The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1932-06-30

surrounded by woods on higher
ground. He knew his business. He
knew the French and Indians fought
from behind trees. He knew the range
of their muskets. He planted himself
where his enemies, in order to hit
him, must leave their shelter and be
hit themselves. Precisely this hap
pened."
And another apology says: with
rare sagacity he chose the site of his
fertilization at the only place where
he could expect to hold out against
an attack made Indian fashion, as the
French fought. In a meadow, with
no trees for several hundred yards,
but with a spring of water for men
and beasts, it had certain definite adj
vantages which are obvious, even to
this day, although there has not been
wanting some military talent which
has criticized his choice of a point in
the valley with hills rising on either
side. Washington knew, better than
these, the manner in which his ad-
versary would fight and the type of
arms used in that day.
If there is any flaw in this defense
of the young colonePs judgment, it
may lie in his own report of the battle,
published in the South Carolina Ga
zette of August %, less than two
months after the surrender. For, ac-
cording to Washington's version, the
French didn't have to come out into
the open. Describing the later phase
of the fight, when the French were
closing in around the little fort in
the bottom of the valley, this report
says:
We continued this unequal fight,
with an enemy sheltered behind trees,
ourselves without shelter, in trenches
full Of water, in a settled rain, and
the enemy calling us necessarily on
all sides from the woods until s o'clock
at night.
The same description of the fight
appears in the Virginia Governors re-
port to the Lords of Trade, which
says that "the French were sheltered
all around our camp by trees; from
thence they CALLED our people all the
time" And the same report, far
from regarding the affair as victory,
adds:
The next morning g party from the
French came and took possession of
our encampment, and our people
marched off with colors flying and
beat of drum; but there appeared a
fresh party OF a hundred Indians to
join the French, who CALLED our people
much, and with difficulty were re-
strained from attacking them; how
ever, they pilfered our peoples bag
gage, and at the beginning of the en-
gagement the French killed all the
horses. cattle and live creatures they
saw, so that our forces were obliged
to carry eff the wounded men on their
backs to some distance from the place
CT the engagement, where they left
them with a guard; the scarcity of
provisions made them make quick
marches to get among he inhabitants,
which was about sixty miles of bad
road.
But whether the battle of Great
Meadows was victory of the defeat
that Washington thought it, the place
where it happened will shortly become
one of the foremost of American pa
triotic shrines. In Southwestern
Pennsylvania and in Western Mary
land, it will be great event. Cum
berland, Md, will send a caravan Of
representatives to attend the dedica-
ton, for Cumberland has a special in
terest in Fort Necessity. 1t was to
Cumberland, then known as Wills
Creek, that Washington retreated
with his seventy wounded. Cumber-
land this spring unveiled tablet on
he restored log cabin that served as
Washington's headquarters there in
the early stages of the Braddock cam
paign. And it was the death, at Cum
bcrland Of Colonel Fry, that put
Washington in supreme command of
the Virginia expedition to hold the
Forks Of the Ohio for the English, and