George Washington. William Roscoe Thayer

      Governor Dinwiddie, being much disappointed with the outcome of the expedition, urged the Virginian Legislature to equip another party sufficiently strong to be able to capture Fort Duquesne, and to confirm the British control of the Ohio. The Burgesses, however, pleaded economy, and refused to grant funds adequate to this purpose. Nevertheless, the Governor having equipped a small troop, under the command of Colonel Fry, with Washington as second, hurried it forth. During May and June they were near the Forks, and with the approach of danger, Washington's spirit and recklessness increased. In a slight skirmish, M. de Jumonville, the French commander, was killed. Fry died of disease and Washington took his place as commander. Perceiving that his own position was precarious, and expecting an attack by a large force of the enemy, he entrenched himself near Great Meadows in a hastily built fort, which he called Fort Necessity, and thought it possible to defend, even with his own small force, against five hundred French and Indians. He miscalculated, however. The enemy exceeded in numbers all his expectations. His own resources dwindled; and so he took the decision of a practical man and surrendered the fort, on condition that he and his men be allowed to march out with the honors of war. They returned to Virginia with little delay.

      The Burgesses and the people of the State, though chagrined, did not take so gloomy a view of the collapse of the expedition as Washington himself did. His own depression equalled his previous exaltation. As he thought over the affairs of the past half-year in the quiet of Mount Vernon, the feeling which he had had from the start, that the expedition had not been properly planned, or directed, or reënforced in men and supplies, was confirmed. Governor Dinwiddie's notion that raw volunteers would suffice to overcome trained soldiers had been proved a delusion. The inadequate pay and provisions of the officers irritated Washington, not only because they were insufficient, but also because they fell far short of those of the English regulars.

      In his penetrating Biography of Washington, Senator Lodge regards his conduct of the campaign, which ended in the surrender of Great Meadows, and his narrative as revealing Washington as a "profoundly silent man." Carlyle, Senator Lodge says, who preached the doctrine of silence, brushed Washington aside as a "bloodless Cromwell," "failing utterly to see that he was the most supremely silent of the great men of action that the world can show." Let us admit the justice of the strictures on Carlyle, but let us ask whether Washington's letters at this time spring from a "silent" man. He writes with perfect openness to Governor Dinwiddie; complains of the military system under which the troops are paid and the campaign is managed; he repeatedly condemns the discrimination against the Virginian soldiers in favor of the British regulars; and he points out that instead of attempting to win the popularity of the Virginians, they are badly treated. Their rations are poor, and he reminds the Governor that a continuous diet of salt pork and water does not inspire enthusiasm in either the stomach or the spirit. No wonder that the officers talk of resigning. "For my own part I can answer, I have a constitution hardy enough to encounter and undergo the most severe trials, and, I flatter myself, resolution to face what any man durst, as shall be proved when it comes to the test, which I believe we are on the borders of." In several other passages from letters at this time, we come upon sentiments which indicate that Washington had at least a sufficiently high estimation of his own worth, and that his genius for silence had not yet curbed his tongue. There is the famous boast attributed to him by Horace Walpole. In a despatch which Washington sent back to the Governor after the little skirmish in which Jumonville was killed, Washington said: "'I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.' On hearing of this the King said sensibly, 'he would not say so if he had been used to hear many.'" This reply of George II deserves to be recorded if only because it is one of the few feeble witticisms credited to the Hanoverian Kings. Years afterward, Washington declared that he did not remember ever having referred to the charm of listening to whistling bullets. Perhaps he never said it; perhaps he forgot. He was only twenty-two at the time of the Great Meadows campaign. No doubt he was as well aware as was Governor Dinwiddie, and other Virginians, that he was the best equipped man on the expedition, experienced in actual fighting, and this, added to his qualifications as a woodsman, had given him a real zest for battle. In their discussion over the campfire, he and his fellow officers must inevitably have criticized the conduct of the expedition, and it may well be that Washington sometimes insisted that if his advice were followed things would go better. Not on this account, therefore, must we lay too much blame on him for being conceited or immodest. He knew that he knew, and he did not dissemble the fact. Silence came later.

      The result of the expeditions to and skirmishes at the Forks of the Ohio was that England and France were at war, although they had not declared war on each other. A chance musket shot in the backwoods of Virginia started a conflict which reverberated in Europe, disturbed the peace of the world for seven years, and had serious consequences in the French and English colonies of North America. The news of Washington's disaster at Fort Necessity aroused the British Government to the conclusion that it must make a strong demonstration in order to crush the swelling prestige of the French rivals in America. The British planned, accordingly, to send out three expeditions, one against Fort Duquesne, another against the French in Nova Scotia, and a third against Quebec. The command of the first they gave to General Edward Braddock. He was then sixty years old, had been in the Regular Army all his life, had served in Holland, at L'Orient, and at Gibraltar, was a brave man, and an almost fanatical believer in the rules of war as taught in the manuals. During the latter half of 1754, Governor Dinwiddie was endeavoring against many obstacles to send another expedition, equipped by Virginia herself, to the Ohio. Only in the next spring, however, after Braddock had come over from England with a relatively large force of regulars, were the final preparations for a campaign actually made. Washington, in spite of being the commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, had his wish of going as a volunteer at his own expense. He wrote his friend William Byrd, on April 20, 1755, from Mount Vernon:

      I am now preparing for, and shall in a few days set off, to serve in the ensuing campaign, with different views, however, from those I had before. For here, if I can gain any credit, or if I am entitled to the least countenance and esteem, it must be from serving my country without fee or reward; for I can truly say, I have no expectation of either. To merit its esteem, and the good will of my friends, is the sum of my ambition, having no prospect of attaining a commission, being well assured it is not in Gen'l Braddock's power to give such an one as I would accept of. The command of a Company is the highest commission vested in his gift. He was so obliging as to desire my company this campaign, has honoured me with particular marks of his esteem, and kindly invited me into his family—a circumstance which will ease me of expences that otherwise must have accrued in furnishing stores, camp equipages, etc. Whereas the cost will now be easy (comparatively speaking), as baggage, horses, tents, and some other necessaries, will constitute the whole of the charge.[1]

      [Footnote 1: Ford, I, 146–49.]

      The army began to move about the middle of May, but it went very slowly. During June Washington was taken with an acute fever, in spite of which he pressed on, but he became so weak that he had to be carried in a cart, as he was unable to sit his horse. Braddock, with the main army, had gone on ahead, and Washington feared that the battle, which he believed imminent, would be fought before he came up with the front. But he rejoined the troops on July 8th. The next day they forded the Monongahela and proceeded to attack Fort Duquesne. Writing from Fort Cumberland, on July 18th, Washington gave Governor Dinwiddie the following account of Braddock's defeat. The one thing happened which Washington had felt anxious about—a surprise by the Indians. He had more than once warned Braddock of this danger, and Benjamin Franklin had warned him too before the expedition started, but Braddock, with perfect British contempt, had replied that though savages might be formidable to raw Colonials, they could make no impression on disciplined troops. The surprise came and thus Washington reports it:

      When we came to this place, we were attacked (very unexpectedly) by about three hundred French and Indians. Our numbers consisted of about thirteen hundred well armed men, chiefly Regulars, who were immediately struck with such an inconceivable panick, that nothing but confusion and disobedience of orders prevailed among them. The officers, in general, behaved with incomparable bravery, for which they greatly suffered, there being near 60 killed and wounded—a large proportion, out of the number we had!

      The Virginia companies