The leader-enterprise. [volume] (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1912-1915, 1913-04-11

| letters to the government at home
| had brought Braddock and his regi-
ments to the Potomac.
| Plans were promptly agreed upon.
New York and New England, seeing
war come on apace, were astir no less
| than Virginia, and in active CORE
spondence with the ministers in Lon
DON Two regiments had already been
raised and taken into the kings pay;
the militia of all the threatened col
onies were afoot; in all quarters ac-
| ton was expected and instant war.
To Strike at Niagara.
Governor Shirley, the council
agreed, should strike at once at Nj
agara with the kings new provincial
regiments, in the hope to cut the en-
emy's connections with their western
posts; Colonel William Johnson, the
cool-headed trader and borderer, who
had lived and thriven SO long in the
forests where the dreaded Mohawks
had their strength, should lead alevy
| from New England, New York and
New Jersey, to an attack upon Crown
| Point, where for twenty-four years the
| French had held Champaign; and
Lieutenant Colonel Monckton, of the
kings regulars, must take a similar
force against Beausejour in Acadia,
while General Braddock struck
straight into the western wilderness
| to take Duquesne.
/ 'Twere best to be prompt in every
part of the hazardous business, and
Braddock turned from the conference
to push his own expedition forward
at once. after taking Fort Du-
quesne,' he said to Franklin, II am
to proceed to Niagara; and after hav-
ing taken that, to Frontenac, If the
season will allow time; and l suppose
it will, for Duquesne can hardly de-
tain me above three or four days; and
then can see nothing that can OBJ
struct my march to Niagara"
The sagacious Franklin.
'To be sure, sir" quietly replied the
sagacious Franklin; "if you arrive
we'll before Duquesne with these fine
troops, so we'll provided with artillery,
the fort can probably make
but a short resistance"
But there was the trouble. 'TWould
have been better, no doubt, had a
route through Pennsylvania been
chosen, where cultivated farms al
ready stretched we'll into the west,
with their own roads and grain and
cattle and wagons to serve an army
with; but the Virginia route had been
selected (by intrigue of gentlemen in
terested in the Ohio company, it was
hinted), and must needs be made the
best of.
There was there, at the least the
rough track Washington's men had
cut to the Great Meadows. This must
be widened and leveled for an army
with it's cumbrous train of artillery,
and it's endless procession of wagons
laden with baggage and provisions. To
| take two thousand men through the
! dense forests with all the military
trappings and supplies of European
army would be to put, it might be,
| four miles of it's rough trail between
van and rear Of the struggling line,
and it would be a clumsy enemy, as
fighting went in the woods, who could
not cut such force into pieces-'like
thread" as Franklin said.
The Advance Begins.
The thing was to be attempted,
nevertheless, with stubborn British
resolution. 1t was the 10Th of May
before all the forces intended for the
march were finally collected at Fort
Cumberland, twenty-five hundred men
| in all-fourteen hundred regulars,
now the recruits were in; nearly five
hundred Virginians, horse and foot;
two Independent companies from New
York; and a small force of sailors
from the transports to rig tackle for
the ordnance when there was need on
the rough way. And it was the 10th
of June when the advance began,
straight into that "realm of forests
ancient as the world" that lay with
out limit upon all the western ways"
Braddock a Mischief Breeder.
1t was a thing of infinite difficulty
| to get that numbering train through
the tangled wilderness, and it kept
the temper of the truculent Braddock
very hot to see how it played havoc
with every principle and practice OF
campaigning he had ever heard of.
He charged the colonists with an ut
ter want alike of honor and of hon
esty to have kept him so long await
ing the transportation and supplies
they had promised, and to have done
so little to end with, and SO drew
Washington into frequent disputes,
maintained with warmth on both
sides; but the difficulties of the
march presently wrought certain
forest change upon him, and disposed
him to take counsel of his young Vir-
ginian aide-the only man in all his
company who could speak out Of
knowledge in that wild country.
On the 10Th, at Washington's adj
vice, he took twelve hundred men
and pressed forward with ightened
train to a quicker advance, leaving
Colonel Dunbar to bring up the rest
/