Part 8 (1/2)

[Footnote 146: _Dinwiddie to Hanbury, 10 May, 1754._]

The seizure of a king's fort by planting cannon against it and threatening it with destruction was in his eyes a beginning of hostilities on the part of the French; and henceforth both he and Was.h.i.+ngton acted much as if war had been declared. From their station at Wills Creek, the distance by the traders' path to Fort Duquesne was about a hundred and forty miles. Midway was a branch of the Monongahela called Redstone Creek, at the mouth of which the Ohio Company had built another storehouse. Dinwiddie ordered all the forces to cross the mountains and a.s.semble at this point, until they should be strong enough to advance against the French. The movement was critical in presence of an enemy as superior in discipline as he was in numbers, while the natural obstacles were great. A road for cannon and wagons must be cut through a dense forest and over two ranges of high mountains, besides countless hills and streams. Was.h.i.+ngton set all his force to the work, and they spent a fortnight in making twenty miles. Towards the end of May, however, Dinwiddie learned that he had crossed the main ridge of the Alleghanies, and was encamped with a hundred and fifty men near the parallel ridge of Laurel Hill, at a place called the Great Meadows.

Trent's backwoodsmen had gone off in disgust; Fry, with the rest of the regiment, was still far behind; and Was.h.i.+ngton was daily expecting an attack. Close upon this, a piece of good news, or what seemed such, came over the mountains and gladdened the heart of the Governor. He heard that a French detachment had tried to surprise Was.h.i.+ngton, and that he had killed or captured the whole. The facts were as follows.

Was.h.i.+ngton was on the Youghiogany, a branch of the Monongahela, exploring it in hopes that it might prove navigable, when a messenger came to him from his old comrade, the Half-King, who was on the way to join him. The message was to the effect that the French had marched from their fort, and meant to attack the first English they should meet. A report came soon after that they were already at the ford of the Youghiogany, eighteen miles distant. Was.h.i.+ngton at once repaired to the Great Meadows, a level tract of gra.s.s and bushes, bordered by wooded hills, and traversed in one part by a gully, which with a little labor the men turned into an entrenchment, at the same time cutting away the bushes and clearing what the young commander called ”a charming field for an encounter.” Parties were sent out to scour the woods, but they found no enemy. Two days pa.s.sed; when, on the morning of the twenty-seventh, Christopher Gist, who had lately made a settlement on the farther side of Laurel Hill, twelve or thirteen miles distant, came to the camp with news that fifty Frenchmen had been at his house towards noon of the day before, and would have destroyed everything but for the intervention of two Indians whom he had left in charge during his absence. Was.h.i.+ngton sent seventy-five men to look for the party; but the search was vain, the French having hidden themselves so well as to escape any eye but that of an Indian. In the evening a runner came from the Half-King, who was encamped with a few warriors some miles distant.

He had sent to tell Was.h.i.+ngton that he had found the tracks of two men, and traced them towards a dark glen in the forest, where in his belief all the French were lurking.

Was.h.i.+ngton seems not to have hesitated a moment. Fearing a stratagem to surprise his camp, he left his main force to guard it, and at ten o'clock set out for the Half-King's wigwams at the head of forty men.

The night was rainy, and the forest, to use his own words, ”as black as pitch.” ”The path,” he continues, ”was hardly wide enough for one man; we often lost it, and could not find it again for fifteen or twenty minutes, and we often tumbled over each other in the dark[147].” Seven of his men were lost in the woods and left behind. The rest groped their way all night, and reached the Indian camp at sunrise. A council was held with the Half-King, and he and his warriors agreed to join in striking the French. Two of them led the way. The tracks of the two French scouts seen the day before were again found, and, marching in single file, the party pushed through the forest into the rocky hollow where the French were supposed to be concealed. They were there in fact; and they s.n.a.t.c.hed their guns the moment they saw the English. Was.h.i.+ngton gave the word to fire. A short fight ensued. Coulon de Jumonville, an ensign in command, was killed, with nine others; twenty-two were captured, and none escaped but a Canadian who had fled at the beginning of the fray. After it was over, the prisoners told Was.h.i.+ngton that the party had been sent to bring him a summons from Contrecoeur, the commandant at Fort Duquesne.

[Footnote 147: _Journal of Was.h.i.+ngton_ in _Precis des Faits_, 109. This Journal, which is entirely distinct from that before cited, was found by the French among the baggage left on the field after the defeat of Braddock in 1755, and a translation of it was printed by them as above.

The original has disappeared.]

