CHAPTER VI
THE STRUGGLE FOR FORT DUQUESNE
I. THE SEPARATION BEGINNING BETWEEN THE COLONIES AND ENGLAND
The arrogance and ignorance that so estranged the American colonies and broke down their spirit of allegiance to Great Britain may be well exhibited in an extract from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The experiences of this eminent man in making a visit to General Braddock came to pass through the following series of events.
Sir John St. Clair was, at this time, in command at Fort Cumberland. He ordered the colony of Pennsylvania to cut a road through to the Ohio. The redoubtable commander seemed to think it was only a child’s job or a few days’ work. As it was not done promptly, he got into a rage, and, according to the pioneer woodsman, George Croghan, “stormed like a lion rampant.” He declared that “by fire and sword” he would oblige the inhabitants to build that road. He said that if the French defeated him it would be because of the slow Pennsylvanians, and, in that case, he would declare them “a parcel of traitors,” and the colony should be treated as being in rebellion against the King.
Likewise, as Braddock got ready to move, Sir John became furious at obstacles which, not knowing till then that they existed, he considered that they had no right to exist, and therefore that the people were to be blamed. In this state of trouble between the people and the English officers, who knew so little of the wilderness, Benjamin Franklin, then forty-nine years of age, was called on to act as peacemaker. He visited Braddock and was received and treated as a worthy guest. This visit gave him a chance to see into the fatal ignorance and arrogance of the English government, and to understand the irreconciliable points of view between the colonies and England.
“In conversation one day,” says Franklin, “General Braddock gave me some account of his intended progress. ‘After taking Fort Duquesne,’ said he, ‘I am to proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, on to Frontenac, if the season will allow time; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days; and then I can see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara.’”
Franklin very tactfully and diplomatically ventured to describe the long road that must be cut through forests all the way, the thin line of troops that would have to be stretched out in the march along the narrow way, and the ambush of Indians breaking out upon that thin, long line at various places.
“He smiled at my ignorance,” says Franklin, “and replied, ‘These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to raw American militia, but upon the King’s regular and disciplined troops, Sir, it is impossible that they should make any impression.’”
Franklin adds, “I was conscious of an impropriety in my disputing with a military man in matters of his profession, and said no more.”
To defeat an enemy, it is very clear that one should know how the enemy thinks and what he does. This was the schooling that George Washington was now getting. The place he had on General Braddock’s staff was teaching him the tactics of English generals, against which he was a few years later to wage a glorious war for an ideal of American freedom and the establishment of a democratic form of government in America.
The disastrous defeat of Braddock’s expedition and the death of Braddock has always formed a stirring chapter in American school histories, until in recent times it has been more and more lessened in the length of description because of the increasing story of American affairs. Washington’s part in it is interesting largely because of the preparation it gave him for the great work of leading the colonial armies in the Revolutionary War.
II. LESSONS GATHERED FROM DEFEAT
General Braddock, with the most stupid disdain of both natural obstacles and native advice, especially regardless of Washington’s warning, pushed on to overwhelm the French and Indians, as he had outlined to Franklin. His disastrous defeat and tragic death awoke the colonists to their danger, but it seemed to have little effect on the arrogance and ignorance of the supposed military protectors of the colonies.
Fugitives from the disastrous battle field spread through the colonies and the news ran from mouth to mouth along the wilderness roads, gathering in exaggeration as it went. To counteract this news at his own home, Washington wrote to his mother as speedily as possible. Referring to the battle, he said, “The Virginia troops showed a good deal of bravery, and were nearly all killed. The dastardly behavior of those they called regulars exposed all others, that were ordered to their duty, to almost certain death; and, at last, in spite of all the efforts of the officers to the contrary they ran, as sheep pursued by dogs, and it was impossible to rally them.”
In writing to his half-brother, Augustine, he said, “As I have heard, since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you that I have not composed the latter. But, by the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability, or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, though death was levelling my companions on every side of me!”
The defeat of Braddock, we may safely set down as one of the most extensive liberating forces in the new world. It struck out of the minds of the colonists the respect and fear which held them captive to the mastery of hands from across the sea. The disaster was not only a rout and a slaughter but it was at last revealed as a military disgrace and an inexcusable blunder.
The commander of Fort Duquesne had only a handful of men. He was fully decided on either abandoning the fort at once, or in surrendering on the best terms he could get, when Captain de Beaujeu obtained leave to take two hundred and eighteen French soldiers and six hundred and thirty Indians, eight hundred and thirty-five in all, for the purpose of delaying the British advance by ambush. These forest rangers met Braddock’s twelve hundred select soldiers, and threw them back in such a panic that, when the commander, Dunbar, reached Fort Cumberland, where there were fifteen hundred more seasoned troops, no stand was made, but the flight was continued on to Philadelphia.
Washington in Command.
Washington’s intimate associate, Dr. Hugh Mercer, was so severely wounded in the shoulder that he could not keep up with the fugitives. He hid in a fallen tree and witnessed the terrible scenes of the battlefield after the soldiers had fled. The wounded were tortured, scalped and all were stripped of everything the Indians could use. Then the wild horde left, yelling through the woods, waving aloft the scalps. The Indians were bedecked with glittering uniforms, and loaded with booty.
Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography that “this whole transaction gave us the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the powers of British regular troops had not been well founded.”
What Washington thought about it all is well summed up and very tersely expressed in a letter to his half-brother Augustine. It shows us what all this had done for the loyal and patriotic mind of Washington. It reveals how his mind, like that of other colonists, was being prepared for the event, that led to a break with the home-country England.
In that very expressive letter he says, “I was employed to go a journey in Winter, when I believe few or none would have undertaken it, and what did I get by it?—my expenses home! I was then appointed, with trifling pay, to conduct a handful of men to the Ohio. What did I get by that? Why, after putting myself to a considerable expense in equipping and providing necessaries for the campaign, I went out, was soundly beaten and lost all! Came in and had my commission taken from me; or, in other words, my command reduced, under pretense of an order from home (England). I then went out a volunteer with General Braddock, and lost all my horses, and many other things. But, this being a voluntary act, I ought not to have mentioned it; nor should I have done so, were it not to show that I have been on the losing order ever since I entered the service, which is now nearly two years.”
