CHAPTER II

ON BRADDOCK'S BLOODY FIELD (1755)

WHERE WASHINGTON WON HIS SPURS

N September, this 1754, Colonel and Brigadier General Sir Edward Braddock was appointed by King George II major-general in command of all the British forces in America He was directed to sail with two regiments of Regulars, to drive the French from the Ohio Country. The Provincials or colonial militia appeared to be worthless. British Regulars would soon do the business.

Sir Edward had been born into the British army. His father had been lieutenant-colonel of the famous Coldstream Guards, one of the crack regiments of old England. He himself had been an ensign of the Guards at fifteen, at twenty-one a lieutenant, at forty a captain, at forty-seven lieutenant-colonel; next, colonel of the Forty-fourth Foot and brigadier general of the line. Through all these years he had fought upon many fields.

Now in 1754 he was a burly, broad-shouldered, sixfoot veteran of sixty years, with a reputation as a drill-master, a swordsman, and a hard-bitted soldier. He was short-tempered and obstinate, and brave. Everybody in the army knew "Charley" Braddock.

If anyone could make quick work of the French, he was the man; and he would speedily discipline the provincial militia, also. His own regiment, the Fortyfourth, was the best drilled regiment in England.

In the late winter he set sail with his staff of officers and a company or two as guard. The two regiments chosen were the Forty-fourth, commanded by Colonel Sir Peter Halket the Scotchman, and the Forty-eighth, commanded by Colonel Thomas Dunbar.

It was February 20 when General Braddock arrived in Hampton Roads of Chesapeake Bay; he made his headquarters at Alexandria, up the Potomac and only a few miles from Mt. Vernon, the home of Colonel Washington. Here at Alexandria the troops were landed at last, in March. They were a fine sight, those gold-laced British officers in the king's scarlet, and those stiff, red-coated, peak-hatted British grenadiers.

Washington longed to join the expedition, in order to learn Regular army methods and to help clean out the French intruders; but the officers of the British Regulars ranked the officers of the provinces, and he feared that he would not be given the chance to show what he could do. General Braddock heard good word of this young "provincial" colonel; he directed his aide, Captain Robert Orme, to invite Colonel Washington to join as a member of the staff with rank of captain in the British army.

The letter of invitation, marked "On his Majesty's service with speed," was welcomed. George Washington gladly accepted. He and the other young aidesde-camp, Captains Orme and Morris, and the general's

military secretary, Captain Shirley, became great friends.

General Braddock was a long time in getting started. He had to wait for supplies and recruits and militia. Meanwhile he fumed and fretted. The French were hurrying troops across the ocean to America, Fort Duquesne was likely to be reinforced. But he never lost confidence.

He moved headquarters to Frederick, farther inland, in Maryland. Here he met the great and benign Benjamin Franklin.

"I shall take Fort Duquesne by the first of June," he said, to Benjamin Franklin. "Duquesne can hardly detain me more than three or four days; and then I can see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara.”

"It will require a very long line, perhaps four miles, to march by a narrow road through the forest and over the mountains," Franklin the wise thought to himself. So he ventured to say: "To be sure, if you arrive safely before Duquesne with these fine troops. and your artillery, it can probably make only a short resistance. But the Indians are very skillful in laying ambuscades; and the slender line that your march must form may expose it to attack that will cut it into pieces like a thread."

General Braddock smiled.

"These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia," he declared proudly; "but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible that they should make an impression."

And again he was heard to say:

"In my opinion, sirs, our principal task will be to march up the hills and come down again."

The actual start was to be made from the Ohio Company's supply post of Fort Cumberland, at the mouth of Will's Creek up the Potomac River. From here stretched the Indian trail to the Monongahela Riverthe trail that Christopher Gist and Washington had followed when they went in, across the Allegheny Mountains.

On the road to Fort Cumberland (and a very bad road it was, too, through the wilderness) General Braddock passed his troops. He had bought a red state carriage from Governor Sharpe of Maryland; and now he posted at full speed, well jounced, and flanked by his galloping aides-de-camp and a lighthorse guard. The drums and fifes received him with the Grenadier's March; seventeen cannon saluted him at Cumberland. But by this time he had had enough of such travel. He changed his mind about going on to Duquesne in a crimson coach. Horse and saddle were better suited to this kind of a country.

The troops had been twenty-seven days in marching some one hundred miles through timber and brush and over the Blue Ridge Mountains. They were footsore and weary. Evidently a tough campaign lay before; to get wagons and artillery farther looked to be a task indeed. Ensign Allen of the regulars, appointed to drill the militia, had his hands full. General Braddock decided that the Americans never would amount to

much as soldiers; and he made no bones about saying

So.

On the contrary, Captain Washington and others rather believed that when it came to fighting Indians in the forest the "raw" Americans would give a good account of themselves. Drilling in massed formations, every man as stiff as a poker, was a poor way to prepare for woods fighting. Still, there had to be discipline.

When by June 7 General Braddock was ready to march, he had all told about twenty-two hundred

men.

There were the two regiments of British grenadiers, each recruited up to seven hundred; there was a company of Virginia light horse, commanded by Captain Stewart; there were two half companies of New York volunteers; there were some thirty British sailors, to help with the tackle for dragging the cannon; there were two companies of sixty pioneers or road makers; there were Scouts George Croghan and Christopher Gist; there were only eight Indians, under Chief Scarouady, who was now half-king, since old Tanacharison's death last fall; and there were many women, for laundresses and so forth.

Scout Captain Croghan had received word that on the march the celebrated Captain Jack and his band of forest rangers would join. This Captain Patrick Jack of the Pennsylvania border was known as "Black Hunter," "Black Rifle," and the "Wild Hunter of the Juniata." He had lost his whole family, by the Indians. Now he and his band did nothing but hunt for