Five days before, Contrecoeur had sent Jumonville to scour the country as far as the dividing ridge of the Alleghanies. Under him were another officer, three cadets, a volunteer, an interpreter, and twenty-eight men. He was provided with a written summons, to be delivered to any English he might find. It required them to withdraw from the domain of the King of France, and threatened compulsion by force of arms in case of refusal. But before delivering the summons Jumonville was ordered to send two couriers back with all speed to Fort Duquesne to inform the commandant that he had found the English, and to acquaint him when he intended to communicate with them.[148] It is difficult to imagine any object for such an order except that of enabling Contrecoeur to send to the spot whatever force might be needed to attack the English on their refusal to withdraw. Jumonville had sent the two couriers, and had hidden himself, apparently to wait the result. He lurked nearly two days within five miles of Was.h.i.+ngton's camp, sent out scouts to reconnoitre it, but gave no notice of his presence; played to perfection the part of a skulking enemy, and brought destruction on himself by conduct which can only be ascribed to a sinister motive on the one hand, or to extreme folly on the other. French deserters told Was.h.i.+ngton that the party came as spies, and were to show the summons only if threatened by a superior force. This last a.s.sertion is confirmed by the French officer Pouchot, who says that Jumonville, seeing himself the weaker party, tried to show the letter he had brought.[149]

[Footnote 148: The summons and the instructions to Jumonville are in _Precis des Faits_.]

[Footnote 149: Pouchot, _Memoire sur la derniere Guerre_.]

French writers say that, on first seeing the English, Jumonville's interpreter called out that he had something to say to them; but Was.h.i.+ngton, who was at the head of his men, affirms this to be absolutely false. The French say further that Jumonville was killed in the act of reading the summons. This is also denied by Was.h.i.+ngton, and rests only on the a.s.sertion of the Canadian who ran off at the outset, and on the alleged a.s.sertion of Indians who, if present at all, which is unlikely, escaped like the Canadian before the fray began. Druillon, an officer with Jumonville, wrote two letters to Dinwiddie after his capture, to claim the privileges of the bearer of a summons; but while bringing forward every other circ.u.mstance in favor of the claim, he does not pretend that the summons was read or shown either before or during the action. The French account of the conduct of Was.h.i.+ngton's Indians is no less erroneous. ”This murder,” says a chronicler of the time, ”produced on the minds of the savages an effect very different from that which the cruel Was.h.i.+ngton had promised himself. They have a horror of crime; and they were so indignant at that which had just been perpetrated before their eyes, that they abandoned him, and offered themselves to us in order to take vengeance.”[150] Instead of doing this, they boasted of their part in the fight, scalped all the dead Frenchmen, sent one scalp to the Delawares as an invitation to take up the hatchet for the English, and distributed the rest among the various Ohio tribes to the same end.

[Footnote 150: Poulin de Lumina, _Histoire de la Guerre contre les Anglois_, 15.]

Coolness of judgment, a profound sense of public duty, and a strong self-control, were even then the characteristics of Was.h.i.+ngton; but he was scarcely twenty-two, was full of military ardor, and was vehement and fiery by nature. Yet it is far from certain that, even when age and experience had ripened him, he would have forborne to act as he did, for there was every reason for believing that the designs of the French were hostile; and though by pa.s.sively waiting the event he would have thrown upon them the responsibility of striking the first blow, he would have exposed his small party to capture or destruction by giving them time to gain reinforcements from Fort Duquesne. It was inevitable that the killing of Jumonville should be greeted in France by an outcry of real or a.s.sumed horror; but the Chevalier de Levis, second in command to Montcalm, probably expresses the true opinion of Frenchmen best fitted to judge when he calls it ”a pretended a.s.sa.s.sination.”[151] Judge it as we may, this obscure skirmish began the war that set the world on fire.[152]

[Footnote 151: Levis, _Memoire sur la Guerre du Canada_.]

[Footnote 152: On this affair, Sparks, _Writings of Was.h.i.+ngton_, II.

25-48, 447. _Dinwiddie Papers. Letter of Contrecoeur_ in _Precis des Faits. Journal of Was.h.i.+ngton, Ibid. Was.h.i.+ngton to Dinwiddie, 3 June, 1754_. Dussieux, _Le Canada sous la Domination Francaise_, 118. Gaspe, _Anciens Canadiens, appendix_, 396. The a.s.sertion of Abbe de l'Isle-Dieu, that Jumonville showed a flag of truce, is unsupported.

Adam Stephen, who was in the fight, says that the guns of the English were so wet that they had to trust mainly to the bayonet. The Half-King boasted that he killed Jumonville with his tomahawk. Dinwiddie highly approved Was.h.i.+ngton's conduct.

In 1755 the widow of Jumonville received a pension of one hundred and fifty francs. In 1775 his daughter, Charlotte Aimable, wis.h.i.+ng to become a nun, was given by the King six hundred francs for her ”trousseau” on entering the convent. _Dossier de Jumonville et de sa Veuve, 22 Mars, 1755_. _Memoire pour Mlle. de Jumonville, 10 Juillet, 1775_. _Response du Garde des Sceaux, 25 Juillet, 1775_.]

