George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[308]

After long delays, Joseph Forbes, who had the

chap. XIII.} 1758.

command as brigadier saw twelve hundred and fifty Highlanders arrive from South Carolina. They were joined by three hundred and fifty Royal Americans. Pennsylvania, animated by an unusual military spirit which seized even Benjamin West, known afterwards as a painter, and Anthony Wayne then a boy of thirteen, raised for the expedition twenty-seven hundred men. Their senior officer was John Armstrong, already famed for his display of courage and skill at Kittanning. With Washington as their leader, Virginia sent two regiments of about nineteen hundred, whom their beloved commander praised as ‘really fine corps.’ Yet, vast as were the preparations, Forbes would never, but for Washington, have seen the Ohio.

The Virginia chief who at first was stationed at Fort Cumberland, clothed a part of his force in the hunting shirt and Indian blanket, which least impeded the progress of the soldier through the forest; and he entreated that the army might advance promptly along Braddock's road. But the expedition was not merely a military enterprise; it was also the march of civilization towards the West, and was made memorable by the construction of a better avenue to the Ohio. This required long continued labor. September had come, before Forbes, whose life was slowly ebbing, was borne in a litter as far as Raystown. ‘See how our time has been misspent,’ cried Washington, angry at delay, and obstinately opposed to the opening the new route which Armstrong, of Pennsylvania, as obstinately advocated. But Forbes preserved a clear head and a firm will, or as he himself expressed it, was ‘actuated by the spirits’ of William Pitt; and he