USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 4
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"Sit down, Major Washington. Your modesty is alone equal to your merit."
Governor Dinwiddie was a reckless, headstrong man, who acted first, and then reflected, if he ever reflected at all. He not only hated but he despised the French. In his judgment the inso- lence of the French in claiming territory which the King of Eng- land claimed, was not to be tolerated for a moment. He would not condescend to take into any consideration the forces which France had gathered in the great valley. They were all to be driven out instantaneously, neck and heels.
He raised a regiment of four hundred men, who were to march across the mountains, with orders "to drive away, kill or seize, as
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prisoners, all persons not the subjects of the King of Great Brit- ain, who should attempt to take possession of the land on the Ohio River, or any of its tributaries."
George Washington was appointed colonel of this regiment. In his previous tour, his military eye had selected the point of land at the junction of the Monongahela and the Alleghany, for a fort where England should concentrate her strength. Having built this fort, garrisoned it, and supplied it with ample military and commissary stores, he would then construct several flat-bot- tomed boats, and, with the remainder of his little army, drift down the river, destroying all the trading posts of the French he might encounter by the way.
In a military point of view there could not have been any better plan devised. But the French officers had military skill as well as the English. They also had selected that very spot for a French fortress, and were already very energetically at work throwing up its ramparts.
As Washington, with his feeble regiment, was hurrying along through the forest-covered defiles of the mountains, he learned, greatly to his disappointment, and probably through the Indian runners, that the French had anticipated him. A large working party was already on the ground, under the direction of the most experienced engineers, and were erecting a fort, which his little band could not think of assailing.
The tidings which reached the ears of Washington, were alarm- ing in the extreme. They indicated that the only prudent course for him to pursue, was an ignominious and precipitant retreat. The French had sent a force of a thousand well armed men to the designated point. They had descended the Alleghany River in sixty flat-bottomed boats, and three hundred birch canoes. They had taken with them eighteen pieces of cannon, which were already in position. They had also quite a numerous band of Indian allies. The French had kept themselves informed of every contemplated movement of the English. They had watched the discussions in the legislature, and knew, as definitely as did the English themselves, the number of men whom they had sent across the mountains, their destination, and the time of their ex- pected arrival. To prevent, if possible, any hostile collision, they had sent so overwhelming a force that an attack could not be thought of.
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Washington had found his march through the rugged passes of the mountains extremely exhausting. His men had suffered both from fatigue and hunger. It was reasonably supposed that, in the rich valleys beyond the mountains, abundance of grain would be found. Experienced hunters accompanied the little band, whose duty it was to range the fields, for miles around their path, to procure food.
The little army had just emerged from the rugged defiles of the Alleghanies, and were entering these fertile and well-stocked pastures, when the appalling news reached them. They were then within two or three days' march of Fort Duquesne, as the French named their works. To add to their misfortune, rumor, though false, said that an outnumbering party of the French, accompanied by numerous Indian allies, were on a rapid march to destroy them. This rumor led, as will subsequently be seen, to very deplorable consequences.
Washington was then but twenty-two years of age. In con- templation of his apparently hopeless condition, his sufferings must have been dreadful. The thought of attacking the French, who were behind their ramparts, in such overpowering numbers, was madness. Retreat, in their exhausted state, through the rugged, barren, pathless gorges of the mountains, was almost im- possible. Two-thirds of their number would probably perish by the way. The thought of a surrender, without striking a blow, of the whole force, was humiliating beyond endurance. Wash- ington was ready for almost any act of desperation rather than this.
France and England were at that time at peace with each. other. Though, as usual, they were regarding each other with jealousy, there was no declaration of war whatever. The French, in building a fort on territory of which they had been for nearly half a century in undisputed possession, had merely anticipated. the English by a few days. The rumor that the French were on the march to attack the English was, as we have said, false, and was unsustained by any appearance of the foe. Subsequent developments established the following facts.
