and this time the rangers said it was a wildcat.
The sound of distant martial music from the camps which we were come near to seemed to revive my mind, and I was able to cast off the feeling of gloom and converse with Captain Shirley, the military secretary, who had ridden back with an order. He said to me that we had been a month in marching less than a hundred miles. Captain Morris, who was with him, said it was true, but all was well that ended well, and we had the fort at our mercy and would attack next day. I advised my friends, as I had before done, that it would be well if the officers could be dressed in wood colours, like our scouts; but Captain Shirley replied that the general would never allow of it, and, indeed, when next day I got rid of my fire-red coat and put on a fringed buckskin shirt, I was no little jeered at, and Colonel Gage made some comments, which, I trust, he came later to regret. I am of opinion that the absence of a gaudy red coat saved me from many balls and enabled me to be of use when the other aides were wounded. I was much of Mr. Franklin’s opinion that iffine feathers make fine birds, they also make them an easier prey for the fowler.
Indeed, the learned Postmaster-General made himself very merry over the queues and the stiff stocks and the bright scarlet uniforms. He thought the officers only needed corsets, which I was told they did often use at home.
When, in the afternoon, very tired and weak, I reached the tent made ready for me by the kindness of my brother aides, I lay down to rest, and, as Captain Morris was now on duty, I asked him to tell me what was to be our mode of approach to the fort. I was able easily to recall the general features of the country, for the camp was now set about twelve miles from Frazier’s former trading-station, where I stopped on my return from my mission to the French. We lay some ten miles to the east of the Monongahela River, and, as was said, thirteen from Duquesne as the crow flies.
As I rested and we talked, came also Captain Shirley and Captain Gates of the Twenty-eighth Regiment, with Stephens, Hamilton, and Stewart of the Virginians. Of all of them I was the only man not killed or wounded in the next day’s battle.I may well entertain my brother August’s belief that the conspicuous hand of Providence was over me, and he must be worse than an infidel who lacks faith in it.
No thought of to-morrow troubled our council of war, and we discussed with spirit what our superiours meant to do. I drew on a piece of birch bark a rude sketch of the country. The fort lay on a high bluff in the angle made by the Ohio and Monongahela rivers. We were, as I said, some ten miles to the east of the latter stream and on the same side as the fort. Between us and it lay the deep, rugged ravines of Turtle Creek and the brooks which run into it. The country beyond it was densely wooded and without any road. To cross the creek and cut a road to the fort would be the most direct way; otherwise we must march to and cross the Monongahela, a fordable river, and afterwards move along bluffs three or four hundred feet high, and follow the stream for five miles. We should then descend to the water and arrive at a second ford; having crossed it, we should be again on the same side as the fort. Then there would be before us a slope, and, some two miles distant, hid in the woods, the bastionsof Duquesne. Having made clear to my fellow aides the localities, we considered the two routes, with some differences of opinion in regard to which was the better, until they were called away, and I was left alone.
Soon after came Sir John St. Clair, sent by the general with a kind message. I then learned that some effort had been made to cross Turtle Creek, but that it had been found impossible to get the artillery over and that the engineers pronounced it impracticable. Upon this the general had given orders to change the route, so that we should follow the traders’ horse-trail, on which we had made our road, and should march to the river. There we were to ford the stream as I have said, move on the farther bank some miles, and recross by the second ford to the east side again, where the lay of the land allowed, as was supposed, of an easy approach to the fort.
I was still weak, but although I could have desired more rest, I walked at dusk through the great clearing made for the camp, to report myself at once to the general’s headquarters. I had been sorry for his obstinacy and the rudeness he showed in laughing at our way of fighting, but Ihad been told by Sir Peter Halket that he had said that Mr. Franklin and Colonel Washington were the only trustworthy people he had met in the colonies. I thought this foolish as showing poor judgment; but he had been most kind to me, and now, in spite of all his blunders and our own failures to supply him promptly, which were with some justice to be complained of, we were, as it seemed, on the point of success.
When I presented myself, the general asked most pleasantly concerning my health, and if I was well enough to serve as aide. I assured him I was, but I was really at the time feeble enough. When I ventured to make him my compliments on the near prospect of success before him, he laughed and asked where had been the need for our rangers and the tribes of Indians, and then made me a very fine speech, which I must admit to having been pleased at. I ventured to ask leave to go on in the advance with the Virginia wood-rangers, so as to secure the pioneers and road-makers from an ambuscade. He replied shortly: “Oh, damn your half-drilled rangers! I shall keep them as a rear-guard.” I roseand apologized, feeling that I had been too forward and had better have held my tongue. Indeed, I excused myself as well as I could, and upon this his face cleared, and he said: “Colonel Gage is to have the advance, and what would he say to the best regiment of the King being protected by a mob of squatters and border farmers. No, sir; I desire you as my aide.” I said no more, and returned to my tent.
I have never found that the coming of decisive events kept me awake when I was myself the person who had the duty of decision; but this night, whether from great fatigue or not, for that does keep a man from sleep, or that I was still fevered, I lay awake long, unable to free my mind from anxious thoughts.
I regretted that I had not asked Mr. Franklin why at night we heard so many sounds in the woods which are not heard by day. No doubt he would have found an explanation. Long after the camp was at rest I remained sleepless, hearing the quick waters of the creek and the noises of the wood, with the hoot-owl’s cry and the chipmunks gamboling over the canvas of my tent, and such stir of the camp as neverquite ceased. The way we were to march troubled me and others, especially Sir Peter Halket, who had forebodings, concerning which Dr. Mercer had some superstitious ideas, such as my mother often had, but which I never entertained, or if as to any, it is in the way of dreams.
I had reason for my fears, for the two fords we were to cross could be easily disputed by a small party. I concluded that to leave all baggage and artillery to come later by the fords, and to make a quick and direct march over the creek and along a ridge leading to the fort, would be the better way.
Having settled my mind as to what I would have done had I been in command, I disposed myself for sleep, but with no good result until so late that I heard no reveille sounded, and was waked by my orderly.