By an Associate.
Continuing the narrative that began here.
“Once again, Virginia has need of your services, Mr. Gist,” he told me after we had exchanged greetings. “You were instrumental in the success of our recent expedition, and the governor and I would be honored if you would add your unrivaled knowledge of the western forests to our current enterprise.”
“What little ability I have is at your service, Mr. Washington,” I replied.
“Lieutenant Colonel Washington now. I received my commission at the beginning of the month. But ranks and titles mean nothing between friends, Gist, and I hope you will permit me to consider you a friend.”
“I am honored, sir.”
“And as your friend, let me tell you, do not belittle your own abilities. You have an instinct for difficult notions that has already proved very valuable. North, for instance. I have always had difficulty with that one, but you grasped it right away. I assume you have an equally good grasp of west, and those two notions together ought to get us to our destination.”
“And what is that, if I may ask?”
“The Forks of the Ohio, Gist. My Ohio Company is constructing a fort there, and I have a commission from Governor Dingwoodle to reinforce it and take command. If, therefore, we may make use of your boat once more, I believe that we should be able to make quick progress by simply retracing the route that brought us hither the last time.”
“The spring floods may retard our progress a little,” I remarked, “but otherwise I see no reason why the expedition should not proceed quickly enough. How many are in your party this time?”
“One hundred sixty-three,” Washington answered.
“One hundred sixty-three?” I stepped past him. Gathered in the clearing around my cabin was a motley assortment of militiamen, the sort of force for which the term “ragtag” might have been invented. I recognized none of them except, sitting on the stump of the cherry tree, the familiar figure of Parson Weems.
“Do you think we shall need to make more than one crossing with the boat?” Washington asked.
“It’s possible,” I answered.
“Then the sooner we start the better,” said Washington. “There is a wise old saying…” He pulled out his copybook from his breast pocket and found a page in it. “ ‘A gentleman ought to avoid contradicting a lady if it is at all possible.’ I live my life by these maxims.”
After one hundred seven trips across the river and one hundred six back, we succeeded in transporting all the men and their equipment across the Potomac. We had proceeded only a few miles along the trail, however, when we were met by a small group of ill-dressed men coming from the other direction. One of them approached Washington immediately.
“Sir,” he said, “I perceive by your blue-and-yellow uniform that you must be Lieutenant Colonel Washington.”
“Buff and blue,” Washington replied.
“Sir,” the stranger said, “the French have taken Fort Washington.”
“What do you mean?” Washington demanded in alarm.
“I mean that, whereas once we were inside the fort, with the French outside, now we are outside the fort, and the French are inside.”
Washington looked grim. “This is disturbing news,” he said.
“The French commander also said some very uncomplimentary things about you personally,” the newcomer continued.
“What things were those?” Washington asked.
“I believe his exact words were, ‘And you may tell that petit caniche Washington that if he should come here, je vais kiquer his derrière.”
I asked the man whether this French commander were a certain Captain Hautain, and he answered that he believed that was the name.
Washington turned to address his men. “Men, the object of our expedition has changed. We are going to eject the French from the Forks of the Ohio, where they have ensconced themselves in the very fort we had been marching to reinforce. I must warn you all that we face a foe who does not scruple to insult us in a language we cannot understand. From that fact alone you may learn how wicked these papists are, and why it is necessary to expel them utterly from my—I mean our—land. I rely on every man’s attachment to his country and to his Protestant faith, and to the large bonus Governor Damwadi will doubtless authorize when we are successful.”
The men seemed pleased at least by the prospect of the bonus, and a few of them attempted something like a cheer, which gave Washington obvious satisfaction.
Indeed, I could already see the qualities that would make Washington such a renowned leader of men. The first night he showed himself a stern disciplinarian, sending several men to bed without supper for various infractions. Yet the men, if they did not positively love him, at the very least did not seem to be plotting to assassinate him.
