OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - HISTORY: Chapter 3 (Abbott, John S. C., 1875)
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			Chapter III
		   Expulsion of the French

   The untoward event, which has been narrated at the close of the last 
chapter, created, at the time, intense excitement. The French regarded
it as one of the grossest of outrages, in violation of all the established
laws of civilization. There was no language too severe to express their
abhorrence of the deed. But now that the passions of that day have passed
away, the French magnanimously concur in the general verdict, that the un-
happy event was the result of accident, for which Colonel Washington was 
very excusable. His whole previous and subsequent career proved that no
temptation could induce him to be guilty of a dishonorable deed.
   But this occurance, at the time, was as a spark to the powder. It open-
ed the drama of war, with all its unspeakable horrors. The French comman-
dant, at Fort Duquesne immediately dispatched fifteen hundred men, French
and Indians, to avenge the wrong. As we have said, Washington, with his 
starving and exhausted troops, could not retreat over the barren leagues
which he had already traversed. Still less could he hope to present any 
successful resistance to the overpowering and indignant troops pressing
down upon him. Capitulation was inevitable. But his proud spirit could not
stoop to a surrender until he had, at least made a manly show at resistance.
He hastily threw up some breastworkds, and for a whole day struggled against
the large force which entirely surrounded him. He then, to save the lives of 
his men, surrendered. The victors were generous. Considering the circum-
stances of the case, they were remarkable generous; as they must have con-
sidered that their friends had been perfidiously massacred. It is probably
that the ingenuousness of Washington so explained matters as to disarm the
rage of M. de Villiers, the French commander.
   The Virginia troops were allowed to retire with their side-arms and
all their possessions, excepting one or two pieces of artillery. Unmolested, 
and at their leisure, they returned to Virginia. On the whole, Washington's
character did not suffer from this occurence. His youth and inexperience, 
and the terrible circumstances of trial under which he was placed, disarmed
the virulence of censure, in view of an act of apparent rashness. Moreover, 
it was considered that he had developed very great military genius and 
diplomatic sagacity in rescuing his little army from immiment destruction, 
and in conducting them safely back to their homes.
   Every army necessarily gathers into its ranks the wild, the reckless and 
depraved. Very many of the rude frontiersmen who were following the banners
of Washington, to drive the French from the great valley, were profane and 
unprincipled men. Oaths were far more often heard in the camp than prayers.
The following order of the day, issued by this young officer of twenty-two
years, is worthy of especial record:
   "Colonel Washington has observed that the men of his regiment are very
profane and reprobate. He takes this opportunity to inform them that, if 
they do not leave them off, they shall be severely punished. The officers
are desired, if they hear any man swear, or make use of an oath or execra-
tion, to order the offender twenty-five lashes immediately, without a court
martial. For a second offense, he shall be more severely punished."
   Such was Washington's character as a young man. Would that the young men
of our land would follow the example of the Father of our Country, in purity
of lips! Twenty years after this, when George Washington was commander-in-
chief of the army of the United Colonies, struggling against the whole power
of Great Britain - a population but little exceeding that of the State of 
Ohio, encountering, in deadly battle, the armies of the most powerful empire
then upon the globe - Washington, a man of piety and of prayer, felt deeply
the need of divine assistance. In August, 1776, he issued the following order
of the day to his defeated and almost despairing army at New York:
   "The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and profane prac-
tice of cursing and swearing, a vice hitherto little known in an American
army, is growing into fashion. He hopes that the officers will, by example
as well as by influence, endeavor to check it; and that both they and the 
men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on 
our arms, if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Add to this, it is a 
vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and 
character detests and despises it."
   While speaking upon this subject, and one so important to our national
reputation, I cannot refrain from quoting another anecdote of Washington, 
which was related to me by an officer of the United States army, who was 
present on the occasion.
   Washington had invited the members of his staff to dine with him in the 
city of New York. As they were sitting at table, one of the guests uttered, 
very distinctly, an oath. Washington dropped his knife and fork, as though
struck by a bullet. The attention of every one at the table was arrested, 
and there was breathless silence. After a moment's pause he said, in tones
of solemnity and sadness, "I thought I had invited gentlemen only to dine
with me." It is needless to add that there were no more oaths heard at that
table.
