The Rifleman Page 4

“Yes, sir. By then he had been elected to command a Virginia Militia Company. They were called up in February 1755 when General Braddock arrived in Virginia with two regiments of British Regulars. In May, General Braddock and his troops arrived at Fort Cumberland with orders to drive the French out of the fort they erected where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers merge to form the Ohio. It’s also when he again met Mr. Morgan and Colonel Washington.”

  “Ah, yes,” Rev. Thruston nodded, “the ill-fated expedition in the summer of 1755 to seize Fort Duquesne1 from the French and their savage allies. By then Daniel had saved enough to purchase his own team of draft horses and a sturdy wagon. He was hired to haul supplies and military equipment from Winchester to Fort Cumberland. It’s ironic your father, young Morgan, and George Washington all participated in two catastrophes on the same ground—both caused by British arrogance and unwillingness to take advice from mere colonials. What did your father have to say about that venture?”

  “He told us that between April and June his Militia Company was posted at Fort Cumberland and how Mr. Morgan was flogged for disrespect to a British officer . . .”

  The Reverend smiled and said, “According to the oft-repeated story, a court-martial for insubordination sentenced Daniel to 500 lashes—but the drummer miscounted and he only received 499. Whatever the number, if you ever see him with his shirt off you will see the scars. That kind of beating would likely have killed a lesser man than Daniel Morgan. What more did your father have to say about the campaign?”

  “He said Lieutenant Colonel Washington was unable to get a Royal commission so he volunteered to serve without pay as one of General Braddock’s aides. Unfortunately, as you said, the general ignored most of his advice until it was too late. He also told us General Washington and Daniel Morgan were heroes in the midst of the disaster.”

  “Did your father tell you what happened?”

  “Not really. He has never spoken much about it.”

  “Well, you should know; for the past will enlighten you about the war we are about to experience. First, the classical definition of the word ‘hero’ describes a person who willingly puts oneself at risk for the benefit of others. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, because Washington, Morgan, your father, and your late brother Joshua are all heroes. Now, as for the disastrous campaign in the summer of 1755; Lieutenant Colonel Washington urged Braddock to keep his army together, take the time to recruit more of the natives to the British side, and move slowly enough to bring his entire force to bear against the French holding Fort Duquesne. But Braddock was too proud to take the advice.

  “He was also unwilling to delay while a suitable road could be carved through the mountains enabling the whole army to advance as a single unit. So he split his force of 2,600 into a ‘flying column’ of 1,400 British Regulars, grenadiers, two light artillery cannons, and three companies of militia with the ­balance—including most of the militiamen under a Colonel ­Dunbar—following slowly in trail with the rest of the artillery, heavy equipment, and baggage.

  “When Braddock went charging off into the wilderness toward Fort Duquesne on June 18, Washington and your father went with him. Morgan, ordered to stay with Dunbar, was placed in charge of the baggage train and lead it forward as fast as the engineers could build a passable road.

  “Though Washington had far more experience in this terrain than any of the British officers, he was violently ill with bloody flux and colic2 for most of the march. He was near the front of Braddock’s column on the morning of July 9th when they crossed the Monongahela—about ten miles from Fort Duquesne and collided with a force of 800 French Regulars, Canadian militiamen, and natives dispatched from Fort Duquesne.

  “Had Braddock and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gage, commanding the advance guard, heeded Washington’s advice to send scouts out in front and on the flanks of their mile-long column, disaster might have been averted. Though the French and their vicious red-skinned allies were fewer in number than the British force, they quickly enveloped the British moving single file on the narrow path in heavily wooded terrain. The murderous crossfire turned the defile into an abattoir.

  “Nearly all the senior British officers at the front of the column—including Braddock—resplendent in red dress coats and gold braid, were felled in the first hours of the fight. When the general was shot off his horse by two musket balls in the chest, Washington, your father, and one of the general’s aides were the first to reach him. They carried their gravely wounded commander out of immediate danger where his surviving aides were able to shield him while a surgeon attended to his grievous wounds.

