Historic Highways of America Volume III Part 5

Thus the first blow in the long b.l.o.o.d.y seven years' war was struck by the red-uniformed Virginians under Was.h.i.+ngton at the bottom of that Alleghany valley. He immediately returned to Great Meadows, sent eastward to the belated Fry for reinforcements, and westward a scouting party to keep watch of the enemy. On the 30th, the French prisoners were sent eastward to Virginia and the construction of a fort was begun at Great Meadows, by erecting "small palisades." This was completed by the following day, June 1st. Was.h.i.+ngton, in his _Journal_ under the date of June 25th, speaks of this fort as "Fort-Necessity."[10] The name suggests the exigencies which led to its erection: lack of troops and provisions. On June 2nd, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote in his _Journal_: "We had prayers in the Fort;"[11] the name Necessity may not have been used at first.

On the 6th, Gist arrived from Wills Creek, bringing the news of Colonel Fry's death by injuries sustained from being thrown from his horse. Thus the command now devolved upon Was.h.i.+ngton who had been in actual command from the beginning. On the 9th, the remainder of the Virginian regiment arrived from Wills Creek, with the swivels, under Colonel Muse. On the day following, Captain Mackaye arrived with the Independent Company of South Carolinians.

The reinforcements put a new face on affairs and it is clear that the new colonel commanding secretly hoped to capture Fort Duquesne forthwith. Was.h.i.+ngton's road was finished to Great Meadows. For two weeks, now, the work went on, completing it as far as Gist's, on Mount Braddock. In the mountains a sharp lookout for the French was maintained, and spies were continually sent to Fort Duquesne to report all that was happening there. Among all else that taxed the energies of the young colonel was the management of the Indian question. At one time he received and answered a deputation of Delawares and Shawanese which he knew was sent by the French as spies. Yet the answer of this youth to the "treacherous devils," as he calls them in his private record of the day, was as bland and diplomatic as that of Indian chieftain bred to hypocrisy and deceit. He put little faith in the redskins but made good use of those he had as spies, did all in his power to restrain the nations from joining the French, and offered to all who came or would come to him a hospitality he could ill afford.

On the 28th, his road was completed to Gist's and eight of the sixteen miles from Gist's to the mouth of Redstone creek. On this day the scouts brought word of reinforcements at Fort Duquesne and of preparations for sending out an army. Immediately Was.h.i.+ngton summoned Mackaye's company from Fort Necessity and the building of a fort was begun by throwing up entrenchments on Mount Braddock. All outlying squads were called in. But on the 30th, fresher information being at hand, it was decided at a council of war to retreat to Virginia rather than oppose the strong force which was advancing up the Monongahela.

The consternation at Fort Duquesne upon the arrival of the single, barefoot fugitive from Jumonville's company can be imagined. Relying on the pompous pretenses of the emba.s.sadors.h.i.+p and desiring to avoid an indefensible violation of the Treaty of Utrecht--though the spirit and letter were "already infringed by his very presence on the ground"--Contrecoeur, one of the best representatives of his proud king that ever came to America, a.s.sembled a council of war and ordered each opinion to be put in writing. Mercier gave moderate advice; Coulon-Villiers, half-brother of Jumonville, burning with rage, urged violent recrimination. Mercier prevailed, and an army of five hundred French and as many, or more, Indians, among whom were many Delawares, formerly friendly to the English, was raised to march and meet Was.h.i.+ngton. At his request the command was given to Coulon-Villiers--_Le Grand Villiers_, so-called from his prowess among the Indians. Mercier was second in command. This was the army before which Was.h.i.+ngton was now slowly, painfully, retreating from Mount Braddock toward Virginia.

It was a sad hour--that in which the Virginian retreat was ordered by the daring colonel, eager for a fight. But, even if he secretly wished to stay and defend the splendid site on Mount Braddock where he had entrenched his army, the counsel of older heads prevailed. It would have been better had the army stuck to those breastworks--but the suffering and humiliation to come was not foreseen.