   There was now war, fierc and unrelenting, between France and England - 
war which girdled the globe with its horrors. In the Spring of 1755, the 
British government sent two regiments of regular troops, from England, to
cross the mountains, and to attack and capture Fort Duquesne. These soldiers
knew nothing about life in the wilderness, and had no acquaintance whatever
with Indian warfare. They were under the command of General Braddock, a 
self-conceited, self-willed man, who, in the pride of his technical military
education, despised alike Frenchmen, Indians, and Colonists. With his two
regiments, numbering two thousand men, Braddock set out to cross the moun-
tains, in a straggling line of men and wagons, four miles long.
   Washington accompanied him as one of his aids. He was astonished at the
recklessness of the march. He assured Braddock that the French, through 
Indian runners, would keep themselved informed of every step of his pro-
gress; that he was in danger every hour, of falling into an ambush, where
hundreds of his men might be shot by an invisible foel and that the French
and Indians, familiar with all the defiles of the mountains, might at any 
time pierce his straggling line, plunder his wagons, and, striking on the 
right and on the left, throw his whole force into confusion.
   It would seem that all this must have been obvious to any man of ordinary
intelligence. But the arrogant and conceited British general was not to be
taught the arts of war, not he, by a provincial colonel, twenty-two years
old, who had never seen even the inside of a military school.
   Successfully they threaded the defiles of the Alleghenies, and emerged
through its western doclivities into the beautiful Valley of the Mononga-
hela. The army thus far had encountered no molestation of even alarm. The
self-confidence of Braddock increased with the successful progress of his
march. With an air of great self-complacency, he virtually said, "You see I
understand military affairs far better than any Virginia boy can be expected
to understand them."
   Washington was silenced. He could not venture upon another word of remon-
strance; and yet he trembled in view of the peril to which they were hourly
exposed. He knew perfectly well that the French officers must be preparing 
to crush the expedition, by taking advantage of this fool-hardiness.
   The ninth of July dawned brightly upon the army as it entered a defile of 
rare picturesque beauty, at a short distance from the banks of Monongahela.
It was one of those calm, cloudless, balmy days, in which all nature seems
to be lulled into joyful repose; such a day as Herbert has beautifully de-
scribed in the words, 
	"Sweet day, so still, so calm, so bright, 
	 The bridal of the earth and sky, 
 	 The dews shall weep thye fall to-night, 
	 For thou must die."
   The defile into which they entered presented a natural path for the pass-
age of the army with forest-crowned eminences rising on either side, rugged
with rocks, and covered with dense and almost impenetrable underbrush. It
was just the spot which any man familiar with Indian modes of warfare would 
be sure would be selected for an ambush.
   Proudly the thoughtless troops straggled along, with laughter and song, 
with burnished muskets, and polished cannon, and silked banners. They were 
British troops, led by British officers! What had they to fear from cowardly
Frenchman or half-naked savages?
   Suddenly, like the burst of thunder from the cloudless heavens, came the
rattle of musketry, and a tempest of lead swept through their astonished 
ranks. Crash followed crash in quick succession, before, behind, on the 
right, on the left. No foe was to be seen, yet every bullet accompanied its
mission. The ground was soon covered with the dead, and with the wounded 
struggling in dying agonies. Amazement and consternation ran through the
ranks. An unseen foe was assailing them. It was supernatural; it was ghostly.
   Braddock stood his ground with senseless, bull-dog courage, until he 
fell, pierced by a bullet. After a short scene of confusion and horror, 
when nearly half the army were slain, the remnant broke in wild disorder 
and fled. The ambush was entirely successful. Six hundred of these unseen
assailants were Indians, armed with French rifles and led by French officers.
   Washington, through this awful scene which he had been constantly anti-
cipating, was perfectly calm and self-possessed. With the coolest courage he
did everything which human sagacity could do to retrieve the disaster. Two 
horses were shot beneath them, and four bullets passed through his coat. It
is one of the legends of the day than an Indian sharpshooter declared that
Washington bore a charmed life; that he took direct aim at him several times, 
at a distance of but a few paces, and taht the bullets seemed either to 
vanish into air, or to glance harmless from his body. Eight hundred of
Braddock's army, including most of the officers, were either killed or 
wounded.
