Chapter 9: The Defeat Of Braddock.
England and France were, at this time, at peace in Europe, although thetroops of both nations were about to engage in conflict, in the forestsof America. Their position there was an anomalous one. England ownedthe belt of colonies on the east coast. France was mistress of Canadain the north, of Louisiana in the south, and, moreover, claimed thewhole of the vast country lying behind the British colonies, which werethus cooped up on the seaboard. Her hold, however, of this greatterritory was extremely slight. She had strong posts along the chain oflakes from the Saint Lawrence to Lake Superior, but between these andLouisiana, her supremacy was little more than nominal.
The Canadian population were frugal and hardy, but they were deficientin enterprise; and the priests, who ruled them with a rod of iron, forCanada was intensely Catholic, discouraged any movements which wouldtake their flocks from under their charge. Upon the other hand, thecolonists of New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were men ofenterprise and energy, and their traders, pushing in large numbersacross the Alleghenies, carried on an extensive trade with the Indiansin the valley of the Ohio, thereby greatly exciting the jealousy of theFrench, who feared that the Indians would ally themselves with theBritish colonists, and that the connection between Canada and Louisianawould be thereby cut.
The English colonists were greatly superior to the French in number;but they laboured under the disadvantage that the colonies were whollyindependent of each other, with strong mutual jealousies, whichparalysed their action and prevented their embarking upon any concertedoperations. Upon the other hand, Canada was governed by the French as amilitary colony. The governor was practically absolute, and every mancapable of bearing arms could, if necessary, be called by him into thefield. He had at his disposal not only the wealth of the colony, butlarge assistance from France, and the French agents were, therefore,able to outbid the agents of the British colonies with the Indians.
For years there had been occasional troubles between the New EnglandStates and the French, the latter employing the Indians in harassingthe border; but, until the middle of the eighteenth century, there hadbeen nothing like a general trouble. In 1749 the Marquis ofGalissoniere was governor general of Canada. The treaty of Aix laChapelle had been signed; but this had done nothing to settle the vexedquestion of the boundaries between the English and French colonies.Meanwhile, the English traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia werepoaching on the domain which France claimed as hers, ruining the Frenchfur trade, and making friends with the Indian allies of Canada. Worsestill, farmers were pushing westward and settling in the valley of theOhio.
In order to drive these back, to impress the natives with the power ofFrance, and to bring them back to their allegiance, the governor ofCanada, in the summer of 1749, sent Celoron de Bienville. He had withhim fourteen officers, twenty French soldiers, a hundred and eightyCanadians, and a band of Indians. They embarked in twenty-threebirch-bark canoes, and, pushing up the Saint Lawrence, reached LakeOntario, stopping for a time at the French fort of Frontenac, andavoiding the rival English port of Oswego on the southern shore, wherea trade in beaver skins, disastrous to French interests, was beingcarried on, for the English traders sold their goods at vastly lowerprices than those which the French had charged.
On the 6th of July the party reached Niagara, where there was a smallFrench fort, and thence, carrying their canoes round the cataract,launched them upon Lake Erie. Landing again on the southern shore ofthe lake, they carried their canoes nine miles through the forest toChautauqua Lake, and then dropped down the stream running out of ituntil they reached the Ohio. The fertile country here was inhabited bythe Delawares, Shawanoes, Wyandots, and Iroquois, or Indians of theFive Nations, who had migrated thither from their original territoriesin the colony of New York. Further west, on the banks of the Miami, theWabash, and other streams, was a confederacy of the Miami and theirkindred tribes. Still further west, in the country of the Illinois,near the Mississippi, the French had a strong stone fort called FortChartres, which formed one of the chief links of the chain of poststhat connected Quebec with New Orleans.
The French missionaries and the French political agents had, forseventy years, laboured hard to bring these Indian tribes into closeconnection with France. The missionaries had failed signally; but thepresents, so lavishly bestowed, had inclined the tribes to the side oftheir donors, until the English traders with their cheap goods camepushing west over the Alleghenies. They carried their goods on thebacks of horses, and journeyed from village to village, selling powder,rum, calicoes, beads, and trinkets. No less than three hundred men wereengaged in these enterprises, and some of them pushed as far west asthe Mississippi.
