Washington [27]
After three days in Venango, Washington pushed on toward Fort Le Boeuf amid more inclement weather. Now fortified by both an Indian and a French escort, he traversed forty miles of treacherous terrain, punctuated by “many mires and swamps.”26 Even though he usually had an iron constitution and was accustomed to harsh weather, the temperature had turned intolerably cold. He and Christopher Gist decided to ride on ahead of the others through a snow-encrusted landscape, logging as many as eighteen miles per day in unending rain and snow.
When Washington reached Fort Le Boeuf after dark on December 11, he found a crude structure of four buildings, patched together from bark and planks. The next morning he received an obliging reception from the silver-haired, one-eyed commander, Captain Jacques Legardeur de St. Pierre, whom Washington described as an “elderly gentleman” with “much the air of a soldier.”27 Despite the civil reception, Washington carried a truculent message that the French should quit the Ohio Valley, and St. Pierre requested several days to respond. During this time Washington reconnoitered the grounds and scribbled detailed notes on the fort’s military specifications. He noted the 220 birch and pine canoes lined up along the creek, which the French had assembled for military operations. St. Pierre made clear that he was not intimidated by the British and retained every right to arrest their traders poaching on French territory. “As to the summons you send me to retire,” he told Washington, “I do not think myself obliged to obey it.”28 Clearly the British had not misread the hostile intent lurking behind French expansion into the Ohio Country.
As with Joncaire, Washington discovered that St. Pierre’s elaborate courtesy masked a dense web of sinister intentions. On December 14 he summoned Washington, handed over a sealed message for Governor Dinwiddie, and then—ever the attentive host—said he had stocked Washington’s canoe with supplies for the journey home. Only then did Washington discover that the crafty St. Pierre had waylaid his Indian guards by bribing them with guns and liquor if they stayed behind. Irate at such duplicity, Washington mentally accused St. Pierre of “plotting every scheme that the devil and man could invent to set our Indians at variance with us to prevent their going till after our departure.”29 In the end, Washington hotly confronted the Half King, accused him of patent betrayal, and got him to depart with the British party as promised.
Now eager to return to Williamsburg and sound the alarm about nefarious French designs, he set off toward a place called Murthering Town. By this point, his horses were so enfeebled that he decided to abandon them and hike with backpacks. Adapting to the woods, he stripped off his Tidewater costume and assumed “an Indian walking dress” of leather leggings and possibly even moccasins.30 This return trip tested his wilderness skills. At first, he and Gist steered their canoe downstream in an icy, churning current that nearly dashed them against jagged rocks. At the first resting place, they found that their Indian guides, dining on roasted bears, wouldn’t budge until they had consumed this feast.
With the cold weather having grown “scarcely supportable,” Washington and Gist soldiered on alone to Murthering Town, where they picked up a “party