   Washington had rallied around him the few provincials, upon whom Braddock
had looked with contempt. Each man immediately placed himself behind a tree, 
according to the necessities of forest warfare. As the Indians were bursting
from their ambush, with tomahawk and scalping knife, to complete the massa-
cre, the unerring fire of these provincials checked them, and drove them 
back. But for this, the army would have been utterly destroyed. All Washing-
ton's endeavors to rally the British regulars were unavailing. Indignantly
he writes, "They ran like sheep before the hounds." Panic-striken, abandon-
ing artillery and baggage, they continued their tumultuous retreat to the
Atlantic coast.
   The provincials, in orderly march, protected them from pursuit. Braddock's
defeat rang throught the land as Washington's victory. The provincials, who,
in silent exasperation, submitting to military authority, had allowed them-
selves to be led into this valley of death, proclaimed, far and wide, the
cautions which Washington had urged, and the heroism with which he had res-
cued the remnant of the army. After the lapse of eighty years, a seal of
Washington, containing his initials, which had been shot from his person, 
was found upon the battle-field, and is, at the present time, in possession
of one of the family.
   The French made no attempt to pursue their advantage over the discomfited
and fugitive foe. The army of Braddock was annihilated, so far as the poss-
ibility of doing farther harm was considered. Leaving the bleeding remnant
of the British forces to struggle homeward, through the mountains, the
French quietly returned to Fort Duquesne, there to await another assault, 
should the English venture to make one.
   These disasters caused great excitement in England, and ever a change in
the ministry. At the time of Braddock's disastrous defeat there chanced to 
be an English officer, Colonel James Smith, a prisoner at Fort Duquesne. He
has given a very interesting account of the scenes which transpired there on
that occasioned.
   Indian spies were every day, entirely unknown to General Braddock, wat-
ching his movements. They would, on swift foot, return to the fort with an
accurate report of his progress, his uncautious march, and they had suffi-
ent intelligence to laugh to scorn his folly. One of them exulting drew a 
map with a stick, on the ground, and explained to Colonel Smith the direction
of Braddock's march, the straggling length of his line, and its entire
indefensibleness. The Indian described the ambush into which the silly En-
lish general was so completely marching, and contemptuously said, in broken
English, "We will shoot um down all same as one pigeon."
   Early in the morning of the day, on which the attack was to be made, 
there was a great stir in the fort. Between four and five hundred Indian
warriors, in great elation of spirits, were examining their guns, and sup-
plying themselves with powder and bullets from barrels. Each took what he
wanted. In single file, with rapid footsteps, the Indians marched off, 
accompanied by an equal number of French Canadians, and several companies
of regulars.
   Late in the afternoon the bands began to return, with shouts of victory.
First came some fleet footed runners, with tidings dreadful to Colonel 
Smith, but awaking the whole garrison to enthusiasm. The Indians and the 
French, they said, had completely surrounded the English, having caught them
in a trap, from which there was no escape.
   Concealed and protected behind trees and rocks, they were firing upon the
English, huddled together, in great confusion, in a narrow ravine, and they
were falling in heaps. It was declared that before sundown every one of them
would be shot. The war whoop of the Indian is as definite an utterance as the
bugle's sound to the charge. But the savages had another very peculiar war
cry, which was called the "scalp halloo."
   Soon large bands of the savagees appeared, about a hundred in number, 
every one of whom had a bloody scalp, which he was waving in the air, while 
the forest resounded with their hideous caps, canteens, muskets, bayonets, 
and various articles of clothing, which they had stripped from the dead. 
   "Those that were coming in, and those that had arrived", writes Colonel
Smith, "kept a constant firing of small arms, and slos of the great guns in
the fort, which was accompanied by the most hideous shouts and yells from 
all quarters; so that it appeared to me as it the infernal regions had broke
loose. About sundown I beheld a small party coming in with about a dozen 
prisoners, stripped naked, with their hands tied behind their backs. Their
faces, and parts of their bodies, were blackened. These prisoners they burn-
ed to death on the banks of the Allegheny River, opposite to the fort. I 
stood on the fort walls until I beheld them begin to burn one of these men.
They tied them to a stake and kept touching him with fire-brands, red hot
irons, etc., and he screaming in the most doleful manner. The Indians, in 
the meantime, were yelling like infernal spirits. As this scene was too
shocking for me to behold, I returned to my lodgings, both sorry and sore. 
