Part 1
WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO THE WILDERNESS
_The American Trail Blazers_
“THE STORY GRIPS AND THE HISTORY STICKS”
These books present in the form of vivid and fascinating fiction, the early and adventurous phases of American history. Each volume deals with the life and adventures of one of the great men who made that history, or with some one great event in which, perhaps, several heroic characters were involved. The stories, though based upon accurate historical fact, are rich in color, full of dramatic action, and appeal to the imagination of the red-blooded man or boy.
Each volume illustrated in color and black and white.
INTO MEXICO WITH GENERAL SCOTT LOST WITH LIEUTENANT PIKE GENERAL CROOK AND THE FIGHTING APACHES OPENING THE WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK WITH CARSON AND FREMONT DANIEL BOONE: BACKWOODSMAN BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH DAVID CROCKETT: SCOUT ON THE PLAINS WITH CUSTER GOLD SEEKERS OF ’49 WITH SAM HOUSTON IN TEXAS WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO THE WILDERNESS
[Illustration: “MY NAME IS GEORGE WASHINGTON”]
WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO THE WILDERNESS
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBERT THE HUNTER WHILE HE WAS LEARNING TO BE A NEW AMERICAN UNDER THE YOUNG CHIEF, GEORGE WASHINGTON, WHEN THE OHIO COUNTRY WAS GAINED FOR THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE AND WASHINGTON HIMSELF WON THE RIGHT TO HIGH COMMAND IN WAR AND PEACE
BY EDWIN L. SABIN
AUTHOR OF “WITH CARSON AND FREMONT,” “BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL,” ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY_ WILL THOMSON _PORTRAIT AND MAP_
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1924
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
TO THE
AMERICAN VOLUNTEER SOLDIER
WHO FROM THE DAYS OF THE “RAW PROVINCIALS” TO THE DAYS OF THE KHAKI “YANKS” HAS EMULATED THE SPIRIT OF YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY
“I shall have the consolation of knowing that I have opened the way, when the smallness of our numbers exposed us to the attacks of a superior enemy; that I have hitherto stood the heat and brunt of the day, and escaped untouched in time of extreme danger; and that I have the thanks of my country, for the services I have rendered it.”
COLONEL GEORGE WASHINGTON, November 15, 1754
PREFACE
This story centres upon the early frontier and military career of George Washington, introducing him as the sixteen-year-old surveyor, and closing when at the age of twenty-six he married and retired, for a time, from public service. During that period, 1748–1758 inclusive, the Ohio Country, that interior west of the Alleghany Mountains, was wrested from France. The narrative deals with the youth Washington’s trip through three hundred miles of wilderness to the French forts near Lake Erie; his expedition to invest the Forks of the Ohio where the French were establishing Fort Duquesne; his service with the Braddock column; and his service under General Forbes when Fort Duquesne was taken at last. His courage as commissioner to the French at Lake Erie, his first victory, his defense of Fort Necessity, his performances upon Braddock’s Field, his endurance and fine spirit, are featured. All this was the training that demonstrated his fitness for command in the War of Independence. His companion hero of the story is a boy, Robert the Hunter, son of Mary Harris the White Woman and Feather Eagle a Delaware, but adopted by Tanacharison the Half-King of the Mingos upon the Ohio. Christopher Gist, the famous chief Scarouady, George Croghan, Andrew Montour, Captain Joncaire, Captain Jack the Black Rifle, Shingis the Delaware, Pontiac, and other historic border characters figure, as well as Doctor Craik, old Lord Fairfax, Vanbraam, and others of Washington’s personal confederates.
FOREWORD
George Washington did not spring into fame and success at one bound. That which he won he deserved. He is most widely known as the patriotic commander of the American armies in the War of Independence and as the wise first President of the United States. But he was chosen because of the things that he had already done.
If George Washington had not proved his character and his wisdom in his early campaigns and councils it is likely that another man would have been appointed commander-in-chief when the War of Independence opened; and indeed history might have been much changed as to names and events. Who may say? Washington, however, had an earned reputation; his work in the wilderness had verified his courage, patience, unselfishness, good sense and fine honor, and his military mettle. His companions upon the trail and the soldiers in his companies had confidence in young George Washington. The people saw that he was prepared for the greater commands.