As the party of Celoron proceeded they nailed plates of tin, stampedwith the arms of France, to trees; and buried plates of lead near them,with inscriptions saying that they took possession of the land in thename of Louis the Fifteenth, King of France.
Many of the villages were found to be deserted by the natives, who fledat their approach. At some, however, they found English traders, whowere warned at once to leave the country; and, by some of them, letterswere sent to the governor of Pennsylvania, in which Celoron declaredthat he was greatly surprised to find Englishmen trespassing in thedomain of France, and that his orders were precise, to leave no foreigntraders within the limits of the government of Canada.
At Chiningue, called Logstown by the English, a large number of nativeswere gathered, most of the inhabitants of the deserted villages havingsought refuge there. The French were received with a volley of ballsfrom the shore; but they landed without replying to the fire, andhostilities were avoided. The French kept guard all night, and in themorning Celoron invited the chiefs to a council, when he told them hehad come, by the order of the governor, to open their eyes to thedesigns of the English against their lands, and that they must bedriven away at once. The reply of the chiefs was humble; but theybegged that the English traders, of whom there were, at that moment,ten in the town, might stay a little longer, since the goods theybrought were necessary to them.
After making presents to the chiefs, the party proceeded on their way,putting up the coats of arms and burying the lead inscriptions. AtScioto a large number of Indians were assembled, and the French werevery apprehensive of an attack, which would doubtless have beendisastrous to them, as the Canadians of the party were altogetherunused to war. A council was held, however, at which Celoron couldobtain no satisfaction whatever, for the interests of the Indians werebound up with the English.
There can be no doubt that, had they been able to look into the future,every Indian on the continent would have joined the French in theireffort to crush the English colonies. Had France remained master ofAmerica the Indians might, even now, be roaming free and unmolested onthe lands of their forefathers. France is not a colonizing nation. Shewould have traded with the Indians, would have endeavoured toChristianize them, and would have left them their land and freedom,well satisfied with the fact that the flag of France should wave overso vast an extent of country; but on England conquering the soil, herarmies of emigrants pressed west, and the red man is fast becomingextinct on the continent of which he was once the lord.
Celoron's expedition sailed down the Ohio until it reached the mouth ofthe Miami, and toiled for thirteen days against its shallow current,until they reached a village of the Miami Indians, ruled over by achief called, by the French, La Demoiselle, but whom the English, whosefast friend he was, called Old Britain. He was the great chief of theMiami confederation.
The English traders there withdrew at the approach of the French. Theusual council was held, and Celoron urged the chief to remove from thislocation, which he had but newly adopted, and to take up his abode,with his band, near the French fort on the Maumee. The chief acceptedthe Frenchman's gifts, thanked him for his good advice, and promised tofollow it at a more convenient time; but neither promises nor threatscould induce him to stir at once.
No sooner, indeed, had the
French departed, than the chief gathered thegreater part of the members of the confederation on that spot; until,in less than two years after the visit of Celoron, its population hadincreased eightfold, and it became one of the greatest Indian towns ofthe west, and the centre of English trade and influence.
Celoron reached Miami, and then returned northward to Lake Erie, andthence back to Montreal, when he reported to the governor that Englishinfluence was supreme in the valley of the Ohio.
In the following year, a company was formed in Virginia for effecting asettlement in Ohio, and a party proceeded west to the village of thechief called Old Britain, by whom they were received with greatfriendship, and a treaty of peace was solemnly made between the Englishand the Indians. While the festivities, consequent on the affair, weregoing on, four Ottawa Indians arrived from the French, with the Frenchflag and gifts, but they were dismissed with an answer of defiance. If,at this time, the colonists could have cemented their alliance with theIndians, with gifts similar to those with which the French endeavouredto purchase their friendship, a permanent peace with the Indians mighthave been established; but the mutual jealousies of the colonies, andthe nature of the various colonial assemblies, rendered any commonaction impossible. Pennsylvania was jealous of the westward advance ofVirginia, and desired to thwart rather than to assist her.
