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Subject Area: History
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. I (1748-1757) [1889]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889-1893). Vol. I (1748-1757).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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TO GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE.

Fort Cumberland, 16 April, 1757.

Honble. Sir,

Your letter by express, of the 5th instant, I fear has fallen into the hands of the common enemy, for I never have seen it. The other of the 7th I this day received; and being exceedingly embarrassed to come to your Honor’s intentions, and really at a loss to know in what manner to act, in such perplexed and difficult circumstances, I called a council of officers to my aid. The result of their advice you will find in the enclosed.1

It will not be in my power to be in Williamsburg by the 22d, as your Honor desires; but as soon after as I can, I certainly will. I shall leave orders with Colonel Stephen to march this garrison to Fort Loudoun, as soon as it is relieved, which cannot be before this express may return, and then your Honor’s further orders may be received. We have no advice of Dagworthy’s marching, tho orders were sent to him.

I shall order all the country’s stores to be carried to Fort Loudoun, and the two companies on Patterson’s Creek to be posted on the Branch, to complete the number that was designed for that place. I have ordered a particular return of the provisions to be made out, and Colonel Stephen to take Captain Dagworthy’s receipt for the quantity left.

We have been at a good deal of unavoidable expense and trouble to furnish the Indians with such things as they wanted. Some enemy Indians killed two Catawbas on Thursday last, at about one hundred and fifty yards from the fort, and seventy from a sentry, and made their escape, tho pursued by other Catawbas and near two hundred men.1 And the day before yesterday, two soldiers were killed and a third taken prisoner, as they were coming to this place from the fort below. The rest of the party, being ten in number, with Captain Waggener among them, made their escape.

The enclosed remonstrance I received just now and think it expedient to send it to your Honor, that you may know the temper and disposition of the troops. As I expect to be with your Honor in two or three days after the express, I think it needless to add any thing but an apology for the incoherence of this letter. The Indians are all around teazing and perplexing me for one thing or another, so that I scarce know what I write. I have the honor, &c.

[1 ]In a letter, dated on the 5th of April, Governor Dinwiddie, believing that Gov. Sharpe had already directed Fort Cumberland to be garrisoned by Maryland troops, had ordered the immediate evacuation of the place by the Virginia troops; and also, that two hundred men should be forthwith despatched to Fredericksburg, under Colonel Stephen, destined by direction of Lord Loudoun for South Carolina, where an attack from the enemy was apprehended, both by sea and on the frontiers. In another letter dated on the 7th, the Governor had reiterated his orders. In this dilemma a council of war was called, who decided that the fort ought not to be evacuated, till the Maryland forces under Captain Dagworthy should arrive.

Fort Cumberland seemed destined to be a perpetual source of uneasiness in some quarter. When the Maryland Assembly met, Governor Sharpe requested means to supply provisions for that garrison. The Assembly retorted with a warmth of disapprobation amounting to a reprimand. “That garrison,” say they, “was stationed contrary to the plain destination of all the forces raised and to be supported by law; and, if any evil consequences have heretofore or may hereafter follow a want of supplies, let those answer for them, who have, contrary to law, been the means of stationing troops where they had no authority to place them.”—Votes and Proceedings for October, 1757.

The Maryland Assembly denied the power of Lord Loudoun over the forces raised and paid by that colony, and his right to command them under any exigency without their consent. Whereupon his Lordship wrote a letter to Governor Sharpe, protesting against this doctrine, as without precedent, and peculiar to Maryland alone.—Ibid. for February, 1758. Governor Dinwiddie declared it “inconsistent and unmannerly in the Maryland Assembly to make any hesitation, or to dispute his Lordship’s power.”—Letter to Governor Sharpe.

[1 ]One hundred and twenty-four Catawbas had arrived, without notice, at Fort Cumberland on the 8th. The two Catawbas were killed while “pleasuring in a canoe some distance from the fort.”—Penn. Col. Records, vii., 502. The Catawbas and Cherokees were to go on an expedition against the Shawnees.