  “With chaos all around him, Washington realized there would be a massacre of biblical proportions if they were unable to disengage and withdraw back across the Monongahela before dark. He brought up the two light cannons and directed them to fire grapeshot at their attackers and ordered your father to take his militia company to fight their way uphill to protect the left flank of the column all the way back to the crossing point at the river.

  “In the time it took Washington to attempt organizing anything close to an orderly retrograde, he had two horses shot from under him and musket balls perforated his coat in four places without wounding him. I can assure you Colonel Washington believes in Divine intervention in the affairs of mankind.

  “So too, does your father. He was wounded in his right shoulder by a ball fired by one of the pursuing savages as he and his company were guarding the ford over the river. They were the last to cross over, well after dark. Though thoroughly exhausted, they brought with them their three dead and seven wounded. Had they failed in their mission, there might well have been an even greater catastrophe.

  “It took more than two and a half days for the remnants of the shattered column to traverse the forty-five miles back to Great Meadow. Along the way, your father and another militia company fought off bands of savages intent on killing wounded stragglers and scalping and looting the dead.

  “As the long column made its painful way east, Washington dispatched messengers to alert Colonel Dunbar to the exigencies of their situation and asked that fresh troops be sent to assist their beleaguered comrades. But the requested help never came.

  “Late on the night of 11–12 July, when General Braddock’s grenadier escort arrived at Dunbar’s encampment just west of the ruins of Fort Necessity, their grievously wounded commander’s litter was lashed to an artillery caisson. Word quickly spread and by dawn of the 12th, panic ensued in the ranks of the British Regulars, the militiamen—and especially among drivers in the wagon train.

  “Dunbar and his officers, fearing mass desertion, appealed to Morgan—the civilian they flogged just weeks before—to quell a mutiny among the 200 or so wagon drivers who began dumping their cargoes in preparation for fleeing back to Fort Cumberland.

  “Morgan, from his experience a year earlier, realized many wagons would be needed to carry the wounded and dead. Armed with his long-rifle, a pistol, and a tomahawk in his belt, he climbed atop the cargo in his own wagon and bellowed out, ‘Gather ’round me all you wagoneers! Now!’

  “When the grumbling crews assembled around his perch he told them, ‘Hear me! You may dump your loads in the five places I point out to you. But if any of you move a wagon down the trail toward Fort Cumberland before ordered to do so, I will shoot you dead for desertion and give your draft horses to your widows and orphans. Are there any questions?’ There were none.

  “Throughout the remainder of the day and night, as Braddock struggled in and out of consciousness, the bloody remnants of his expedition, no longer pursued by the enemy, straggled into the encampment. At dawn on the 13th, Lieutenant Colonel Washington and your father arrived with the rear guard. A quick council was held beneath the tent sheltering General Braddock and this time he took Washington’s advice: retreat to Fort Cumberland.

  “U
nder Morgan’s supervision more than seventy of the sturdiest wagons were cleared of their cargo and loaded with blankets and six to eight sick and wounded apiece. The bodies of eighteen dead officers carried back to the encampment by their men were wrapped in canvas and piled in two wagons. To avoid the dust, General Braddock, struggling to breathe, was gently placed into the lead wagon, directly in front of Morgan’s at the front the column.

  “Colonel Dunbar was ordered to remain behind with 600 Regulars and a company of militia to cover their retreat, destroy the artillery, and burn the five mountains of cargo pulled from the wagons. Each pile had gunpowder to insure ignition of the baggage, barrels of flour, salted pork, and beef. Left for the pyre were scores of common soldiers and camp followers who perished in or near the camp. Colonel Dunbar had the decency to wait until the last of the defeated troops and wagons were out of sight before setting it all afire.

  “If memory serves me right, your wounded father was riding in Morgan’s wagon. The slow-moving cavalcade was but a few miles down the trail toward Fort Necessity when Morgan and your father saw Braddock gesture to Colonel Washington whose horse was aside the general’s wagon. The entire procession stopped as Washington climbed into the transport and knelt beside his dying commander. Though Daniel told me he couldn’t hear what was said, he watched as Braddock handed Washington his red sash—the symbol of command—and then expired.