   "From the best information I could receive, there were only seven Indians
and four French killed in this battle. Five hundred British lay dead in the 
field, besides what were killed in the river, after their retreat. The mor-
ning after the battle, I asw Braddock's artillery brought into the fort. The
same day also I saw several Indians in the dress of British officers, with
the sashed, half moons, laced hats, etc., which the British wore."
   It is a fact, universally recognized, that the French were much more pop-
ular with the Indians than were the English. They were much fewer in number,
and were clustered together in strong trading posts. But the English sett-
lers were scattered, far and wide, on small farms, throughout the extended
frontier. The Indians had also, as we have already remarked, experienced 
many atrocious outrages from vagabond English wanderers in the wilderness.
The savages were burning with the desire for revenge. Eagerly they entered
into an alliance with the French.
   It was the policy of the French government to destroy, as far as possible, 
all the English settlements and farm houses on the frontier. They would also
render it certain death for any English settler to rear his cabin in the 
silent Valley of the Ohio. Inhumanly they summoned the tomahawk and scalping
knife of the savage to their aid. Inhumanly the English sought, but with 
less success, the same diabolical alliance, not only against the French, but
subsequently against their own colonists. The French armed the savage 
warriors with rifles, supplied them with ammunition, and turned them loose
upon their fiend-like mission, to kill, burn and destroy.
   The savages, having lapped blood, and exultant with success, eagerly en-
tered upon their work of plunder, conflagrance and death. Small villages of
log huts, and secluded farm houses, were scattered along the western Virginia
frontier for a distance of more than four hundred mles. Fifteen hundred in-
carnate demons, calling themselves Indian braves, wandered in all directions.
Like howling wolves they would emerge at midnight from the depths of the 
forest, and with the rising of the sun, glutted with their prey, would dis-
appear. Sometimes a solitary cabin would be attacked by a gang of eight or
ten, and again several hundreds would unite in a midnight assault upon some
doomed village.
   The State of Virginia raised a force of seven hundred men, and placed 
them under the command of Colonel Washington, for the protection of the 
frontier. For three years he was incessantly engaged in these arduous, but
almost unavailing labors. The scenes of woe he often witnessed were so aw-
ful, that, in after life, he could never bear to recur to them.
   One day as, with a small detachment of troops, he was traversing a por-
tion of the frontier, he came to a solitary log cabin, in a little clearing, 
which the ax of a settler had effected in the heart of the forest. As they
were approaching, through the woods, the report of a gun arrested their 
attention. Cautiously they crept through the underbrush, until they came in
full sight of the cabin. Smoke was curling up through the roof, while a par-
ty of savages, with piles of plunder by their side, were shouting and swing-
ing their bleeding scalps, as they danced around their booty. As soon as 
they caught sight of the soldiers they fled into the forest with the swift-
ness of deer. In the following ords Washington describes the scene, which 
was then open before them:
   "On entering we saw a sight that, though we were familiar with blood and 
massacre, struck us, at least myself, with feelings more mournful than I had
ever experienced before. On the bed, in one corner of the room, with a gash 
on her forehead, which almost separated the head into two parts. On her 
breast lay two little babies, apparently twins, less than a twelve month old,
with their heads also cut open. Their innocent blood which once flowed in 
same veins, now mingled in one current again. I was inured to scenes of 
bloodshed and misery, but this cut me to the soul. Never, in my after life, 
did I raise my hand against a savage, without calling to mind the mother 
with her little twins, their heads cleft asunder."
   The soldiers eagerly pursued the fugitive savages. They had gone but a 
short distance from the house, when they found the father of the family and
his little boy, both dead and scalped in the field. The father had been 
holding the plow, and his son driving the horse, when the savages come upon
them. From ambush they had shot down the father, and the terrified little 
boy had run some distance toward the house, when he was overtaken and cut
down by the tomahawk. Thus the whole family perished. Such were the perils
of a home on the frontiers in those sad days. In allusion to these awful 
scenes Washington wrote:
   "On leaving one spot, for the protection of another point of exposure, 
the scene was often such as I shall never forget. The women and children
clung round our knees, beseeching us to stay and protect them, and crying 
out to us, for God's sake, not to leave them to be butchered by the savages.