Our progress was considerably slower than it had been in the previous expedition, owing to the larger number of men, the amount of equipment, and the many swollen streams we had to cross. Twice the mania came upon Washington, and an innocent cherry tree met its fate; but the third time was attended with momentous consequences.
It was a bright mid-morning in late May; the sunlight painted irregular splotches on the forest floor, and the air was pleasantly warm without oppressive heat. All at once Washington stopped in mid-stride, and I recognized all the symptoms: the perspiration, the gritted teeth, the trembling tension of every muscle. Beside him was a particularly fine black cherry, at least fifty feet tall, and in full bloom.
It was too much for him. In a movement too quick for the eye to follow, the hatchet came out of his pack, and chunks of wood began to fly in all directions. The air was filled with the heady scent of cherry sap, and Washington was shouting “Hatchet! Hatchet! Hatchet!” with each blow. The men, who by now had seen this performance at least twice before, did their best to remove themselves from harm’s way; and soon the tree was toppling into the forest.
Suddenly there was a loud cry, followed by confused shouting. One voice, higher than the rest, penetrated the din: “On a tué de Jumonville!”
A French patrol! Washington quickly ordered his men into battle array, which was hard to distinguish from their accustomed random grouping, and led a charge toward the source of the shouting. I readied my musket, but by the time I reached the spot, the French were already surrendering to our overwhelmingly superior numbers. Their commander had been crushed by the falling tree, and he had probably died almost instantly; the rest of the French force numbered only nineteen, who were taken prisoner.
Having won this signal victory, Washington determined to build a fort immediately, reasoning that it would be easier to keep prisoners if he had a fort to keep them in. The Youghiogheny River being nearby, I suggested that as a location; Washington, however, insisted on erecting the fort exactly where we stood, which happened to be a low and boggy meadow most remarkable for the proliferation of skunk cabbages in it. He immediately set the men to building, as soon as the French commander had been given a decent burial; meanwhile, he sent messengers back to Williamsburg with a dispatch giving a full account of the affair.
The fort went up quickly. We had all the logs we could desire: it was necessary only to find a grove of cherry trees and turn Washington loose on them, and we instantly had several days’ worth of lumber. Washington himself drew up the plans for the fort, though I persuaded him to make some minor revisions. In particular, I thought that a museum, an opera house, and a university, while they would be of undoubted utility once we had established a more permanent possession of the Ohio country, might strain our resources at the present moment. Washington reluctantly agreed, but he would not give up his plan for a small theater for puppet shows. “I am passionately fond of puppet shows,” he said. “And it is fitting that at least some accommodation should be provided for the muses at the very foundation of what will doubtless blossom into a great city, a beacon shining from the west—a city to be known, when it takes its place among the world’s great centers of the arts and sciences, as Washington.”
“Wasn’t—” I began; but I stopped myself, supposing that no good could come of asking the question.
“You see,” Washington continued, “it is fitting that the place be named after myself, since it is by necessity that we have constructed it.”
Fort Washington was nearly complete when messengers arrived from Williamsburg bringing a new commission promoting Washington to full colonel and officially ordering him to eject the French from the Forks of the Ohio by whatever means he thought appropriate. We were now on a war footing. Shortly after that, about two hundred men arrived, sent by Governor Dinwiddie as reinforcements. Washington immediately put them to work, some planting flower gardens, some laying out a green for lawn-bowling, and an elite detachment charged with mounting a puppet-show. The first performance took place the next afternoon; the plot involved the domestic arrangements of a husband and wife who settled their disputes by hitting each other with sticks. The men laughed riotously; Washington, however, watched impassively without so much as a smile through the whole performance, though he gave it his enthusiastic applause at the end.
That same evening, I dined with Washington, Parson Weems, and three of the officers, and we discussed the best means of surprising the French at their fort, which they had renamed Fort Duquesne.
“It seems to me,” Washington said, “that our best chance is to march directly southeast.”
“But the French are northwest of us,” one of the officers objected.