The services that engaged him were also of deep importance. If the present United States, west of the Alleghany Mountains of Western Pennsylvania had remained French territory, the country facing the Atlantic Ocean might have remained a colony of Great Britain instead of expanding into the United States. At best, the Atlantic coast would have been a small and weak nation. When France lost the interior to England then the American colonies broadened and gained strength of mind and means until they decided to shift for themselves.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE GEORGE WASHINGTON 15 I. ROBERT THE HUNTER MAKES DISCOVERIES 21 II. ALARM AT LOGSTOWN 40 III. THE MINGOS SEND FOR HELP 54 IV. ON THE TRAIL TO THE WEST 72 V. THE YOUNG CHIEF ARRIVES 88 VI. BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR 98 VII. ROBERT PROVES HIS VALOR 105 VIII. WASHINGTON MEETS THE FRENCH 114 IX. HALF-KING CAUSES TROUBLE 124 X. THE LONG DANGER MARCH 134 XI. FACING WINTER PERIL 149 XII. ROBERT CARRIES BAD NEWS 162 XIII. BATTLE AND VICTORY 175 XIV. BRIGHT LIGHTNING LENDS A HAND 189 XV. IN AND OUT OF FORT NECESSITY 198 XVI. IN AND OUT OF FORT DUQUESNE 214 XVII. SCOUTING FOR THE GRENADIERS 230 XVIII. A LITTLE BEAR IN A TREE 242 XIX. IN FORT DUQUESNE AGAIN 253 XX. THE BATTLE IN THE WOODS 262 XXI. A BUCKSKIN CORPORAL 277 XXII. THE FALL OF THE GREAT FORT 289 XXIII. COLONEL WASHINGTON RESTS 296
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“My name is George Washington” _Frontispiece_
Washington at the age of twenty-five 15
Wilderness trails of young George Washington 21
Gist and John Davidson were the paddlers 134
Bright Lightning rode off astride 167
Washington was here, there, everywhere 270
[Illustration: WASHINGTON AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-FIVE]
GEORGE WASHINGTON
1732. Born about ten o’clock in the morning of February 22nd (by the calendar of those days, February 11th), upon the old Washington plantation of Wakefield bordering the Potomac River between Bridges’ and Pope’s Creek in Westmoreland County of the Colony of Virginia’s “Northern Neck”――the peninsula formed by the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers. Father, Augustine Washington; mother, Mary Ball Washington, second wife. The Washington family was of good English stock dating back to the Thirteenth Century, and had a long roll of scholars and valiant soldiers. George Washington’s great-grandfather, John Washington, had settled here in Westmoreland County in 1657. When George was born he had two half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine. He was followed by five brothers and sisters――Elizabeth, Samuel, John Augustine, Charles and Mildred.
1735. The family moves to another plantation at Hunting Creek, fifty miles northward up the Potomac. This plantation was called Washington, and later was named Mount Vernon.
1739. When George is seven the family moves again, this time down to Stafford along the east side of the Rappahannock River, opposite the town of Fredericksburg.
1743. George’s father dies, aged forty-nine, when George is eleven. He leaves a widow and seven children: George’s two elder half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, and the younger sister and brothers――Betty, Samuel, John Augustine and Charles. George is willed the Stafford plantation; other plantations and properties are willed to the other children. The mother is guardian.
1743–1745. George continues his schooling which first was under the direction of a church sexton, Mr. Grove, whom the boys called “Hobby,” at the Stafford plantation; and next under Mr. Williams, near Wakefield where, after his father’s death, George lives for a time with Augustine, its owner. By his mother he is taught religion and courtesies. From his father, a very powerful man, he inherits great strength, so that he is a leader in athletics. He is a fearless horseback-rider and is fond of hunting and fishing and playing at soldier. In mathematics he is good, in grammar and spelling and language not good; but he pays much attention to copying business forms and is neat in his papers. He likes the problems and out-door life of land surveying.
