University of Virginia Library

FORT BRADDOCK LETTERS.

LETTER I.

IT is now spring—the buds are bursting
through all the wilderness about me; but the cold
rains which are constantly descending, make my
condition so cheerless, that I write to you merely
to pass the time. Why I was doomed to spend my
winter here so solitary, or when I shall have the
good luck to shift my quarters, for any other spot,
is past my skill to divine. Any other spot—the
Arkansas, the Rio Colorada, the Council Bluffs,
the Yellow Stone, any place but this. Was I dangerous
to government, that they should have contrived
for one poor subaltern, this Siberian banishment,
where I am ingeniously confined, not by
a guard placed over me, but by having the command
of about five and twenty men, that the spring
discovers in a uniform of rags.

I did suppose that I was more profitably employed
in another part of the state of New-York, on
that noble boundary of lake, and river, and cataract,
where I thought that my services had not only
insured me a continuance in the army list, but
entitled me to promotion.

I came here five months ago, with a dashy suit
of new regimentals, a bright epaulette, and as tall
a white feather as there was between the straits of
Mackinaw and the heights of Abraham. With
this dear-bought equipage, I meant to have figured,
if not in the vicinity of New-York or Boston, at
least in some neighbourhood of gentilty, where I
might have gone to balls, lived at a tavern, figured
in full panoply before the ladies, and passed my
winter like a military man. But you know not
why I complain, or even where I am, for the map
is a blind guide to this part of the country.

You have seen the flourishing condition of this
and the neighbouring states. The towns, the villages,
the cultivated farms, the roads, the wealth,
and the spread of an industrious population, that
has converted, so suddenly, what was termed this
western wilderness, into a delightful and animated
landscape. It should seem like the changing
scenes in a theatre, or the operation of magic. No
tide like this, however, has set in to vary the prospect
within many a pathless mile of Fort Braddock.
I verily believe that the whole western
world, to the Pacific itself, will be filled up with
turnpike gates every three miles, and set out into
school districts, before any serious encroachment
will be made on this forbidden region. It will remain
as it was when Lord Amherst found it, and
he found it as it was a thousand years before, when
it must have been a sort of city of refuge for the
Indians, where the avenger of blood could not pursue,
or where he could not find them if he did.—
And yet, Jim, when I first came here, my head was
so full of romance from reading the Scotch novels
and poetry, that I admired it for its wild and rugged
scenery, and complimented myself with having
a taste for the sublime. From the top of a rock

as high as St. Helena, I can see the waters of
Champlain, and the course of the Sorelle, till it
loses itself at a distance among the northern hills.
The borders of Vermont are covered with evergreen,
except where they glitter with snow, and
the view to the westward is intercepted by mountains
still higher than the precipice on which I
stand. The hill sides are covered with gigantic
trees, which seem intended to give shade to the
mammoth. And yet the fowl fly beneath me, and
I sometimes conceit that the noise of the thunder
comes from below. The road, difficult at all times,
was so impassible in winter, that I should be agreeably
surprised, even by the enemy; and the conversation
of a Dutch teamster savors to me much
of literature, as it would of humanity to Robinson
Crusoe. How do you think I pass my time? I
have the reveille and tattoo beat till the rocks echo.
I drill and discipline my twenty-five men, and
march them in echelon, as if they were the army
of the Rhine, and make them cry “all's well,” as
loud as if they mounted guard on the rock of Gibraltar.
I draw my rations in kind, but Uncle
Sam's alcohol is rather too much for me. The
Postmaster-General has no knowledge of this part
of the country; and I strongly suspect that the
Adjutant-General himself has forgotten it. Indeed,
this seems the place that Cowper wished for—“a
lodge in some vast wilderness,” where, to say nothing
of the “rumors of oppression and deceit,” I
seriously believe, though a soldier, that the noise

I should have deserted long since, but for a
source of amusement, to me perfectly accidental.
You must know that this fort is ancient, and has
been garrisoned at a time when its solitude did not

form so strong a contrast to the rest of the country;
the graves of the soldiers of those who were
for the time connected with the garrison, are often
found; and the instruments of civilized and savage
warfare are frequently dug up together. The remains
of larger works and temporary barracks,
excite curiosity and give rise to conjectural disjointed
stories among the scattered inhabitants,
and anecdotes are told, in which times, places, and
persons, are strangely confounded.

From these tales, sometimes marvellous, and generally
inconsistent, as they are differently related
by the Dutch and the Yankees, the Negroes and
the Indians, I should have neither patience nor curiosity
to extract an intelligible narrative, had not
chance furnished me with the means, at a time
when I had no other amusement.

It happened that in clearing out one of the
ditches where the parapet was lowest, serjeant Gap
struck with his spade something that sounded hollow.
It was a trunk, which contained a few articles
of little value, and a collection of papers, letters,
&c. several from men of whom I had heard
and read; and among others, a pretty connected
account of events in which I felt an interest, because
they related to persons, many of whom had
been, in other circumstances, on the spot where I
now am. As I have leisure, I think of writing it
off, with the addition of some hints contained in
the letters, and some alteration in the order of the
narrative, though not in the events. You can then
read it to your mess at the cantonment, and pay
me by sending the National Intelligencer that has
the army list. Direct to the nearest Post Office,
at Mumblety-peg, near. Rattlesnake Falls, and I
will see that it reaches your old friend,