But Braddock needed Washington. The ex-colonel was one of the few white men who had actually been where Braddock intended to go. His presence would facilitate relations with Indians and local traders who knew the young Virginian from his previous frontier travels. Braddock found a clever answer to Washington's question of rank. He instructed Orme to tell Washington, "The general, having been informed that you expressed some desire to make the campaign, but that you declined it upon some disagreeableness that you thought might arise from the regulation of command [i.e., rank], has ordered me to acquaint you, that he will be very glad of your company in his family, by which all inconveniences of that kind will be obviated."22 Braddock's offer, giving Washington a place, albeit unofficial, on his staff, mollified him, and so he rode to Frederick to join his new "family."
By the fifth of May, Washington and the general were at Winchester. The army marched for Wills Creek on the seventh and arrived on the tenth. Braddock set his men to building a fort, which he named Cumberland in honor of his patron.
Four tough weeks had gone by since the army had left Alexandria. It had been a miserable and difficult march. Having spent most of their careers in relatively comfortable garrison duty in Ireland, Scotland, and England, Braddock's soldiers were not prepared for the harsh realities of frontier campaigning. Their officers told them to "soldier on," promising them that at Fort Cumberland they could expect fresh provisions and decent shelter. Unfortunately, when they got to the fort they found neither. Again, promised supplies had not been delivered. Weary of salt pork and sore feet, the men grumbled. Braddock and his officers responded in the traditional manner: They damned the men and punished the miscreants so that they might "be better taught."23
Fort Cumberland was the jumping-off point for the final long march to Duquesne. Stuck on a small hill to the far side of Wills Creek, the fort was a crude rectangular wooden palisade 600 feet by 150 feet. It was, according to one of Braddock's company, "the most desolate Place" on earth.24 With the arrival of the army, however, overnight Cumberland became one of the largest and rowdiest "towns" in America. Nearly three thousand redcoats, colonials, and Indians swarmed around the fort. Scarouady, Tanaghrisson's successor as half king, brought in a contingent of warriors along with their wives and children. Redcoats and warriors eyed each other with fascination and fear. For weeks the soldiers had listened to fantastic tales about these natives. Sutlers and other locals had been taunting the young soldiers with lurid stories about Indian cunning and ferocity—how they scalped their enemies, roasted prisoners, and smashed babies against trees.
In the Indian camp curiosity rather than fear reigned. The warriors were taken aback by the spectacle of this huge clumsy crowd of men trudging west at a snaillike pace. For a people accustomed to moving by stealth and speed, it seemed very strange. One night Scarouady's band put on a theatrical demonstration. Their bodies painted in crimson and black, they danced wildly around a blazing campfire brandishing knives and tomahawks in an ancient ritual intended to boost their own courage and awe their allies.
On the hillside beyond the stockade hundreds of neatly dressed tents marked the bivouac area. In every tent the men groused about the shortage of food. Braddock worried that he might have to turn back. To his relief, on May 20 Benjamin Franklin's son William rode into camp with the welcome news that only a few miles behind him was a train of ninety-one Conestoga wagons and twenty packhorses laden with supplies.25
Fresh provisions did much to improve morale, but the men were still restless. Officers did what they could to occupy the attention of these young soldiers—days were spent in endless drilling and fatigue parties. When Braddock discovered that his officers had become "scandalously fond of Squas" who were "bringing" their husbands "money in Plenty which they got from the officers," he immediately prohibited Indian women from entering the camp and further ordered that "no sutler" was to "give any liquor to the Indians on any account." As for his own soldiers, anyone found giving liquor to an Indian was to be summarily punished with 250 lashes, a probable death sentence. Carousing, drunken soldiers were hardly a new phenomenon, but in this howling wilderness so far removed from civilization Braddock feared that the slightest crack in the wall of discipline might lead to a total collapse.
