W

XIV

BRADDOCK TAKES HIS ADVICE

ASHINGTON always made war at his own expense. Close as he had to be in financial matters, he was generous to those in real need, and never so generous as when his country was in need. He loved fighting so well that he was ready to fight for nothing-or even less.

And now, foreseeing neither the tempest nor the after splendor, nor any of the following storms and calms, the commissionless and wageless young Mr. Washington was proud enough of the fact that he was convoying four thousand pounds of cash across the country with an army of eight comic and dubious militiamen as his entire command. He had to threaten to have them flogged to keep them sober enough to stay on their horses.

When he galloped into camp, he learned that a miracle had happened: the army had already begun to movethough "already" is flattery, seeing that Braddock had arrived in February, and on May 29th was able to push out only five or six hundred men under Major Chapman, with two field pieces and fifty wagons.

The engineers, under Quartermaster-General Sir John St. Clair, were still chopping down the trees and grubbing the stumps to open a swathe wide enough for the wagons. The road they cut still lives in places as a long "unhealed wound" across the landscape.1

The vanguard trickled away so slowly into the jungle that it was not until June eighth that Sir Peter Halkett could

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get away with the first brigade of 984 men, including 700 Grenadier Guards of the 44th Regiment, two independent companies from New York, commanded by Captains Rutherford and Gates-this latter the Gates to whom Burgoyne would surrender in an unimaginable war, and who came within an ace of replacing as Commander-in-Chief the same George Washington who was Braddock's aide. There were also in this brigade Captain Polson's carpenters and two companies of Virginia Rangers, as well as forty-nine Maryland Rangers under Captain Dagworthy, with whom Washington would soon be having a quarrel that drove him north into another love affair.

Sir Peter Halkett was an old soldier who had been captured by Charles Edward the Pretender in 1745, and released on parole. When he was ordered by the Duke of Cumberland to return to the war against the Pretender, he had the strength to refuse, saying "His Royal Highness is master of my commission but not of my honor."

Which makes some contrast with Washington's appearance here, though he and many others with him at Fort Necessity had been released by the French on their word of honor not to come back.

The King had defended Halkett from Cumberland and he was sent out with Braddock. In his command was his son James, who shared his fate with devoted heroism. In this army went also to his death the young son of Governor Shirley.

On June ninth the Second Brigade of 993 men set out, its commander, Colonel Dunbar, being detached for rearguard duty and Lieutenant-Colonel Gage of the Fortyeighth regulars taking his place. This was the very Gage who caused so much trouble later in Boston, where he was besieged by Braddock's aid-de-camp, Mr. Washington.

In Gage's brigade were rangers from North and South

Carolina, three companies of Virginia rangers and a company of carpenters.

On the 10th, Braddock moved off with the rest of the army, taking with him the unsuspected grandeur of Washington.

The seventh of June had been a busy day for the youth. Though he must have had much to do in carrying messages to put the first brigade under way in the morning, and the camp must have been clamorous with bugles, drums and all the last moment panic of getting an army started, he found time to write four letters, one to his mother, one to his brother, one to William Fairfax, and one to Sally.

By some irony of mismanagement, he received in this remote and turbulent camp a letter from his mother asking him to get her a Dutch servant and some butter!

He answered with the greatest respect and patience: "Hon'd Madam, I was favored with your letter, by Mr. Dick, and am sorry it is not in my power to provide you with a Dutch servant, or the butter, agreeably to your desire. We are quite out of the part of the country where either is to be had, there being few or no inhabitants where we now lie encamped, and butter cannot be had here to supply the wants of the army. . . . I hope you will spend the chief part of your time at Mount Vernon, as you have proposed to do, where I am certain every thing will be ordered as much to your satisfaction as possible, in the situation we are in there."

In the gossipy letter to old Fairfax he described his safe arrival with the money, commented on Braddock's inability to argue reasonably with him, as already quoted, spoke angrily of the Pennsylvanians as deserving a flogging; told how the bloody flux had filled one hospital and was growing worse, though it had "not yet proved mortal to many."

He paid his old chief, Colonel Innes, a left-handed com

pliment, saying that he had "accepted of a Commission to be Governor of Fort Cumberland, where he is to reside: and will shortly receive another to be hangman, or something of that kind, and for which he is equally qualified."

He mentioned the news that three hundred Frenchmen had been seen on their way to Fort Du Quesne, and more were expected, and nine hundred had certainly gone thither already: "So that from these accounts we have reason to believe, that we shall have more to do than to go up the hills and come down."

He ended with, "We are impatient to hear what the powers at home are doing; whether peace, or war is like to be the issue of all these preparations." *

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An odd query! He was with an army en route to battle and everybody wondered if war would be declared?

Governor Dinwiddie, nine days later, was writing to Braddock that his letters from England "say y't War is unavoidable, and I am apt to think before y's it is declar'd." But it was not.

Washington's letter to Sally Fairfax showed a more serious concern as to whether or not she had declared war against him.

His letter to her was prepared for delivery under cover to some common friend of theirs, who must have been in the secret, and whose memoirs would be interesting, indeed. It was probably his brother Jack, to whom he had entrusted other secrets.

Washington refers to his safe arrival with the treasure chest as something that, he imagined, must have delighted her as much as it did him. But he is deeply alarmed by the fear that, in asking him not to address his letters to her openly, she might be hinting that she would have preferred that he did not address her at all.

Sally was plainly a woman who kept him guessing. She

keeps us guessing also, for in the very letter that describes her insistence that the correspondence shall be clandestine, Washington asks her to make his compliments to "Miss Hannah and Mr. Bryan."

Now Hannah was the daughter of William Fairfax and the youngest sister of Sally's husband, George William; while Bryan Fairfax was George William's half-brother (nine years younger and the son of the third of William Fairfax's three wives, George William being the son of the second).

Washington's hidden correspondence with Sally was a strange secret to be kept by so many close relatives. How the husband was kept out of it, it is difficult to understand, but he was at this time a colonel in the militia of Frederick County; and he was doubtless absent from home recruiting men, since Dinwiddie more than once refers to money sent to him to pay off troops.

Frederick was one of the western frontier colonies, and along with Hampshire and Augusta (which stretched into the Shenandoah Valley) would receive the first attentions of any Indian marauders.

Lord Fairfax must have been with George William, for on July fourth, Governor Dinwiddie wrote urging him to call out the Frederick and Hampshire militia and organize rangers to protect the frontiers where Indians in a sudden descent had butchered nine families.

Lord Fairfax and Colonel George William, or their troops, evidently had scruples against marching beyond the county boundaries, for Dinwiddie, after writing, "I entreat Y'r L'ds will imediately put the foremention'd Orders in execu'n," wrote to another officer, Colonel Martin, that he was "surpriz'd Lord Fairfax sh'd scruple in march'g the Militia out of Frederick C'ty."

He learned that the people were in too great a "pannick"