  “Colonel Washington asked Daniel to gather some men and dig a grave in the middle of the roadway so pursuing savages would be unlikely to find and desecrate the general’s body. The surviving members of the staff, including Thomas Gage, Charles Lee, and Horatio Gates were quickly gathered.

  “When it was discovered the chaplain was too badly wounded to come forward, Colonel Washington led a brief and apparently moving funeral service. Morgan and your father, despite his wounded shoulder, were among the men who interred the British Commanding General in an ignominious, unmarked grave in the middle of the road through the wilderness.

  “All told, Braddock’s expedition lost more than 570 missing, killed in action, or died of wounds. Another 422 were wounded and survived. Of the eighty-six commissioned British and Colonial officers who headed off to the Monongahela, twenty-six were killed and thirty-seven were wounded and lived, your father among them.

  “Omitted from the official reports submitted to the government in London is any mention of the fifty-six women who accompanied their husbands on the expedition into the wilderness. Only four, all injured, survived. The women who perished suffered the cruelest deaths of all. After being repeatedly violated by the savages, they were scalped alive, disemboweled, and finally beheaded.”

  I was sickened by his description and asked, “If the women weren’t mentioned in the official reports, how do you know what happened to them?”

  “Good question, Nathanael. I learned about the women last year when several members of our Committee of Safety met with a secret emissary sent to Virginia by Count Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister. We met for two days in Alexandria. In our conversations he told us the horrible fate of the women in Braddock’s column.

  “He also informed us that in the fight along the Monongahela, the French and Canadian troops lost only eight soldiers—including their commander, Daniel Liénard de Beaujeu. Their Indian allies had just fifteen killed and twelve wounded. He claimed some of the French officers shot several of the savages in an effort to stop them from torturing the women.

  “The sad caravan, led by Washington and once again headed by Morgan’s wagon, arrived back at Fort Cumberland on the 17th of July, 1755. A few days later your father and Daniel returned to Winchester. When all this happened, your father was twenty-seven, Washington was just twenty-three years old, and Morgan was but nineteen.”

  I was totally taken by the story. When Rev. Thruston stopped talking, I shook my head, astounded by what he told me about my father and his comrades, at what happened when they were so young and said, “And now, my father is forty-seven, Washington is forty-three, and Morgan is thirty-eight?”

  “Ahh,” the pastor said with a smile, “you can do your numbers. Would you like to know more about the man you’re about to meet?” th

  Endnotes

  1.Fort Duquesne, erected by French troops dispatched from Canada in 1754 is the site of present-day Pittsburgh, PA.

  2.“Bloody Flux” and “Colic”: terms used in the 1700s to describe what we now call dysentery.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PLANTING THE SEEDS OF WAR

  Allason’s Shenandoah Store

  Winchester, Virginia

  Monday, April 24th, 1775

  Rev. Thruston was a font of information about Daniel Morgan and he clearly knew more than I did about my own father. I asked him to tell me more.

  After checking his watch, he continued, “Within a month of Braddock’s disastrous attempt to capture Fort Duquesne in July 1755, the savage tribes allied with France were raiding homesteads and murdering entire settlements throughout the Valley of Virginia. Washington, already lauded as ‘The Hero of Monongahela,’ was commissioned a full Colonel and made Commander of the Virginia Militia by Robert Dinwiddie, the Royal Lieutenant Governor. Washington’s first order was to raise three companies of Rangers to patrol and protect the frontier.

  “As you probably know, Colonel Washington asked your father to take command of one of the three Ranger companies. But your mother, proving the value of marrying a wise woman, convinced Colonel Washington her husband first needed time to recover from his most recent wound. At the time, he couldn’t raise his right arm enough to hold a rifle.”

  “No sir, I have never been told about any of that. My mother told us he was wounded and we could see the scar in his shoulder when he took off his shirt or when Mother helped him bathe, because he couldn’t reach the back of his neck, but neither of them spoke more of it and we learned not to ask . . . .”