Although Braddock's measures were a bit extreme, his soldiers understood army discipline, and while they grumbled quietly they went about their business of drilling and maintaining camp life. The Indians felt otherwise, Braddock, complained Scarouady, had a "bad heart." "He looked upon us as dogs and would never hear any thing what was said to him." A few weeks before, at least fifty Indians had enlisted with Braddock. Yet within a few days of the general's edicts, only the sullen Scarouady, his son, and six others remained.26
On May 29, 1755, an advance party of six hundred men got under way under the command of St. Clair. They were to forge ahead, clearing and widening the narrow path to a width of twelve feet in order to accommodate the passage of wagons and artillery. Wills Mountain was their first challenge, and it undid them. Steep, slippery slopes proved fatal for three wagons that slid backward, careening into a deep ravine. Trying to haul heavy artillery proved an even greater curse. Sweating seamen detailed from Keppel's squadron rigged block and tackle to trees in a failed attempt to heave the heavy tubes up the steep incline. Braddock was beside himself. Harry Gordon, a Scot engineer recommended personally to the general by Cumberland, reported that the path on the other side of the mountain was even worse than the one bedeviling them. For his mounting troubles, the general blamed the colonials, who had failed to supply him with provisions, wagons, or sound advice. Braddock saw "falsehood with every person." Gordon, however, found a solution. On a reconnaissance he discovered a nearly level route around the foot of the mountain. It stretched a few miles longer, but it was passable. Braddock ordered work parties forward to cut a road, and finally on the morning of June 7 the forward element, Halkett's brigade, took the van and began the long march toward Duquesne, following behind St. Clair's road builders who were still struggling to clear a way. It took three days for the rest of the force, made up mostly of Dunbar's regiment and the supply train, to get under way.
The delay gave Braddock time to get off an important dispatch to London in which he provided a gloomy assessment of his situation. He was, he confessed, more than a month behind schedule. The future looked even bleaker. "I have an hundred and ten miles to march through an uninhabitable wilderness over steep rocky mountains and almost impassable morass."27 Since "good intelligence" depended upon "the Indians whose veracity is no more to be depended upon than that of the borderers here," Braddock knew virtually nothing about the strength and disposition of the enemy. He assumed, however, that Duquesne was weak and that as soon as his powerful army drew near the fort, the French " [would] want their forces to the northward. "28
The road proved "impassable," at least for Braddock's heavy wagons and some of the artillery. Barely three days out from Cumberland the general ordered the largest wagons, whose slow movement had brought the column to a virtual standstill, to return. Two six-pound howitzers and four cohorns, along with a substantial amount of powder and shot, were also sent back. Horses were a serious problem. The few that remained could not pull sufficient weight. Braddock cursed the colonials who had sold him small and underfed beasts. Even Washington agreed that there had "been vile mismanagement in regard to the horses."29 Following the command to "push on," and with road-clearing parties working ahead, the long column inched its way through the forest. Because security was a constant concern, Braddock ordered flanking parties out one hundred yards on either side to cover the column, and every two hours, when the column paused to rest, the guard formed up two deep and faced outward.
Braddock's enemy was time. Each dreary day on the march drew down the supplies. Braddock assumed that Duquesne was lightly defended, but he couldn't discount the worrisome rumors floating in from Indians that sizable French reinforcements were on their way from Montreal. The army n
eeded nine days to cover the twenty-four miles to Little Meadows. The hard march and salt provisions were taking a gruesome toll. Numerous soldiers, including Washington, had taken ill, and a few had died. As Braddock came down the side of Meadow Mountain, he could see St. Clair's advance guard preparing a fortified camp for his army's arrival. While the soldiers pitched their tents, Braddock summoned Washington to ask his advice. Washington agreed that unless they picked up the pace the expedition was doomed, and urged the general to deploy ahead with a picked force and seize the forks before enemy reinforcements arrived. Braddock agreed.
"Chosen men" from the Forty-fourth and Forty-eighth regiments made up the core of the flying column. Two companies of rangers, fifty men from Captain Horatio Gates's independent New York company, and a small detachment of light horses also joined. Braddock divided his force into two elements. The first, under St. Clair's command, set off before dawn on June 18. They trailed two cannon and three wagons of tools. A day later Braddock led the second, heavier element out of the camp, accompanied by more than a dozen ammunition wagons and six more cannon. Altogether Braddock marched out of Little Meadows with about half of his entire force, leaving Dunbar with orders to follow along as quickly as possible with the remaining men, wagons, and baggage. Braddock, however, left the unfortunate Dunbar with too few wagons and horses to keep up a quick pace, and each day as the general pushed forward, Dunbar fell farther behind.