Was.h.i.+ngton returned to the camp at the Great Meadows; and, expecting soon to be attacked, sent for reinforcements to Colonel Fry, who was lying dangerously ill at Wills Creek. Then he set his men to work at an entrenchment, which he named Fort Necessity, and which must have been of the slightest, as they finished it within three days.[153] The Half-King now joined him, along with the female potentate known as Queen Alequippa, and some thirty Indian families. A few days after, Gist came from Wills Creek with news that Fry was dead. Was.h.i.+ngton succeeded to the command of the regiment, the remaining three companies of which presently appeared and joined their comrades, raising the whole number to three hundred. Next arrived the independent company from South Carolina; and the Great Meadows became an animated scene, with the wigwams of the Indians, the camp-sheds of the rough Virginians, the cattle grazing on the tall gra.s.s or drinking at the lazy brook that traversed it; the surrounding heights and forests; and over all, four miles away the lofty green ridge of Laurel Hill.

[Footnote 153: _Journal of Was.h.i.+ngton_ in _Precis des Faits_.]

The presence of the company of regulars was a doubtful advantage.

Captain Mackay, its commander, holding his commission from the King, thought himself above any officer commissioned by the Governor. There was great courtesy between him and Was.h.i.+ngton; but Mackay would take no orders, nor even the countersign, from the colonel of volunteers. Nor would his men work, except for an additional s.h.i.+lling a day. To give this was impossible, both from want of money, and from the discontent it would have bred in the Virginians, who worked for nothing besides their daily pay of eightpence. Was.h.i.+ngton, already a leader of men, possessed himself in a patience extremely difficult to his pa.s.sionate temper; but the position was untenable, and the presence of the military drones demoralized his soldiers. Therefore, leaving Mackay at the Meadows, he advanced towards Gist's settlement, cutting a wagon road as he went.

On reaching the settlement the camp was formed and an entrenchment thrown up. Deserters had brought news that strong reinforcements were expected at Fort Duquesne, and friendly Indians repeatedly warned Was.h.i.+ngton that he would soon be attacked by overwhelming numbers. Forty Indians from the Ohio came to the camp, and several days were spent in councils with them; but they proved for the most part to be spies of the French. The Half-King stood fast by the English, and sent out three of his young warriors as scouts. Reports of attack thickened. Mackay and his men were sent for, and they arrived on the twenty-eighth of June. A council of war was held at Gist's house; and as the camp was commanded by neighboring heights, it was resolved to fall back. The horses were so few that the Virginians had to carry much of the baggage on their backs, and drag nine swivels over the broken and rocky road. The regulars, though they also were raised in the provinces, refused to give the slightest help. Toiling on for two days, they reached the Great Meadows on the first of July. The position, though perhaps the best in the neighborhood, was very unfavorable, and Was.h.i.+ngton would have retreated farther, but for the condition of his men. They were spent with fatigue, and there was no choice but to stay and fight.

Strong reinforcements had been sent to Fort Duquesne in the spring, and the garrison now consisted of about fourteen hundred men. When news of the death of Jumonville reached Montreal, Coulon de Villiers, brother of the slain officer, was sent to the spot with a body of Indians from all the tribes in the colony. He made such speed that at eight o'clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth of June he reached the fort with his motley following. Here he found that five hundred Frenchmen and a few Ohio Indians were on the point of marching against the English, under Chevalier Le Mercier; but in view of his seniority in rank and his relations.h.i.+p to Jumonville, the command was now transferred to Villiers.

Hereupon, the march was postponed; the newly-arrived warriors were called to council, and Contrecoeur thus harangued them: ”The English have murdered my children, my heart is sick; to-morrow I shall send my French soldiers to take revenge. And now, men of the Saut St. Louis, men of the Lake of Two Mountains, Hurons, Abenakis, Iroquois of La Presentation, Nip.i.s.sings, Algonquins, and Ottawas,--I invite you all by this belt of wampum to join your French father and help him to crush the a.s.sa.s.sins. Take this hatchet, and with it two barrels of wine for a feast.” Both hatchet and wine were cheerfully accepted. Then Contrecoeur turned to the Delawares, who were also present: ”By these four strings of wampum I invite you, if you are true children of Onontio, to follow the example of your brethren;” and with some hesitation they also took up the hatchet.

The next day was spent by the Indians in making moccasons for the march, and by the French in preparing for an expedition on a larger scale than had been at first intended. Contrecoeur, Villiers, Le Mercier, and Longueuil, after deliberating together, drew up a paper to the effect that ”it was fitting (_convenable_) to march against the English with the greatest possible number of French and savages, in order to avenge ourselves and chastise them for having violated the most sacred laws of civilized nations;” that, thought their conduct justified the French in disregarding the existing treaty of peace, yet, after thoroughly punis.h.i.+ng them, and compelling them to withdraw from the domain of the King, they should be told that, in pursuance of his royal orders, the French looked on them as friends. But it was further agreed that should the English have withdrawn to their own side of the mountains, ”they should be followed to their settlements to destroy them and treat them as enemies, till that nation should give ample satisfaction and completely change its conduct.”[154]