1746. At fourteen he decides to go to sea and become a merchant captain or an officer in the British Navy. But his mother opposes, and at the last moment he yields to her. He attends school kept by the Reverend James Marye, a Frenchman, in Fredericksburg.
1747. Leaving school he lives with his half-brother Lawrence upon the Mount Vernon plantation. Lawrence had married a daughter of William Fairfax of Belvoir, up-river from Mount Vernon. The Fairfax family was distinguished in England and in Virginia. At Belvoir there was also Lord Thomas Fairfax, elder brother of William Fairfax, recently arrived from London to enjoy his vast estate of 5,700,000 acres of Virginia lands. The boy George Washington is much at Belvoir, and Lord Fairfax takes a great liking for him.
1748. In March, having just turned his seventeenth year, George is appointed by Lord Fairfax to survey the immense tract of land which as yet has scarcely been explored. He sets out with only George William Fairfax, the twenty-two-year-old son of William Fairfax, and the two spend a month in the Virginia wilderness.
1749. In July, George Washington, now seventeen years of age, is appointed public surveyor of Virginia lands. This engages him through two years; he is out for weeks at a time, in all kinds of weather, and grows accustomed to hardships, woods lore and Indian ways. Between whiles he is frequently at Greenway Court, Lord Fairfax’s residence seat near Winchester, Frederick County, where he studies and hunts with his old friend; he visits his brothers and his mother.
1751. At the age of nineteen he is commissioned by the Governor of Virginia as an adjutant-general, with rank of Major, in charge of a district of the Colonial Militia. His brother Lawrence, who had served with a British regiment in the West Indies and the Spanish Main, and was adjutant-general in Virginia, recommended him. This suits George. He studies military science and fencing.
1751–1752. In September of 1751 Lawrence Washington sails for Barbadoes of the British West Indies, to gain health. George, who loves him dearly, goes with him. At Barbadoes George is stricken with the smallpox, which scars his face. He returns in the winter to Virginia, to escort his brother’s wife to the Bermudas in the spring and there meet Lawrence. But Lawrence cannot wait, and comes home.
1752. This summer Lawrence dies at Mount Vernon. He wills the plantation to his little daughter, and as executor of the estate George remains there to oversee the business. Aged twenty, he is now appointed by Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia as adjutant-general of the northern military division which covers several counties.
1753. Major George Washington, aged twenty-one, is sent by Governor Dinwiddie as a commissioner to inquire into the French invasion of the Ohio River country in the northwest; for the French soldiers from Canada were building a line of forts from Lake Erie down along the Ohio River in territory claimed by Great Britain. Major Washington was to travel almost 600 miles through the wilderness, and find the French commander. He leaves Williamsburg, the Virginia capital, on the last day of October. He takes with him Christopher Gist as guide, John Davidson as Indian interpreter, Jacob Vanbraam, who had been a soldier and was a fencing master, to speak French, and four others. After a journey of forty-five days he arrives at the French headquarters post fifteen miles south of Lake Erie. On the way he notes that the “Forks of the Ohio,” where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join in present western Pennsylvania, is a fine site for a fort.
1754. In January Major George Washington is back to report to Governor Dinwiddie at Williamsburg that the French refuse to withdraw from their line of posts. An expedition is organized to build a British post at the Forks of the Ohio. Major Washington is commissioned lieutenant-colonel, as second in command. In April he marches with three companies to support a detachment already gone. The detachment is driven from the Forks by the French, and as commander in the field, Lieutenant-Colonel Washington entrenches at Great Meadows, short of the Forks. On May 28th he surprises a French and Indian detachment and defeats it. This is his first battle; he is twenty-two years old. Having been reinforced to 400 men, at Great Meadows he erects a log fort named Fort Necessity, in order to hold fast, and on July 3rd is attacked by 900 French and Indians. This night terms are made by which the garrison should march out with the honors of war. On July 4th Fort Necessity is abandoned to the French. The French build Fort Duquesne at the Forks of the Ohio.