The French were very anxious to avoid any collision on the distant banks of the Ohio, which would involve the two great kingdoms, of France and England, in a desolating war. By their spies they had kept themselves correctly informed of the daily
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progress of the English. Washington and his band were entirely in the power of the French, who could crush them at a single blow. But that one blow would be the signal of a conflict which would encircle the globe.
The French commandant at Fort Duquesne sent a peaceful embassage to Colonel Washington, seeking to avert hostile action. M. Jamonville, the peace commissioner, was a civilian. He took with him, as his escort through the wilderness, but thirty-four men; not one to ten of the soldiers in Colonel Washington's reg- iment. This fact seems conclusive proof that the French decla- ration, that no hostile demonstration was intended, should be credited.
About nine o'clock of one dark and stormy night, when the rain was falling in torrents, some friendly Indians came into Washing- ton's camp and informed him that the French soldiers, who, it was supposed, were on the march to attack him, had encamped at the distance of but a few miles. They were in low bottom land, near the Monongahela River, in a place shut in by rocks, where they could very easily be taken by surprise and fired upon by an invisible foe. They also stated that there was a band of Indian warriors near by, who would gladly join them in the attack.
Washington doubted not that this party was advancing to attack him by surprise. Within an hour he was on the march, led by his Indian guides through the dripping forest. They soon reached the camp of the Indians, who were all ready to join them. The assailants, their movements being concealed by the darkness and the storm, crept stealthily into the thickets, so as to attack the French in two separate parties.
Just as the day was beginning to dawn, so that they could see to take aim at their sleeping and unsuspecting foes, there was a simultaneous discharge of musketry, and a storm of deadly bullets fell upon the French. M. Jamonville and ten of his men were killed outright. Others were wounded. The French sprang to their arms and fought bravely. But they were soon overpowered, and the survivors, twenty-five in number, were taken prisoners. This unhappy event, the result of a mistake, resulted in one of the most cruel wars which ever desolated humanity
CHAPTER III.
EXPULSION OF THE FRENCH.
EMBARRASSMENTS OF WASHINGTON - HIS VIEWS OF PROFANITY -THE OUTBURST OF WAR - BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION - THE UNHEEDED WARNINGS OF WASHINGTON - THE AMBUSH - DE- FEAT OF BRADDOCK -TESTIMONY OF COLONEL SMITH - POLICY OF THE FRENCH - EMPLOYMENT OF INDIAN ALLIES - SCENES WITNESSED BY WASHINGTON - CAPTURE OF FORT DUQUESNE - THE CHEROKEE WAR - TESTIMONY OF COLONEL MARION - SPEECH OF ALLAKULLA.
THE UNTOWARD event, which has been narrated at the close of the last chapter, created, at the time, intense excitement. The French regarded it as one of the grossest of outrages, in viola- tion of all the established laws of civilization. There was no language too severe to express their abhorrence of the deed. But now that the passions of that day have passed away, the French magnanimously concur in the general verdict, that the unhappy event was the result of accident, for which Colonel Washington was very excusable. His whole previous and subsequent career proved that no temptation could induce him to be guilty of a dis- honorable deed.
But this occurrence, at the time, was as a spark to the powder. It opened the drama of war, with all its unspeakable horrors. The French commandant, at Fort Duquesne immediately dis- patched fifteen hundred men, French and Indians, to avenge the wrong. As we have said, Washington, with his starving and ex- hausted troops, could not retreat over the barren leagues which he had already traversed. Still less could he hope to present any successful resistance to the overpowering and indignant troops pressing down upon him. Capitulation was inevitable. But his proud spirit could not stoop to a surrender until he had, at least made a manly show at resistance. He hastily threw up some
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breastworks, and for a whole day struggled against the large force which entirely surrounded him. He then, to save the lives of his men, surrendered. The victors were generous. Considering the circumstances of the case, they were remarkably generous ; as they must have considered that their friends had been' perfidiously massacred. It is probable that the ingenuousness of Washington so explained matters as to disarm the rage of M. de Villiers, the French commander.
