Archer Butler Hulbert

“ Beside this all-night march from Great Meadows to Washington’s Spring, Wolf’s ascent to the Plains of Abraham at Quebec, was a past-time. The climb up from Wolf’s Cove (all romantic accounts and pictures to the contrary notwithstanding) was an exceedingly easy march up a valley that hardly deserved to be called steep. A child can run along Wolfe’s path at any point from top to bottom. A man in full daylight today, can walk over Washington’s five mile course to Laurel Hill in half the time the little army needed on that black night. ”

“ It is not to be doubted that George Washington knew the dangers he courted, at least very much better than we can appreciate them today. He had not lived three years on the frontier for nothing. He had heard of these French—of their bold invasion of the West, their growing trade, their cunning conciliation of the Indian, their sudden passion for fort building when they heard of the grant of land to the Ohio Company to which his brothers belonged. ”

“ And, again, did he not quote that pathetic letter from the youth Washington to Governor Dinwiddie from the bleeding Virginia border, after Braddock’s defeat, that his hearers might “see it all—see the whole man.”? Was Edward Everett mistaken, are these letters not extant today, or are they unread? Surely the latter supposition must be the true one if the man Washington is being forgotten.
A candid review of the more popular school histories will bring out the fact that the man Washington is almost forgotten, in so far as the General and statesman do not portray him. ”

“ No statesman of his day came to know and believe in the West as Washington did; and it is not difficult to think that had he not so known and loved it, the territory west of the Allegheny mountains would never have become a portion of the United States of America. There were far too many serious men like Thomas Jefferson who knew little about the West and boasted that they cared less. Yet today the seaboard states are more dependent commercially and politically on the states between the Alleghenies and Mississippi than are these central commonwealths dependent on them. ”

“ No army ever slept on its arms of a night surer of a battle on the morrow than did this first English army that ever came into the west. Le Grande Villiers, thirsting for revenge, lay not five miles off, with a thousand followers who had caught his spirit.
By earliest morning light on Wednesday, July third, an English sentry was brought in wounded. The French were then descending Laurel Hill, four miles distant. ”

“ Backward over the rough, new road, the little army plodded, the Virginians hauling the swivels by hand. Two teams and a few pack-horses were all that remained of horse-flesh equal to the occasion. Even Washington and his officers walked. For a week there had been no bread. In two days Fort Necessity was reached, where, quite exhausted, the little army went into camp. There were only a few bags of flour here. It was plain, now, that the retreat to Virginia was ill-advised. Human strength was not equal to it. So there was nothing to do but send post-haste to Will’s Creek for help. ”

“ Let this picture [Pg 13] hang on the walls of every home where the lad in the fore-ground before the blazing logs is unknown save in the role of the general or statesman he became in later life.
How those French officers must have looked this tall, stern boy up and down! How they enjoyed sneering in his face at English backwardness in coming over the Alleghenies into the great West which their explorers had honeycombed with a thousand swift canoes! As they even plotted his assassination, how, in turn, that young heart must have burned to stop their mouths with his hand. ”

“ Enthusiastic tourists make the journey today from Great Meadows to the summit of Laurel Hill on the track over which Washington and his hundred men floundered and stumbled that wet May night a century and a half ago. It is a hard walk but exceedingly fruitful to one of imaginative vision. ”

“ In one of the best known school histories there seems to be but one line, of five words, which describes the character of Washington. Could we not forego, for once, what the Indian chieftain said of his bearing a charmed life at Braddock’s defeat, to make room for one little reason why Washington was “completer in nature” and of “a nobler human type” than any and all of the heroes of romance? ”

“ Coming suddenly out on the rocks, Washington leading the right division and Half-King the left, it was plain in the twinkling of an eye that it would not be possible to achieve a bloodless victory. Washington therefore gave and received first fire. It was fifteen minutes before the astonished but doughty French, probably now surrounded by Half-King’s Indians, were compelled to surrender. Ten of their number, including their “Embassador” Jumonville, were killed outright and one wounded. ”