This historical summary was the experience in divers ways of very many colonists, but they did not have any; suggestion of how that bitter experience was really to become a great blessing to the cause of liberty throughout the earth.
III. SOME PERSONAL INTERESTS AT HOME
Here and there we catch glimpses of Washington showing that he was not the sculptured majesty that was pictured for his youth by writers in the early decades of the nineteenth century. We prefer to think of him as sympathetic, gallant, and enjoying the familiar courtesies of common life. That Washington was not without social friendship is shown in a note which he received from three young ladies written him from Belvoir on his return from the French and Indian war. It speaks for itself:
“Dear Sir:
“After thanking heaven for your safe return, I must accuse you of great unkindness in refusing us the pleasure of seeing you this evening. If you will not come to us tomorrow morning very early, we shall be at Mount Vernon.
There is no record to complete the picture of these young ladies’ interest in Washington, but if they could have such a view of his sociability with such propriety, we may be sure that he was not above the common human sympathies that fill the hard lines of life.
Washington’s connection with the army had ceased at the death of Braddock, but he was still adjutant-general of the northern division of the Province. Braddock’s defeat had thoroughly frightened the colonists, and panic-stricken rumors surged around that French and Indians were about to make incursions here and there and everywhere. The slow-going legislative bodies suddenly woke up and voted the organization of ample supplies and men. An undignified scramble took place for favorites to be given high commands. Washington was urged by his friends to be a candidate, but he refused. As to this matter he wrote, “If the command should be offered me, the case will then be altered, as I should be at liberty to make such objections as reason, and my small experience, have pointed out.”
In the midst of this turmoil he received a letter from his mother begging him not to go back into the war but to return to his home-life and become a business man. His reply to her is quite significant of the character of Washington:
“Honored Madam:
“If it is in my power to avoid going to the Ohio again, I shall; but if the command is pressed upon me by the general voice of the country, and offered upon such terms as can not be objected against, it would reflect dishonor upon me to refuse it; and that, I am sure, must, and ought to give you greater uneasiness than my going in an honorable command. Upon no other terms will I accept it. At present, I have no proposals made to me, nor have I any advice of such an intention, except from private hands.”
But, it so happened that on the same day, after this letter had been sent away, he received the news that he had been appointed commander-in-chief of all the forces of Virginia, and upon the terms he had outlined to his friends. Besides, his closest friends were appointed officers next in command to him.
This was a triumph over Governor Dinwiddie, who had a special favorite whom he had pressed hard for the appointment. It was also made for a man who had risen to that esteem among his countrymen, not through victories but through defeats, not through success but through failure. And, it must be remembered, that Washington was not yet twenty-four years old. But the general esteem in which he was held may be gathered from a statement made in a sermon at the time of his appointment, by the Rev. Samuel Davis. It might have been mere enthusiasm, but, in the light of such great subsequent events, it looked like prophecy.
He turned from his religious theme to the needs of the colonies, and then spoke of “that heroic youth, Colonel George Washington, whom I can not but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.”
CHAPTER VII
THE FATE OF THE OHIO VALLEY
I. FRONTIER FEARS AND PANICS
There was an abundance of responsibility at once for Washington in his new official position. All the frontiers were being attacked by Indians urged on by the French. Washington tried to get his troops together to meet the Indians at the outposts, but he was unable at the main post to muster more than twenty-five of the militia. The others declared that if they had to die they preferred to die with their women and children.
In his first report to the Governor, he wrote, “No orders are obeyed, but such as a party of soldiers or my own drawn sword enforces. Without this, not a single horse, for the most earnest occasion, can be had,—to such a pitch has the insolence of these people arrived, by having every point hitherto submitted to them. However, I have given up none, where His Majesty’s service requires the contrary, and where my proceedings are justified by my instructions; nor will I, unless they execute what they threaten,—that is, to blow out our brains.”
This was naturally at the period of Washington’s greatest loyalty to his Sovereign, and also shows that some of Braddock’s notions of military authority still lingered with him. Perhaps it is better to say that he recognized the military necessity for obedient discipline in a common purpose and result, or there could be no successful army.
We may easily guess that the insolence to which he refers was the frontiersman’s disrespect for military authority and his growing belief in his own right to choose the manner of his service or his death. These men had been as badly treated by the Braddock style of authority as Washington had been, and most of his troubles doubtless arose from their memory of insolence in the officers.
As an example of the panic and confusion of the times, while Washington was at Winchester endeavoring to get his troops organized, a man came running into town, one Sunday afternoon, saying in breathless terror that a horde of Indians was only twelve miles off, killing and burning everything they came to. Washington remained up all night preparing for the attack. At about dawn on Monday morning, another man arrived, declaring that a host of Indians was now within four miles of the town. He had himself heard the guns of the Indians and the shrieks of the victims. The scouts sent out by Washington had not yet returned, and the terror-stricken people at once guessed that they had been ambushed and killed.
All that Washington could get together equipped to meet the Indian drive was only forty men. At the head of these he rode forth to the scene of massacre and carnage. All that they ever found was three drunken troopers who had been yelling in their carousal on the way to town and firing off their pistols.
Washington arrested them and brought them in as trophies of the Indian war.
“These circumstances,” Washington wrote in his report, “show what a panic prevails among the people; how much they are all alarmed at the most usual customary crimes; and yet how impossible it is to get them to act in any respect for their common safety.”
A Captain arriving at that time with recruits from Alexandria, reported that, in coming across the Blue Ridge, he had met a crowd of people hastening away in terror, whom he could not stop. They all told him that the Indians had overwhelmed the country and that Winchester had been sacked and burned.
