USA > Virginia > History of the colony and ancient dominion of Virginia > Part 41
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In the year 1756 took place the "Sandy Creek Expedition" against the Shawnees on the Ohio River. With the exception of a few Cherokees, it consisted exclusively of Virginia troops, under the conduct of Major Andrew Lewis. ; Although this expedition proved in the event abortive, yet its incidents, as far as known, are interesting. Nor are such abortive enterprises without their useful effects : they are the schools of discipline, the rehearsals of future success. The rendezvous from which the expedition
* Memoir of Battle of Point Pleasant, by Samuel L. Campbell, M.D., of Rock- bridge County, Va.
+ Washington's Writings, ii. 125; Va. Hist. Reg.
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started was Fort Frederick, on New River, in what was then Augusta County. Under Major Andrew Lewis were Captains William Preston, Peter Hogg, John Smith, Archibald Alexander, father of Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander, Breckenridge, Woodson, and Overton. Their companies appear to have been already guarding the frontier when called upon for this new service. There were also the volunteer companies of Captains Montgomery and Dunlap, and a party of Cherokees under Captain Paris. A party of this tribe had come to the assistance of the Virginians in the latter part of 1755, and they were ordered by Governor Dinwiddie to join the Sandy Creek Expedition; but whether. they all actually joined it is not known. The war leaders of these savages were old Outacite, the Round O, and the Yellow Bird. Captain David Stewart,* of Augusta, seems to have acted as commissary to the expedition. The whole force that marched from Fort Frederick amounted to three hundred and forty. While waiting to procure horses and pack-saddles, the soldiers were preached to by the pioneer Presbyterian clergymen of the valley, Craig and Brown. Major Lewis marched on the eighteenth of February, and passing by the Holston River and the head of the Clinch, they reached the head of Sandy Creek on the twenty- eighth. This stream was found exceedingly tortuous; on the twenty-ninth, they crossed it sixty-six times in the distance of fifteen miles. Although some bears, deer, and buffaloes were killed, yet their provisions began to run low early in March, when they were reduced to half a pound of flour per man, and no meat except what they could kill, which was very little. There being no provender for the horses, they strayed away. The march was fatiguing, the men having frequently to wade labo- riously across the deepening water of the river; they suffered with hunger, and starvation began to stare them in the face. The Cherokees undertook to make bark canoes to convey them- selves down the creek, and Lewis ordered a large canoe to be made to transport the ammunition and the remaining flour. The
* Father of the late Judge Archibald Stewart, of Augusta County, and grand- father of the Honorable A. H. H. Stewart, Secretary of the Interior under President Taylor.
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men murmured, and many threatened to return home. Lewis ordered a cask of butter to be divided among them. An advance party of one hundred and thirty, with nearly all of the horses, proceeded down the creek, Lewis with the rest remaining to com- plete the canoes. No game was met with by the party proceed- ing down the stream, and the mountains were found difficult to cross. Hunger and want increased, and the men became almost mutinous. Captain Preston proposed to kill the horses for food, but this offer was rejected. About this time some elks and buf- faloes were killed, and this relief rescued some of the men from the jaws of starvation. The advance party had now, as they supposed, reached the distance of fifteen miles below the forks of the Sandy. Captain Preston, who commanded it, was greatly perplexed at the discontents which prevailed, and which threat- ened the ruin of the expedition. The men laid no little blame on the commissaries, who had furnished only fifteen days' provi- sion for what they supposed to be a march of three hundred miles. Major Lewis preserved his equanimity, and remarked that "he had often seen the like mutiny among soldiers." On the eleventh of March ten men deserted; others preparing to follow them, were disarmed and forcibly detained, but some of them soon escaped. . They were pursued and brought back. When Major Lewis rejoined the advance party, one of his men brought in a little bear, which he took to Captain Preston's tent, where the major lodged that night, "by which," says Preston, "I had a good supper and breakfast-a rarity." Major Lewis addressed the men, encouraging them to believe that they would soon reach the hunting-ground and find game, and reminded them that the horses would support them for some time. The men, nevertheless, appeared obstinately bent upon returning home, for they said that if they went forward they must either perish or eat horses-neither of which they were willing to do. The major then, stepping off a few yards, called upon all those who would serve their country and share his fate, to go with him. All the officers and some twenty or thirty privates joined him; the rest marched off. In this conjuncture, when deserted by his own people, Lewis found old Outacité, the Cherokee chief, willing to stand by him. Outacité remarked, that "the white men could
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not bear hunger like Indians." The expedition was now, of necessity, abandoned when they had arrived near the Ohio River, and all made the best of their way home.
