Part 1 (2/2)
Immediately on the loss of this fort, Virginia sent a force under Was.h.i.+ngton to retake it. Was.h.i.+ngton surprised a French detachment near Great Meadows, and killed their commander, Jumonville. When a larger expedition came against him, he put up a stockade near the site of Uniontown, naming it Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to yield on terms permitting him to march away with the honors of war.
V
The next year (1755) General Edward Braddock came over with two regiments of British soldiers, and after augmenting his force with Colonial troops and a few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort Duquesne. Braddock's testy disposition, his consuming egotism, his contempt for the Colonial soldiers, and his stubborn adherence to military maxims that were inapplicable to the warfare of the wilderness, alienated the respect and confidence of the American contingent, robbed him of an easy victory, and cost him his life. Benjamin Franklin had warned him against the imminent risk of Indian ambuscades, but he had contemptuously replied: ”These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression.” Some of his English staff-officers urged him to send the rangers in advance and to deploy his Indians as scouts, but he rejected their prudent suggestions with a sneer. On July 9 his army, comprising twenty-two hundred soldiers and one hundred and fifty Indians, was marching down the south bank of the Monongahela. The variant color and fas.h.i.+on of the expedition,--the red-coated regulars, the blue-coated Americans, the naval detachment, the rangers in deerskin s.h.i.+rts and leggins, the savages half-naked and befeathered, the glint of sword and gun in the hot daylight, the long wagon train, the lumbering cannon, the drove of bullocks, the royal banner and the Colonial gonfalon,--the pomp and puissance of it all composed a spectacle of martial splendor unseen in that country before. On the right was the tranquil river, and on the left the trackless wilderness whence the startled deer sprang into a deeper solitude. At noon the expedition crossed the river and pressed on toward Fort Duquesne, eight miles below, expectant of victory. What need to send out scouts when the king's troops are here? Let young George Was.h.i.+ngton and the rest urge it all they may; the thing is beneath the dignity of his majesty's general.
Meanwhile, all was not tranquil at the French fort. Surrender was talked of, but Captain Beaujeu determined to lead a force out to meet the approaching army. Taking with him a total effective of thirty-six officers and cadets, seventy-two regular soldiers, one hundred and forty-six Canadians, and about six hundred Indian warriors, a command less than half the number of the enemy, he sallied out to meet him. How insignificant were the armed forces with which the two empires were now challenging each other for the splendid prize of a new world! Beaujeu, gaily clad in a fringed hunting dress, intrepidly pressed on until he came in sight of the English invaders. As soon as the alert French commander felt the hot breath of his foe he waved his hat and his faithful followers disappeared behind rocks and trees as if the very earth had swallowed them.
The unsuspecting English came on. But here, when they have crossed, is a level plain, elevated but a few feet above the surface of the river, extending nearly half a mile landwards, and then gradually ascending into thickly wooded hills, with Fort Duquesne beyond. The troops in front had crossed the plain and plunged into the road through the forest for a hundred feet when a heavy discharge of musketry and arrows was poured upon them, which wrought in them a consternation all the greater because they could see no foe anywhere. They shot at random, and not without effect, for when Beaujeu fell the Canadians began to flee and the Indians quailed in their covers before the cannon fire of the English. But the French fighters were rallied back to their hidden recesses, and they now kept up an incessant and destructive fire. In this distressing situation the English fell back into the plain.
Braddock rode in among them, and he and his officers persistently endeavored to rally them, but without success. The Colonial troops adopted the Indian method, and each man fought for himself behind a tree. This was forbidden by Braddock, who attempted to form his men in platoons and columns, making their slaughter inevitable. The French and Indians, concealed in the ravines and behind trees, kept up a cruel and deadly fire, until the British soldiers lost all presence of mind and began to shoot each other and their own officers, and hundreds were thus slain. The Virginia companies charged gallantly up a hill with a loss of but three men, but when they reached the summit the British soldiery, mistaking them for the enemy, fired upon them, killing fifty out of eighty men. The Colonial troops then resumed the Indian fas.h.i.+on of fighting from behind trees, which provoked Braddock, who had had five horses killed under him in three hours, to storm at them and strike them with his sword. At this moment he was fatally wounded, and many of his men now fled away from the hopeless action, not waiting to hear their general's fainting order to retreat. Was.h.i.+ngton had had two horses killed and received three bullets through his coat. Being the only mounted officer who was not disabled, he drew up the troops still on the field, directed their retreat, maintaining himself at the rear with great coolness and courage, and brought away his wounded general.
Sixty-four British and American officers, and nearly one thousand privates, were killed or wounded in this battle, while the total French and Indian loss was not over sixty. A few prisoners captured by the Indians were brought to Pittsburgh and burnt at the stake. Four days after the fight Braddock died, exclaiming to the last, ”Who would have thought it!”
VI
Despondency seized the English settlers after Braddock's defeat. But two years afterward William Pitt became prime minister, and he thrilled the nation with his appeal to protect the Colonies against France and the savages.