The governors of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were fullyconscious of the importance of the Indian alliance, but they could donothing without their assemblies. Those of New York and Pennsylvaniawere largely composed of tradesmen and farmers, absorbed in localinterests, and animated but by two motives; the cutting down of allexpenditure, and bitter and continuous opposition to the governor, whorepresented the royal authority. Virginia and Pennsylvania quarrelledabout their respective rights over the valley of the Ohio. The assemblyof New York refused to join in any common action, saying, "We will takecare of our Indians, and they may take care of theirs."
The states further removed from the fear of any danger, from the actionof the Indians and French, were altogether lukewarm.
Thus, neither in the valley of the Ohio, nor on the boundaries of theNew England states, did the Indians receive their promised gifts, and,as the French agents were liberal both in presents and promises, theIndians became discontented with their new friends, and again turnedtheir eyes towards France. Old Britain, however, remained firm in hisalliance; and the English traders, by constant presents, and by sellingtheir goods at the lowest possible rates, kept him and his warriorshighly satisfied and contented.
The French, in vain, tried to stir up the friendly tribes to attackOswego on Lake Ontario, and the village of Old Britain, which were thetwo centres to which the Indians went to trade with the English; butthey were unsuccessful until, in June, 1752, Charles Langlade, a youngFrench trader, married to a squaw at Green Bay, and strong in influencewith the tribes of that region, came down the lakes with a fleet ofcanoes, manned by two hundred and fifty Ottawa and Ojibwa warriors.They stopped awhile at the fort at Detroit, then paddled up the Maumeeto the next fort, and thence marched through the forests against theMiamis.
They approached Old Britain's village in the morning. Most of theIndians were away on their summer hunt, and there were but eightEnglish traders in the place. Three of these were caught outside thevillage, the remaining five took refuge in the fortified warehouse theyhad built, and there defended themselves.
Old Britain and the little band with him fought bravely, but againstsuch overwhelming numbers could do nothing, and fourteen of them,including their chief, were killed. The five white men defendedthemselves till the afternoon, when two of them managed to make theirescape, and the other three surrendered. One of them was alreadywounded, and was at once killed by the French Indians. Seventy years ofthe teaching of the French missionaries had not weaned the latter fromcannibalism, and Old Britain was boiled and eaten.
The Marquis of Duquesne, who had succeeded Galissoniere as governor,highly praised Langlade for the enterprise, and recommended him to theminister at home for reward. This bold enterprise further shook thealliance of the Indians with the English, for it seemed to them thatthe French were enterprising and energetic, while the English wereslothful and cowardly, and neglected to keep their agreements. TheFrench continued to build forts, and Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia,sent George Washington to protest, in his name, against their buildingforts on land notoriously belonging to the English crown.
Washington performed the long and toilsome journey through the forestsat no slight risks, and delivered his message at the forts, but nothingcame of it. The governor of Virginia, seeing the approaching danger,made the greatest efforts to induce the other colonies to join incommon action; but North Carolina, alone, answered the appeal, and gavemoney enough to raise three or four hundred men. Two independentcompanies maintained by England in New York, and one in South Carolina,received orders to march to Virginia. The governor had raised, withgreat difficulty, three hundred men. They were called the VirginiaRegiment. An English gentleman named Joshua Fry was appointed thecolonel, and Washington their major.
Fry was at Alexandria, on the Potomac, with half the regiment.Washington, with the other half, had pushed forward to the storehouseat Wills Creek, which was to form the base of operations. Besidesthese, Captain Trent, with a band of backwoodsmen, had crossed themountain to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburgh nowstands.
Trent had gone back to Wills Creek, leaving Ensign Ward, with fortymen, at work upon the fort, when, on the 17th of April, a swarm ofcanoes came down the Allegheny, with over five hundred Frenchmen, whoplanted cannon against the unfinished stockade, and summoned the ensignto surrender. He had no recourse but to submit, and was allowed todepart, with his men, across the mountains.
The French at once set to, to build a strong fort, which they namedFort Duquesne. While the governor of Virginia had been toiling, invain, to get the colonists to move, the French had acted promptly, andthe erection of their new fort at once covered their line ofcommunication to the west, barred the advance of the English down theOhio valley, and secured the allegiance of all the wavering Indiantribes.