“Precisely,” Washington replied. “They will be expecting us to march directly to the northwest. But see what an advantage our Protestant natural philosophy gives us over the benighted papists. The most distinguished English philosophers and geographers assert that the earth takes the form of a sphere. If, therefore, we march straight to the southeast, we must eventually come upon the French fort from the northwest, taking the French completely by surprise.”
The three officers stared without saying anything, and after a moment I perceived that they were staring at me. Parson Weems, too, was looking in my direction, with an expression compounded of amusement and anticipation.
“In theory,” I said cautiously, “that strategy would indeed take the French by surprise. However, the advantage gained in surprise might might not be worth the loss of time. While we were marching, the French would have ample time to bring their reinforcements from Quebec, and no matter how surprised they were, they might be able to oppose us with overwhelming numbers.”
“True,” Washington agreed. “We might—heh—therefore be better—heh heh—better advised to—heh heh ha ha—to—ha ha ha—”
What had started as light chuckling rapidly grew into a gasping, choking fit of laughter. The officers were plainly alarmed, and even Parson Weems looked worried.
“Are you all right, Washington?” I asked, standing ready to offer my assistance.
“He hit—” Washington fell forward laughing and gasping, and for some time was unable to make any articulate sounds. At length he tried again: “He hit his—” More laughs, more gasping. Finally he was able to choke out a phrase: “He hit his wife with a stick!” He pounded the table with both fists, laughing and gasping with tears pouring down his cheeks; and it was quite some time before he was able to master himself sufficiently to resume the discussion.
Eventually it was decided that we should attack the French without delay by marching to the Youghiogheny and then down to the Monongahela, which we could follow to Fort Duquesne. It had the advantage of being a slightly more direct route than going around the world to the southeast, yet at the same time being somewhat more devious than marching straight along the Indian trail to the Forks of the Ohio.
In two days, all was prepared, and our whole force set out into the forest. Scarcely had we gone a mile, however, when a French force appeared before us and began firing. Washington’s soldiers, brave to a man, soon discerned that the French had a distinct advantage in numbers, and were not afraid to show the broad expanses of their backs to the enemy, no matter how tempting a target they made. With laudable expedition, the entire force made it back to the fort in a few minutes.
The French soon had us surrounded, and as the bullets flew, Parson Weems began absentmindedly whistling “Lillibullero,” as was his wont in times of danger.
Washington was glowing with battle ardor. “Do you hear those bullets whistling?” he shouted to me as he dashed from one side of the little fort to the other. “Believe me, there’s something charming in the sound!”
I suppose I ought to have told him that it was Parson Weems he heard, but in the excitement there was no obviously appropriate occasion for conveying that information.
For most of the day we held out, but it was obvious that the French, with at least twice our numbers, must inevitably prevail. The officers and I agreed that a surrender upon terms was better than the loss of all our men. As I was, by this time, the one best acquainted with the humors of our commander, it fell to me to approach him with this unpleasant proposal.
“Washington,” I said bluntly, “the officers and I believe it is time to discuss terms of surrender.”
“Had enough, have they? Well, I shall be merciful. They shall have honorable conditions, since they have fought bravely.”
“I meant our surrender,” I said. I dreaded his reaction, but it had to be put as unambiguously as possible.
“Really?” He looked nonplussed for just a moment, and then said, “Oh, well—win some, lose some. Find a white rag somewhere, tie it on a stick, and let’s get on with it.”
I was quite surprised to hear him accept our advice with such good cheer, and I told him as much. But Washington merely pulled his copybook from his pocket and told me, “As the old saying has it, ‘The other guests will be better pleased if you do not make slurping sounds when eating broth.’ Such is the life of a soldier.”
Within the hour, then, we were facing Captain Hautain himself, who could not contain his sneer. “So! It is the assassin of de Jumonville, yes?”
“If you mean,” said Washington coldly, “that I led my men to victory against Mr. Jumonville’s party, that is accurate.”
“Victory! Plume de ma tante! You drop-ped the tree on him! I should have you executed for this thing alone!”
