We shall have to speak hereafter of his services when under the standard of Washington, whose friend and neighbor he subsequently became.*

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Founding of Fort Loudoun-Washington's Tour of InspectionInefficiency of the Militia System-Gentlemen Soldiers-Crosspurposes with Dinwiddie-Military Affairs in the North-Delays of Lord Loudoun-Activity of Montcalm-Loudoun in Winter Quarters

THROUGHOUT the summer of 1756 Washington exerted himself diligently in carrying out measures determined upon for frontier security. The great fortress at Winchester was commenced, and the work urged forward as expeditiously as the delays and perplexities incident to a badly organized service would permit. It received the name of Fort Loudoun, in honor of the commander-in-chief, whose arrival in Virginia was hopefully anticipated.

As to the sites of the frontier posts, they were decided upon by Washington and his officers, after frequent and long consultations; parties were sent out to work on them, and men recruited, and militia drafted to garrison them. Washington visited occasionally such as were in progress,

* Mercer was a Scotchman, about thirty-four years of age. About ten years previously he had served as assistant surgeon in the forces of Charles Edward, and followed his standard to the disastrous field of Culloden. After the defeat of the "Chevalier," he had escaped by the way of Inverness to America, and taken up his residence on the frontier of Pennsylvania.

and near at hand. It was a service of some peril, for the mountains and forests were still infested by prowling savages, especially in the neighborhood of these new forts. At one time when he was reconnoitering a wild part of the country, attended merely by a servant and a guide, two men were murdered by the Indians in a solitary defile shortly after he had passed through it.

In the autumn he made a tour of inspection along the whole line, accompanied by his friend, Captain Hugh Mercer, who had recovered from his recent wounds. This tour furnished repeated proofs of the inefficiency of the militia system. In one place he attempted to raise a force with which to scour a region infested by roving bands of savages. After waiting several days, but five men answered to his summons. In another place, where three companies had been ordered to the relief of a fort attacked by the Indians, all that could be mustered were a captain, a lieutenant and seven or eight men.

When the militia were drafted and appeared under arms, the case was not much better. It was now late in the autumn; their term of service, by the act of the Legislature, expired in December-half of the time, therefore, was lost in marching out and home. Their waste of provisions was enormous. To be put on allowance, like other soldiers, they considered an indignity. They would sooner starve than carry a few days' provisions on their backs. On the march, when breakfast was wanted, they would knock down the first beeves they met with, and, after regaling themselves, march on till dinner, when they would take the same method; and so for supper, to the great oppression of the people. For the want of proper military laws, they were obstinate, selfwilled and perverse. Every individual had his own crude

notion of things, and would undertake to direct. If his ad. vice were neglected, he would think himself slighted, abused and injured, and, to redress himself, would depart for his home.

The garrisons were weak for want of men, but more so from indolence and irregularity. Not one was in a posture of defense; few but might be surprised with the greatest ease. At one fort the Indians rushed from their lurkingplace, pounced upon several children playing under the walls, and bore them off before they were discovered. Another fort was surprised, and many of the people massacred in the same manner. In the course of his tour, as he and his party approached the fort, he heard a quick firing for several minutes; concluding that it was attacked, they hastened to its relief, but found the garrison were merely amusing themselves firing at a mark, or for wagers. In this way they would waste their ammunition as freely as they did their provisions. In the meantime, the inhabitants of the country were in a wretched situation, feeling the little dependence to be put on militia who were slow in coming to their assistance, indifferent about their preservation, unwilling to continue, and regardless of everything but their own ease. In short, they were so apprehensive of approaching ruin that the whole back country was in a general motion toward the southern colonies.

From the Catawba he was escorted along a range of forts by a colonel and about thirty men, chiefly officers. "With this small company of irregulars," says he, "with whom order, regularity, circumspection and vigilance were matters of derision and contempt, we set out, and by the protection of Providence reached Augusta court-house in seven days, without meeting the enemy; otherwise we must have fallen

a sacrifice, through the indiscretion of these whooping, halloing, gentlemen soldiers!"

How lively a picture does this give of the militia system at all times, when not subjected to strict military law.

What rendered this year's service peculiarly irksome and embarrassing to Washington was the nature of his correspondence with Governor Dinwiddie. That gentleman, either from the natural hurry and confusion of his mind, or from a real disposition to perplex, was extremely ambiguous and unsatisfactory in most of his orders and replies. "So much am I kept in the dark," says Washington, in one of his letters, "that I do not know whether to prepare for the offensive or defensive. What would be absolutely necessary for the one, would be quite useless for the other." And again: "The orders I receive are full of ambiguity. I am left like a wanderer in the wilderness, to proceed at hazard. I am answerable for consequences, and blamed, without the privilege of defense.”

In nothing was this disposition to perplex more apparent than in the governor's replies respecting Fort Cumberland. Washington had repeatedly urged the abandonment of this fort as a place of frontier deposit, being within the bounds of another province, and out of the track of Indian incursion; so that often the alarm would not reach there until after the mischief had been effected. He applied, at length, for particular and positive directions from the governor on this head. "The following," says he, "is an exact copy of his answer: 'Fort Cumberland is a king's fort, and built chiefly at the charge of the colony, therefore properly under our direction until a new governor is appointed.' Now, whether I am to understand this aye or no to the plain simple question asked, Is the fort to be continued or re