Despite his desire to reach Duquesne as quickly as possible, Braddock faced a dilemma. If he dropped more artillery and baggage and gave up road and bridge building, he could reach Duquesne in only a few days. But if the fort had been reinforced or was stronger than he anticipated, he would have to undertake a siege for which he would be unprepared. Braddock's deliberate nature won out. His greatest fear was being cut off in the terrifying wilderness, and so he continued building his road. The general's caution exasperated Washington. Braddock halts, he wrote his brother, "to level every Mold Hill, and to erect Bridges over every Brook."30
Signs of lurking French and Indians were everywhere. On June 23 three Mohawk arrived in camp and reported that the French had received reinforcements at Duquesne, but that they were desperately short of provisions. During the night the Mohawk quietly left the camp, taking one of Scarouady's scouts with them, leaving the general with barely a half dozen Indians. Two evenings later three soldiers wandered from camp. At the sound of musket fire, parties were dispatched to search for them. Three scalped bodies were found nearby. Braddock responded by offering five pounds for every Indian scalp delivered to him. Sentries and flanking parties saw the ferocious enemy behind every bush and tree. Musket fire became so common and undisciplined that the general issued orders threatening to arrest any officer who could not control his trigger-happy men. These pricking attacks by the French and Indians were effective. They slowed the advance and unnerved the young soldiers, while supplying time for the French at Duquesne to consider their options.
(4)
French Victory, English Defeat
We have done too much or too little.
—Lord Hardwicke to Newcastle
No secret could be contained in the porous bureaucracies of London and Paris. Almost as soon as Braddock broke the seal to his orders, French secret agents hurried across the channel to Paris with news of his mission. The French took the British move seriously, and with unwonted quickness King Louis XV ordered six battalions to Quebec—three times the size of the force being sent to Virginia.
Through official dispatches from Paris and a deluge of rumors relayed by Indians and fur traders, Governor Duquesne was well informed about the enemy's movements. His problem, however, was that it would take months for the king's regiments to make their way to Canada. In the meantime he was forced to rely on Canadian forces: the Troupes de la Marine and local militia.
Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIV's minister, had organized Les Compagnies Franches de la Marine, also known as Troupes de la Marine, in 1622 to serve as soldiers aboard the king's ships. Compared to Louis's huge land army, the Troupes de la Marine were a modest-sized force organized into small companies of approximately fifty men, rather than regiments of several hundred soldiers. Since the ministry of marine had responsibility for colonial administration, it was a logical move to assign the mission of defending the colonies to the Troupes de la Marine. In 1674 the first company arrived for duty in the West Indies, and in i683 three companies landed at Quebec.
Initially, the ranks of the Troupes de la Marine were recruited in France. The lower orders of Paris, the drifting populations of seaport towns, and poor country lads were among those shanghaied into the enlisted ranks bound for the colonies. But since the distance from Paris was inversely proportional to an officer's influence and chances of gaining promotion, Frenchmen of the "better sort" who made up the officer corps had little interest in serving in any of the colonies. Forced to look elsewhere for its officers, the ministry of marine found a ready supply of candidates among Canada's elite landed families, who were anxious to obtain commissions for their sons. Young men entered as cadets, the lowest commissioned rank. Duty was arduous, often requiring long periods away from home, garrisoning distant posts, negotiating with Indians, launch-ingpunitive raids, and exploring unknown territory. It was ahard, adventurous life and promotion was slow, but the romance and prestige of serving in the Troupes de la Marine was so popular among Canadians that in order to accommodate the demand for billets, by 17258 the enlistment age was lowered to fifteen. By the mid-eighteenth century almost the entire officer corps was Canadian.
Although the Troupes de la Marine were skilled fighters, they were small in number. Duquesne's entire force numbered not more than one thousand men. Militia were far more numerous but also less reliable. Since local parishes were the principal organizing element of Canada, they became the focus for the militia organization. As in New England towns, each parish sponsored its own militia company, led by officers appointed by the governor. Each parish was incorporated into one of three districts headquartered in either Quebec, or Trois-Rivieres, or Montreal. At the head of each district was a colonel supported by a staff. The governor was the supreme commander. All men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were required to bear arms. By 1750, 165 companies comprising nearly twelve thousand men were listed for service, nearly one-fifth of Canada's entire population.