The Virginia troops were allowed to retire with their side-arms and all their possessions, excepting one or two pieces of artillery. Unmolested, and at their leisure, they returned to Virginia. On the whole, Washington's character did not suffer from this occur- rence. His youth and inexperienee, and the terrible circum- stances of trial under which he was placed, disarmed the virulence of censure, in view of an act of apparent rashness. Moreover, it was considered that he had developed very great military genius and diplomatic sagacity in rescuing his little army from imminent destruction, and in conducting them safely back to their homes.
Every army necessarily gathers into its ranks the wild, the reckless and the depraved. Very many of the rude frontiersmen who were following the banners of Washington, to drive the French from the great valley, were profane and unprincipled men. Oaths were far more often heard in the camp than prayers. The follow- ing order of the day, issued by this young officer of twenty-two years, is worthy of especial record :
"Colonel Washington has observed that the men of his regiment are very profane and reprobate. He takes this opportunity to inform them of his great displeasure at such practices ; and assures them that, if they do not leave them off, they shall be severely punished. The officers are desired, if they hear any man swear, or make use of an oath or execration, to order the offender twenty- five lashes immediately, without a court martial. For a second offense, he shall be more severely punished."
Such was Washington's character as a young man. Would that the young men of our land would follow the example of the Father of our Country, in purity of lips! Twenty years after this, when George Washington was commander-in-chief of the army of the United Colonies, struggling against the whole power of Great Britain-a population but little exceeding that of the State of Ohio, encountering, in deadly battle, the armies of the most
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powerful empire then upon the globe-Washington, a man of piety and of prayer, felt deeply the need of divine assistance. In August, 1776, he issued the following order of the day to his defeated and almost despairing army at New York :
"The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and profane practice of cursing and swearing, a vice hitherto little known in an American army, is growing into fashion. He hopes that the officers will, by example as well as by influence, endeavor to check it; and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms, if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Add to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it."
While speaking upon this subject, and one so important to our national reputation, I cannot refrain from quoting another anec- dote of Washington, which was related to me by an officer of the United States army, who was present on the occasion.
Washington had invited the members of his staff to dine with him in the City of New York. As they were sitting at table, one of the guests uttered, very distinctly, an oath. Washington dropped his knife and fork, as though struck by a bullet. The attention of every one at the table was arrested, and there was breathless silence. After a moment's pause he said, in tones of solemnity and sadness, " I thought I had invited gentlemen only to dine with me." It is needless to add that there were no more: oaths heard at that table.
There was now war, fierce and unrelenting, between France and England-war which girdled the globe with its horrors. In the Spring of 1755, the British government sent two regiments of regular troops, from England, to cross the mountains, and to attack and capture Fort Duquesne. These soldiers knew nothing about life in the wilderness, and had no acquaintance whatever with Indian warfare. They were under the command of General Braddock, a self-conceited, self-willed man, who, in the pride of his technical military education, despised alike Frenchmen, Indians and Colonists. With his two regiments, numbering two thousand men, Braddock set out to cross the mountains, in a straggling line of men and wagons, four miles long.
Washington accompanied him as one of his aids. He was astonished at the recklessness of the march. He assured Brad-
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dock that the French, through Indian runners, would keep them- selves informed of every step of his progress; that he was in danger every hour, of falling into an ambush, where hundreds of his men might be shot by an invisible foe; and that the French and Indians, familiar with all the defiles of the mountains, might at any time pierce his straggling line, plunder his wagons, and, striking on the right and on the left, throw his whole force into confusion.
It would seem that all this must have been obvious to any man of ordinary intelligence. But the arrogant and conceited British general was not to be taught the arts of war, not he, by a provin- cial colonel, twenty-two years old, who had never seen even the inside of a military school.
Successfully they threaded the defiles of the Alleghanies, and emerged through its western declivities into the beautiful Valley of the Monongahela. The army thus far had encountered no molestation or even alarm. The self-confidence of Braddock increased with the successful progress of his march. With an air of great self-complacency, he virtually said, " You see I understand military affairs far better than any Virginia boy can be expected to understand them."
