XXXVI
I do not pretend, even now, to be acquainted with all the reasons which influenced the general; but having made up his mind, we broke camp on the 8th and marched southwest along a little stream the scouts called Long Run, and so about eight miles towards the river Monongahela, being thus at last two miles from the ford he meant to cross the next day.
When, in the afternoon about six o’clock, I was released from duty, I walked through the camps with Sir Peter Halket. The men were cleaning their guns and brushing their clothes and soaping queues and pipe-claying, all as if for parade and very needless.
Sir Peter, a man of excellent parts and a good soldier, had expressed himself in the council as averse to the plan of march. When he asked after my health and if I had again regained my strength, I replied that I was fit for duty, but had been better if I had been able to sleep. He said withgravity that many would sleep soundly to-morrow and that he was sure he himself would be killed. This seemed strange to me, and I could only reply that I did not think I should be killed, but that we might both be wrong; and yet both of us were right, for these matters are in the hands of the great Disposer of Events, and have never troubled me on going into battle. One of my aides in the Revolutionary War, Colonel Scammel, to whom I was much attached, did always believe he would be killed, as indeed happened, at last, to my sorrow, at Yorktown.
Dr. Craik was with me that evening and found me chilled and full of aches; but notwithstanding a potion he gave me, I slept ill again, and was aroused in the morning by my good doctor. He advised a glass of rum, for which I felt the better, and when I had eaten and was in the saddle I repaired to where was General Braddock, a short distance from the shore. He was in a gay humour and very kind, asking if I felt well and would drink with him to the King that evening in the French fort. I could do no more than reply that to do so would give me great pleasure. I was presently sentdown to the shore with a message, and there saw Colonel Gage crossing the shallow ford to some open meadow-lands on the farther side. He was to secure the two fords by which the whole force following him was to cross and then recross, so as to be again on the same side of the river as Fort Duquesne. After him, about four o’clock, came Sir John St. Clair, with carpenters—or, as we should say, axemen—and engineers, some three hundred in all.
I lingered a few moments and saw the last of the advance, as they marched up from the farther bank of the river and their red coats disappeared into the forest beyond the ford, which was, I thought, well chosen and shallow.
Before I went back, Gist, the trader, and Captain Croghan came to speak to me. I remarked that we had done well to come so far without more trouble from the Indians. Gist laughed and said: “They have never left us since we dropped you at the Youghiogheny.” Then Croghan cried out, “There they are,” and there was a sound of musketry beyond the river. It proved to be a small body of savages, easily dispersed by Gage. It being then about sixo’clockA.M., the signal to fall in, which we call the “general,” was beat, and the main body fell in with fresh cartridges.
The officers were in full uniform, and so, with fixed bayonets and colours flying and the drums beating the Grenadier’s March, they waded the stream.
I sat in the saddle with the two aides, Captains Orme and Morris, and with the interest of a young soldier watched this fine body of men fall in with perfect discipline on the further side and disappear in their turn. This being the main body, the staff followed with the general, and I was sent back to hasten up the rangers, who had the rear. I found them about two hundred and thirty strong, moving slowly, most in hunting-shirts and fur caps and moccasins. A part were thrown out far to right and left in the woods. Ensign Allen and an officer whose name I forget appeared to be in command, and were vainly endeavouring to keep up some of the military order they had been teaching. I thought them wanting in sense and wished I had the rangers at the front. I gave my message and left them. Then I made haste to ride back to the ford, which was still held by a small guard. HereI waited, as I was ordered to do, to see the rear well over and into the woods. After crossing the ford I found that a rough road had been cleared by the French along the shore, and hurried through the woods beside the moving column to report.
It was noon before we got to the second ford, above where Turtle Creek empties into the river; and, after much delay with the artillery, we got over, I think a little after one o’clock, as fine a sight as ever I saw. Here, before us, were some open meadows about a quarter-mile wide, and, twenty feet above the ford, a fair road leading upward over a little stream called Frazier’s Run, and into the woods. Very quickly, the aides carrying messages at need, the men were got into marching orders. For a full quarter of a mile there were bottom-lands in two easy rises, and beyond these the ground rose amid long grass, very dry, and thick bushes, great rocks, and trunks of fallen trees, which the garrison must have felled for fuel.
Long afterwards I rode over this field and saw better the trap into which we fell. On both sides of the road, which was broad and much used, the ground rose, and here, where the wood was more dense, amid thickunderwood, were ravines, some very deep and others only five or six feet. These gullies lay among great trees, pines and gum, and a tangle of grape-vines, brambles, and Indian plums. One long and deeper ravine was the bed of a little creek, and on the right of the road the ground rose quite steep. Further on, as I saw at the time, for the advance was slow, I observed that the woods seemed to show a series of low hills, and beyond them no greater rise of land to the fort, which was hid some seven miles away, at the junction of the rivers; nor did we ever have sight of it.
Meanwhile we of the main body, halting now and then, marched slowly up from the ford towards the deeper woods, losing sight of the advance as it entered the forest, and quite ignorant of the ravines, or of an enemy, so hid were they in the underbrush.
The main body halted in the mid-space, where the battle was later engaged, so that we lay for the time just on the second bottom. By this time Colonel Gage was far in front with guides and engineers, engaging in the woods, and Sir John St. Clair, with his working-party of pioneers, axemen, and grenadiers, followed. All was very orderly,with flanking-parties thrown out on both sides, but not, to my mind, far enough. Orme wrote me afterwards, when he had learned better, “It was all as if for a fine review in St. James’s Park.”