It appears to have required two weeks for them to reach the nearest settlements, and during this interval they endured great sufferings from cold and hunger, and some who separated from the main body, and undertook to support themselves on the way back by hunting, perished. When the main body reached the Burning Spring, in what is now Logan County, they cut some buffalo hides, which they had left there on the way down, into tuggs or long thongs, and ate them, after exposing them to the flame of the Burning Spring. Hence Tugg River, separating Virginia from Kentucky, derives its name. During the last two or three days, it is said that they ate the strings of their mocca- sins, belts of their hunting-shirts, and shot-pouch flaps. The art of extracting nutriment from such articles is now lost.
"The Sandy Creek Voyage," as it was sometimes styled, appears to have been directed against the Shawnee town near the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio, and perhaps to erect a fort there. The conduct of the expedition was left almost en- tirely to the discretion of Major Lewis .* Washington predicted the failure of the expedition, on account of the length of the march, and even if it reached the Ohio, "as we are told that those Indians are removed up the river into the neighborhood of Fort Du Quesne."t
Old Outacité, or the Man-killer, was in distinction among the Cherokee chiefs, second only to Attacullaculla, or the Little Carpenter. Outacité attained a venerable age, and continued to be a steadfast friend of the whites. At the massacre committed near Fort Loudoun, by his interposition he rescued many from destruction.
Early in April, 1756, another Indian irruption, led on by the French, spread consternation in the tramontane country, and threatened to exterminate the inhabitants. Washington, now
* Lyman C. Draper, in Va. Hist. Register, 61; Howe's Hist. Collections of Va., 352.
+ Washington's Writings, ii. 125, 135.
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aged twenty-four, gave it as his opinion that "five hundred In- dians have it more in their power to annoy the inhabitants than ten times their number of regulars." While the unhappy people were flying from the barbarous foe, Washington, in view of the inadequate means of protection, wrote to Governor Dinwiddie: "The supplicating tears of the women and moving petitions of the men melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I solemnly de- clare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people's ease." In this sentence we find the key to his whole character and history.
The governor immediately gave orders for a re-enforcement of militia to assist him. The "Virginia Gazette," however, cast discredit and blame on Washington and the force under his com- mand. Virginia continued to be too parsimonious and too indif- ferent to the sufferings of her people beyond the mountains. The woods appeared to be alive with French and Indians; each day brought fresh disasters and alarms. Washington found no lan- guage expressive enough to portray the miseries of the country. Affording all the succor in his power, he called upon the governor for arms, ammunition, and provisions, and gave it as his opinion that a re-enforcement of Indian allies was indispensable, as In- dians alone could be effectually opposed to Indians. Winchester, incorporated in 1752, was now almost the only settlement west of the Blue Ridge that was not almost entirely deserted, the few families that remained being sheltered in forts. West of the North Mountain the country was depopulated, save a few families on the South Branch of the Potomac and on the Cacapehon. About the close of April the French and Indians returned to Fort Du Quesne laden with plunder, prisoners, and scalps.
Governor Dinwiddie recommended to the board of trade an ex- tensive cordon of forts, to cover the entire frontier of the colonies from Crown Point to the country of the Creek Indians. His project was to pay for these forts and support their garrisons by a land and poll tax, levied on all the colonies by an act of parlia- ment. Washington advised that Virginia should guard her fron- tier by additional forts about fifteen miles apart. Fort Loudoun was erected at Winchester, the key of that region, under his
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superintendence. It was a square with four bastions; the bat- teries mounted twenty-four guns; a well was sunk, mostly through a bed of limestone; the barracks were sufficient for four hundred and fifty men. Vestiges of this fortification still remain. Win- chester, after the erection of Fort Loudoun, increased rapidly, owing to its being the rendezvous of the Virginia troops: in 1759 it contained two hundred houses.
