History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 10

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314

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On the arrival of Capt. Stewart with his escort, bearing the wounded general, a decision was at once arrived at to retreat without delay to Fort Cumber- land, destroying everything which could not be car- ried. It was a strange proceeding, and one which must now appear cowardly, for an army of fully a thousand men, many of them veteran soldiers, with sufficient artillery and an abundance of ammunition, to abandon a mountain position which might soon and easily have been rendered impregnable, and to fly before the imaginary pursuit by an enemy which was greatly inferior in numbers, and had already re- tired in the opposite direction. But if the retreat was to be made, then it was necessary to destroy nearly everything except a meagre supply of provisions, for there was barely transportation enough for the sick and wounded, who numbered more than three hun- dred. There were more than enough wagons to carry everything, but the number of horses was small, many of the best having been ridden away by the frightened wagoners and other fugitives, and most of those sent forward with the trains of the advance column having been captured by the enemy on the day of the battle.

The work of destruction and preparation for retreat were commenced immediately, and completed on the 12th, The howitzers and every other artillery piece except two were bursted, as were also a great part of the shell. Some of the shells and nearly all the solid shot were buried. A great number of wagons (having no horses to draw them) were burned. Only a small part of the provisions was saved for the march, most of them being destroyed by burning, or thrown into the little pond of water that had been formed by dam- ming the spring a short distance below the camp. The powder-casks were opened, and their contents- stated at fifty thousand pounds of powder-thrown into the pool.1 Of all the immense quantity of ma-

terial and stores which had with such great expense and labor been transported across the Alleghenies, and to the top of Laurel Hill, there was only saved the least amount that could possibly meet the neces- sities of the retreat to Cumberland.

It has been generally believed that the artillery pieces were not bursted, but buried at Dunbar's camp, as well as a great deal of other property. Stories were told, too, that a large amount of money was buried there by Dunbar on the eve of his retreat; and in later years numerous diggings were made there in the bope of finding the treasure. Of course all such at- tempts have proved as fruitless as they were foolish. As to the statement concerning the burial of the can- non, it was indorsed by and perhaps originated with Col. Burd ;" but it was disproved by a letter dated Aug. 21, 1755, addressed to Governor Shirley by Col. Dunbar, and indorsed by his officers, in which they said, "We must beg leave to undeceive you in what you are pleased to mention of guns being buried at the time Gen. Braddock ordered the stores to be de- stroyed, for there was not a gun of any kind buried."

The question, who was responsible for the disgrace- ful retreat from Dunbar's camp, and the destruction of the stores and war material at that place, has gen- erally received an answer laying the blame on Dun- bar himself; and this appears to be just, though in his letter, above quoted, he mentions the order for the destruction as having been given by Braddock. It is true that the orders were still issued in his name, but the hand of death was already upon him, and he was irresponsible. The command really lay with Col. Dunbar, had he been disposed to take it, as he un- doubtedly would readily have done had it not hap- pened that the so-called orders of Braddock were in this instance (and for the first time in all the cam- paign) in accordance with his wishes.

In regard to the issuance of these orders by the dying commander, and Dunbar's very ready and willing obedience to them, Sargent-who, however, almost contradicts himself in the first and last parts of the extract given below-says, "Braddock's strength was now fast ebbing away. Informed of the disorganized condition of the remaining troops, he abandoned all hope of a prosperous termination to the expedition. He saw that not only death but utter defeat was inevitable. But, conscious of the odium the latter event would excite, he nobly resolved that the sole responsibility of the measure should rest with himself, and consulted with no one upon the steps he pursued. He merely issued his orders, and insisted that they were obeyed. Thus, after destroying the

1 " Old Henry Beeson, the proprietor of Uniontown, used to relate that when he first visited these localities, in 1767, there were some six inches of black nitrous matter visible all over this spring basin."-Veech.

The inference was that the "nitrous matter" referred to came from the great quantity of powder thrown into the water by Col. Dunbar's men, which may have been the fact.