Washington saw that nothing but confusion and cross purposes could prevail under the conditions as they then existed. Accordingly, he set about to reform the methods and the laws. Under his management, order at last came out of chaos. He also learned the uses of military show to give confidence and he ordered rather gorgeous uniforms to be sent him from England. This was probably necessary in order also to retain the respect of the young English officers for whom it was often true that the clothes made the man.
II. POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND OFFICIAL CONFUSION
Early in 1756, in order to get the necessary co-operation among the colonies, to settle the bitter quarrels as to rank among officers, and to give the Virginia colony a better idea of the plan for the war, Washington decided to visit General Shirley, at Boston. General Shirley had succeeded General Braddock as commander-in-chief of all the colonies.
Washington, with his aides in brilliant uniform, taken care of by a retinue of colored servants in finest livery, all riding in a pompous cavalcade, representing the style of aristocratic Southern gentlemen, made a profound social sensation all along the line of their travel, especially in Philadelphia, New York and Boston. After ten days’ conference in Boston, his mission being successful, he returned to Virginia as he had come.
On Washington’s return to his headquarters at Winchester, he found the people in more desperate terror than ever, and this time with good reason. The French and Indians were indeed ravaging the country within twenty miles. Any hour the enemy might sweep down upon the wretched town and destroy the people. If Washington could not save them they were indeed lost. It is said that the women surrounded him with terror-stricken cries, holding up their children, and imploring him to save them from the savages.
The feelings of the young commander may be appreciated from the letter he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie.
“I am too little acquainted with pathetic language,” he said, “to attempt a description of these people’s distresses. But what can I do? I see their situation; I know their danger, and participate in their sufferings, without having it in my power to give them further relief than uncertain promises. The supplicating tears of the women, and the moving petitions of the men, melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people’s ease.”
But the Virginia newspapers very freely cast the blame for the Indian’s success on the military management. Washington was deeply stung with these attacks and he declared that he would resign at once, if it were not for the immediate dangers pressing so hard upon them. Then his friends began writing him encouraging letters and he was strengthened to see the issues through to some end.
“The country knows her danger,” said one of the Virginia legislators, “but such is her parsimony that she is willing to wait for the rains to wet the powder, and the rats to eat the bowstrings of the enemy, rather than attempt to drive her foes from her frontiers.”
But gradually through more blundering and still more confusion of purpose, after the French had begun to lose heavily in the North, a course of concerted action was once more organized against Fort Duquesne, as the center of supplies for the French and Indians in their frontier warfare. Scouts continually brought in reports that Fort Duquesne had become greatly weakened and it was believed by all that this place should now be taken to make good the success on the northern frontier.
At length such an expedition was on the way, and Washington wrote to the Commander, General Forbes, to be allowed to join the expedition with his command. This request was accepted, and, on July 2, 1758, Washington arrived at Fort Cumberland.
III. “A MATTER OF GREAT ADMIRATION”
War was at hand, but getting into action to accomplish results was distractingly slow. No word arrived as to what they were to do. They remained at Fort Cumberland to the disgust of Washington, and to the increased dispiriting, sickly condition of his men, until September. Then they went forward under Colonel Boquet to a point called Loyal Hannon, fifty miles from Fort Duquesne. Here they stopped, and, against Washington’s earnest remonstrance, Colonel Boquet detached eight hundred men from his force of two thousand, and sent them forward to reconnoiter about Fort Duquesne, under command of Major Grant. They were not to engage the enemy but were to return and report.
However, Major Grant believed they were easily able to whip anything that might be in or about Fort Duquesne. He could not open an attack on them according to orders, but if he could induce them to attack him, it would give him a chance for a fight. Accordingly, he made no attempt to conceal his approach to the fort. He arrived near the place in the night and sent some men forward who set fire to a log house near the walls of the fort. If this was not enough warning to the enemy, or of a dare to come out and fight, he ordered the drums to beat the reveille around the camp in the morning. After that he lined up his troops in battle array, as did Braddock before him, and sent up some men near the fort, to draw plans of that structure in full view of the enemy.
There was not a shot fired from the fort and no sound could be heard within its walls. Not a soldier or an Indian could be seen.
The officers became sure that nothing more was needed but to send forward the order for surrender. The soldiers were allowed to ground their arms and be at ease. Suddenly the woods around them blazed with the discharge of rifles. The dreaded warwhoop rang in their ears. The tomahawk and scalping knife was in their midst. A second Braddock’s defeat had begun. A panic-stricken rout began. Major Grant saved his life by surrendering to a French officer, but most of his men were dead and the rest scattered like wild animals.
Back of them a short distance was Captain Bullitt, who had been left with fifty men to care for the army stores. He rallied together some of the fugitives and they made a stand behind the baggage and wagons. The Indians rushed forward and were momentarily checked by the sudden fire of the ambushed men. Then, with the on-coming force of Indians from back of the ones stopped, the rush came on.
Then Captain Bullitt held up a signal for surrender and the firing ceased. The besieged men all came forward. When within eight yards of the Indians waiting to receive their guns, Captain Bullitt gave the order to fire, the guns having all been loaded for that purpose. From this destructive volley at close range, the Indians fled in confusion, and before they could rally, Captain Bullitt got his men and wagons together, so protected as to make good their retreat.
General Forbes commended Captain Bullitt’s method of saving his troops as “a matter of great admiration,” and rewarded him with a Major’s commission. There has been much discussion as to whether such methods made the Indians merciless or whether the merciless Indian required such methods. The problem is doubtless as unprofitable now as it is unanswerable, from any partisan point of view.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BEGINNING SIGNS OF A GREAT REVOLUTION
I. MILITARY VICTORY AND A HAPPY MARRIAGE
Washington now had charge of the advance on Fort Duquesne. He left Loyal Hannon over the road Major Grant had taken. The whole fifty miles were strewn with the bones of oxen, horses and men. What remained of the bodies of their comrades, they buried. Then they arrived at the scene of Braddock’s defeat, where the same duty was done for the dead, a sad reminder of the folly of arrogance and ambition in commanders.