  Rev. Thruston nodded and said, “I do not have the gift of prophesy, but if things go as they seem to be heading, you will soon come to understand why real heroes like your father rarely speak of their own courage—but are quick to tell of how other heroes act in harm’s way.”

  I knew of nothing to add, so he continued his story.

  “Your father wanted to command one of the Ranger companies, but he benefitted from your mother’s intervention. He returned to Williamsburg and used the time recuperating to finish his courses at William & Mary and learned the skills necessary to become a very successful architect.

  “John Ashby, the man who first befriended young Morgan and taught him how to drink rum, ride a fast horse, play cards, wrestle, fight with his fists, and most importantly, drive a wagon and care for good draft animals, was appointed to command the 2nd Ranger Company. One of the first men he recruited was Daniel Morgan.

  “Morgan accepted Ashby’s invitation. As I have heard Daniel tell it, he knew the pay wouldn’t be as good as the money he could make as a ‘wagoneer.’ He claims he joined out of ‘loyalty to Ashby, adventure, camaraderie, and the chance to kill savages who would otherwise kill the most vulnerable of our countrymen.’ Those seem to be proper motives to me.

  “In October 1755, Morgan was promoted to lead a fifteen-man Mounted Ranger Patrol with the mission of building stockades and blockhouses, protecting settlers on the frontier, and escorting wagon trains loaded with supplies through hostile territory.

  “The winter of 1755–56 was fierce, forcing the Indians and the Rangers to hunker down and find shelter from the snow and cold. Apparently, Ashby, Morgan, and their comrades used the weather as an opportunity to consume prodigious quantities of rum and to gamble. If the stories I have heard from others are true, Captain Morgan finished the winter’s card games owing a considerable sum—at least on paper.

  “With the spring thaw, fighting season resumed. On the 16th of April 1756, Morgan and a fellow Ranger were heading on horseb
ack to one of their outposts when seven Indians, armed with French muskets and tomahawks, ambushed them.

  “Morgan’s comrade was killed instantly and a musket ball struck Daniel’s neck from behind, passed through his mouth and out through his cheek, removing several of his teeth on the way. Though badly wounded, and bleeding profusely, Morgan somehow managed to stay mounted and spur his horse to outrun the savages before they could remove his scalp.

  “He spent several weeks recovering his strength in a remote blockhouse before he was strong enough to resume full duties, albeit many pounds lighter, from inability to eat solid food. Some of those who were with him say he convalesced on ‘cornmeal soup’ and rum.

  “The Ranger companies were disbanded in October ’56 because Colonel Washington deemed them to be less effective than expected. Morgan returned to ‘waggoning,’ hauling cargoes of wheat, flax, hemp, and tobacco from ‘The Valley,’ over the Blue Ridge to Alexandria, Fredericksburg, and Richmond. On return trips he loaded his wagon with lead, gunpowder, imported grindstones, salt, rum and when he couldn’t find a more valuable cargo, ‘ballast bricks’ for construction.1

  “In January 1758, acting Governor Dinwiddie returned to England and Francis Fauquier was appointed Lieutenant Governor by the Crown. Fauquier immediately urged London to deal ­forcibly with ‘the French threat’ and in the autumn of 1758, a British Army and Colonial Militia force of 7,000 men commanded by General John Forbes with Colonel Washington as his appointed deputy, finally captured Fort Duquesne. The Indians, denied access to their French patrons and safe-haven, temporarily ceased their raids into Virginia. By then, Daniel owned two sturdy wagons and employed two drivers.

  “Unfortunately, attaining a degree of financial success didn’t change Morgan’s behavior much. He was still a ‘rowdy’ who drank too much rum, engaged in frequent pugilistic altercations at Tavern in Battletown2 and at the Shenandoah Store, where we’re heading now. On numerous occasions between 1759 and ’62 he was remanded to appear before Frederick County magistrates for charges such as ‘brawling,’ and ‘drunken, disorderly conduct,’ and ‘disturbing the peace.’ It was after one of those misadventures when he began to mend his ways.”