Washington was silenced. He could not venture upon another word of remonstrance; and yet he trembled in view of the peril to which they were hourly exposed. He knew perfectly well that the French officers must be preparing to crush the expedition, by taking advantage of this fool-hardiness.
The ninth of July dawned brightly upon the army as it entered. a defile of rare picturesque beauty, at a short distance from the banks of the Monongahela. It was one of those calm, cloudless, balmy days, in which all nature seems to be lulled into joyful repose; such a day as Herbert has beautifully described in the words,
"Sweet day, so still, so calm, so bright,
" The bridal of the earth and sky, The dews shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die."
The defile into which they entered presented a natural path for the passage of the army with forest-crowned eminences rising on either side, rugged with rocks, and covered with dense and almost. impenetrable underbrush. It was just the spot which any man,
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familiar with Indian modes of warfare would be sure would be selected for an ambush.
Proudly the thoughtless troops straggled along, with laughter and song, with burnished muskets, and polished cannon, and silken banners. They were British troops, led by British officers ! What had they to fear from cowardly Frenchmen or half-naked savages?
Suddenly, like the burst of thunder from the cloudless heavens, came the rattle of musketry, and a tempest of lead swept through their astounded ranks. Crash followed crash in quick succession, before, behind, on the right, on the left. No foe was to be seen, yet every bullet accomplished its mission. The ground was soon covered with the dead, and with the wounded struggling in dying agonies. Amazement and consternation ran through the ranks. An unseen foe was assailing them. It was supernatural; it was ghostly.
Braddock stood his ground with senseless, bull-dog courage, until he fell, pierced by a bullet. After a short scene of confusion and horror, when nearly half the army were slain, the remnant broke in wild disorder and fled. The ambush was entirely suc- cessful. Six hundred of these unseen assailants were Indians, armed with French rifles and led by French officers.
Washington, through this awful scene which he had been con- stantly anticipating, was perfectly calm and self-possessed. With the coolest courage he did everything which human sagacity could do to retrieve the disaster. Two horses were shot beneath him, and four bullets passed through his coat. It is one of the legends of the day that an Indian sharpshooter declared that Washington bore a charmed life; that he took direct aim at him several times, at the distance of but a few paces, and that the bullets seemed either to vanish into air, or to glance harmless from his body. Eight hundred of Braddock's army, including most of the officers, were either killed or wounded.
Washington rallied around him the few provincials, upon whom Braddock had looked with contempt. Each man immediately placed himself behind a tree, according to the necessities of forest warfare. As the Indians were bursting from their ambush, with tomahawk and scalping knife, to complete the massacre, the uner- ring fire of these provincials checked them, and drove them back. But for this, the army would have been utterly destroyed. All
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Washington's endeavors to rally the British regulars were unavail- ing. Indignantly he writes, "They ran like sheep before the hounds." Panic-stricken, abandoning artillery and baggage, they continued their tumultuous retreat to the Atlantic coast.
The provincials, in orderly march, protected them from pursuit. Braddock's defeat rang through the land as Washington's victory. The provincials, who, in silent exasperation, submitting to military authority, had allowed themselves to be led into this valley of death, proclaimed, far and wide, the cautions which Washington had urged, and the heroism with which he had rescued the rem- nant of the army. After the lapse of eighty years, a seal of Wash- ington, containing his initials, which had been shot from his per- son, was found upon the battle-field, and is, at the present time, in possession of one of the family.
The French made no attempt to pursue their advantage over the discomfited and fugitive foe. The army of Braddock was annihilated, so far as the possibility of doing farther harm was considered. Leaving the bleeding remnant of the British forces to struggle homeward, through the mountains, the French quietly returned to Fort Duquesne, there to await another assault, should the English venture to make one.
These disasters caused great excitement in England, and even a change in the ministry. At the time of Braddock's disastrous defeat there chanced to be an English officer, Colonel James Smith, a prisoner at Fort Duquesne. He has given a very inter- esting account of the scenes which transpired there on that occasion.
