XXIA BUCKSKIN CORPORAL
Robert Hunter!
This was his name, now, in the year Seventeen Hundred and Fifty-eight, for he had become a white American and had learned to live as the people of Washington’s country lived.
But during the three years since the fight of Braddock’s Field things had been going badly for the American frontier. The English soldiers were busy against the French soldiers of Canada. The French and their Indians still held the Ohio; Fort Duquesne had not been marched upon again and after the English had been driven back so easily almost all the Indians had joined the French.
Just why Fort Duquesne was permitted to stand, nobody appeared to know. Scarouady himself had sent word to the Governor of Virginia and to Washington:
“I still have men who will join with you, my brothers, to take up the hatchet again. We do not want the soldiers from across the big water. They are unfit to fight in the woods. Let us go, ourselves; for we came out of this ground and we understand what to do.”
Washington had been made commander of all the Virginia soldiers, but it seemed hard work to get men who would leave their homes and march into the woods again. For the Indians of the French were very bold—especially the Delawares and Shawnees.They came across the mountains to attack the Virginia and Maryland border; no one knew where they might strike next; it looked as though northern Virginia was to be put to the hatchet and knife, and a great alarm had seized the town of Winchester, near which, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, old Lord Fairfax lived upon his plantation of Greenway.
And having been working and learning upon this same plantation, under the rule of the queer old lord whom he had first met with Gist and Washington in camp at Will’s Creek that night several years back, Robert Hunter also was in the midst of alarms.
Lord Fairfax would not run. He had raised a troop of horse and he had men both white and black, and he said that at his age it didn’t matter to him whether he fell by the tomahawk or by sickness.
Washington himself rode into Greenway, and on into Winchester and did his best to quiet the people there. But the trail to Fort Cumberland in the north was watched by the enemy, and a scouting party from Winchester was attacked by French and Indians only twenty miles out and Captain John Mercer and several men killed: so that, as said, it was difficult to get the settlers to leave their homes.
With the skeleton of a regiment, the First Regiment of Virginia Militia, Washington was supposed to guard the long line of the Virginia frontier.
All this trouble would keep up, too, while Fort Duquesne, over there at the Forks of the Ohio, sent its Rangers and Indians against the Americans of the south while the English soldiers were busy in the far north.
At last, in the spring of 1758, it was known that Fort Duquesne was to be taken this very summer.Lord Fairfax got the news as quickly as anybody, for he constantly received letters and papers from England. He liked to talk with Robert, who at eighteen had grown to feel himself a man—and besides, had learned to read and to write and to think white-race thoughts.
Washington rode down from Fort Loudoun, which he had built at Winchester. He and Lord Fairfax, taking Robert (whom Colonel Washington, aged twenty-six, never failed to send for) rode and talked, as in the early days of Greenway Court.
“By George, George!” Lord Fairfax exulted. “They say Forbes, that Scotch doctor, is to lead you into the woods. He won his berth of brigadier in His Majesty’s army without favor, and while his record shows him a hard man to turn, you may believe me that he is no Braddock. He’s too canny not to look before he leaps. Will you trust your precious carcass to him? Faith, you’ve been desperately sick; so you might well seize the opportunity of getting as far away from your bed as you can.”
“As long as I can move I will join any march to overthrow Fort Duquesne,” answered Washington. “It is a thorn in the side of Virginia, and should have been plucked out long ago. I have repeatedly asked for forces and authority with which to carry the war into the enemy’s territory. If we do not do that, this country is lost. There will not be a settler north of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As for Brigadier-General Forbes,” Washington added. “I have already, as you might easily guess, applied for a part in the expedition.”
“I’ll furnish you with one good man, at least,” chuckled old Lord Fairfax. “You shall have myhalf-Indian brave, here, again. Though I don’t know who will tell me hunting stories while he is gone.”
Washington turned with a brief smile for Robert. He was very thin, and white, for he had indeed been ill. The hardships of the wilderness trail had left their mark upon him.
“Robert the Hunter has been in my mind,” he said. “I can count on him as a soldier; and when he joins the colors I shall see that he is made a corporal.”
“Ho, ho,” Lord Fairfax laughed. “That’s an honor. Since poor Braddock’s failure with his Regulars I’ve come to look upon a corporal of your ‘raw Provincials’ as rather more dependable than a red-coat sergeant. But mark my words, George: you’ll find John Forbes a different kind of man.”
There were to be two regiments from Virginia, three from Pennsylvania, several companies from Maryland, two from North Carolina; a battalion of Royal Americans who were King’s soldiers under Regular officers; and a regiment of Highlanders who were Scotch Regulars sent from across the water.
“By George, when the claymore meets the tomahawk—eh, George?” had chuckled Lord Fairfax. “And which’ll be the more astonished, think you: The wild Hielander when he sees a man wi’ no skeen on his head (for they don’t scalp in Scotland) or the wild Injun when he sees a bonny warrior in petticoats?”