“ The march of five miles had been accomplished, with great difficulty, in a little less than two hours—or at the rate of one mile in two hours.
Forgetting all else for the moment, consider the young leader of this floundering, stumbling army. There is not another episode in all Washington’s long, eventful, life that shows more clearly his strength of personal determination and daring. ”

“ But the Governor was too much in the dark as to the operations of the French to warrant any decisive step, and he immediately cast about him for an envoy whom he could trust to find out what was really happening in the valley of the Ohio.
Who was to be this envoy? The mission called for a person of unusual capacity; a diplomat, a soldier and a frontiersman. Five hundred miles were to be threaded on Indian trails in the dead of winter. This was woodman’s work. There were cunning Indian chieftains and French officers, trained to intrigue, to be met, influenced, conciliated. ”

“ For in what did Colonel Washington need training more than in the art of manoeuvring a handful of ill-equipped, discouraged men? What lesson did that youth need more than the lesson that Right becomes Might in God’s own good time? ”

“ Washington did not know and could not have known that Jumonville was an embassador. The action of the French in approaching Great Meadows and then withdrawing and hiding was not the behavior of an embassy. Half-King and his Indians were of the opinion that the French party entertained evil designs, and, as Washington afterwards wrote, “If we had been such fools as to let them (the French) go, they (the Indians) would never have helped us to take any other Frenchmen.” ”

“ The landing of the French at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela already thwarted Governor Dinwiddie’s purpose in sending out the expedition “To prevent their (French) building any Forts or making any Settlem’s on that river (Ohio) and more particularly so nigh us as that of Loggstown (fifteen miles below the forks of the Ohio.) ” Now that a fort was building, with a French army of a thousand men (as Washington had been erroneously informed) encamped about it, nothing more was to be thought of than a cautious advance. ”

“ But on the day following Half-King was lured away, Venango being reached in six long days, a large part of the time being spent in dragging the canoes over icy shoals.
Four days were spent with Joncaire, when abandoning both horses and Indians, Washington and Gist set out alone and afoot by the shortest course to the Forks of the Ohio. It was a daring alternative but altogether the preferable one. At Murdering Town, a fit place for Joncaire’s assassin to lie in wait, some French Indians were overtaken, one of whom offered to guide the travelers across to the Forks. ”

“ The first roof to offer Washington hospitable shelter was the cabin of the trader Frazier at the mouth of Turtle Creek, on the Monongahela, near the death-trap where soon that desperate horde of French and Indians should put to flight an army five times its own number. ”

“ And here in these Allegheny glades we catch the most precious pictures of the lithe, keen-eyed, sober lad, who, taking his lessons of truth and uprightness from his widowed mother’s knee, his strength hardened by the power of the mountain rivers, his heart, now thrilled by the songs of the mountain birds, now tempered by a St. Piere’s hauteur, a Braddock’s blind insolence, or the [Pg 56] prejudiced over-rulings of a Forbes, became the hero of Valley Forge and Yorktown, the immeasurable superior of Piere, Braddock, Forbes, Kaunitz or Newcastle. ”

“ At eight in the evening the French requested a parley and Washington refused to consider the suggestion. Why should a parley be desired with an enemy in such a hopeless strait as they? It was clear that Villiers had resorted to this strategy to gain better information of their condition. But the request was soon repeated, and this time Villiers asked for a parley between the lines. To this Washington readily acceded, and Captain van Braam went to meet le Mercier, who brought a verbal proposition for the capitulation of Fort Necessity from Villiers. ”

“ There is little doubt that the bark came from the logs of the palisades of Fort Necessity, though nothing is to be gained by exaggerating the possibility. Bark, here in the low ground, would last indefinitely, and water was reached under this mound sooner than at any other point. No wood was found. It is probable that the French threw down the palisades, but bark would naturally have been left [Pg 54] in the ground. If wood had been left it would not withstand decay so long as bark. Competent judges declare the bark to be that of oak. ”

“ Having all Things in readiness You are to use all Expedition in proceeding to the Fork of Ohio with the Men under Com’d and there you are to finish and compleat in the best Manner and as soon as You possibly can, the Fort w’ch I expect is there already begun by the Ohio Comp’a. You are to act on the Defensive, but in Case any Attempts are made to obstruct the Works or interrupt our Settlem’ts by any Persons whatsoever You are to restrain all such Offenders, and in Case of resistance to make Prisoners of or kill and destroy them. ”