1755. After the affair at Great Meadows the Colonial troops lacked men and supplies and money. Washington protests against another campaign until strength and weather permit. This spring General Edward Braddock of the British Regulars arrives to lead a force of Regulars and Colonials against Fort Duquesne. George Washington is invited to join him as aide, with rank of captain. The expedition is defeated by the French and Indians near Fort Duquesne, July 9th, in a terrible battle. General Braddock is fatally wounded, and Colonel George Washington behaves “with the greatest courage and resolution;” has two horses shot from under him and four balls through his coat.
1755–1757. Following the battle of Braddock’s Field, Colonel Washington continues to live at beautiful Mount Vernon, to which he has fallen heir. He is soon appointed by the Virginia legislature to the command of all the Virginia militia. He is kept busy organizing the troops and inspecting the outposts.
1758. Having recovered from a long illness extending into March, in July he marches his Virginia regiments to take part in another expedition, this time under General Forbes, against Fort Duquesne. He leads the advance, but the fort is deserted by the enemy. The name is changed to Fort Pitt, which becomes Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the close of this year Washington again retires to private life.
1759. Not quite twenty-seven years old, he is married, January 6th, to Mrs. Martha Custis, daughter of John Dandridge and widow of John Parke Custis, with two children. She is three months younger than George Washington, and wealthy in her own rights.
1759–1769. Having been elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, or the Colonial legislature, Colonel Washington serves there. He resides at Mount Vernon, and devotes his private life to the business of his plantation, to hunting and riding, and to mingling in local society and in that of Williamsburg the capital and Annapolis the capital of Maryland. In business he is very strict, keeping full account of all transactions and shipping his tobacco to England.
1770. This fall he makes a trip, horseback, to the Forks of the Ohio again, where a few cabins around Fort Pitt mark the beginning of Pittsburgh; thence down the Ohio for 255 miles by canoe, inspecting the western lands granted to soldiers of the French and Indian War with Great Britain.
1771–1774. The American Colonies have been protesting against the Acts of the British Parliament which worked hardships upon them. In September, 1774, George Washington, aged forty-two, is a delegate from Virginia to a general Congress held at Philadelphia for the purpose of drawing up petitions of rights. Patrick Henry says that in “solid information and sound judgment” Colonel Washington was the greatest man on the floor.
1775. War with Great Britain having commenced, on June 15th the Second Continental Congress in session at Philadelphia appoints George Washington commander-in-chief of the American military forces. He takes command July 3rd, with rank of general.
1775–1782. Serves as commander-in-chief of the American army in the War of the Revolution.
1783. In October General Washington issues his Farewell Address to the army. December 4th he bids his officers goodby, in person, at Harlem, New York. December 23rd he resigns his commission, in the temporary Hall of Congress at Annapolis. December 24th he arrives home at Mount Vernon, having been absent over eight years.
1784–1786. He declines to be paid for his expenses during the war, and wishes no reward, but settles down to home and business life. His advice is much sought. He entertains many visitors, among them Lafayette; and makes a tour west to the Ohio River once more.
1787. In May he is a delegate from Virginia to the General Convention in Philadelphia to draw up a Constitution of the United States; and is chosen president of the convention.
1789. In February George Washington, aged fifty-seven, is unanimous choice of the people for first President of the United States. On March 4th the election is ratified. He is at once notified by messenger from Congress, and on March 6th he leaves Mount Vernon for New York, then the seat of Congress. He takes oath of office April 30th, and delivers his inaugural address. His mother, aged eighty-two years, dies in August. This same year he suffers a serious illness from which he never completely recovers.
1790. By his advice the present District of Columbia is selected as the site of the National Capital. He is again ill. While President he keeps close track of his plantation interests and is a student of farming methods. He looks forward to retiring to his beloved Mount Vernon.
1791. He defines the site and marks the boundaries of the new National Capital district, ten miles square, to be named Washington.
1793. The welfare of the nation demands that he remain President, and on March 4th he enters upon his second term of office.
1793–1797. Washington continues as wise and able President. In 1796 Lafayette’s son, George Washington Lafayette, comes to the United States and for a year and a half is a member of Washington’s household.
1797. Having declined nomination to a third term of office, and having, on September 15, 1796, issued a Farewell Address to the people of the United States, on March 4th, 1797, Washington retires from the Presidency and is succeeded by Thomas Jefferson[see Tr. Notes].