It is remarkable that as late as the year 1756, when the colony was a century and a half old, the Blue Ridge of mountains was virtually the western boundary of Virginia, and great difficulty was found in completing a single regiment for the protection of the inhabitants of the border country from the cruel irruptions of the Indians. Yet at this time the population of the colony was estimated at two hundred and ninety-three thousand, of whom one hundred and seventy-three thousand were white, and one hundred and twenty thousand black, and the militia were com- puted at thirty-five thousand fit to bear arms.
Dinwiddie wrote to Fox, (father of Charles James,) one of the secretaries of state: "We dare not venture to part with any of our white men any distance, as we must have a watchful eye over our negro slaves, who are upwards of one hundred thousand." Some estimated them at one hundred and fifty thousand, equal in number to the whites, but the smaller estimate is probably more correct. The increase of the blacks was rapid, and many lamented that the mother country should suffer such multitudes to be brought from Africa to gratify the African Company, "and overrun a dutiful colony." As to the question whether enslaving the negroes is consistent with Christianity, the Rev. Peter Fon- taine remarks: "Like Adam, we are all apt to shift off the blame from ourselves and lay it upon others; how justly, in our case, you may judge. The negroes are enslaved by the negroes them- selves before they are purchased by the masters of the ships who bring them here. It is, to be sure, at our choice whether we buy them or not; so this, then, is our crime, folly, or whatever you will please to call it. But our assembly, foreseeing the ill consequences of importing such numbers among us, hath often attempted to lay a duty upon them which would amount to a pro- hibition, such as ten or twenty pounds a head; but no governor
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dare pass such a law, having instructions to the contrary from the board of trade at home. By this means they are forced upon us whether we will or will not. This plainly shows the African Company hath the advantage of the colonies, and may do as it pleases with the ministry." "To live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible," and it was a hard task for the planter to perform his duty toward them; for, on the one hand, if they were not compelled to work hard, he would endanger his temporal ruin; on the other hand, was the danger of not being able, in a better world, to render a good account of his humane steward- ship of them .*
A long interval of tranquillity had enervated the planters of Virginia; luxury had introduced effeminate manners and disso- lute habits. "To eat and drink delicately and freely; to feast, and dance, and riot; to pamper cocks and horses; to observe the anxious, important, interesting event, which of two horses can run fastest, or which of two cocks can flutter and spur most dex- terously; these are the grand affairs that almost engross the attention of some of our great men. And little low-lived sinners imitate them to the utmost of their power. The low-born sinner can leave a needy family to starve at home, and add one to the rabble at a horse-race or a cock-fight. He can get drunk and turn himself into a beast with the lowest as well as his betters with more delicate liquors." Burk, the historian of Virginia, who was by no means a rigid censor, noticing the manners of the Virginians during the half century preceding the Revolution, says: "The character of the people for hospitality and expense was now decided, and the wealth of the land proprietors, par- ticularly on the banks of the rivers, enabled them to indulge their passions even to profusion and excess. Drinking parties were then fashionable, in which the strongest head or stomach gained the victory. The moments that could be spared from the bottle were devoted to cards. Cock-fighting was also fashionable."t On the same pages he adds: "I find, in 1747, a main of cocks advertised to be fought between Gloucester and James River.
* Huguenot Family, 348, 351.
¡ Burk's Hist. of Va., iii. 402.
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The cocks on one side were called ' Bacon's Thunderbolts,' after the celebrated rebel of 1676."
The pay of the soldiers in 1756 was but eight pence a day, of which two pence was reserved for supplying them with clothes. The meagre pay, and the practice of impressing vagrants into the military service, increased much the difficulty of recruiting and of enforcing obedience and subordination. Even Indians calling themselves friendly did not scruple to insult and annoy the inhabitants of the country through which they passed. One hundred and twenty Cherokees, passing through Lunenburg County, insulted people of all ranks, and a party of Catawbas behaved so outrageously at Williamsburg that it was necessary to call out the militia.