Although war had not yet been declared between England and France, thecolonists, after this seizure, by French soldiers, of a fort over whichthe English flag was flying, henceforth acted as if the two powers wereat war. Washington moved forward from Wills Creek with his hundred andfifty men, and surprised a French force which had gone out scouting.Several of the French were killed, and the commander of Fort Duquesnesent despatches to France to say that he had sent this party out with acommunication to Washington, and that they had been treacherouslyassassinated.
This obscure skirmish was the commencement of a war which set twocontinents on fire. Colonel Fry died a few days after this fight, andWashington succeeded to the command of the regiment, and collected histhree hundred men at Green Meadow, where he was joined by a fewIndians, and by a company from South Carolina.
The French at Duquesne were quickly reinforced, and the command wasgiven to Coulon de Villiers, the brother of an officer who had beenkilled in the skirmish with Washington. He at once advanced against theEnglish, who had fallen back to a rough breastwork which they calledFort Necessity, Washington having but four hundred men, against fivehundred French and as many Indians.
For nine hours the French kept up a hot fire on the intrenchment, butwithout success, and at nightfall Villiers proposed a parley. TheFrench ammunition was running short, the men were fatigued by theirmarches, and drenched by the rain which had been falling the whole day.The English were in a still worse plight. Their powder was nearlyspent, their guns were foul, and among them they had but two cleaningrods.
After a parley, it was agreed that the English should march off withdrums beating and the honours of war, carrying with them all theirproperty; that the prisoners taken in the previous affair should be setfree, two officers remaining with the French as hostages until theywere handed over.
Washington
and his men arrived, utterly worn out with fatigue andfamine, at Wills Creek. This action left the French masters of thewhole country beyond the Alleghenies.
The two mother nations were now preparing for war, and, in the middleof January, 1755, Major General Braddock, with the 44th and 48thRegiments, each five hundred strong, sailed from Cork for Virginia;while the French sent eighteen ships of war and six battalions toCanada.
Admiral Boscawen, with eleven ships of the line and one frigate, setout to intercept the French expedition. The greater part of the fleetevaded him, but he came up with three of the French men of war, openedfire upon them, and captured them. Up to this time a pretence ofnegotiations had been maintained between England and France, but thecapture of the French ships brought the negotiations to a sudden end,and the war began.
A worse selection than that of Major General Braddock could hardly havebeen made. He was a brave officer and a good soldier, but he was rough,coarse, and obstinate. He utterly despised the colonial troops, andregarded all methods of fighting, save those pursued by regular armiesin the field, with absolute contempt. To send such a man to commandtroops destined to fight in thick forests, against an enemy skilled inwarfare of that kind, was to court defeat.
As might be expected, Braddock was very soon on the worst possibleterms with the whole of the colonial authorities, and the delays causedby the indecision or obstinacy of the colonial assemblies chafed him tomadness. At last, however, his force was assembled at Wills Creek. Thetwo English regiments had been raised, by enlistment in Virginia, to700 men each. There were nine Virginian companies of fifty men, and thethirty sailors lent by Commodore Keppel. General Braddock had threeaides-de-camp--Captain Robert Orme, Captain Roger Morris, and ColonelGeorge Washington.
It was the 1st of June, when James Walsham rode with Colonel Washingtoninto the camp, and, three days later, the last companies of theVirginian corps marched in. During the next week, some of the Englishofficers attempted to drill the Virginians in the manner of Englishtroops.
"It is a waste of time," Colonel Washington said to James, one day,when he was watching them, "and worse. These men can fight their ownway. Most of them are good shots, and have a fair idea of forestfighting; let them go their own way, and they can be trusted to holdtheir own against at least an equal number of French and Indians; butthey would be hopelessly at sea if they were called upon to fight likeEnglish regulars. Most likely the enemy will attack us in the forest,and what good will forming in line, or wheeling on a flank, or any ofthe things which the general is trying to drum into their heads, do tothem? If the French are foolish enough to wait at Fort Duquesne untilwe arrive, I have no doubt we shall beat them, but if they attack us inthe woods it will go hard with us."
