Part 4 (1/2)

Was.h.i.+ngton's intimate a.s.sociate, Dr. Hugh Mercer, was so severely wounded in the shoulder that he could not keep up with the fugitives.

He hid in a fallen tree and witnessed the terrible scenes of the battlefield after the soldiers had fled. The wounded were tortured, scalped and all were stripped of everything the Indians could use.

Then the wild horde left, yelling through the woods, waving aloft the scalps. The Indians were bedecked with glittering uniforms, and loaded with booty.

Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography that ”this whole transaction gave us the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the powers of British regular troops had not been well founded.”

What Was.h.i.+ngton thought about it all is well summed up and very tersely expressed in a letter to his half-brother Augustine. It shows us what all this had done for the loyal and patriotic mind of Was.h.i.+ngton. It reveals how his mind, like that of other colonists, was being prepared for the event, that led to a break with the home-country England.

In that very expressive letter he says, ”I was employed to go a journey in Winter, when I believe few or none would have undertaken it, and what did I get by it?--my expenses home! I was then appointed, with trifling pay, to conduct a handful of men to the Ohio. What did I get by that? Why, after putting myself to a considerable expense in equipping and providing necessaries for the campaign, I went out, was soundly beaten and lost all! Came in and had my commission taken from me; or, in other words, my command reduced, under pretense of an order from home (England). I then went out a volunteer with General Braddock, and lost all my horses, and many other things. But, this being a voluntary act, I ought not to have mentioned it; nor should I have done so, were it not to show that I have been on the losing order ever since I entered the service, which is now nearly two years.”

This historical summary was the experience in divers ways of very many colonists, but they did not have any; suggestion of how that bitter experience was really to become a great blessing to the cause of liberty throughout the earth.

III. SOME PERSONAL INTERESTS AT HOME

Here and there we catch glimpses of Was.h.i.+ngton showing that he was not the sculptured majesty that was pictured for his youth by writers in the early decades of the nineteenth century. We prefer to think of him as sympathetic, gallant, and enjoying the familiar courtesies of common life. That Was.h.i.+ngton was not without social friends.h.i.+p is shown in a note which he received from three young ladies written him from Belvoir on his return from the French and Indian war. It speaks for itself:

”Dear Sir:

”After thanking heaven for your safe return, I must accuse you of great unkindness in refusing us the pleasure of seeing you this evening. If you will not come to us tomorrow morning very early, we shall be at Mount Vernon.

”SALLIE FAIRFAX.

ANN SPEARING.

ELIZABETH DENT.”

There is no record to complete the picture of these young ladies'

interest in Was.h.i.+ngton, but if they could have such a view of his sociability with such propriety, we may be sure that he was not above the common human sympathies that fill the hard lines of life.

Was.h.i.+ngton's connection with the army had ceased at the death of Braddock, but he was still adjutant-general of the northern division of the Province. Braddock's defeat had thoroughly frightened the colonists, and panic-stricken rumors surged around that French and Indians were about to make incursions here and there and everywhere.

The slow-going legislative bodies suddenly woke up and voted the organization of ample supplies and men. An undignified scramble took place for favorites to be given high commands. Was.h.i.+ngton was urged by his friends to be a candidate, but he refused. As to this matter he wrote, ”If the command should be offered me, the case will then be altered, as I should be at liberty to make such objections as reason, and my small experience, have pointed out.”

In the midst of this turmoil he received a letter from his mother begging him not to go back into the war but to return to his home-life and become a business man. His reply to her is quite significant of the character of Was.h.i.+ngton:

”Honored Madam:

”If it is in my power to avoid going to the Ohio again, I shall; but if the command is pressed upon me by the general voice of the country, and offered upon such terms as can not be objected against, it would reflect dishonor upon me to refuse it; and that, I am sure, must, and ought to give you greater uneasiness than my going in an honorable command. Upon no other terms will I accept it. At present, I have no proposals made to me, nor have I any advice of such an intention, except from private hands.”

But, it so happened that on the same day, after this letter had been sent away, he received the news that he had been appointed commander-in-chief of all the forces of Virginia, and upon the terms he had outlined to his friends. Besides, his closest friends were appointed officers next in command to him.

This was a triumph over Governor Dinwiddie, who had a special favorite whom he had pressed hard for the appointment. It was also made for a man who had risen to that esteem among his countrymen, not through victories but through defeats, not through success but through failure. And, it must be remembered, that Was.h.i.+ngton was not yet twenty-four years old. But the general esteem in which he was held may be gathered from a statement made in a sermon at the time of his appointment, by the Rev. Samuel Davis. It might have been mere enthusiasm, but, in the light of such great subsequent events, it looked like prophecy.

He turned from his religious theme to the needs of the colonies, and then spoke of ”that heroic youth, Colonel George Was.h.i.+ngton, whom I can not but hope Providence has. .h.i.therto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.”

CHAPTER VII

THE FATE OF THE OHIO VALLEY