They had expected to have a hard fight for the capture of Fort Duquesne. But the success of the English in Canada, and the fall of Fort Frontenac had left the French at Fort Duquesne without any chance for supplies or reinforcements. The fort was already at the point of being abandoned from necessity. Accordingly, the commander waited until the English were within a day’s march of him, when he withdrew his force of five hundred men, destroyed what he could not take away, set fire to all that would burn, embarked at night in their long, light batteaux, by the flames of their fort, and floated down the Ohio, giving up their hopeless fight for the possession of the Ohio Valley.
On the morning of November 5, 1758, Washington with his advanced guard marched in and hoisted the British flag over the ruins. The enemy was gone. The Indians having lost the support of their French friends withdrew into the depths of the forest.
Washington rebuilt the place, garrisoned it with two hundred men and named it Fort Pitt in honor of the illustrious British minister, William Pitt.
Washington’s military schooling, if we may so term it, in the light of great events to follow, was now ended. He had been engaged for marriage several months with Mrs. Martha Custis, a widow of the noblest womanly character, and considerable wealth. The marriage was accordingly celebrated January 6, 1759, the month before he was twenty-seven years of age. He now settled down, away from war, into the life of a business man, as his mother, herself a business woman, had so fondly desired.
The objects for which the French and Indian war had begun were now achieved for the colonists. But England was carrying the war further, aiming at nothing less than the conquest of Canada. The first gun had been fired at Washington at the time he was beaten in the race with the French for the forks of the Ohio. The last gun was fired at Quebec when all Canada became a possession seized by might of the British arms.
The French were greatly grieved at their loss, but their great statesmen prophesied that it was a fatal victory for the English mastery of North America.
The Duke de Choiseul said that it would awaken the colonies to their liberty and their power. It would bring the ideals of the wilderness in sharp contrast with the imperialism of England. “They will no longer need her protection,” said he, “she will call on them to contribute toward supporting the burdens they have helped bring on her, and they will answer by striking off their dependence.”
How true this was as a prophecy, the school histories all show to every pupil of the schools, who will try to get a view of the progress and development of historical events. Fact will then be stranger than fiction, and history will be a more romantic story, richer in the lessons of life, than any novel.
II. LIFE FULFILLED AS A VIRGINIA COUNTRY GENTLEMAN
Washington, after his marriage, at the close of the French and Indian war, became, as his mother had so long desired him to be, a country gentleman, not only with a large land-ownership, but also dignified with a seat in the legislative assembly of Virginia. He was rich, happily married and a hero! What more was to be desired in the heart of man!
On the day when Washington took his seat in the House of Burgesses, the speaker of the assembly arose and eloquently presented the thanks of the colony for the distinguished military services rendered by their fellow-member to his country, and especially to the welfare of Virginia.
Washington arose at the conclusion of the eulogy to express his appreciation for what had been spoken in his honor.
It is said that he “blushed—stammered—trembled, and could not utter a word.”
“Sit down, Mr. Washington,” said the speaker, “your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess.”
During the session of the Virginia legislature, Washington lived at the White House, as was called the home of his bride, and which was situated on her estate, near Williamsburg. That home has since been immortalized as the name of the Home of the Presidents of the United States.
Mrs. Martha Custis was one of the wealthiest women in the English colonies when she married George Washington. At her request, the General Court appointed Washington the guardian of her boy of six and her girl of four, and the manager of all her property.
His friends had long wanted him to visit England, believing, doubtless, from special information, that great honors awaited him there. No doubt there was in easy reach the usually much-coveted political preferment, such as might have made him beholden to the King through all his future career. But we are perhaps entitled to believe that Washington’s views of those honors were not qualified by the grateful respect that was necessary. An American of his honor and character probably cherished the good will of his countrymen as superior to any royal condescension.
To these suggestions for a visit to England, he returned a characteristic reply, “I am now, I believe, fixed in this seat, with an agreeable partner for life, and I hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world.”
At the end of the session of the Virginia legislature, Washington and his family left the “White House” and made their home at Mount Vernon. Here he fully believed he was settled in a life of happiness and peace. It was the home of his childhood which he had spent with his beloved mother and his half-brother Lawrence.
This home on the beautiful highlands of the Potomac was indeed the center of a little empire. It was a system of cultured, wealthy people, graded on down to the colored servants, in which everything needed for luxury, pleasure or enterprise was made and ready on the grounds.
The home life of the Washington family is a revelation of the aristocratic democracy of the times. Many a story is told showing the wilderness culture and luxury mingled with the common interests of the lowly life.
The treaty of peace, now including all affairs in the colonies, which was signed in 1763, between England and France, was greeted as a happy ending of all border troubles for the colonies. But, unfortunately, it seemed to let loose the savagery of the Indians, whose tribes were now going to pieces before the advancing English Settlements. The right to the wilderness was a hand-to-hand conflict, in which the pioneer frontiersmen won the great victory for modern civilization.
III. THE MOMENTOUS STRUGGLE BETWEEN MIGHT AND RIGHT
The border warfare continued as ferociously as ever before. Washington, being out of military life, with heavy business responsibilities upon him, did not become involved in these conflicts.
Meanwhile, the prediction of the Duke de Choiseul that the colonies would rapidly see they had no need of England, and would as rapidly cease to fear its military power, was coming true. Irritation followed fast upon irritation, and arrogance bred resentment and retaliation so rapidly that it requires many a volume to tell it all. The colonists had to fight the battles of the border warfare, pay the costs, support the arrogant officers sent across the water, and yet find themselves regarded as inferiors fit only as producers for a land across the sea. But it should be understood from the beginning that history deals mainly with the makers of history who have been almost exclusively generals and kings. The commoners, except as their minds are state-made, have no quarrel with the commoners of other countries.