Backward over the rough, new road the little army plodded, the Virginians hauling their swivels by hand. Two teams and a few packhorses were all that remained of horse-flesh equal to the occasion. Even Was.h.i.+ngton 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 was ill-advised. Human strength could not endure it. So there was nothing to do but send post-haste to Wills Creek for help. But, if strength were lacking--there was courage, and to spare! For after a "full and free" conference of the officers it was determined to enlarge the stockade, strengthen the fortifications, and await the enemy whatever his number and power.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SITE OF FORT NECESSITY]

The day following was spent in this work and famed Fort Necessity was completed. It was the shape of an irregular square situated upon a small height of land near the center of the swampy meadow. "The natural entrenchments" of which Was.h.i.+ngton speaks in his _Journal_ may have been merely this height of ground, or old courses of the two brooks which flow by it on the north and on the east. At any rate the fort was built on an "island," so to speak, in the wet lowland. A narrow neck of solid land connected it with the southern hillside, along which the road ran. A shallow ditch surrounded the earthen palisaded sides of the fort.

Parallel with the southeastern and southwestern palisades rifle-pits were dug. Bastion gateways offered entrance and exit. The works embraced less than a third of an acre of land. All day long skirmishers and double picket lines were kept out and the steady advance of the French force, three times the size of the army fearlessly awaiting it, was reported by hurrying scouts.

No army ever lay 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 Grand Villiers_, thirsting for revenge, lay not five miles off, with a thousand followers who had caught his spirit. And yet time was to show that this fiery temper was held in admirable control!

By earliest morning light on Wednesday, July 3, an English sentry was brought in wounded. The French were then descending Laurel Hill four miles distant. They had attacked the entrenchments on Mount Braddock the morning before, only to find their bird had flown, and now were pressing after the retreating redcoats and their "buckskin colonel."

Little is known of the story of this day within the earthen triangle, save as it is told in the meager details of the general battle. There was great lack of food, but, to compensate for this, as the soldiers no doubt thought, there was much to drink. By eleven o'clock the French and Indians, spreading throughout the forests on the northwest, began firing at six hundred yards' distance. Finally they circled to the southeast where the forests approached nearer to the English trenches. Was.h.i.+ngton at once drew his little army out of the fort and boldly challenged a.s.sault on the narrow neck of solid land on the south which formed the only approach to the fort.

But the crafty Villiers, not to be tempted, kept well within the forest shadows to the south and east--cutting off all retreat to Virginia.

Realizing at last that the French would not give battle, Was.h.i.+ngton withdrew again behind his entrenchments, Mackaye's South Carolinians occupying the rifle-pits which paralleled two sides of the fortification.

Here the all-day's battle was fought between the Virginians behind their breastworks and in their trenches, and the French and Indians on the ascending wooded hillsides. The rain which began to fall soon flooded Mackaye's men out of their trenches. But no other change of position was made all day. And, so far as the battle went, the English doggedly held their own. In the contest with hunger and rain, however, they were fighting a losing battle. The horses and cattle escaped and were slaughtered by the enemy. The provisions were nearly exhausted and the ammunition was far spent. As the afternoon waned, though there was some cessation in musketry fire, many guns being rendered useless by the rain, the smoking little swivels were made to do double duty. They bellowed their fierce defiance with unwonted zest as night came on, giving to the English an appearance of strength which they were far from possessing. The hungry soldiers made up for the lack of food from the abundance of liquor, which, in their exhausted state had more than its usual effect. By nightfall half the little doomed army, surrounded by the French and Indians, fifty miles from any succor, was in a pitiable condition! No doubt, had Villiers dared to rush the entrenchments, the English could have been annihilated. Their hopeless condition could not have been realized by the foe on the hills.

But it all was realized by the sober young colonel commanding. And as he looked about him in the wet twilight of that July day, what a dismal ending of his first campaign it must have seemed. Fifty-four of his three hundred and four men were killed or wounded. The loss among the ninety Carolinians is not known. At the same rate there were, in all, perhaps seventy-five killed or wounded in that little palisaded enclosure. Provisions and ammunition were about gone. Horses and cattle were lost. Many of the small arms were useless. The army was surrounded by _Le Grand Villiers_, watchfully abiding his time. And half the tired men were intoxicated by the only stimulant that could be spared.

What mercy could be hoped for from the brother of the dead Jumonville?

