Washington [52]
On January 10, 1757, throwing caution to the wind, Washington sent Lord Loudoun a letter so lengthy that it runs to a dozen printed pages in his collected papers. It provides a graphic picture of the twenty-four-year-old Washington’s ambivalence about the British class system. On the one hand, he flattered Loudoun unctuously even as he denied doing so. “Although I have not the honour to be known to Your Lordship, yet Your Lordship’s name was familiar to my ear on account of the important services performed to His Majesty in other parts of the world. Don’t think My Lord I am going to flatter. I have exalted sentiments of Your Lordship’s character and revere your rank . . . my nature is honest and free from guile.”36
Washington then brashly declared his impatience with “chimney corner politicians” in Williamsburg and cited his failure to win a well-merited promotion in the British Army.37 “In regard to myself, I must beg leave to say [that,] had His Excellency General Braddock survived his unfortunate defeat, I should have met with preferment equal to my wishes. I had his promise to that purpose.”38 Washington also mentioned that, after their brave stand at Fort Necessity, his men had expected inclusion in the regular British Army. In sending this letter, Washington knew that he had overstepped political boundaries and confessed in closing, “When I look over the preceding pages and find how far I have exceeded my first intention, I blush with shame to think of my freedom.”39
Driven by thwarted ambition, the still-gauche Washington resolved to advise Loudoun in person and prevailed upon Dinwiddie to allow him to go to Philadelphia to consult with him. The governors of five colonies flocked there to see him too, but Lord Loudoun, a haughty Scot with a reputation as a martinet, was in no special hurry to see anyone, forcing Washington to cool his heels for six weeks. From an aide to Loudoun, Washington learned that the general had admired his long letter, but when he met with him, the commander seemed deaf to his opinions. It was clear that Virginia had been assigned a secondary importance in imperial war strategy and that any assault on Fort Duquesne had been postponed. The only victory that Washington could claim was Loudoun’s decision that Maryland would take responsibility for Fort Cumberland, freeing the Virginia Regiment to man Virginia forts.
Before leaving Philadelphia, Washington wrote to Dinwiddie and vented his bitter outrage at the inferior status foisted upon the Virginia Regiment: “We can’t conceive that being Americans should deprive us of the benefits of British subjects, nor lessen our claim to preferment. And we are very certain that no body of regular troops ever before served 3 bloody campaigns without attracting royal notice. As to those idle arguments which are often times used—namely, ‘You are defending your own properties’—I look upon [them] to be whimsical and absurd. We are defending the King’s Dominions.”40 This statement represented a huge intellectual leap: Washington was suddenly asserting that the imperial system existed to serve the king, not his overseas subjects. The equality of an Englishman in London and one in Williamsburg was purely illusory. In time, the Crown would pay dearly for Washington’s disenchantment with the fairness of the British military.
When the bruised young colonel returned to Winchester—the “cold and barren frontiers,” as he called them—he applauded one development: several hundred Catawba and Cherokee Indians had enlisted on the British side for the first time since the Fort Necessity debacle, an alliance that promptly embroiled Washington in a ghoulish commerce.41 The Virginia assembly had agreed to pay the Indians ten pounds for every enemy scalp they brought into camp. When a party of Cherokees arrived bearing four scalps and