The first outbreak came against taxes placed on personal necessities in which the people had no rights or voice. The resentment was crystallized into an outcry against “taxation without representation.” The bitter feeling found voice in a daring defiance uttered by Patrick Henry. He brought forward a resolution in the Virginia House of Burgesses, declaring that the General Assembly of Virginia had the exclusive right and power to lay taxes upon the people of Virginia, and that whoever claimed to the contrary was an enemy of the colony. With that view the commoners of England were in general sympathy, including many of the most influential men in that country. But the British court was foreign, that is, continental. History tells us that King George the First, grandfather of George the Third, could speak only his native German, and held in profound contempt the English people.
The Speaker of the House tried to have Patrick Henry’s resolution modified as being too strong, but, in his speech for the resolution, the young orator, after a brilliant address, concluded with the memorable and history-making words, “Cæsar had his Brutus; Charles his Cromwell; and George the Third,—(here cries of ‘Treason! Treason!’ was heard) may profit by their example. Sir, if this be treason——(here he bowed to the Speaker)—make the most of it!”
The idea of liberty to make their own laws had now sprung forth, and it was taken up with immense enthusiasm throughout the colonies.
The British Parliament seemed to look upon the colonies as Braddock had done upon the colonial soldiers,—they were only half-civilized inferiors, and suitable only for menial service or to contribute profit to the mother country. Accordingly, month by month and year by year, the interference and resentment on both sides increased, by the passage of obnoxious laws on one side, and resistance to their enforcement on the other side.
All this time, Washington was in the midst of the turmoil, not as a leader but more as a peacemaker, though always in full sympathy with the fast growing American idea. As we take a swift view of those times, we are apt to suppose that the change of mind, uniting the colonies in opposition to Great Britain, came suddenly and unanimously, but, as in all places and situations, where there is freedom of thinking, the general conviction came slowly, especially the conviction to use force in the defense of the rights of of man as learned in the hard freedom of the wilderness. What we might call the high-water mark of mind, in favor of force for maintaining colonial liberty, was that of Patrick Henry, whose slogan was “Give me liberty or give me death.”
On the other hand, there were many, from the aristocratic mansion to the log cabin in the forest, who looked upon force against the mother country as a horror and a crime. Between these extremes, Washington labored for patience among the colonists and a change of policy among the law-makers of Great Britain. In writing to his wife’s uncle, an influential man in London, he said, “The Stamp Act engrosses the conversation of the speculative part of the colonists, who look upon this unconstitutional method of taxation as a direful attack upon their liberties, and loudly exclaim against the violation.”
Washington Surrendering His Commission.
In the New England colonies, the people were far more fierce in their resentment toward the requirement that they must buy stamps to make legal almost every transaction. This method of getting money for the British government was so offensive to Boston that a publicly encouraged mob hanged the stamp distributor in effigy, the windows of his house were broken, and the building to be used as his office was broken to pieces, and the fragments burned in the streets. The officers of the town, trying to disperse the crowd, were driven away with stones. The next morning the stamp distributor renounced his office in the public square and no one could be found willing to take his place.
Down in Virginia, the stamp distributor did not try to fulfill his office, but came on to Williamsburg and amidst much applause publicly denounced the Stamp Act and vacated the office.
On the first of November, 1765, when the act was to become law and go into operation, there was tolling of bells throughout New England. Ships in the harbors displayed their flags at half-mast. Shops were shut, business was suspended, and every form of defiance they could invent was displayed all day and that night.
At New York, the poster announcing the law was stuck on a pole, under a death’s head, from which floated a banner bearing the inscription, “The folly of England and ruin of America.” The lieutenant-governor with all his official household went into the fort and surrounded himself with marines from a ship of war. Then the mob went to his stables, brought out his carriage, put his effigy into it, dragged it up and down the street till they were tired, and then hung his effigy on a gallows. That evening they took the effigy down, put it again into the carriage, this time by the side of an image of the devil, had a howling torch-light procession to Bowling Green, and there, under the guns of the fort, burned the carriage with the effigies in it. So bitter and so general was the disapproval that no one attempted to enforce the law.
CHAPTER IX
SOWING THE WIND AND REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
I. MOUNT VERNON AT FIRST IN A ZONE OF CALM
In all this storm, Washington remained engrossed in his extensive business affairs. It can not be inferred that this meant any indifference on his part. It must be remembered that by nature he was of a retiring disposition and never put himself forward as a leader in any agitation. He was one who believed in regularity and discipline. He could not destroy except as a process of building. His fighting spirit was always in accomplishing a definite design for foreseen ends. It is thus always seen that the man who is an agitator and a leader of agitation, however heroic and noble he may be in the cause of right, is never the calm, judicial mind necessary to construct material and form forces into a constitutional government. The mind of man seems first to require a forerunner. There was the determined, uncompromising John the Baptist for the gentle and peace-loving Christ, and there were numerous colonial Patrick Henrys for Washington, even as there were Lovejoys, Garrisons and John Browns for Lincoln. Thus it appears, without irreverence, that agitation is as essential to education as legislation is to government.
Washington’s large interests in trade with England, and his many Old-England friends and connections, would have turned any man, who would serve his own personal profit, into partisanship for Great Britain. There is no doubt that the inducements to favor the mother country were large, and the promise of loss for doing otherwise was very heavy and convincing. But he had seen much of English arrogance and tyranny. He had also seen much of American freedom and human rights. There was probably never any debate in his mind as to which meant the most to him in personal duty or as an American. He had a deeper view of humanity than business interests. But his hour had not yet struck. The time had not yet come when the colonies needed Washington.
Something of great significance took place in 1766. Benjamin Franklin was called before the House of Commons and questioned concerning the Stamp Act.
“What,” they asked him, according to the Parliamentary Register of that year, “was the temper of America towards Great Britain, before the year 1763?”
“The best in the world,” was his reply. “They submitted willingly to the government of the crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience to the acts of Parliament. They were governed at the expense of only a little pen, ink and paper. They were led by a thread. They had not only respect, but an affection for Great Britain, for its laws, its customs, and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Great Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an Old-England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us.”
“And what is that temper now?”
“Oh! it is very much altered.”
“If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the consequences?”