[Ill.u.s.tration: William Pitt, Earl of Chatham]
William Pitt, the great Earl of Chatham, the man for whom our city is named, was one of the most indomitable characters in the statesmans.h.i.+p of modern times. Born in November, 1708, he was educated at Eton and at Oxford, then traveled in France and Italy, and was elected to Parliament when twenty-seven years old. His early addresses were not models either of force or logic, but the fluent speech and many personal attractions of the young orator instantly caught the attention of the people, who always listened to him with favor; and it was not long before his constant partic.i.p.ation in public affairs developed the splendid talents which he possessed. Wayward and affected in little things, Pitt attacked the great problems of government with the bold confidence of a master spirit, impressing the clear genius of his leaders.h.i.+p upon the yearning heart of England in every emergency of peace or war. Too great to be consistent, he never hesitated to change his tactics or his opinion when the occasion developed the utility of another course. Ordinary men have been more faithful to a.s.serted principles, but no statesman more frequently departed from a.s.serted principles to secure achievements which redounded to the honor of the nation. During the thirty years in which Pitt exercised the magic spell of his eloquence and power over the English Parliament, the stakes for which he contended against the world were no less than the dominion of North America and of India. In the pursuit of these policies he fought Spain and subdued her armies. He subsidized the king of Prussia to his interests. He destroyed the navy of France and wrested from her the larger part of her possessions beyond sea. Having always a clear conception of the remotest aim of national aspiration, he was content to leave the designing of operations in detail to the humbler servants of the government, reserving to himself the mighty concentration of his powers upon the general purpose for which the nation was striving. The king trusted him, the Commons obeyed him, the people adored him and called him the Great Commoner. He was wise, brave, sincere, tolerant, and humane; and no man could more deserve the honor of having named for him a city which was destined to become rich and famous, keeping his memory in more enduring fame than bronze or marble.
VII
Pitt's letters inspired the Americans with new hope, and he promised to send them British troops and to supply their own militia with arms, ammunition, tents, and provisions at the king's charge. He sent twelve thousand soldiers from England, which were joined to a Colonial force aggregating fifty thousand men, the most formidable army yet seen in the new world. The plan of campaign embraced three expeditions: the first against Louisburg, in the island of Cape Breton, which was successful; the second against Ticonderoga, which succeeded after a defeat; and the third against Fort Duquesne. General Forbes, born at Dunfermline (whence have come others to Pittsburgh), commanded this expedition, comprising about seven thousand men. The militia from Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland was led by Was.h.i.+ngton, whose independent spirit led the testy Scotchman, made irritable by a malady which was soon to cause his death, to declare that Was.h.i.+ngton's ”behavior about the roads was no ways like a soldier.” But we cannot believe that the young Virginian was moved by any motive but the public good. On September 12, 1758, Major Grant, a Highlander, led an advance guard of eight hundred and fifty men to a point one mile from the fort, which is still called Grant's Hill, on which the court-house now stands, where he rashly permitted himself to be surrounded and attacked by the French and Indians, half his force being killed or wounded, and himself slain. Was.h.i.+ngton followed soon after, and opened a road for the advance of the main body under Forbes.
Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, had just been taken by General Amherst, with the result that supplies for Fort Duquesne were cut off.
When, therefore, Captain Ligneris, the French commandant, learned of the advance of a superior force, having no hope of reinforcements, he blew up the fort, set fire to the adjacent buildings, and drew his garrison away.
On Sat.u.r.day, November 25, 1758, amidst a fierce snowstorm, the English took possession of the place, and Colonel Armstrong, in the presence of Forbes and Was.h.i.+ngton, hauled up the puissant banner of Great Britain, while cannons boomed and the exulting victors cheered. On the next day, General Forbes wrote to Governor Denny from ”Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh,[A] the 26th of November, 1758,” and this was the first use of that name. On this same Sunday the Rev. Mr. Beatty, a Presbyterian chaplain, preached a sermon in thanksgiving for the superiority of British arms,--the first Protestant service in Pittsburgh. The French had had a Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Baron, during their occupancy.
On the next day Forbes wrote to Pitt with a vision of prophecy as follows:
PITTSBOURGH, 27th Novem'r, 1758.
_Sir_,
I do myself the Honour of acquainting you that it has pleased G.o.d to crown His Majesty's Arms with Success over all His Enemies upon the Ohio, by my having obliged the enemy to burn and abandon Fort Du Quesne, which they effectuated on the 25th:, and of which I took possession next day, the Enemy having made their Escape down the River towards the Missisippi in their Boats, being abandoned by their Indians, whom I had previously engaged to leave them, and who now seem all willing and ready to implore His Majesty's most Gracious Protection. So give me leave to congratulate you upon this great Event, of having totally expelled the French from this prodigious tract of Country, and of having reconciled the various tribes of Indians inhabiting it to His Majesty's Government.
I have used the freedom of giving your name to Fort Du Quesne, as I hope it was in some measure the being actuated by your spirits that now makes us Masters of the place.... These dreary deserts will soon be the richest and most fertile of any possest by the British in No. America. I have the honour to be with great regard and Esteem Sir,
Your most obed't. & most hum'le. serv't.
JO: FORBES.
[Footnote A: Local controversialists should note that the man who named the city spelt it with the final h.]
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