The combination of the hard-bitten Troupes de la Marine and the militia, many of whom were experienced woodsmen, provided Duquesne with a powerful fighting force; nonetheless, their numbers were small compared to the manpower available in the British colonies. Compounding the governor's problem, the Troupes de la Marine were scattered in small detachments across French Canada from Cape Breton to Saskatchewan. For the moment, Duquesne's best hope rested with his Indian allies.
Since Washington's humiliating surrender and retreat at Great Meadows, French relations with the Ohio Indians had improved considerably. Several Indian delegations had appeared at the gates of Fort Duquesne to ask forgiveness for not coming sooner to the assistance of the French against the English invasion. Contrecoeur, savvy in Indian affairs, usually left his visitors waiting for several days. Only after abject apologies and profuse promises to remain loyal to Onontio, their father in Quebec, did the commandant grant them pardon and embrace them as allies. To seal the bond, the Indians smoked and exchanged wampum belts with the French as a sign of friendship.
While Contrecoeur secured support from the Ohio Indians, Duquesne sent messengers across "the ice" into the high country to the west and north of the Great Lakes. For generations these tribes, which included Ottawa, Pottawatomi, Ojibwa, and Menominee, had been drawn to the French as much by their hatred of the Iroquois as by ties of trade and religion. As spring approached, bands of warriors prepared to travel east, eager to savage their old enemies and enjoy the spoils of war.
Although Contrecoeur's clever diplomacy drew Indians to his side, the old commander himself was worn out. For nearly thirty hard
years he had served Canada and his king, and he yearned to retire to his estates near Montreal. He had done his best to prepare for the British. His men had chopped, dug, and sweated to throw up a rough wooden stockade overlooking the two rivers. Inside they had built barracks and storehouses. To open fields of fire outside the walls, they had cleared the forest for a quarter mile. Even so, Contrecoeur knew that British cannon could demolish the wooden stockade and send the Indians scattering into the forest. Braddock would have to be stopped on the road. Contrecoeur sent out raiding parties to break the enemy advance, but the British came steadily on, "always marching in battle formation."1
On April 20 Governor Duquesne came down to Lachine to see off two hundred reinforcements bound for the Ohio under the command of Captain Daniel-Hyacinthe-Marie Lienard de Beaujeu. Like Contrecoeur, Beaujeu was a veteran soldier. In King George's War he had helped lead an epic 150-mile midwinter march against the English force in Nova Scotia. After the war he commanded Fort Niagara, where he honed his skills dealing with Indians and did all that he could to thwart the rising British presence concentrated across Lake Ontario at Oswego.2 Beaujeu's long experience with Indians, and his assignments in the west, made him the natural choice to lead the relief force to Duquesne and then remain to command so that the anxious Contrecoeur could at last return home.
Beaujeu and his men took the normal six weeks to reach Niagara. Key to his mission was filling the gaps in the five-hundred-mile supply line from Montreal to Duquesne. Early winters and late springs meant that the water route was ice-free barely half the year, so it was critical to move men and supplies as early and quickly as possible. Aside from the sheer distance, the chief obstacle was the numerous portages. At key links (Niagara, Presque Isle, Riviere aux Boeuf, Venango), the French had established posts. Beaujeu's task was to clear better paths and remove obstructions between them. At the same time, he made sure that local commanders kept sufficient canoes and bateaux ready to carry men and supplies down the route. Beaujeu's party portaged around Niagara Falls and set out on Lake Erie with sixteen boats. Following the Chautauqua route, they pushed on south—overland and by water. On June 17, while Braddock was camped near Little Meadow, they arrived at Fort Le Boeuf. A few more days brought them down the French Creek to Venango, where Beaujeu received an urgent message from Contrecoeur: come quickly. At the end of June, when Beaujeu's men finally pulled their canoes onto the riverbank at Fort Duquesne, Contrecoeur was startled by the sight. In the face of a strong advancing enemy, the governor had sent him only two hundred men and no cannon.
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