“A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends upon that respect and affection.”
“Do you think the people of America would submit to pay the stamp duty if it was moderated?”
“No, never,” Franklin replied, “unless compelled by force of arms.”
II. GIVING THE APPEARANCE AND KEEPING THE SUBSTANCE
On March 18, 1766, the obnoxious Stamp Act was repealed, but the repeal contained a clause that took all the merit out of the repeal, by maintaining the principle that the King, with the consent of Parliament, had the authority and power to “bind the colonies, and the people of America, in all cases whatsoever.”
If the colonies consented to this repeal with its clause, they would be affirming the very thing they were opposing in the Stamp Act. Such “sharp practice” could not win. It was not the stamps they were opposing alone, nor the imposing of taxes. They repudiated the idea and the motive of the right to tax them without their consent, one of the ways of which was to make them buy stamps to legalize any of their business transactions. This explicitly proves that the Revolutionary War was not “an economic war,” as some theorists endeavor to prove, but a war of principle, liberty and justice, as it claimed to be.
The King was now asserting a right over the colonies which he did not have anywhere in his own country. This was his will, his “divine right,” as it were. If he tried to establish and enforce that will and the colonies endeavored to establish and enforce their will against that will, then it would be, as had so often happened before in English history, a war of the King against the People. So it is often described in history as “the King’s war” against the colonies. To such an extent did the people refuse to fight it that the Hanoverian King had to hire Hessian mercenaries.
We have long since learned that it was not the people of England against the people of America, but the war of a foreign-minded King to retain a personal mastery over a branch of the English people, a right lost forever among English-speaking people through the successful revolt of the American Colonies in the name of American liberty.
The King through Parliament hastened to verify his right to tax the Colonies by various taxes against single articles. This was especially resented at Boston where the taxes were most oppressive. The General Court of Massachusetts became a hot-bed of agitation against those taxes. The excitement of every day increased. Violent collisions were of frequent occurrence between the authorities and the people. At last, it became public that two regiments were held at Halifax ready to be sent to Boston to quell the remonstrances there. The colonists looked upon these signs of coercion as nothing less than despotism. The two regiments soon arrived with seven war vessels. The commander reported that he was sure these “spirited measures” would soon quell all disturbances and restore order.
But the colonists now had a greater grievance. They held town meetings and resolved that the King had no right to send troops into the colonies without their consent. They claimed that the charters of all the colonies were now broken by this act of the King in sending troops into their midst without their consent. It was many times worse than taxation without representation. It was a violation of their allegiance to Great Britain.
The Boston selectmen refused to have anything to do with the soldiers. The council would not recognize that they had any rights in the town. Accordingly, the commander quartered them in the State-House and in Faneuil Hall. The public was enraged at the cannon planted around these buildings and against the sentinels that challenged the rights of free citizens to come and go. Besides, their religious ideas were equally outraged by the fife and drum on Sunday, with the oaths and loud commands of officers, where heretofore all had been peace and quiet.
Virginia was far away from these stirring scenes and news went slowly. However, Washington recognized the grave significance of it all. A letter written April 5, 1769, by him to his friend George Mason, shows what he thought.
“At a time,” he wrote, “when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our ancestors.”
He continued by discussing what was the best way to do this necessary thing. He advised that the use of arms should be the last resource and resort. His moral view is expressed farther on in the letter where he says, as he discusses the effect on the colonists in the war cutting off their trade, “There will be a difficulty attending it everywhere from clashing interests, and selfish, designing men, ever attentive to their own gain, and watchful of every turn that can assist their lucrative views.”
This shows us that very far from all of the revolutionary people could be called heroes of principle and entitled to be regarded as the founders of American freedom. Democracy had the usual percentage of sordid parasites, as well as its many noble martyrs and heroic champions.
Still farther on in the same letter, he says, “I can see but one class of people, the merchants excepted, who will not, or ought not, to wish well to the scheme,—namely, they who live genteely and hospitably on clear estates. Such as these, were they not to consider the valuable object in view, and the good of others, might think it hard to be curtailed in their living and enjoyments.”
Now it must be taken into consideration that Washington not only belonged to the genteel freeholders to which he refers, but he was also one of the largest merchants who would lose heavily in any stoppage of trade with Great Britain. But we have clearly seen through all his military and public service, that principle, and not gain or comfort, was the vital motive of his conduct and his life.
III. “SOFT WORDS BUTTER NO PARSNIPS”
For several reasons, the Southern colonies fared much better than the Northern colonies, and were, therefore, not stirred to such feelings of violent opposition. The spirit of the Puritans, their severe economy, rigid form of piety, and their hatred of Kings, animated the Northern people in private and in public. Their ancestors had been refugees from the tyranny of English Kings, and there was not that respect for England which would cause them to be patient under bad treatment. Besides that, they had seen most of the arrogance and insolence of the English officers during the French and Indian wars, and had suffered longest from the presence of war. The officers of the King came to the Northern colonies with the idea that nothing would serve the purpose but severity and coertion. On the contrary, the people of the Southern colonies were believed at the King’s court to be vain and luxurious. They were represented as being easily pleased by showy parade. Accordingly, a court favorite, Lord Botetourt, was chosen to win the admiration of Virginia. The descendants of the Puritans were to be overawed into subjection by military force, the Cavaliers of Virginia were to be overawed into compliance by aristocratic splendor.
Lord Botetourt was supplied with a dazzling equipment. He arrived in Virginia with glittering pomp and circumstance. On the opening of the Virginia legislature, he arranged a brilliant procession, in which he was conspicuous in gorgeous uniform, riding in a state-coach drawn by six milk-white horses. He opened the session of the Virginia legislature as if it were a royal parliament and he were the King. Then the ostentatious parade returned him to the governor’s mansion.
But to the amazement of Lord Botetourt, this grand display did not work. The House of Burgesses drafted some drastic demands to be sent to the British King. At noon of the day after these resolutions were passed, the governor in dismay went in haste to the Capitol, and appeared before the assembly.
“Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen of the House of Burgesses,” he cried, “I have heard of your resolves, and auger ill of their effects. You have made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are dissolved accordingly.”
But his brain-storm had only the effect to cause them to be called to order by their Speaker, Paton Randolph, in another house. Washington brought forward the draft of an association pledged not to buy anything from Great Britain on which there was a tax. This could not be enacted into a law, because they were no longer a legislative body, but, as a voluntary pledge, it was just as effective.
But, wonderful to relate, Lord Botetourt appeared to have a better ordered intelligence than most of the governors sent over from England. He saw at once the folly of his first ideas about the Southern colonies, and he set about at once to pacify them in more reasonable ways. He put away his royal show, actually addressed himself to the grievances of the people, became a strong opponent to the taxes, did what he could to have them repealed, and assured the Virginians that this would be speedily done. The people soon had full confidence in him, and the scenes of excitement so common in the Northern colonies were unknown in Virginia.
But there was one thing after another of repression and retaliation in the Northern colonies. Such was the opposition in the colonies and the unpopularity of it all among the ruling classes in England, that the King’s Manager, the Duke of Grafton, resigned and a favorite of the King, Lord North, took his place, as chief councillor in England. Now, the King gave up the fight for the taxes, but he still held to his right to tax the people as something that was none of their business. The tax was taken off of everything except tea. This one tax was kept up, though a very light one, merely as the King said, “to maintain the parliamentary right of taxation.” Even the duty was taken off of tea, so that it was sold in America ninepence cheaper a pound than it could be bought in England.
“Now,” said the King, “if the colonists object to this, it proves that they are determined to rebel against our government.”
He could not conceive of such a thing as a principle against which they were opposed, and many a mind since his has been as blind to principle and as full-eyed toward the question of profit and loss. It is this indescribable thing that usually divides people on public affairs. It likewise defends the Makers of America against the historical interpretation that their revolution was for any such sordid origins as “economic necessity.”
There was strong opposition in parliament, not only against all such taxation but also against asserting the right of such taxation. Lord North, however, reflecting the will of King George, said, “The properest time to exert our right of taxation is when the right is refused.”
So it is with all set wills. The colonists thought the same thing from an opposite point of view. It was an irresistible body meeting an immovable body. Something had to break.
Lord North declared that “a total repeal can not be thought of, till America is prostrate at our feet.” That is, the master determines not to hear the complaint of the slave until the slave’s will is broken at his owner’s feet. The wilderness-made minds with their self-made freedom were not built that way. The King’s mind-evil could not be met by resistence, but, as it emerged into colonial wrongs, the only way to defeat them and save the freedom of moral law was through revolutionary war. The evil mind using coertion to enforce its slave-making wrongs went out of the mental regions of non-resistence into the physical regions of wrongs where nothing but force can save.
Lord North’s promise could have nothing to do with the case. The colonists had no idea of taking such a position as being prostrate at the feet of the King. They had felt the freedom that is born of the wilderness and that freedom was life. It was American and it remains the hope of the world.
CHAPTER X
ANTAGONISMS AND HOSTILITIES
I. BLAZING THE WAY TO WAR
Nothing illustrates better the conditions of mind in the long, bitter turmoil, than an incident, infuriating the people of Boston, which happened March 5, 1770. A number of young men and boys, probably fifty or sixty of them, gathered on Boston Common to throw snowballs. A company of militia being near, offered too tempting an object, and they began to pelt the soldiers. The claim was that some of the snowballs contained rocks, though no one was seriously injured. The soldiers charged the bunch of boys, not with weapons, but with fists, and put them to flight. This was not enough for the victors, and so the soldiers pursued the flying enemy. Seeing this, some citizens rang alarm bells. A mob assembled around the custom house and was ordered away. The troops were assailed with clubs and stones. They fired into the crowd and killed four, wounding several others. The town was aflame with wrath and the troops were removed to the barracks outside to prevent further bloodshed. Though it was hardly disastrous enough to deserve the name, “Boston Massacre,” yet there was no doubt that nothing in the early days of the revolution, had more effect in setting the minds of the people against England. It was a sign of the times, and was like a little word that may sometimes mean as much as a whole discourse, especially when a social group of minds is unified in one interest of opposition or defense.
It was during these stirring times in the North that Washington was prevailed on by the Colonial government to visit the Indian tribes on the Ohio for a better understanding of the right of each side under the existing treaties. His journey to the site of old Fort Duquesne, renamed Fort Pitt, where Pittsburg now stands, was full of romantic memories, and was met with many assurances of friendship among the now reconciled Indians.
Through the many interesting scenes, still somewhat perilous from the uncertainty of Indian friendship, he arrived at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. It was at this place where Washington was visited by an old Indian Sachem, who approached him with great reverence as if he were in the presence of a very superior being. Through the interpreter, the Indian chief said that he had heard of his coming to their country and had come a long way to see him. He explained his unusual interest by saying that he had led his warriors against the English under General Braddock. It was he with his band of braves who had lain in ambush on the banks of the Monongahela and had done such deadly slaughter to the English troops. But his reverence for Washington had a special reason. The Indians saw Washington as one of the boldest, riding fearlessly over the battlefield, carrying the General’s orders. The chief and his warriors had singled Washington out as one they must kill. They had tried their best but their bullets never found him. At last they would not waste their bullets on him because he had a charmed life, under the protection of the Great Spirit. And who knows about these things! Everything may not be of inevitable physical order! The simple Indian may have been nearer the truth than would be any psychological or scientific explanation.
The Indians very generally believed that the Great Spirit exercised power over bullets, and, in many instances, faced death fearlessly in the faith raised by their “medicen-man” that the enemy’s bullets could not harm them. Religious assurance of some kind is the consolation of every mind.