Indian spies were every day, entirely unknown to General Braddock, watching his movements. They would, on swift foot, return to the fort with an accurate report of his progress, his uncautious march, and they had sufficient intelligence to laugh to scorn his folly. One of them exultingly drew a map with a stick, on the ground, and explained to Colonel Smith the direc- tion of Braddock's march, the straggling length of his line, and its entire indefensibleness. The Indian described the ambush into which the silly English general was so completely marching, and contemptuously said, in broken English, "We will shoot um down all same as one pigeon."
Early in the morning of the day, on which the attack was to be made, there was a great stir in the fort. Between four and five
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hundred Indian warriors, in great elation of spirits, were exam- ining their guns, and supplying themselves with powder and bul- lets from barrels. Each took what he wanted. In single file, with rapid footsteps, the Indians marched off, accompanied by an equal number of French Canadians, and several companies of regulars.
Late in the afternoon the bands began to return, with shouts of victory. First came some fleet footed runners, with tidings dreadful to Colonel Smith, but awaking the whole garrison to enthusiasm. The Indians and the French, they said, had com- pletely surrounded the English, having caught them in a trap, from which there was no escape.
Concealed and protected behind trees and rocks, they were firing upon the English, huddled together, in great confusion, in a narrow ravine, and they were falling in heaps. It was declared that before sundown every one of them would be shot. The war whoop of the Indian is as definite an utterance as the bugle's sound to the charge. But the savages had another very peculiar war cry, which was called the " scalp halloo."
Soon large bands of the savages appeared, about a hundred in number, every one of whom had a bloody scalp, which he was waving in the air, while the forest resounded with their hideous yells of exultation. They were also laden down with grenadier's caps, canteens, muskets, bayonets, and various articles of clothing, which they had stripped from the dead.
"Those that were coming in, and those that had arrived," writes Colonel Smith, "kept a constant firing of small arms, and also of the great guns in the fort, which was accompanied by the most hideous shouts and yells from all quarters; so that it appeared to me as if the infernal regions had broke loose. About sundown I beheld a small party coming in with about a dozen prisoners, stripped naked, with their hands tied behind their backs. Their faces, and parts of their bodies, were blackened. These prisoners they burned to death on the banks of the Alleghany River, oppo- site to the fort. I stood on the fort walls until I beheld them begin to burn one of these men. They tied him to a stake and kept touching him with fire-brands, red hot irons, etc., and he screaming in the most doleful manner. The Indians, in the mean- time, were yelling like infernal spirits. As this scene was too shock- ing for me to behold, I returned to my lodgings, both sorry and sore.
NJ
BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION AND DEFEAT.
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"From the best information I could receive, there were only seven Indians and four French killed in this battle. Five hun- dred British lay dead in the field, besides what were killed in the river, after their retreat. The morning after the battle, I saw Braddock's artillery brought into the fort. The same day also I saw several Indians in the dress of British officers, with the sashes, half moons, laced hats, etc., which the British wore."
It is a fact, universally recognized, that the French were much more popular with the Indians than were the English. They were very much fewer in number, and were clustered together in strong trading posts. But the English settlers were scattered, far and wide, on small farms, throughout the extended frontier. The Indians had also, as we have already remarked, experienced many atrocious outrages from vagabond English wanderers in the wilderness. The savages were burning with the desire for revenge. Eagerly they entered into alliance with the French.
It was the policy of the French government to destroy, as'far as possible, all the English settlements and farm houses on the frontier. They would also render it certain death for any English settler to rear his cabin in the silent Valley of the Ohio. Inhu- manly they summoned the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage to their aid. Inhumanly the English sought, but with less success, the same diabolical alliance, not only against the French, but subsequently against their own colonists. The French armed the savage warriors with rifles, supplied them with ammunition, and turned them loose upon their fiend-like mission, to kill, burn and destroy.
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