George Washington

by Stephen Brumwell

  For all his elaborate courtesy, and the “plentiful store of liquor, provisions etc.” that he put into Washington’s canoe for the return journey, the canny Saint-Pierre “was plotting every scheme that the Devil and man could invent, to set our Indians at variance with us, to prevent their going ’til after our departure.” As Washington anxiously recorded: “I can’t say that ever in my life I suffered so much anxiety as I did in this affair.”

  On December 16, despite a last French effort to persuade the Half-King to stay through the “power of liquor,” Washington badgered the chief to leave with him. Clutching his polite but uncompromising rejection of Dinwiddie’s request, Washington made the return journey from Fort Le Boeuf in appalling weather, first by canoe, then overland. The going was harder than ever, with the passage down the corkscrewing course of French Creek “tedious and very fatiguing”; several times it seemed their canoe would be holed on rocks, while they were often obliged to get out and toil in the icy water to heave it over the shoals. Where the creek was frozen solid, they were forced to portage, or manhandle, their canoe for a quarter of a mile across a neck of land.

  Exhausted, they reached Venango only on December 22. From there, Washington intended to continue by land, riding the horses sent ahead with three of the “servitors.” But White Thunder “had hurt himself much, and was sick and unable to walk,” obliging Tanaghrisson to ferry him onward by canoe. Fearing that once he had set off, Joncaire would use all his wiles to win over the Indians, Washington cautioned against such “flattery” and “fine speeches.” Tanaghrisson assured him he was immune to French advances.

  The party’s horses were now “so weak and feeble” from their exertions that they could not carry anything but essential baggage, and Washington proceeded on foot. As the snow fell more heavily than ever, the packhorses grew weaker and slower by the day. Washington remained keen to deliver his report to Dinwiddie without delay, and on Boxing Day he left the baggage to follow as best it could and pushed on through the woods with the hardy and reliable Christopher Gist. Both men were wrapped up in Indian-style “matchcoats,” with packs on their backs and guns in their hands.

  Now moving through lands prowled by pro-French Indians, they faced fresh hazards. Near the ominously named Murdering Town, a warrior took a potshot at them from just fifteen yards off. Thankfully, he was no sharpshooter. Neither Washington nor Gist was harmed, and they collared the Indian as he struggled to reload his gun. Incensed, Gist wanted to kill the would-be assassin on the spot, but Washington intervened, and he was turned loose. Anticipating pursuit from more hostiles, the pair now pushed on through the night without stopping, traveling on the next day until it was dark. They were bought up short by the Ohio (today’s Allegheny), which, despite the intense cold, was only partially frozen. To cross over, Washington and Gist cobbled together a ramshackle raft. With just one “poor hatchet” between them, that took a day’s work. Jumping aboard their craft, they were barely halfway across when it jammed fast in the ice. As Washington was using his setting pole to jerk the raft free, the current threw a floe against it with such force that he was tumbled off into the deep, freezing water. Grabbing onto the raft, he clawed his way out. Unable to reach shore, Washington and his companion spent the night on an island, chilled and soaked. It was now colder than ever, and Gist was badly frostbitten. But despite his ducking, Washington miraculously remained unscathed. The next morning, the ice was thick enough for them to reach dry land, and they headed for Fraser’s cabin.

  There they encountered evidence that the anticipated frontier war was already beginning. They met a band of friendly Indians who had abandoned their raid to the south after discovering a massacred family of seven, the scalped bodies of adults and children alike strewn about and gnawed by hogs. Signs indicated that the killers were Ottawas, a tribe from beyond the Great Lakes known for strong French affiliations and a taste for human flesh. In coming years, such grim vignettes would become depressingly familiar along the exposed Pennsylvanian and Virginian frontiers.