The whole force numbered about six thousand men. Six or seven hundred Catawbas and Cherokees were expected. Brigadier-General John Forbes, a hard fighter and a veteran, was in Philadelphia,to take command. Washington had been gladly accepted to command the Long Knife Americans. If anybody knew about Fort Duquesne, he did. It looked as though Fort Duquesne would be taken this time; especially when word came that many of its Indians had gone home, rich with plunder, and that the garrison was small.
And the English were beginning to gain victories in the north, which so frightened the Ohio Indians that they commenced to exchange peace belts with the Governor of Pennsylvania. Even Shingis was “willing.”
The march, however, was delayed, as usual. Washington advised General Forbes to take the Braddock road, which needed only a little repairing. But General Forbes (who seemed to have ideas of his own) decided to make a new road from central Pennsylvania straight to Fort Duquesne. People told him that the mountains were lower and the rivers less swift.
If he had listened to Washington he would have got to Duquesne sooner and with much less trouble. But Washington had his way in one thing: he put two hundred of his men into hunter clothes of buckskin shirt and leggins, and blankets, and sent them forward under Major Andrew Lewis to Colonel Henry Bouquet of the Royal Americans, who commanded at the rendezvous camp while General Forbes lay sick in Philadelphia.
It seemed good to Robert Hunter to be in buckskin; and all the men (and Washington also) were pleased when Colonel Bouquet the Regular said that this was the most proper dress he had seen yet.
Colonel Bouquet’s camp was at Raystown, of central Pennsylvania north from Fort Cumberland.While the road was being cut ahead, he built a fort named Fort Bedford (which became the town of Bedford, Pennsylvania); he had the Highlanders—who were a strange sight in their things called “kilts” that did look like short petticoats, and the Royal Americans in dark red coats faced with blue, and part of the Virginians (among them Robert) in hunting shirts and in green uniforms faced with buff.
When the road had been hacked out far enough (a terrible road that had proved to be, too; much worse than the Washington and Braddock road) he marched forty miles across the Alleghany Mountains to Loyalhannon Creek on the other side of the same Laurel Hills crossed farther west by the Washington and Braddock road.
Washington had been at Fort Cumberland, completing his regiments; but he would follow. He had not missed the Braddock fight, and he certainly would not miss this. General Forbes was still very sick in Philadelphia—and working from his bed; but he would be on hand, too.
At Loyalhannon Creek Colonel Bouquet began another supply fort. This was General Forbes’ plan: not to bore in as General Braddock had done, with a lot of baggage to guard; but to leave bases, as he went, for his supplies; and when he was near Duquesne to use all his men and take it quickly.
Now this was already September, and the rains had fallen and the road had been the worst that even Robert had yet seen. The Catawbas and Cherokees had been no good at all—why, one Mingo such as Scarouady was worth a hundred of them. They did go out, a few, under Long Knife officers, and brought in news and scalps; but as a rule, they could not bebelieved. They even stole some of the scalps, and pretended that they had taken them. Therefore, just what the garrison at Fort Duquesne were doing nobody knew; nor how many they were.
But it was known that they did not number a great many, and that the Indians were leaving them.
Now Fort Duquesne was about fifty miles away. Major James Grant of the Highlanders, it was said, had been wishing to go on and have a look at the fort, perhaps capture some of its men in the woods and bring them back.
Colonel Bouquet finally consented. So Grant took part of his Highlanders, and part of the Royal Americans, and the Major Lewis Buckskins, and some of the Pennsylvanians and the Maryland companies.
That turned out to be a bad move. How Robert himself ever got out alive he hardly knew. For when they all had arrived in the dark of early morning on top of the hill (the same hill!) less than a mile from the fort, Major Grant sent the Virginians down to draw out the fort’s Indians and lead them back into an ambush.
Major Andrew Lewis was an old Indian fighter, but he did not relish this job. A thick fog had settled, making the darkness worse. Nobody had any idea what lay before, down there in the cleared ground where the French Indians were supposed to be camped.
All that he could do was to send scouts ahead to feel the way while he tried to follow. So once again Robert the Hunter found himself stealing forward to spy upon the enemy at Fort Duquesne.
This was blind work! Very soon he had lost theother scouts and the fort too. He could see nothing, nothing; and he blundered on, while the dense forest dripped with the fog. Then, when he was putting one hand before the other, and groping from trunk to trunk, and log to log, as he crawled, and had heard no sound of Indians his fingers fell upon a new, a fearsome object. It was fuzzily smooth, and dank, and ridged——
Ugh! It was a shaven head!
U-u-ugh! Over backward he went, with the Indian on top of him, weighting him down and clutching at his throat, and growling angrily.
The growls were in a language that he knew.