During the ten days which elapsed between his arrival and the start,James was kept hard at work, being for the most part employed gallopingup and down the road, urging up the waggoners, and bringing backreports as to their position and progress. On the 10th of June the armystarted; 300 axemen led the way, cutting and clearing the road; thelong train of pack horses, waggons, and cannon followed; the troopsmarched in the forest on either side, while men were thrown out on theflanks, and scouts ranged the woods to guard against surprise.
The road was cut but twelve feet wide, and the line of march oftenextended four miles. Thus, day by day they toiled on, crossing theAllegheny Mountains, range after range; now plunging down into aravine, now ascending a ridge, but always in the deep shadow of theforest. A few of the enemy hovered round them, occasionally killing astraggler who fell behind.
On the 18th of June, the army reached a place called the LittleMeadows. So weak were the horses, from want of forage, that the lastmarches had been but three miles a day, and, upon Washington's advice,Braddock determined to leave the heavy baggage here, with the sick menand a strong guard under Colonel Dunbar; while he advanced with 1200men, besides officers and drivers.
But the progress was still no more than three miles a day, and it wasnot until the 7th of July that they arrived within eight miles of theFrench fort. Between them lay, however, an extremely difficult countrywith a narrow defile, and Braddock determined to ford the Monongahela,and then cross it again lower down.
The garrison of Fort Duquesne consisted of a few companies of regulartroops, some hundreds of Canadians, and 800 Indian warriors. They werekept informed, by the scouts, of the progress of the English, and, whenthe latter approached the Monongahela, a party under Captain Beaujeuset out to meet them. His force consisted of 637 Indians, 100 Frenchofficers and soldiers, and 146 Canadians, in all about 900 men.
At one o'clock in the day, Braddock crossed the Monongahela for thesecond time. The troops had, all the day, been expecting the attack andhad prepared for it. At the second ford the army marched in martialorder, with music playing and flags flying. Once across the river theyhalted for a short time, and then again continued their advance.
Braddock made every disposition for preventing a surprise. Severalguides, with six Virginian light horsemen, led the way. Then came theadvanced column, consisting of 300 soldiers under Gage, and a largebody of axemen, under Sir John Sinclair, with two cannon. The main bodyfollowed close behind. The artillery and waggons moved along the road,the troops marched through the woods on either hand, numerous flankingparties were thrown out a hundred yards or more right and left, and, inthe space between them and the line of troops, the pack horses andcattle made their way, as they best could, among the trees.
Beaujeu had intended to place his men in ambuscade at the ford, but,owing to various delays caused by the Indians, he was still a mile awayfrom the ford when the British crossed. He was marching forward when hecame suddenly upon the little party of guides and Virginian lighthorsemen. These at once fell back. The Indians raised their war whoop,and, spreading right and left among the trees, opened a sharp fire uponthe British.
Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and fired volley aftervolley, with great steadiness, at the invisible opponents. The greaterpart of the Canadians bolted at once, but the Indians kept up theirfire from behind the shelter of the trees. Gage brought up his twocannon and opened fire, and the Indians, who had a horror of artillery,began also to fall back.
The English advanced in regular lines, cheering loudly. Beaujeu felldead; but Captain Dumas, who succeeded him in command, advanced at thehead of his small party of French soldiers, and opened a heavy fire.
The Indians, encouraged by the example, rallied and again came forward,and, while the French regulars and the few Canadians who had not fledheld the ground in front of the column, the Indians swarmed through theforests along both flanks of the English, and from behind trees,bushes, and rocks opened a withering fire upon them. The troops,bewildered and amazed by the fire poured into them by an invisible foe,and by the wild war whoops of the Indians, ceased to advance, and,standing close together, poured fruitlessly volley after volley intothe surrounding forest.
On hearing the firing, Braddock, leaving 400 men in the rear under SirPeter Halket, to guard the baggage, advanced with the main body tosupport Gage; but, just as he came up, the soldiers, appalled by thefire which was mowing them down in scores, abandoned their cannon andfell back in confusion. This threw the advancing force into disorder,and the two regiments became mixed together, massed in several densebodies within a small space of ground, facing some one way and someanother, all alike exposed, without shelter, to the hail of bullets.