A hundred times, I declare, to heaven, I would have lain down my life with 
pleasure, could I have insured the safety of those suffering people by the
sacrifice."
   During the years of 1756 and 1757, the English, notwithstanding their
great superiority in numbers, met but a succession of disasters. The Indians
were the efficient and merciless allies of the French. In the hour of vic-
tory the uncontrollable savages perpetrated crimes which were a disgrace to
humanity. The English were driven completely out of the disputed territory
of Ohio.
   The total defeat of the British army, under Braddock, established, for a 
time, the ascendency of the French, and their Indian allies, in the Valley 
of the Ohio and on the Great Lakes. The war, however, was still continued, 
bitterly, though feebly, on the part of the English. Fierce and triumphant
bands of Shawnanees, Cherokees and Iroquois Indians even crossed the moun-
tains, to the eastern side, and desolated wide regions of the frontiers with 
fire and blood. These defeats were greatly humiliating to England, who, as
we have mentioned, outnumbered the French on this continent, more than ten 
to one - indeed it was more than twenty to one. The French; in Canada, then
numbered but forty-five thousand. The English colonies contained a popula-
tion of one million and fifty-one thousand.
   Early in the year 1758, great preparations were made by the English gov-
ernment to retrieve its lost reputation, by the entire reduction of the
French military posts. To render assurance doubly sure, they organized an 
army of seven thousand men, with a very perfect military outfit for the
reduction of Fort Duquesne. The army was rendezvoused at Carlisle, Pennsyl-
vania, and in the latter part of the Summer commenced its march across the
mountains. General Forbes was in command. About the middle of September this
strong force was approaching the fort. Major Grant was dispatched to re-
connoiter, at the head of one thousand men. Eight hundred of these were
Scotch Highlanders. Two hundred were Virginians, under a provincial officer, 
Major Lewis. Major Grant was another Braddock; self conceited and brave, 
thinking that an English officer had nothing to learn, and that British
regulars had nothing to fear.
   Grant succeeded in drawing near to the fort unperceived. He then concei-
ved that, with his one thousand men, he could capture the fort, striking it
by surprise, and thus win to himself all the glory. But Major Andrew Lewis, 
an equally brave man, and a far more prudent and able officer, warned him 
against the folly of the attempt. Grant made the insulting and stinging 
reply:
   "You and your provincials may remain behind with the baggage. I will show
you, with my British regulars, how to take the fort."
   With the early light of the morning, Grant and his Highlanders, with
senseless bravado, came marching over what is called Grant's Hill, waving
their banners and beating their drums. The display was too fool-hardy to be
called brave. In close vicinity to the fort there was an encampment of near-
ly two thousand Indian allies. These were generally veteran warriors, well-
armed,and unerring marksmen. These savages glided from their retreat
stealthily as prowling wolves, and soon almost entirely surrounded, unseen,
the band of this infatuated leader. Every rock, tree, thicket, afforded
covert. They suddenly opened a deadly and incessant fire. The English fought
bravely, as they always do; but in a few moments one-third of their number
were weltering in blood. As each Highlander fell, a savage would leap from 
his concealment, the flash of his knife would be see, and the scalp of his
victim would be waved in the air with a yell of exutation.
   "The work of death," it is written, "went on rapidly, and in a manner
quite novel to the Scotch Highlanders, who in all their European wars had 
never before seen men's heads skinned.
   Major Lewis, who, in obedience to the order so contemptuously given, was
at some little distance guarding the baggage, perceived by the retreating 
fire that Major Grant was overpowered. Bravely he came to his rescue, and 
with his provincials, well acquainted with Indian warfare, assailed the 
savages so impetuously as to check their pursuit, and to open a way of escape
for a part of Grant's men. But in performing this heroic act he was surround-
ed himself. Many of his men fell, and he was taken prisoner, as was also
Major Grant. The only officer remaining unhurt was Captain Bullet, in command
of one of the companies of Virginia provincials. With great skill he conduc-
ted the retreat of the fugitives until they reached a place where he threw 
up entrenchments, which subsequently received the name of Fort Ligonier.
Twice he was fiercely assailed, and both attacks he gallantly repelled, with
a loss of but sixty-seven men in killed and wounded.