1798. At Mount Vernon Washington has been following the peaceful routine of a farmer. War with France threatens, and in July he is nominated lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of an army to be raised. He accepts and applies himself to organizing the army.
1799. December 12 he is wet and chilled with snow while riding over his land. After only twenty-four hours in bed he dies between ten and eleven o’clock at night, December 14th. December 18th he is laid to rest in the family vault at Mount Vernon. His age was sixty-seven years and ten months lacking a week.
’Tis nobly done――the day’s our own――huzzah, huzzah!
[Illustration: WILDERNESS TRAILS OF YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON]
WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO THE WILDERNESS
I
ROBERT THE HUNTER MAKES DISCOVERIES
It had been raining with a cold spring rain for two days, and the vast forest here in southern Pennsylvania of 1748 was dripping and soggy. The Indians did not mind; they were well greased with bear’s grease and well painted, and their skin scarcely felt the wet. Besides, they were in a hurry.
Robert, whose Seneca name was the Hunter, did not mind it either. He also was Indian. To be sure, his mother was called the White Woman. But she had been captured forty years ago, when a little girl, by the Mohawks of the French from the north, and had been traded south, and had become the wife to Chief Feather Eagle of the Delawares in the Ohio Country.
So Robert had been brought up as an Indian boy. When his father had died the great Tan-a-char-i-son, head chief of all the Mingo Iroquois and known as Half-King, passing by White Woman’s Creek on return home from a visit to the Shawnees in the west, had taken him to train him as a warrior.
To a warrior there is no weather. Heat and cold, dry and wet, they are the same to a warrior, especially a Mingo warrior of the Six Nations who have council-seats in the Long House of the proud Iroquois.
Less than a moon ago, at Logstown which was the principal village of the Mingos, upon the Ohio River, Half-King had said to Robert the Hunter:
“Listen: Tomorrow White Thunder bears a speech belt to our brothers the Delawares near the Susquehanna and I wish you to go with him. You will learn much; and if you are to be a warrior it is well that you should know your way through the woods and across the mountains.”
From that Logstown upon the north bank of the upper Ohio――the Ohion-hiio or Beautiful River――seventeen or eighteen miles down from where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, now stands, Robert had set out with White Thunder the Keeper of the Mingo wampum belts, and with Aroas or Silver Heels the warrior, to travel afoot eastward through the forests and mountains for the Delawares of central Pennsylvania.
The Mingos were those Oneidas, Senecas and others of the Iroquois Six Nations who had moved from New York into Western Pennsylvania which the Iroquois claimed to have conquered. They thought little of the Delawares. The Iroquois had claimed to have conquered the Delawares also, and called them “women.” But all the Indian peoples――Iroquois, Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, Miamis――had been invited to meet the English in council at Albany, the capital of New York, this coming June, to talk peace again. Therefore Half-King Tanacharison wisely wished to learn what the Delawares to the east of him were going to do.
Now this was no small journey, although, of course, it was nothing to an Indian. Nobody except Indians and birds and beasts lived in that country, and the only white persons to cross it were the traders. But the game such as bear, deer and turkeys was plentiful, and the three travellers from Logstown had meat at every camp.
Little happened during the first half of the trip. Then, on a sudden in a cloudy day, Aroas, who was leading with gun in hand, stopped short.
“Wah!” he said, to White Thunder. “This is it.”
“Yes,” replied White Thunder, stopping also. “This is it. It is alive?”
“Men have passed,” said Silver Heels. “And not long ago.”
They both studied the trail. The trail was a narrow one, wending right on amid the great trees of the silent, sunless forest. Something about the trail, and the manner with which Aroas and White Thunder held back from it struck the Hunter like a sensation of lurking death.
They two were bending forward, reading the trail. The Hunter himself could see that there were tracks in it――moccasin tracks lightly printed upon the soft soil and pressing twigs into the mud and leaves.
“Do we fear the Delaware?” he asked.
“No,” answered White Thunder. “This is not their land. The land once given to them by the Iroquois has flowed through their stomachs, for they sold it to the English for rum. They wear petticoats. Here is a danger trail.”
“What is that?”
“It is the Catawba Trail. Be silent.”