“ If a more difficult ten-hour night march has been made in the history of warfare in America, who led it and where was it made? No feature of the campaign shows more clearly the unmatched, irresistible energy of this twenty-two-year-old boy. For those to whom Washington, the man, is “unknown,” there are lessons in this little briery path today of value far beyond their cost.
MAP OF FORT NECESSITY IN LOWDERMILK’S “HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND”, FROM FREEMAN LEWIS’ SURVEY.
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Whether Washington intended to attack the French before he reached Half-King is not known ”

“ It is extremely difficult to construct anything like a clear statement of Indian affiliations at this crisis. This territory west of the Alleghenies, nominally purchased from the Six Nations, was claimed by the Shawanese and Delawares who had since come into it, and also by many fugitives from the Six Nations, known generally as Mingoes, who had come to make their hunting grounds their home. Though the Delaware King was only a “Half-King” (because subject to the [Pg 9] Council of the Six Nations) yet they claimed the land and had even resisted French encroachment. ”

“ On the eastern side, Laurel Hill descends into a valley varying from a hundred to five hundred feet deep. Nearly two miles from the Spring, in the bottom of a valley four hundred feet deep, lay Jumonville’s “embassy.” The attacking party, guided by Indians, who had previously wriggled down the hillside on their bellies and found the French, advanced along the Indian trail and then turned off and began stealthily creeping down the mountain-side. ”

“ Washington found the Governor’s council was to [Pg 18] meet the day following and that his report was desired. Accordingly he rewrote his Journal from the “rough minutes” he had made. From any point of view this document of ten thousand words, hastily written by a lad of twenty-one who had not seen a school desk since his seventeenth year, is far more creditable and remarkable than any of the feats of physical endurance for which the lad is idolized by the youthful readers of our school histories. ”

“ When, in the days following, Fort Necessity was raised, the palisades, it is said, were made by erecting logs on one end, side by side, and throwing dirt against them from both sides. As there were no trees in the meadow, the logs were brought from the southern hillside over the narrow neck of solid ground to their place. On the north the palisade was made to touch the waters of the brook. Without its embankments on the south and west sides, two trenches were dug parallel with the embankments, to serve as rifle-pits. ”

“ Major Washington was located at Alexandria, on the upper Potomac, in February where he superintended the rendezvous and the transportation of supplies and cannon. It was found necessary to resort to impressments to raise the required quota of men. As early as February 19th, so slow were the drafts and enlistments, Governor Dinwiddie issued a proclamation granting two hundred thousand acres of land on the Ohio to be divided among the officers and men who would serve in the expedition. ”

“ Rigid in discipline, but sharing the hardships and solicitous for the welfare of his soldiers, he had secured their obedience and won their esteem amidst privations, sufferings and perils that have seldom been surpassed. ”

“ Coulon-Villiers, half-brother of Jumonville, burning with rage, urged violent measures. Mercier prevailed, and an army of five hundred French and as many, or more, Indians, among whom were many Delawares, formerly friends of the English, was raised to march and meet Washington. At his request, the command was given to Coulon-Villiers—Le Grande Villiers, so called from his prowess among the Indians. Mercier was second in command. This was the army before which Washington was now slowly, painfully, retreating from Mount Braddock toward Virginia. ”

“ Perhaps a war was never precipitated under stranger circumstances. Contrecoeur, commanding at Fort Duquesne, was made aware by his Indian scouts of Washington’s progress all the way from the Potomac. The day before Washington arrived at Great Meadows Contrecoeur ordered M. de Jumonville to leave Fort Duquesne with a detachment of thirty-four men, commanded by la Force, and go toward the advancing English. ”

“ On August 30th, the Virginian House of Burgesses passed a vote of thanks to “Colonel George Washington, Captain Mackaye of his Majesty’s Independent Company, and the officers under his command,” for their “gallant and brave Behavior in Defence of their Country.” The sting of defeat was softened by a public realization of the odds of the contest and the failure of Dinwiddie to forward reinforcements and supplies. ”