For these four hundred Spartans, a fight to the death, or at least a captivity at Duquesne or Quebec was all that could be expected--Jumonville's party having already been sent into Virginia as captives.

But at eight in the evening the French requested a parley. Was.h.i.+ngton 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 for a parley between the lines. To this Was.h.i.+ngton readily acceded, and Captain van Braam went to meet Le Mercier, who brought a verbal proposition from Villiers for the capitulation of Fort Necessity. To this proposition Was.h.i.+ngton and his officers listened. Twice the commissioners were sent to Villiers to submit modifications demanded by Was.h.i.+ngton. They returned a third time with the articles reduced to writing--but in French. Was.h.i.+ngton depended upon Van Braam's poor knowledge of French and mongrel English for a verbal translation. Jumonville's death was referred to as an a.s.sa.s.sination though Van Braam Englished the word "death"--perhaps thinking there was no other translation for the French _l'a.s.sa.s.sinat_. And by the light of a flickering candle, which the mountain wind frequently extinguished, the rain falling upon the company, George Was.h.i.+ngton signed this, his _first_ and his _last_, capitulation. It read as follows:

"ARTICLE 1^{st}. We permit the English Commander to withdraw with all the garrison, in order that he may return peaceably to his country, and to s.h.i.+eld him from all insult at the hands of our French, and to restrain the savages who are with us as much as may be in our power.

"ART. 2^{nd}. He shall be permitted to withdraw and to take with him whatever belongs to his troops, _except the artillery, which we reserve for ourselves_.

"ART. 3^{rd}. We grant them the honors of war; they shall withdraw with beating drums, and with a small piece of cannon, wis.h.i.+ng by this means to show that we consider them friends.

"ART. 4^{th}. As soon as these articles shall be signed by both parties, they shall take down the English flag.

"ART. 5^{th}. Tomorrow at daybreak a detachment of French shall lead forth the garrison and take possession of the aforesaid fort.

"ART. 6^{th}. Since the English have scarcely any horses or oxen left, they shall be allowed to hide their property, in order that they may return to seek for it after they shall have recovered their horses; for this purpose they shall be permitted to leave such number of troops as guards as they may think proper, _under this condition, that they give their word of honor that they will work on no establishment either in the surrounding country or beyond the Highlands during one year beginning from this day_.

"ART. 7^{th}. Since the English have in their power an officer and two cadets, and, in general, all the prisoners whom they took _when they murdered Lord Jumonville_, they now promise to send them, with an escort to Fort Duquesne, situated on Belle River, and to secure the safe performance of this treaty article, _as well as of the treaty_, Messrs. Jacob van Braam and Robert Stobo, both Captains, shall be delivered to us as hostages until the arrival of our French and Canadians herein before mentioned.

"We on our part declare that we shall give an escort to send back in safety the two officers who promise us our French in two months and a half at the latest.

"Copied on one of the posts of our block-house the same day and year as before.

(Signed.) MESSRS. JAMES MACKAYE, G^c.

G^o. WAs.h.i.+NGTON, COULON VILLIER."[12]

The parts in italics were those misrepresented by Van Braam. The words _pendant une annee a compter de ce jour_ are not found in the articles printed by the French government, as though it repudiated Villier's intimation that the English should ever return. But within sixty-three hours of a year, an English army, eight times as great as the party now capitulating, marched across this battle-field. The nice courtesy shown by the young colonel, in allowing Captain Mackaye's name to take precedence over his own, is significant, as Mackaye, a king's officer, had never considered himself amenable to Was.h.i.+ngton's orders, and his troops had steadily refused to bear the brunt of the campaign--working on the road or transporting guns and baggage. In the trenches, however, the Carolinians did their duty.

And so, on the morning of July 4th, 1753, the red-uniformed Virginians and king's troops marched out from Fort Necessity between the files of French, with all the honors of war and _tambour battant_. Much baggage had to be destroyed to save it from the Indians whom the French could not restrain. Such was the condition of the men--the wounded being carried on stretchers--that only three miles could be made on the homeward march the first day. However glorious later July Fourths may have seemed to Was.h.i.+ngton, memories of the distress and gloom and humiliation of this day ever served to temper his joys. The report of the officers of the Virginia regiment made at Wills Creek, where they arrived July 9th, shows thirteen killed, fifty-three wounded, thirteen left lame on the road, twenty-seven absent, twenty-one sick, and one hundred and sixty-five fit for duty.