  Washington and Gist continued on their way on January 1, 1754, and by January 6 were back at Wills Creek, “after as fatiguing a journey as it is possible to conceive,” chiefly owing to the unrelenting “cold wet weather, which occasioned very uncomfortable lodgings.” It was all a contrast to the hospitality and congenial company of Belvoir, where, despite his professed desire to see Dinwiddie without delay, the weather-beaten Washington broke his journey to take a day of “necessary rest” among his Fairfax friends.

  Reaching Williamsburg on January 16, Washington presented Dinwiddie with the French commandant’s response, amplified by his own verbal account of events and his rough journal of “the most remarkable occurrences that happened to me.” Washington’s report and the detailed map that he drew to accompany it confirmed Dinwiddie’s belief that the French threat to the Ohio was no mere chimera. To bolster his case, Dinwiddie quickly decided to print Washington’s journal. Transcribed from his field notes inside twenty-four hours, this was subsequently published as a pamphlet in Williamsburg and London and, in the fashion of the age, reprinted entire or in part by magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic.44 Reaction to its contents was mixed: while the Ohio Company’s backers took comfort from Washington’s confirmation of French designs upon that region, others suspected a cynical ploy to promote the company’s interests.

  Regardless of its reception, the widespread dissemination of Washington’s Ohio journal brought him a first taste of international fame. Here was a genuine tale of danger and hardship among exotic “savages” to rival any novel. At just twenty-two, Washington had been catapulted from an obscure officer of the colonial militia to a bold adventurer whose name resonated with power brokers in London and Paris.

  2

  Hearing the Bullets Whistle

  In token of its approval for his recent excursion into the Ohio Country, Virginia’s assembly awarded Washington £50, a sum, as he later grouched, that did nothing to recognize the hardships and dangers endured but merely covered his expenses.1 The evidence in Washington’s journal gave Governor Dinwiddie the ammunition he needed to contest French ambitions: at his urging, but only after much wrangling, the House of Burgesses voted £10,000 to raise a force of 300 volunteers to uphold Virginia’s rights on the Ohio.

  To help fill the six companies of what would become the Virginia Regiment, Dinwiddie lured recruits with promises of a share in 200,000 acres of land on the frontier they would be contesting. As a first step, 100 men from Frederick and Augusta Counties were to be placed under Major Washington’s command. After training and equipping his detachment at Alexandria, Washington was to lose no time in marching for the Forks of the Ohio, where a small advance party of Virginians under Captain William Trent was already building a fort.2 The urgent need for action was reinforced by reports from friendly Indians that the French were now heading there in overwhelming force.

  While eager to join the offensive, given his youth and lack of military experience, Washington was reluctant to assume the responsibility of overall command. The rank of colonel and commander in chief of the Virginia Regiment instead went to Joshua Fry, with Washington placed under him as lieutenant colonel. An Oxford-educated professor of mathematics in his early fifties, Fry was no more qualified for military command than Washington but was reckoned steady and reliable by Dinwiddie. The regiment’s other officers were a polyglot bunch, born in North America, Great Britain, Holland, Sweden, and even France. They included men like George Mercer, who shared Washington’s own Virginian roots, and more recent arrivals from Europe, such as the Scottish medical men Adam Stephen and James Craik; in the coming months of hard campaigning, these three, among others, would forge long-standing friendships with their young lieutenant colonel.

  Recruits for the Virginia Regiment were not easy to come by. From Alexandria, Washington reported to Dinwiddie that such men as had enlisted were mostly the flotsam and jetsam of colonial society, “loose, idle persons th
at are quite destitute of house and home.” Many also lacked coats on their backs, and even shoes on their feet, and, with no sign of a regimental paymaster, it was impossible to advance them the money to buy proper outfits. The recruits were nonetheless keen to acquire uniforms, and Washington was adamant that these should be red; even the “coarsest” local cloth would do. As he explained to Dinwiddie, the Indians would be “struck with” this martial display as “red with them is compared to blood and is looked upon as the distinguishing marks of warriors and great men.” By contrast, Washington believed that the dowdy gray-white uniforms of the French common soldiers presented “a shabby and ragged appearance” that earned the Indians’ contempt.3 Dinwiddie, too, was persuaded: like his half brother Lawrence before him, George Washington embarked upon his first combat command wearing the blood-red coat that had been the trademark of the British soldier for more than a century.