2 On the 11th of September, 1759, Col. Burd visited Dunbar's camp, and concorning this visit his journal says, " From here we marched to Dunbar's camp. ... llere we saw vast quantities of cannon-ball, mus- ket·bullets, broken shells, and an immense destruction of powder, wagons, etc. Reconnoitered all tho camp, and attempted to find the cannon and mortars, but could not discover them, although we dug a great many holes where stores had been buried, and concluded the French had carried them off."

BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION IN 1755.

stores to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy (of whose pursuit he did not doubt), the march was to be resumed on Saturday, the 12th of July, to- wards Wills' Creek. Ill judged as these orders were, they met with too ready acquiescenee at the hands of Dunbar, whose advice was neither asked nor tendered on the occasion. . . . For this service-the only in- stance of alacrity that he displayed in the campaign- Dunbar must not be forgiven. It is not perfectly clear that Braddock intelligently ever gare the orders, but in any case they were not fit for a British otlicer to give or to obey. Dunbar's duty was to have maintained here his position, or at least not have contemplated falling baek beyond Wills' Creek. That he had not horses to remove his stores was, however, his after- excuse."

The destruction of the guns, ammunition, and stores was finished at Dunbar's camp on the 12th of July, and on the morning of Sunday, the 13th, the retreating troops, composed of Dunbar's command and the remnant of the force that fought on the Monongahela, moved away on the road to the Great Crossings of the Youghiogheny. They took with them the only artillery pieces that were left (two six- pounders), a small quantity of provisions and hos- pital stores, and the remaining wagons, nearly all of which were laden with the sick and wounded. The commander-in-chief, now rapidly approaching his end, was borne along with the column. The entry for this day in Capt. Orme's journal reads: "July 13th .- We marched hence to the camp near the Great Meadows, where the general died."

The place where Dunbar's troops bivouacked after this day's march was known as the Old Orchard Camp, about two miles west of Fort Necessity, and there, at eight o'clock on that midsummer Sunday night, General Braddock breathed his last. He had spoken very little after the time when he was brought from the fatal field. It is related that on the first might he repeated, as if soliloquizing, "Who would have thought it! who would have thought it!" and after that was silent1 until the fourth day, when he said to Capt. Orme, "We shall better know how to deal with them another time." He spoke no more, and soon after expired, Captain Stewart, of the light- horse, having never left him from the time he re- eeived his wound until after his death. Washington and Orme were also with him at the last moment, and it is said (hy Sargent) that shortly before his death the general bequeathed to Washington " his favorite

1 This conflicts strongly with Sargent's statement that at Dubar's camp he "issued his orders and insisted that they were obeyed."

: Notwithstanding the many absurd accounts which have been given ef the disagreements which occurred between Braddock and Washing- ton, and of the insolent and contemptnous manner in which the latter was treated by his chief, all evidouce that is found tends to show that there existed between the two a friendship such as is very rarely known as between a commanding general and a mere youth serving under him without military rank, for in this campaign Washington held none, and was consequently never admitted to Braddock's councils of war. He was by the British officers below Braddock contemptuously styled

charger and his body-servant, Bishop, so well known in after-years as the faithful attendant of the patriot chief.

On the morning of the 14th of July the dead gen- eral was buried at the camp where he died, and the artillery pieces, the wagon-train, and the soldiers, moving out to take the road to Wills' Creek, passed over the spot, to obliterate all traces of the new grave, and thus to save it from desecration by the savages, who were expected soon to follow in pursuit. The wagons containing the sick and wounded took the lead, then came the others with the hospital stores and the meagre stock of provisions, then the advance of the infantry column, then the ammunition and guns, and finally the two veteran companies of the Forty-fourth and Forty-eighth British regular regi- ments, with Stewart's Virginia light-horse as a guard to the rear and flanks. In the evening of the same day the Youghiogheny River was crossed by the last men of the force, and the rear-guard bivouacked for the night on the eastern side of the stream.

It seems that the progress made on the retreat was very rapid, for, although Braddock's road was rough and in many places barely passable, the head of the wagon-train bearing the wounded and sick arrived at Cumberland on the 17th, and three days later the last of Dunbar's soldiers reached the fort and lighted their bivouac fires within the range of its guns.