On August 30th, the Virginian House of Burgesses pa.s.sed a vote of thanks to "Colonel George Was.h.i.+ngton, Captain Mackaye of his Majesty's Independent Company, and the officers under his command," for their "gallant and brave Behaviour in Defense of their Country." The sting of defeat was softened by the public realization of the odds of the contest and the failure of Dinwiddie to forward reinforcements and provisions. A characteristic scene was enacted in the House when, Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton having entered the gallery, the burgesses rose to express their respect for the young officer who had led the first English army across the Alleghanies. The colonel attempted to return thanks for the conspicuous recognition, but, though he had faced unflinchingly the French and the Indians, he was overcome with embarra.s.sment at this involuntary, warm tribute of his friends. But the young hero was deeply chagrined at his being duped to recognize Jumonville's death as an a.s.sa.s.sination. Captain van Braam, being held in disrepute for what was probably nothing more culpable than carelessness, was not named in the vote of thanks tendered Was.h.i.+ngton's officers.

But this chagrin was no more cutting than the obstinacy of Dinwiddie in refusing to fulfill the article of the treaty concerning the return of the French prisoners. For this there was little or no valid excuse, and Dinwiddie's action in thus playing fast and loose with Was.h.i.+ngton's reputation was as galling to the young colonel as it was heedless of his country's honor and the laws of war.

Was.h.i.+ngton's first visit to the Ohio had proven French occupation of that great valley. This, his second mission, had proven their power.

With this campaign began his military career. "Although as yet a youth,"

writes Sparks, "with small experience, unskilled in war, and relying on his own resources, he had behaved with the prudence, address, courage, and firmness of a veteran commander. Rigid in discipline, but sharing the hards.h.i.+ps 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 surpa.s.sed."

The few memorials of this little campaign are of great interest and value since it marked the beginning of the struggle of our national independence, and because of Was.h.i.+ngton's prominence in it. Of the beginning of Was.h.i.+ngton's fort on Mount Braddock nothing whatever remains save the record of it, which should be enough--though it is not--to silence all who, with gross ignorance of the facts, have imputed to the young commander a lack of military skill in choosing the site in Great Meadows for Fort Necessity. Criticisms of Was.h.i.+ngton on this score are ridiculous misrepresentations. The fact that Was.h.i.+ngton chose Mount Braddock for his fort and battle-ground has, unfortunately, never been emphasized by historians.

The Great Meadows, sunny and fair, lie quietly between their hills dreaming even yet of the young hero whose name is indissolubly linked with their own. The gently sloping hills are now quite cleared of forests--save on the southeast, where, as in the old days, the forests still approach nearest the bottom land. For half a century after Was.h.i.+ngton capitulated, his roadway from the Potomac was the great highway across the mountains, and thousands of weary pilgrims to the great West camped near the spot where the Father of the West fought his first battle for it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the c.u.mberland Road, the historic highway of America, was built through Great Meadows, and the northern hill--on which the French opened the first battle of the French and Indian War on that July morning--over which the great road was built is named Mount Was.h.i.+ngton.

On a plateau surrounded by low ground at the western extremity of cla.s.sic Great Meadows, Fort Necessity was built, and there may be seen today the remains of its palisades.

The site was not chosen because of its strategic location, but because, late in that May day, a century and a half ago, a little army hurrying forward to find any spot where it could defend itself, selected it because of the supply of water afforded by the brooks.

From the hill to the east the young commander no doubt looked with anxious eyes upon this well-watered meadow, and perhaps he decided quickly to make his resistance here. As he neared the spot his hopes rose, for he found that the plateau was surrounded by wet ground and accessible only from the southern side. Moreover the plateau contained "natural fortifications," as Was.h.i.+ngton termed them, possibly gullies torn through it, sometime when the brooks were out of banks.