  Despite all the nagging logistical problems—which gave a foretaste of those that would dog him as commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War—on April 2, 1754, Lieutenant Colonel Washington marched for the Forks with such men as he had already enlisted, about 160 in all, without waiting for Colonel Fry.4 After several hard weeks on the trail, news came in that the French had already pounced. Trent’s deputy, Ensign Edward Ward, and the thirty-odd men pushed ahead to dig in at the Forks had been sent packing upon the arrival of the long-anticipated enemy force on April 17. This had struck from Venango in overwhelming strength. According to reports, there were “upwards of one thousand men, eighteen pieces of artillery, and large stores of provisions and other necessaries” under Captain Claude Pierre Pécaudy, sieur de Contrecoeur, all ferried in “a fleet of 360 canoes and bateaux”;5 these were the very craft that Washington had seen laid up around Fort Le Boeuf that winter. Although the size of the French force was exaggerated, it was formidable enough to convince Ward and his puny command to surrender their post before a single shot was fired. Content with achieving his objective, Contrecoeur allowed the Virginians to retire unmolested.

  Marching on to Wills Creek, familiar as the jumping-off point for his recent trek into the Ohio Country, Washington called a council of war to consider how best to respond to this crisis; such consultations were standard procedure within eighteenth-century armies and navies, and Washington would convene many more during his military career. Amid all the gloom there was one ray of hope: although the French had taken the Forks with contemptuous ease, their appearance had drawn a defiant response from the indignant “Half-King,” Tanaghrisson. He sent Washington emissaries bearing the customary wampum belt as proof of his sincerity. They explained that the Half-King and his warriors were eager to fight the French and only waited upon Washington’s assistance to strike.

  Sensing that Virginian, and therefore British, prestige was at stake, Washington decided to advance to the Ohio Company storehouse at Redstone Creek, less than forty miles from the Forks. He assured Dinwiddie of his intention to construct a road to Redstone “sufficiently good for the heaviest artillery” and then hold out there until reinforcements arrived, ready to uphold his country’s rights “to the last remains of life.” Using his “inherited” Indian name, “Conotocarious,” Washington had also responded to Tanaghrisson’s speech, anticipating joint action against the “treacherous” French.6

  Given the odds stacked against Washington’s force, this was a remarkably bold response. In addition, and acting entirely on his own initiative, Washington sent dispatches to the lieutenant governors of Virginia’s northern neighbors, Pennsylvania and Maryland, soliciting their aid in the common cause. His letter to Maryland’s Horatio Sharpe, who Washington believed to be “solicitous for the public weal and warm in this interesting cause,” included a dramatic rallying cry worthy of Shakespeare’s warrior-king Henry V. Indeed, he wrote, the news from the Forks “should rouse from the lethargy we have fallen into, the heroic spirit of every free-born Englishman to assert the rights and privileges of our king” and rescue “from the invasions of a usurping enemy, our Majesty’s property, his dignity, and lands.”7

  As Washington knew all too well, the mountainous and densely forested terrain, which rose in a series of rampart-like ridges, posed a daunting barrier to military operations; his advance from Wills Creek was predictably slow, with a maximum pace of four miles a day. Yet the rough road inched inexorably forward, until, some twenty miles from Redstone, Washington was forced to halt by the rain-swollen waters of the Youghiogheny River. As he waited for these to subside, reports arrived that the French had now begun constructing their own fort at the Forks and were being reinforced.