The expedition of Braddock, from which such brilliant results had been expected, had proved a dismal and bloody failure. The objective point Fort du Quesne) was still held by the French, who, with their Indian allies, soon extended their domination over the country lying to the southeast. Gaining courage from their vietory, they came to Dunbar's camp a week or two after his forces had left it, and there completed the little work of destruction which he had left undone. Within two months they had

" Mr. Washington," for they disliked him, principally because of the consideration shown him by Braddock, and partly because he was merely a " Virginia buckskin," which latter fact made Braddock's friendship for him all the more galling to them. In later years l'resi- dent Washington, in speaking to the Hon. William Fiuley (see Niles' Register, xiv., p. 179) of Braddock, said, "He was unfortunate, but his character was much too severely treated. He was one of the honestest and best men of the British officers with whom I was acquainted ; rven in the manner of fighting he was not more to blame than others, for of all that were consulted only one person objectel to it. . . . Braddock was both my general and my physician," alluding in the latter remark to the time when he Washington) had been taken sick near the Little Meadows on the outward march, on which ocrasion Braddock gave his personal attention to the case, leaving Washington with a sergeant to take care of him, with medicine and directions (given by himself , of how to take it, also with instructions to come on and rejoin him the general) whenever he should find himself alde to do so.

As to the accounts, with which all are familiar, of Washington as- suming command after the fall of Braddock, and saving the remuant of the force from destruction, its utter absurdity is made apprent by the extracts which have been given from Capt. Orme's journal. Washington exercised no command on that campaign, and the ouly circumstance which can give any color to the story is that some of the Virginials, knowing him es an officer in the militia of that colony, were disj-ed in the confusion of the battle to follow him in preference to the British officers, who despised their method of backwoods fighting.

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

advanced eastward to the Alleghenies and made in- cursions beyond that range. There was not left west of the mountains in this region a single settler or trader other than those who were favorable to the French and their interests. And this state of things continued in the country west of the Alleghenies for more than three years from the time of Braddock's defeat on the Monongahela.

The precise spot where Gen. Braddock was buried has never been certainly known. Col. Burd, who visited it in 1759, when on his way to erect Fort Burd, ' been susceptible of proof that they themselves were, on the Monongahela, said it was about two miles from Fort Necessity, and "about twenty yards from a little hollow, in which there was a small stream of water, and over it a bridge." Gen. Washington said that it had been his purpose to return to the spot and erect a monument to his memory, but that he had no opportunity to do so until after the Revolution, and then, after the most diligent search, he found it im- possible to recognize the spot where the general was buried on account of the change in the road and the extension of the clearing.

In 1812 a party of men who were engaged in pre- paring the road under direction of Abraham Stewart ( father of the Hon. Andrew Stewart), dug out, near the bank of the small stream known as Braddock's Run, the bones of a human skeleton, and with them some military trappings; from which latter circum- stance the bones were supposed to be those of Brad- dock .- and it is not improbable that they were so, though there is no proof that such was the case. Some of the larger bones were taken away by the people of the vicinity as relies, but these were after- wards collected by Mr. Stewart,1 and they as well as the others were reinterred about 1820, at the spot which has since been known as " Braddock's Grave," and which was so marked by the words eut or painted on a board which was nailed to a tree over the place of reinterment. This tree has since been cut down, the grave inclosed, and evergreen trees planted over it. The spot is in Wharton township, a few rods north of the National road, southeast of the Chalk Hill hotel, and northwest of Fort Necessity.

silence, or that which he at other times triumphantly asserted) is false. He believes this case to be similar to several of which he had personal knowledge in the late civil war, where private soldiers (always of the worthless class), bearing ill will against officers who had administered deserved punishment to them, made mysterious muttered threats of biding their time till the next engagement; and after the objects of their hatred had fallen in the front of battle, could not re- frain from expressing satisfaction, and in a boasting way saying enough to have hanged them, if it had not during the battle, skulking so far in the rear of the line of fire that they could not have reached their pre- tended victim with any weapon of less calibre than a ten-pounder Parrott gun. This, however, is but a mere opinion, and therefore entitled to no weight on the page of history. Opposed to it-as has already been said-are the opinions of a large proportion of the people who have lived in Fayette County during the past ninety-eight years. Under these circumstances the only course which can properly be pursued by the historian is to give, without comment, the several principal statements which have been made in the case. One of these 2 is as follows :