“Hold! Scarouady!” he managed to gasp. “You know me.”
Scarouady let up.
“Ho, ho! The Hunter! What do you do here, crawling without eyes?”
“I scout for the Long Knives. What do you do, hiding in the bushes?”
“I scout, too,” said Scarouady. “But I wait for eyes. Where are your Long Knives?”
That, Robert did not know. He explained; whereat Scarouady grunted.
“I have seen those petticoat warriors. Is the captain who commands used to the woods?”
Robert thought not.
“I sent word to Washington and Assaragoa that I would help fight the French if those soldiers from across the water did not interfere,” said Scarouady. “And now here are across-the-water soldiers in petticoats like women, come to the woods. Wah! The English are crazy. Why isn’t Washington sent in, with his men who understand?”
Washington was coming, Robert explained; and so was a red-coat General who would listen to reason, and was brave besides.
“He is Head of Iron,” approved Scarouady. “I have heard of him. Very well. But he can do nothing without Washington. And now you and I can do nothing. It is better to sit still and wait than to walk into the enemy.”
They waited. The woods paled, but the fog hung low and shut them in. Then, after a long wait, with the fog beginning to thin a little, first they smelled smoke, as if they might be near an Indian camp. Then, when the fog had thinned more, they could just see a house burning, to their right, in the cleared ground before the fort.
The house was between them and the hill that Robert had left; he had had no idea that he was so far in. Then, with the fog lifting rapidly, down out of it marched a company of soldiers, right into the cleared ground.
Now a cluster of Indian lodges could be seen close against the fort walls; the burning building was a fort storehouse; and the company of soldiers were Highlanders.
Where were the Major Lewis Buckskins? Had they got lost, too? Just what to do, Robert did not know. But Scarouady grunted.
“The petticoat warriors are fools, like the red-coats. You and I will stay out of this, for I see trouble.”
The Highland men had halted within cannon shot of the fort and several of them seemed to be making a map! The Indians at the fort were pointing, for the air was now bright. And then, from the hill,drums beat the reveille, as if daring the fort people to come out!
“Ugh!” uttered Scarouady. “Look! They wake up!”
For, drowning the drum roll, the fort Indians had answered with the war-whoop; and out of the fort gates were rushing the French—some of them in only their shirts, but all armed; and they and the Indians, numbering hundreds, charged for the Highland company.
“Wah!” cried Scarouady. “The petticoat warriors mean to fight.”
And they did fight. They stood firmly, their guns belched, the French and Indians broke, and flowed on either side; the Highland men turned about, they charged through, their captain fell dead, but they got into the woods, and next the woods were full of shooting and yelling. Indians were running in every direction.
“We shall have to get out of here,” said Scarouady. He and Robert ran.
They ran a long distance, dodging the shooting, for it was a question of saving their scalps. The woods were like a hornets’ nest. After about two miles they discovered more men.
“Long Knives!” Scarouady cried; and with Robert shouting “Friend!” they ran in to these.
These were Captain Bullitt’s company, guarding the baggage on the trail. They were anxious and peering, for they had heard the battle sounds; but Robert had had scarcely time to gasp the news when the woods echoed more loudly, and the Highland soldiers began to race in.
“What’s the word? Quick?” Captain Bullitt demanded.
“A’ beaten, a’ beaten!” they wailed. “We ha’ seen gude men up to their hunkers in mud an’ a’ the skeen aff their heads!”
“Where is Major Lewis, corporal?” Captain Bullitt shouted to Robert.
“I don’t know, sir. I was sent on a scout early in the morning.”
“He was afterward ordered back here to the baggage so as to give the Regulars the glory!” stormed Captain Bullitt. “Now he’s gone on his own hook to help the Regulars! Well, they didn’t want the Buckskins, but they’ll be glad of ’em now! Quick, men! We’ll fort behind the baggage and save what men we can. We’ll not run from the red rascals.”
In a moment the rout poured in, with the Indians and the French close behind. Aye, but that was a fight! The fifty “backwoodsmen” of Captain Bullitt gave ball for ball. The war-whoop of Scarouady sounded high; the musket in Robert the Hunter’s hands grew hot.
They were savage, those Indians who usually feared the Long Knives; and the French mingled with them. At last Captain Bullitt waited until they had crowded to within thirty feet; then he gave the word: “Fire!” The muskets spoke together, mowing down the enemy. “With the bayonet: Charge!” That cleared the field.
The wagons were loaded at lightning speed, the wounded were put aboard, no more fugitives were coming in; and they all hastened back for Loyalhannon.
It was learned later that Major Grant and Major Lewis had both been captured. Major Lewis (a strapping man, very strong) had killed a warrior in hand-to-hand fight before he surrendered.
Altogether Major Grant had lost two hundred and seventy-three out of eight hundred; and of the “Provincials” Captain Bullitt was the only officer unhurt.