  Meanwhile Washington was fuming at news that he and his fellow officers in the Virginia Regiment were to receive less pay than British regular soldiers. Here was a prime example of colonial Americans being treated like inferior beings. “Why should the lives of Virginians be worth less than Britons?” he complained to Dinwiddie. Only the prospect of imminent action had prevented his officers from resigning their commissions in disgust. Washington himself, for whom personal honor and “reputation” would always be paramount, initially refused all pay, preferring to soldier on as a “volunteer.”8

  Dinwiddie now sent word that Colonel Fry was on his way with the much-needed reinforcements. As the level of the Youghiogheny had dropped, however, Washington resolved to resume his march for Redstone rather than await his tardy commanding officer. It was a clear sign of the young Washington’s hunger for military distinction—whatever the risks. He had not gone far before he received another message from the Half-King: this warned that the French intended to attack the first English they encountered, reaffirmed his own allegiance, and pledged that he and his fellow chiefs would meet Washington for a conference in five days’ time.9

  Surmounting the last great barrier of Laurel Hill, Washington’s little force descended until, on May 24, it reached a natural clearing within the blanketing forest—the Great Meadows. By scouring stray bushes from the lush grassland, Washington created what he described as “a charming field for an encounter.” But his probing scouts could find no sign of an enemy to fight there.10

  Christopher Gist, Washington’s trusty companion on his Ohio diplomatic mission, arrived on May 27 with intelligence that fifty Frenchmen were heading that way, asking for the Half-King. Washington responded by sending out seventy-five men—about half of his force—to find them. Before their return, an Iroquois runner named Silver Heels came in with news that the Half-King was encamped six miles off. There was more: the chief had followed the tracks of two men to a well-hidden hollow, where he believed that the entire French party lay concealed.11

  Despite misgivings that he was being duped into abandoning his camp, Washington divided his remaining force once again. Now at the head of about forty men, he followed Silver Heels to what he hoped would be a rendezvous with the Half-King. It was raining steadily, and as the night was “as dark as pitch” and the path barely wide enough to march single file, they often strayed and stumbled over one another. At sunrise on May 28, 1754, they reached the Indian camp. There, they found Tanaghrisson and a dozen warriors, all keen to smite the French; they included Monacatoocha, the Oneida sachem whom Washington had met on his diplomatic mission into the Ohio Country. The two parties moved off, with the Indians scouting ahead. A pair of warriors returned with news that some thirty French lay half a mile from the track, encamped within a rocky glen.

  The Virginians and their Indian allies approached stealthily, resolving to surround the enemy and then “fall on them together,” but before the cordon was complete, they were discovered. According to Washington’s contemporaneous journal, it was only after the French raised the alarm and sprinted for their muskets that he gave the fateful order to open fire. He subsequently denied reports that the French had sought to avoid bloodshed by shouting an appeal for his party “not to fire.” Whatever the precise sequence of events, Washington’s own journal, and likewise his reports to Dinwiddie, leave no dou
bt that he approached the glen with hostile intent, and was planning a surprise attack when the French reacted.12

  A brisk firefight followed. Caught in a crossfire from above, the French began to drop. After fifteen minutes the survivors broke and ran. With all escape barred, they tried to surrender. Washington moved forward to accept their submission, only to stand in dumbfounded horror as his Indian allies dashed forward to tomahawk and scalp the fallen, dead and wounded alike. It was only “with great difficulty” that Washington persuaded Tanaghrisson and his warriors to halt the slaughter. Such ferocity, while shocking to the uninitiated, was part and parcel of American frontier warfare, where enemies were for killing and vengeance to be exacted: indeed, the Half-King had insisted upon “scalping them all, as it was their way of fighting [and] . . . those people had killed, boiled and eat[en] his father.”

  Before Washington managed to stop the butchery, ten Frenchmen lay dead, including their young commander, Joseph Coulon, sieur de Jumonville. In a symbolic, yet all-too-physical rejection of French power, he had been dispatched by Tanaghrisson himself. Standing over the wounded ensign, the Half-King observed: “You are not yet dead, my father.” He promptly finished the job, smashing Jumonville’s skull with his hatchet, then reportedly scooping out his brains and “washing his hands” with them.13