Strictly Charge and Command

 "I have been particularly cautious not to augment."

            King George II himself signed the orders. He sent them to Robert Dinwiddie, the lieutenant governor of the Colony of Virginia. Their tenor was as follows—Determine if the enemy is building forts on our land. If so, bid the enemy to withdraw. If the enemy fails to do so "we do hereby strictly charge and command you to drive them off by force of arms."            
            The ultimate goal? To build an array of British forts throughout the region to defend settlers and drive out the French and their hostile Indian allies.

            In the early 1750s, investors, such as Dinwiddie, beseeched the king to defend their interests in the Ohio Company. By royal decree, it had won the right to speculate on a massive stretch of land extending from present-day West Virginia to Indiana. Meanwhile, the French claimed everything from New Orleans to the Great Lakes. Both empires knew that whoever controlled the Ohio region would control the continent.

            On October 31, 1753, Dinwiddie met with a 21-year-old man who hoped to carry out the King's orders. A few months before in February he had been appointed district adjutant to the colony's militia. That role bestowed on him the rank of major.

            That said, however, this young man—George Washington—had no military experience.

            There were reasons why Dinwiddie would choose him to deliver the King's ultimatum. He was a surveyor who had travelled the western frontier. He was a young and a hardy constitution, making him fit for an arduous winter odyssey. He had no blemishes of youthful misbehavior.

            There was another reason. Washington later wrote, "I believe few or none [other than myself] would have undertaken it." Many years later he would marvel "that so young and inexperienced a person [such as myself] should have been employed on a negotiation with which subjects of the greatest importance were involved."

            Washington also had a certain self-interest—his two half-brothers, like Dinwiddie, were investors in the Ohio Company. They stood to make massive profits if settlers could live safely in the new country

"A vast quantity of snow"

            Immediately, Washington set forth upon receiving his orders. He rode to Fredericksburg 100 miles to the northwest. There he hired a French-speaking Dutchman who was a renowned sword fighter. Together they journeyed 150 miles further northwest to the western edge of the colony—Mills Creek, Maryland (present day Cumberland, Maryland). Washington then hired the accomplished backwoods guide and Ohio Company trader Christopher Gist, as well as four other men, two of whom had traded goods with Indians many times.

            Now in mid-November they set forth "thro an uninhabited wilderness country," as Washington would describe it. As they wound their way on barely passable trails, they faced "a vast quantity of snow" as they struggled through the Allegheny Mountains.

            Their destination? Fort La Boeuf, a French outpost located in present day Waterford, Pennsylvania, 15 miles south of Erie, Pennsylvania, on the shores of Lake Erie. They would make this 230-mile trip, Washington would write, "when the whole face of the earth was covered with snow and the waters covered with ice."

            First, Washington took his expedition 110 miles north of Mills Creek to the Forks of the Ohio. This is strategic site where the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers meet. It is where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is now located. "I spent some time in viewing the rivers and the land in the Fork, which I think extremely well situated for a fort, as it has the absolute command of both rivers," Washington wrote.

            Here the young commander demonstrated his steely leadership skills. His party blanched at the thought of crossing the freezing, fast-rushing Allegheny River on horseback. Fearless, Washington drove his horse forward and made the crossing sternly mounted in his saddle.

            The others crossed by canoe.

            Having mastered this "very rapid swift-running water," Washington's orders instructed him to determine the intentions of the French by meeting with Indian leaders. On November 22, three-and-a-half weeks after leaving Williamsburg, Washington met with the Seneca chief Tanacharison, whom the English called the Half-King. He represented the powerful Iroquois Confederation, the Six Nations.

            The Half-King knew Washington by reputation. He gave the young man the Indian name Conotocarius—'devourer of villages.' Through Indian oral histories, the Half-King knew that name had been bestowed on Washington's great-grandfather John Washington. He won it not because of his skill as a warrior but because he had adroitly used the white man's law to take Indian land. The young Washington, it is believed, was proud to be honored with his ancestor's title.

            The Half King was predisposed to like the colonists. He had signed a treaty with the British the year before. Thinking they were only interested in trade, he preferred them to the French who he knew were there to steal his land.

            The colonists and Indians continued north. After five days, they came to a French trading post named Venango. Its French officers received the travelers gracefully. After dinner, they became drunk on their own wine. Washington had the fortitude to remain sober. They freely told him that "it was their absolute Design to take Possession of the Ohio, & by G they wou'd do it." What's more, they let slip where they planned to build their forts.

            Seeking further intelligence, Washington pressed another 120 miles further north in bitterly cold weather to Ft. Le Boeuf. On arriving he saw that at least 120 canoes arrayed nearby, ready to be put to military use. He counted more than 100 French soldiers stationed at the fort.

            Again, Washington was received warmly by the French commanding officer, a one-eyed veteran of the frontier. Washington told him that "the Lands upon the river Ohio, in the Western Parts of the Colony of Virginia, are so notoriously known to be the Property of the Crown of Great Britain, that it is a Matter of equal Concern & Surprize to me, to hear that a Body of French Forces are erecting Fortresses, & making Settlements upon that River within his Majesty's Dominions." He passed on King George's will—Leave peaceably or be removed.

            "As to the summons you send me to retire, I do not think myself obliged to obey it," the French officer replied.

            During this parley, the Half-King's allegiance to the British pleased Washington.

            "If you had come in a peaceable Manner like our Brethren the English," the Seneca chief told the fort's commander, "We shou'd not have been against your trading with us as they do, but to come, Fathers, & build great houses upon our Land, & to take it by Force, is what we cannot submit to."

            The Half-King also hedged his bet, telling both men that nothing is permanent. "Both you & the English are White. We live in a Country between, therefore the Land does not belong either to one or the other; but the GREAT BEING above allow'd it to be a Place of Residence for us."

            Upon departing, Washington was furious to learn the French had promised the Indians liquor and guns, if they remained at the fort.

            Eager to return to Virginia with news of the French intransigence, Washington made haste in the cruel weather. His party's horses were so exhausted, they collapsed.             
            Washington and Gist had to proceed on foot through the wilderness. At the ominously named Indian village Murdering Town, they hired several natives to guide them to the Forks of the Ohio.            

"We must travel all night"

            Although Washington trusted one of them to carry his backpack, Gist was suspicious. Rightly so. When they reached a clearing, the Indian dashed forward, spun around, and fired his musket at close range, somehow missing both men.

            Gist tackled the Indian and was about to shoot him dead. Washington told him to let him go. They kept the Indian until nightfall and then released him.

            Gist was furious. "As you will not have him killed," he told Washington, "We must get him away and then we must travel all night"

            To put distance between themselves and the inevitable war party, they marched through the night.

            When dawn came, they found their planned path of escape blocked. They thought a nearby river would be frozen over. Instead it was only covered with patches of ice. The two men had only "one poor hatchet" to use to construct a raft. They worked furiously for an entire day before being able to push off.

            Then—disaster. Their pitiful craft got caught in the ice. Washington tried to push it free.

            "I put out my setting pole to try to stop the raft that the ice might pass by, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with so much violence against the pole that it jerked me into ten feet water."

            Struggling in the deadly cold water, Washington caught hold of the raft and pulled himself back aboard. Unable to make the crossing, they spent the night on an island. By morning, the river had completely frozen over, and they dashed to safety.

            Washington returned to Williamsburg on January 16, 1754, completing his nearly 1,000-mile mission. He returned with a 7,000-word account of his expedition.

            He immediately made his report to Dinwiddie who was justly alarmed at its contents. The French did indeed have plans to militarize the region. Worse, they were actively doing so.

            He told Washington to write his observations in publishable form. Within weeks newspapers throughout the colonies printed The Journal of Major George Washington. It appeared as a booklet in London.

            "I have been particularly cautious not to augment [my account]," wrote the young man. His readers understood. They knew that this young man's courage marked him as someone to watch.

MORAL: Seize opportunity.

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