II. THE DOUBLE-QUICK MARCH TO REVOLUTION
That Washington could be righteously indignant and unmercifully sarcastic may be inferred from a letter written to Colonel George Muse, who had been Washington’s military instructor at Mount Vernon in 1751. Colonel Muse had been accused of cowardice in the campaign with Washington to the Ohio in 1754, and Washington had with difficulty obtained for him a grant of ten thousand acres of land in the Ohio territory, as was given to the other officers in the expedition. Colonel Muse was dissatisfied and so wrote a letter to Washington, the contents of which we can surmise only from Washington’s reply.
“Sir,—Your impudent letter was delivered to me yesterday,” he wrote. “As I am not accustomed to receive such from any man, nor would have taken the same language from you personally, without letting you feel some marks of my resentment, I advise you to be cautious in writing me a second of the same tenor; though I understand you were drunk when you did it, yet give me leave to tell you that drunkenness is no excuse for rudeness.”
After describing what had been done for the ungrateful man, Washington closed his letter by saying, “All my concern is that I ever engaged myself in behalf of so ungrateful and dirty a fellow as you are.”
Meanwhile, the King of England was searching for means to wear down the opposition of the colonies to his assertion of the right to personal rule over them through Parliament. So complete was the refusal of the colonies to use tea, that the warehouses of the East India Company were full of tea, and their profit dwindled. A happy suggestion was made to the King. Let the tea go free duty, and so cheap on account of the surplus, to the colonies, that they will buy it and thus not only relieve the warehouses but also establish the principle of the right to tax articles sold in the colonies. The proposition was put into effect. The contents of the warehouses were emptied into ships and sent to various ports in the American colonies. The King depended on human nature as he understood it to be. Like many another ruler who believes he can rule by juggling ideas and manipulating minds, he deceived himself. The people were starving for tea! They had long lived without tea like foolish children who would play no way but their own way. Now, they would tumble over one another to get the long desired tea. There would be a carnival carousal of tea drinking in America! But somehow the thing didn’t work. There was still a wonderful perverseness in the half-civilized subjects of the King in the American wilderness. They seemed suddenly to be all alike. No doubt there were many who would gladly have profited by the King’s contempt for principle, but profit was timid and principle was bold.
New York and Philadelphia turned the ships around and ordered them to set sails at once for England. In Charleston they stored the tea in cellars where it remained untouched until it was ruined. In Boston, upon which the King’s anger was centered, as the cause of all the strife, the conflict of wills was more desperate. The captains found that they could not unload the tea and when they tried to get clearance papers to leave the harbor, they were refused. They could not come in nor go out. But this meant, as the people soon saw, that the tea was to be held there on the ships until the soldiers could be used to enforce the sale of tea, and thus coerce the people into acknowledging the claims of the King “to rule and reign over them,” according to his will.
The two sides had now “chosen up,” as it were, and had begun to climb the steps to war.
To forestall the landing of the tea under cover of the soldiers, a company of Boston people assembled on the night of December 18, 1773, disguised themselves as Indians, boarded the ships, broke open all the chests of tea, and emptied the object of all the trouble into the sea.
There was no excitement apparent in doing this. When all the tea in Boston harbor was floating on the waves, the make-believe Indians returned peacefully to their homes, and went to bed, doubtless sleeping “the sleep of the righteous.”
All the wrath of the King and his associates were now centered definitely on Boston. In swift retaliation the Boston Port Bill was passed by Parliament, closing the harbor and transferring the capital to Salem. A little later, the charter of the province was changed so as to bring the colony directly under the control of the English government. Then a Riot Bill was passed so that any person, if indicted for a high crime, could be sent to England for trial. First, it was taxing without representation, then it was quartering soldiers upon them without their consent, and now it was a violation of the right to be tried by a jury of their peers. The intolerable had climbed the swift steps of war to the impossible. American freedom could not thus be made the puppet of any king.
It was historical evidence how “one thing brings on another” in a quarrel of wills, and how force can not control rebellious minds. Brain-storms of feeling, whether in child or mob, are not to be stilled by retaliation or despotism.
III. VIOLENCE AND FLATTERY AS METHODS OF MASTERY
In wide contrast to the use of force for Massachusetts, was the plan being carried out to pacify Virginia. Lord Dunmore was sent as governor to Virginia with the same idea of princely show as characterized Lord Botetourt. He established a court circle with almost kingly pomp and splendor. He began the great game of playing to the aristocracy of the “Ancient Dominion.” All the wealthy families were entertained at the Governor’s mansion in gorgeous style. Washington was among the first to be so honored and entertained. It looked as if all Virginia was at the feet of the royal governor, rapturously “eating out of his hand.”
The House of Burgesses convened and everything seemed to be going the King’s way, when a letter was received stating what had been done to Boston. Then things were different. Principle, freedom and sympathy joined hands, and court-flattery went to the scrap-heap.
The letter was read before the assembly. At once all other business was thrown aside. A protest was adopted to be sent to England, and a resolution was passed setting apart the first day of June (the day on which the port of Boston was to be closed), as a day of fasting, prayer and humiliation, in which all minds should be united firmly opposing the contemplated suppression of American liberties, and to avert the evils of civil war.
Repeating what his predecessor, Lord Botetourt, had done and seeming to learn nothing from that really well-intentioned man’s experiences, Lord Dunmore, the next morning ordered the House of Burgesses to appear before him in the council chamber.
“Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses,” he began, “I hold in my hand a paper, published by order of your House, conceived in such terms, as reflect highly upon his Majesty and the Parliament of Great Britain, which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you, and you are dissolved accordingly.”
But as before, the assembly did not disperse. It gathered in a hall where the members unanimously passed the most drastic resolutions of defiance, and, what was most significant of all, ordered the Committee of Correspondence to communicate with the various colonies on the expediency of appointing deputies to meet annually in a General Congress of British America.
Every word and deed of Washington, and there is abundance of them on record, shows that he was in full and hearty sympathy with all these sentiments against Great Britain, though he and Lord Dunmore, and their families, mingled frequently in a social way. Washington’s mind was not one to be swayed by particular instances of pride or profit. The goal before him was never obscured by side issues or temporary interests.