" There has long existed a tradition in this region that Braddock was killed by one of his own men, and more recent developments leave little or no doubt of the fact. A recent [1843] writer in the National Intel- ligencer, whose authority is good on such points, says, ' When my father was removing with his family to the West, one of the Fausetts kept a public-house to the eastward from and near where Uniontown now stands as the county-seat of Fayette County, Pa. This man's house we lodged in about the 10th of October, 1781, twenty-six years and a few months after Brad- dock's defeat ; and there it was made anything but a secret that one of the family dealt the death-blow to the British general. Thirteen years afterwards I met Thomas Fausett in Fayette County, then, as he told me, in his seventieth year. To him I put the plain question, and received the plain reply, "I did shoot him !" He then went on to insist that by doing so he contributed to save what was left of the army. In brief, in my youth I never heard the fact doubted or blamed that Fausett shot Braddock.'

For nearly a century it has been believed by many that the shot which took the life of Gen. Braddock "The Hon. Andrew Stewart, of Uniontown, says was fired by one Thomas Fossit, who afterwards be- " he knew and often conversed with Tom Fausett, who came a resident in Fayette County. This Fossit, it appears, always wished to have people believe that it was a bullet from his gun that gave the mortal wound to the brave Braddock ; and many-perhaps a ma- jority-of the people of this section of country did for many years believe that such was the case. The writer of this believes that Fossit's story ( whether by this is meant that which he implied hy significant did not hesitate to avow, in the presence of his friends, that he shot General Braddock. Fausett was a man of gigantic frame, of uncivilized, half-savage propensi- ties, and spent most of his life among the mountains as a hermit, living on the game which he killed. He would occasionally come into town and get drunk. Sometimes he would repel inquiries into the affair of Braddock's death by putting bis fingers to his lips

1 It has been said in some accounts that the bones collected by Mr. Stewart were sent to Peale's Museum, in Philadelphia, but the statement is not authenticated.

2 Made by Sherman Day, in his " Historical Sketches of the State of Pennsylvania."

CAPTURE OF FORT DU QUESNE.

and uttering a sort of buzzing sound; at others he would burst into tears, and appear greatly agitated by conflicting passions.

" In spite of Braddock's silly order that the troops should not protect themselves behind trees, Joseph Fausett had taken such a position, when Braddock rode up in a passion and struck him down with his sword. Tom Fausett, who was but a short distance from his brother, saw the whole transaction, and im- mediately drew up his rifle and shot Braddock through the lungs, partly in revenge for the outrage upon his brother, and partly, as he always alleged, to get the general ont of the way, and thus save the remainder of the gallant band, who had been sacrificed to his obstinacy and want of experience in frontier warfare."

But among all the authorities on the subjeet, prob- ably the one which is entitled to the most considera- tion is that of Veech's "Monongahela of Old," in which occurs the following in reference to the killing of Braddock :

" For at least three-quarters of a century the eur- rent . belief has been that he was shot by one Thomas Fossit, an old resident of Fayette County. The story is therefore entitled to our notice. Mr. Sargent, in his interesting ' History of Braddock's Campaign,' devotes several pages to a collation of evidence npon the question, and arrives very logically from the evi- dence at the conclusion that the story is false ; got up by Fossit and others to heroize him at a time when it was popular to have killed a Britisher. .

"I' knew Thomas Fossit well. He was a tall, ath- letie man, indicating by his physiognomy and de- meanor a susceptibility of impetuous rage and a disregard of moral restraints. He was, moreover, in his later years somewhat intemperate. When Fa- yette County was erected in 1783 he was found living on the top of Laurel Hill, at the junction of Brad- dock's and Dunlap's roads, near Washington's Spring, claiming to have there by settlement a hundred aeres of land, which by deed dated in April, 1788, he con- veyed to one Isaac Phillips. For many years he kept a kind of tavern or resting-place for emigrants and pack-horsemen, and afterwards for teamsters, at the place long known as Slack's, later Robert Me- Dowell's. His mental abilities by no means equaled his bodily powers ; and, like a true man of the woods, he often wearied the traveler with tales about bears, deer, and rattlesnakes, lead-mines and Indians. ] had many conversations with him about his adven- tures. He said he saw Braddock fall, knew who shot him, knew all about it; but would never aeknowl- edge to me that he aimed the deadly shot. To others, it is said, he did, and boasted of it. ... The last time I saw him was in October, 1816. He was then a pauper at Thomas Mitchell's, in Wharton township. He said he was then one bundred and four years old, and perhaps he was. He was gathering in his to-