Men and officers were alike new to warfare like this. They had beentaught to fight in line against solid masses of the enemy, and againstan invisible foe like the present they were helpless. The Virginiansalone were equal to the emergency. They at once adopted their familiarforest tactics, and, taking their post behind trees, began to fight theIndians in their own way.
Had Braddock been a man of judgment and temper, the fortunes of the daymight yet have been retrieved, for the Virginians could have checkedthe Indians until the English troops were rallied and prepared to meetthe difficulty;
but, to Braddock, the idea of men fighting behind treeswas at once cowardly and opposed to all military discipline, and hedashed forward on his horse, and with fierce oaths ordered theVirginians to form line. A body of them, however, under CaptainWaggoner, made a dash for a huge fallen tree, far out towards thelurking places of the Indians, and, crouching behind it, opened fireupon them; but the regulars, seeing the smoke among the bushes, tookthem for the enemy and, firing, killed many and forced the rest toreturn.
A few of the soldiers tried to imitate the Indians, and fight behindthe trees, but Braddock beat them back with the flat of his sword, andforced them to stand with the others, who were now huddled in a mass,forming a target for the enemy's bullets. Lieutenant Colonel Burton led100 of them towards a knoll from which the puffs came thickest, but hefell wounded, and his men, on whom the enemy instantly concentratedtheir fire, fell back. The soldiers, powerless against the unseen foe,for afterwards some of the officers and men who escaped declared that,throughout the whole fight, they had not seen a single Indian,discharged their guns aimlessly among the trees.
They were half stupefied now with the terror and confusion of thescene, the rain of bullets, the wild yells which burst ceaselessly fromtheir 600 savage foemen; while the horses, wild with terror and wounds,added to the confusion by dashing madly hither and thither. Braddockbehaved with furious intrepidity. He dashed hither and thither,shouting and storming at the men, and striving to get them in order,and to lead them to attack the enemy. Four horses were, one after theother, shot under him. His officers behaved with equal courage and selfdevotion, and in vain attempted to lead on the men, sometimes advancingin parties towards the Indians, in hopes that the soldiers would followthem. Sir Peter Halket was killed, Horne and Morris, the twoaides-de-camp, Sinclair the quartermaster general, Gates, Gage, andGladwin were wounded. Of 86 officers, 63 were killed or disabled, whileof non-commissioned officers and privates only 459 came off unharmed.
James Walsham had been riding by the side of Washington when the fightbegan, and followed him closely as he galloped among the troops, tryingto rally and lead them forward. Washington's horse was pierced by aball and, staggering, fell. James leaped from his horse and gave it tothe colonel, and then, seeing that there was nothing for him to do,withdrew a short distance from the crowd of soldiers, and crouched downbetween the trunks of two great trees growing close to each other; oneof which protected him, for the most part, from the fire of theIndians, and the other from the not less dangerous fire of the English.Presently, seeing a soldier fall at a short distance from him, he ranout and picked up his musket and cartridge box, and began to fire atthe bushes where the puffs of smoke showed that men were in hiding.
After three hours' passive endurance of this terrible fire, Braddock,seeing that all was lost, commanded a retreat, and he and such officersas were left strove to draw off the soldiers in some semblance oforder; but at this moment a bullet struck him, and, passing through hisarm, penetrated his lungs, and he fell from his horse. He demanded tobe left where he lay, but Captain Stewart of the Virginians, and one ofhis men, bore him between them to the rear.
The soldiers had now spent all their ammunition, and, no longer kept intheir places by their general, broke away in a wild panic. Washington'ssecond horse had now been shot, and as, trying to check the men, hepassed the trees where James had taken up his position, the latterjoined him.
In vain Washington and his other officers tried to rally the men at theford. They dashed across it, wild with fear, leaving their woundedcomrades, cannon, baggage, and military chest a prey to the Indians.
Fortunately, only about fifty of the Indians followed as far as theford, the rest being occupied in killing the wounded and scalping thedead. Dumas, who had now but twenty Frenchmen left, fell back to thefort, and the remnants of Braddock's force continued the flightunmolested.