Here Was.h.i.+ngton quickly ensconced his men. From their trenches, as they looked westward for the French, lay the western extremity of Great Meadows covered with bushes and rank gra.s.ses. To their right--the north--the meadow marsh stretched more than a hundred yards to the gently ascending wooded hillside. Behind them lay the eastern sweep of meadows, and to their left, seventy yards distant, the wooded hillside to the south. The high ground on which they lay contained about forty square rods, and was bounded on the north by Great Meadows brook and on the east by a brooklet which descended from the valley between the southern hills.

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. Bastion gateways, three in number, were made in the western palisade.

The first recorded survey of Fort Necessity was made by Mr. Freeman Lewis, senior author, with Mr. James Veech, of _The Monongahela of Old_, in 1816. This survey was first reproduced in Lowdermilk's _History of c.u.mberland_;[13] it is described by Mr. Veech in _The Monongahela of Old_,[14] and has been reproduced as authoritative, by the authors of _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_, published in 1895 by the state of Pennsylvania.[15] The embankments are described thus by Mr. Veech on the basis of his collaborator's survey: "It [Fort Necessity] was in the form of an obtuse-angled triangle of 105 degrees, having its base or hypothenuse upon the run. The line of the base was about midway, sected or broken, and about two perches of it thrown across the run, connecting with the base by lines of the triangle. One line of the angle was six, the other seven perches; the base line eleven perches long, including the section thrown across the run. The lines embraced in all about fifty square perches of land on [or?] nearly one third of an acre."

This amusing statement has been seriously quoted by the authorities mentioned, and a map is made according to it and published in the _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_ without a word as to its inconsistencies. How could a triangle, the sides of which measure six, seven, and eleven rods, contain fifty square rods or one-third of an acre? It could not contain half that amount.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWO PLANS OF FORT NECESSITY [_A, Plan of Lewis's Survey; B, Sparks's Plan_]]

The present writer went to Fort Necessity armed with this two-page map of Fort Necessity in the _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_ which he trusted as authoritative. The present owner of the land, Mr. Lewis Fazenbaker, objected to the map, and it was only in trying to prove its correctness that its inconsistencies were discovered.

The mounds now standing on the ground are drawn on the appended chart _Diagrams of Fort Necessity_ as lines C A B E. By a careful survey of them by Mr. Robert McCracken C.E., sides C A and A B are found to be the identical mounds surveyed by Mr. Lewis, the variation in direction being exceedingly slight and easily accounted for by erosion. The direction of Mr. Lewis's sides were N. 25 W. and S. 80 W.: their direction by Mr.

McCracken's survey are N. 22 W. and S. 80.30 W. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the embankments surveyed in 1816 and 1901 are identical.

But the third mound B E runs utterly at variance with Mr. Lewis's figure. By him its direction was S. 59-1/4 E.; its present direction is S. 76 E. The question then arises: Is this mound the one that Mr. Lewis surveyed? Nothing could be better evidence that it is than the very egregious error Mr. Lewis made concerning the area contained within his triangular embankment. He affirms that the area of Fort Necessity was fifty square rods. Now take the line of B E for the third side of the triangle and extend it to F where it would meet the continuation of side A C. _That triangle contains almost exactly 50 square rods or one-third of an acre!_ The natural supposition must be that some one had surveyed the triangle A F B and computed its area correctly as about fifty square rods. The mere recording of this area is sufficient evidence that the triangle A F B had been surveyed in 1816, and this is sufficient proof that mound B E stood just as it stands today and was considered in Mr.

Lewis's day as one of the embankments of Fort Necessity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DIAGRAMS OF FORT NECESSITY [_Scale 80 feet to the inch._]]

Now, why did Mr. Lewis ignore the embankment B E and the triangle A F B which contained these fifty square rods he gave as the area of Fort Necessity? For the very obvious reason that that triangle crossed the brook and ran far into the marsh beyond. By every account the palisades of Fort Necessity were made to extend on the north to touch the brook, therefore it would be quite ridiculous to suppose the palisades crossed the brook again on the east. Mr. Lewis, prepossessed with the idea that the embankments must have been triangular in shape, drew the line B C as the base of his triangle, bisecting it at M and N, and making the loop M S N touch the brook. This design (triangle A B C) of Fort Necessity is improbable for the following reasons: