Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/505

GEORGE WASHINGTON 485 force of French and Indians. At 11 o'clock at night the French commander proposed a parley. Suspecting this to be a ruse to send an officer into the fort in order to obtain infor- mation as to its condition, the offer was twice declined by Washington, but was at length accepted. The terms of the capitulation were honorable. The Virginians were to retain everything in their possession but the artil- lery, to march out of the fort with the honors of war, and to be allowed to retreat unmolested to the settlements. Notwithstanding the dis- astrous termination of the campaign, not the slightest reproach was cast on Washington. In 1755 two regiments of royal troops were sent out under the veteran Braddock, with which and the provincials of Virginia the cam- paign was opened. Washington, disgusted with the precedence enjoyed by the officers of the regular army, threw up his commission, but tendered his services as a volunteer aide to Gen. Braddock, who gladly accepted them. In con- sequence of a severe illness Washington was left behind at the Great Meadows, where he consented to remain only on condition that he should be allowed to join the army before an engagement took place. In the memorable event of July 9, 1755, known as Braddock's defeat, Washington was almost the only officer of distinction who escaped from the calamities of the day with life and honor. The other aides of Gen. Braddock were disabled early in the action, and Washington alone was left 'in that capacity on the field. In a letter to his brother he says : " I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet I escaped unhurt, though death was levelling my companions on every side." His fellow aide, Col. Orme, who was the witness of his conduct, says he discharged the perilous duties which devolved upon him "with the greatest courage and resolution." A seal which had been car- ried by Washington, with his initials, probably shot away from his person, was found after a lapse of 80 years on the field of battle. No attempt was made by the French to pursue their advantage, but the reverse at Fort Du- quesne naturally caused a general alarm in the province. A force of 2,000 men was raised by the assembly, of which the chief command, notwithstanding the recent disasters and the preference of another candidate by the gover- nor, was conferred on Washington. His head- quarters were established at Winchester, and the duty of protecting the frontier devolved upon him till the end of the war. The unfail- ing embarrassments of such a service, the im- patience of a militia force raised by drafting and impressment, unpaid and poorly clad, the frauds of contractors, contradictory and prepos- terous orders from the governor, the intrigues of rivals seeking to supplant him, the arro- gant pretensions of a subordinate, and whole- sale desertions on the approach of danger these were some of the difficulties with which he had to contend for the rest of the war. In February, 1756, Washington made a hurried visit to Boston, the headquarters of Gov. Shir- ley of Massachusetts, who had lately been appointed commander-in-chief of the royal forces in North America. His object was to submit to the governor the question of pre- cedence which had sprung up between the pro- vincial officers and those commissioned by the crown ; it was justly decided in favor of pre- cedence according to seniority. The years 1756 and 1757 passed without any important mili- tary event in the southern department; but the labors and care of his station told upon the strong constitution of Washington, and he was prostrated with a fever for four months. In 1758 he held the chief command of the Vir- ginia contingent in the ill-conducted and all but abortive campaign under Gen. Forbes against Fort Duquesne. Nearly all the faults of Braddock's expedition were repeated, and with a narrow escape from the same results. Washington formed a matrimonial engagement with Mrs. Martha Custis, the wealthy widow of John Parke Custis, in the summer of 1768, and married her on Jan. 17, 1759. Having been five years in the military service, and vainly sought promotion in the royal army, he took advantage of the fall of Fort Duquesne and the expulsion of the French from the valley of the Ohio to resign his commission. His proved courage, discretion, and resources had gained for him the confidence of the conceited and pragmatical Dinwiddie and the headstrong and arrogant Braddock, as they did afterward of the circumspect and persevering Forbes ; but in England they earned for him nothing but a good-natured rebuke from George II. and a sneer from Horace Walpole. Shortly after his marriage, Washington removed to Mount Ver- non, where he enlarged the mansion, embel- lished the grounds, and added to the estate. As a member of the provincial assembly, his winters were passed in Williamsburg. He was at no period an active partisan leader, but at all times and in all assemblies he exercised a paramount influence by soundness of judgment and weight of character. Tobacco and wheat were, before the revolution, the staple pro- ducts of his plantations. The wheat was ground to flour upon the estate, and what was not wanted for home consumption was sold at Alexandria or shipped from the river. The tobacco was usually shipped directly to Liver- pool, Bristol, or London, from which a part of the returns were received in English manu- factures. The management of a large estate under such a system partook somewhat of the nature of commerce. Invoices of the articles to be exported and orders for the articles to be received in exchange were to be made out with mercantile exactness. Account books were to be kept and an extensive correspon- dence carried on. All this labor was per- formed by Washington with his own hand, and with remarkable precision and neatness. The estate at Mount Vernon, as it was in the