Although Governor Dinwiddie was an able man, his zeal in military affairs sometimes outstripped his knowledge, and Wash- ington was at times distracted by inconsistent and impracticable orders, and harassed by undeserved complaints. It was indeed alleged by some, that if he could have withstood the strong in- terest arrayed in favor of Washington, the governor would rather have given the command to Colonel Innes, although far less com- petent, and an inhabitant of another colony, North Carolina. Dinwiddie's partiality to Innes was attributed, by those unfriendly to the governor, to national prejudice, for they were both natives of Scotland .* Yet it appears by Dinwiddie's letters that he urgently pressed the rank of colonel on Washington.} Wash- ington, in his letters to Speaker Robinson, complains heavily of the governor's line of conduct, and Robinson's replies were such as would widen the breach .¿ The tenor of the governor's corre- spondence with Washington, in 1757, became so ungracious, per- emptory, and even offensive, that he could not but attribute the change in his conduct toward him to some secret detraction, and he gave utterance to a noble burst of eloquent self-defence. Dinwiddie's position was indeed trying, his measures being thwarted by a rather disaffected legislature and an arrogant aristocracy, and the censures thrown upon him, coming to us
* Bancroft, iv. 223. + Sparks' Writings of Washington, ii. 262. į Washington's Writings, ii. 217, in note.
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through a discolored medium of prejudice, ought to be taken with much allowance. However this may be, harsh and rather overbearing treatment from a British governor, together with the invidious distinctions drawn between colonial and British officers in regard to rank, naturally tended to abate Washington's loyalty, and thus gradually to fit him for the great part which he was destined to perform in the war of Independence.
Lord Loudoun, the newly-appointed governor of Virginia, and commander-in-chief of the colonies, now arrived in America, and called a conference of governors and military officers to meet him at Philadelphia. Washington, by the rather ungracious and re- luctant leave of Dinwiddie, attended the conference. Yet Din- widdie, in his letters to Loudoun, said of him: "He is a very deserving gentleman, and has from the beginning commanded the forces of this Dominion. He is much beloved, has gone through many hardships in the service, has great merit, and can raise more men here than any one." He therefore urged his
promotion to the British establishment .* Washington had pre- viously transmitted to the incompetent Loudoun an elaborate statement of the posture of affairs in Virginia, exhibiting the in- sufficiency of the militia and the necessity of an offensive system of operations. But Loudoun determined to direct his main efforts against Canada, and to leave only twelve hundred men in the middle and southern provinces. Instead of receiving aid, Vir- ginia was required to send four hundred men to South Carolina. The Virginia Regiment was now reduced to a thousand men. Colonel Washington, nevertheless, insisted that a favorable con- juncture was presented for capturing Fort Du Quesne, since the French, when attacked in Canada, would be unable to re-enforce that remote post. This wise advice, although approved by Din- widdie, was unheeded; and the campaign of the North proved inglorious, that of the South ineffectual. Toward the close of the year, Washington, owing to multiplied cares, vexations, and consequent ill health, relinquished his post, and retired to Mount Vernon, where he remained for several months.
In January, 1758, Robert Dinwiddie, after an arduous and
* Bancroft, iv. 236.
32
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disturbed administration of five years, worn out with vexation and age, sailed from Virginia not much regretted, except by his particular friends. A scholar, a wit, and an amiable companion, in private life he deservedly won esteem. The charge alleged against him of avarice and extortion in the exaction of illegal fees, appears to have originated in political prejudice, and that of failing to account for sums of money transmitted by the British government, rests on the unsupported assertions of those who were inimical to him. His place was filled for a short time by John Blair, president of the council.