“We have come to discuss terms. If you do not wish to negotiate, we can go back to the fort and resume the battle.”
“Oh, you shall be given terms, Monsieur Washington. When one has the little yapping poodle which chomps at the ankles, then one throws it the bone, yes? Eh bien, we give you the terms, and you allez-vous-en, and we are finis avec you.” He looked back at one of his officers, who stood ready at a portable desk with a quill and paper. “Et maintenant, our terms.”
The terms he dictated were simple and, I thought, for the most part generous.
“1. The Virginians will hand over their arms.
“2. The Virginians may march back with full honors of war.
“3. Colonel Washington will not name anything else in the Ohio country after himself for the space of one year.
“4. Colonel Washington will sign a paper stating that ‘Washington n’est qu’un tout petit caniche qui jappe incessamment.’ ”
Before he affixed his signature, Washington was careful to ask, “What exactly do you mean by ‘full honors of war’?”
“Sacred blue!” cried Captain Hautain. “I mean that you will be permitted to march out of la Nouvelle France without having to wear a sign on your back that says ‘Kiquez-moi’!”
“That sounds fair,” Washington agreed, and he signed the instrument of surrender.
Our march back was a difficult affair. Washington himself was in surprisingly good spirits, and I wonder whether we should have made it back at all had it not been for his relentless good cheer. But we had no arms for hunting game. Once indeed Washington managed to crush a deer with a cherry tree, but we could not rely on such good fortune for the most part.
Parson Weems once congratulated Washington on his philosophical acceptance of defeat, but Washington saw nothing unusual in it. “Victory or defeat is almost immaterial,” Washington explained. “The important thing is the dispatch. A well-written dispatch conquers all difficulties. As a wise man once said, ‘Assistance promptly rendered to a lady purchases a good reputation for a gentleman in society.’ ” (This last was from his copybook.) “It is clear to me that Irving somehow warned the French of our attack, as there is no end to his malevolence; my duty, therefore, is to report to the governor, and to advise him on the next step to be taken to assure our ultimate victory, and the entire possession of the Ohio country for Virginia.”
“What will you tell the governor?” asked Parson Weems.
“The truth, of course: that the entire expedition would have been lost but for the presence of mind and quick action of Colonel Washington.”
We met a small party of Indians one day, and Washington attempted to trade with them for badly needed provisions; but the Indians made use of a gesture that consisted of bringing the thumb up to the tip of the nose, waving the fingers in the air, extending the tongue between the pursed lips, and making a sound like air escaping from a bladder, which in their marvelously expressive sign language signifies, “We are not inclined to treat with you at present.” This was an indication that the local tribes were less favorably disposed toward us than they had been before, and that perhaps they were beginning to favor the French—a suspicion that would prove all too well founded.
At last we reached the Potomac, where, owing to our having considerably less equipment to carry, it took only one hundred sixty-five crossings in my boat to bring all 350 men across. Washington stayed on the north shore until the last man was across, and it was when we had already brought the second-to-last load across that we realized we had left Washington alone on the shore with the entire treasury of the expedition. I directed the men to take cover behind trees until the hail of dollars had subsided; then I went back across to pick up Washington, while the men collected the bonus to which they were doubtless entitled.
It was a little cramped, but I offered the men the hospitality of my cabin for the night, which they gladly accepted. In the morning, as they prepared to leave, Washington made an unexpected proposition.
“Gist,” said he, “I have come to rely on your good sense and your expert knowledge of the cardinal directions. If you would consent to come with me, Virginia would be the better for it.”
I thought it over briefly. We were now at war with France; I certainly could not rely on the security of my isolated cabin anymore, especially if the Indians had allied themselves with the French. But with Washington, I might have some small chance of affecting the outcome of that war. I gave him my hand and accepted his proposal.
“Splendid!” said Washington. “With Parson Weems’ spiritual advice and your practical wisdom, the three of us should be more than a match for Irving.”
To be continued in Chapter 3. Or you can order the whole book now and spare yourself the wait.