bacco. I stayed at Mitchell's two days, and Fossit and I had much talk about old times, the battle, and the route the army traveled. He stated the facts generally as he had done before. Hle insisted that the bones found by Abraham Stewart, Esq., were not the bones of Braddock, but of a Colonel Jones ; that Braddock and Sir Peter Halket were both buried in one grave in the cump, and that if he could walk to the place he thought he could point it out so exactly -near a forked apple-tree -- that by digging the bones could yet be found. There are parts of this story wholly irreconcilable with well-ascertained facts. There was no Col. Jones in Braddock's army. Sir Peter IFalket and his son, Lieutenant Ilalket, were killed and left on the field of battle. Braddock did not die at Dunbar's camp, but at the first camp east- ward of it, and it is nowhere said that Braddock was buried in the camp. . . .

" Nevertheless the fact may be that Fossit shot him. There is nothing in the facts of the case as they oe- eurred on the ground to contradict it ; nay, they rather corroborate it. Braddock was shot on the battle-field by somebody. Fossit was a provincial private in the action. There was generally a bad state of feeling between the general and the provincial recruits, owing chiefly to his obstinate opposition to tree-fighting, and to his infuriate resistance to the determined in- clination of the backwoodsmen to fight in that way, to which they were countenanced by the opinion of Washington and Sir Peter Ilalket. Another fact is that much of the havoc of the English troops was caused by the firing of their own men wherever they saw a smoke. But Braddock raised no smoke, and when he was shot a retreat had been sounded. If, therefore, Fossit did shoot him he must have done it purposely. And it is said he did so in revenge for the killing of a brother for persisting in firing from behind a tree. This is sustained by the fact that Tom had a brother Joseph in the action who was killed. All these cir- cumstances, with many others, seem to sustain the allegation. Against it are the inconsistencies and falsities of other parts of the testimony of the wit- nesses adduced, and even of Fossit's own narrations."

Fossit died in 1818, a pauper in the township of Wharton. Ile was at the time of bis death about one hundred and six years old, according to his own statement.

CHAPTER VIL

CAPTURE OF FORT DU QUESNE-ERECTION OF FORT BIRD.

FROM July, 1755, when the French succeeded in expelling the English forces from the region of country west of the Alleghenies, the former held ab- solute possession of that territory for more than three

1 Freeman Lewis, the senior of the authors of " Monongahela of Otd." | years, as has already been mentioned. Not long after

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

their victory on the Monongahela they reduced their force at Fort du Quesne, sending a part of it to Ve- nango and other northern posts, and their Indian allies, or a great part of them, scattered and returned to their homes, being in a state of discontent and in- cipient disaffection, though still holding to their French allegiance.

At Fort du Quesne the French captain, Contre- cœur, remained in command till the early part of 1757. In that year, and not long after Contrecoeur's supersedure, the commandant at Fort Cumberland sent out a small party ( probably the first which crossed the mountains from the east after Braddock's defeat) to penetrate as nearly as practicable to the Forks of the Ohio, and reconnoitre the country in the vicinity of the French fort.1 It was composed of five soldiers from Fort Cumberland and fifteen Cherokee Indians, all under command of Lieutenant Baker. They ad- vanced to a point on the head-waters of Turtle Creek, about twenty miles from the fort, where they fell in with a French party of three officers and seven men. In the fight which followed they killed five of the French and took one (an officer) prisoner. They then made their way back through what is now Fayette County, and arrived in safety at Fort Cumberland with their prisoner and with the information that the French fort was in command of Capt. de Ligneris, who had under him at that place a force of about six hundred French troops and two hundred Indians.

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History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 10

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314