The Rev. Samuel Davies, by invitation, preached to the militia of Hanover County, in Virginia, at a general muster, on the 8th of May, 1758, with a view to the raising a company for Captain Samuel Meredith. In this discourse Davies said: "Need I inform you what barbarities and depredations a mongrel race of Indian savages and French Papists have perpetrated upon our frontiers ? How many deserted or demolished houses and plantations ? How wide an extent of country abandoned? How many poor families obliged to fly in consternation and leave their all behind them? What breaches and separations between the nearest relations ? What painful ruptures of heart from heart? What shocking dispersions of those once united by the strongest and most en- dearing ties? Some lie dead, mangled with savage wounds, con- sumed to ashes with outrageous flames, or torn and devoured by the beasts of the wilderness, while their bones lie whitening in the sun, and serve as tragical memorials of the fatal spot where they fell. Others have been dragged away captives, and made the slaves of imperious and cruel savages: others have made their escape, and live to lament their butchered or captivated friends and relations. In short, our frontiers have been drenched with the blood of our fellow-subjects through the length of a thousand miles, and new wounds are still opening. We, in these inland parts of the country are as yet unmolested, through the unmerited mercy of Heaven. But let us only glance a thought to the western extremities of our body politic, and what melancholy scenes open to our view! Now perhaps while I am speaking, now while you are secure and unmolested, our fellow-subjects there may be feeling the calamities I am now describing. Now,
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perhaps, the savage shouts and whoops of Indians, and the screams and groans of some butchered family, may be mingling their horrors and circulating their tremendous echoes through the wilderness of rocks and mountains."* There appears to be some resemblance between this closing sentence and the following, in Fisher Ames' speech on the western posts: "I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture. Already they seem to sigh in the western wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains."t
* Davies' Sermons, iii. 68.
¡ These eloquent words may have been suggested by those of Davies.
CHAPTER LXIV.
1758-1762.
Earl of Loudoun-General Forbes-Pamunkey Indians-Fauquier, Governor- Forbes' Expedition against Fort Du Quesne-Its Capture-Burnaby's Account of Virginia-Washington, member of Assembly-His Marriage-Speaker Ro- binson's Compliment-Stobo-Germans on the Shenandoah-Miscellaneous.
THE Earl of Loudoun had been commissioned to fill Dinwid- die's place, but his military avocations prevented him from enter- ing on the duties of the gubernatorial office, and it is believed that he never visited the colony of Virginia. Pitt, now minister, had resolved on a vigorous prosecution of the war in America, and it was quickly felt in every part of the British empire that there was a man at the helm. The department of the Middle and Southern Colonies was entrusted to General Forbes, and he was ordered to undertake an expedition against Fort Du Quesne. Washington rejoined the army. Forbes having deferred the campaign too late, the French and Indians renewed their merci- less warfare. In the County of Augusta sixty persons were murdered. The Virginia troops were augmented to two thousand men, divided into two regiments: one under Washington, who was still commander-in-chief; the other, the new regiment, under Colonel William Byrd, of Westover. The strength of Colonel Byrd's regiment at Fort Cumberland (August 3d, 1758,) was eight hundred and fifty-nine .*
As late as 1758 there were some descendants of the Pamunkey Indians still residing on their original seat. The Rev. Andrew Burnaby makes mention of them in his Travels. A few words of their language were found surviving as late as 1844.
Francis Fauquier, appointed governor, now reached Virginia.
* The officers were Lieutenant-Colonel George Mercer, Major William Peachy, Captains S. Munford, Thomas Cocke, Hancock Eustace, John Field, John Posey, Thomas Fleming, John Roote, and Samuel Meredith.
(500)
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Late in June, 1758, the Virginia troops left Winchester, and early in July halted at Fort Cumberland .* At Washington's suggestion the light Indian dress, hunting-shirt and blanket, were adopted by the army. Contrary to his advice, Forbes, instead of marching immediately upon the Ohio, by Braddock's road, undertook to construct another from Raystown, in Pennsylvania. The general, it was supposed, was influenced by the Pennsylva- nians to open for them a more direct avenue of intercourse with the west. The new road caused great delay. In disregard of Washington's advice, Major Grant had been detached from the Loyal Hanna, with eight hundred men, to reconnoitre the coun- try about Fort Du Quesne. Presumptuous temerity involved the detachment in a surprise and defeat similar to Braddock's; Grant and Major Andrew Lewis were made prisoners. Of the eight Virginia officers present five were slain, a sixth wounded, and a seventh captured. Captain Thomas Bullit, and fifty Vir- ginians, defended the baggage with great resolution, and contri- buted to save the remnant of the detachment. He was the only officer who escaped unhurt. Of one hundred and sixty-two Vir- ginians, sixty-two were killed, and two wounded. Grant's total loss was two hundred and seventy-three killed, and forty-two wounded.
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