Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III FIGHTING IN THE WILDERNESS " It was strange that in a savage forest of Pennsylvania, a young Virginian officer should fire a shot, and waken up a war that was to last for sixty years, which was to cover his own country and pass into Europe, to cost France her American colonies, to sever ours from us, and create the great Western Republic; to rage over the Old World when extinguished in the New ; and, of all the myriads engaged in the vast contest, to leave the prize of the greatest fame with him who struck the first blow."—Thackeray. The commandant's reply showed that the French were firm in their pretensions, and the governor of Virginia was pugnacious. After endeavoring to induce cooperation by the other colonies, and being met by indifference, scepticism, and technical difficulties, he and his council nevertheless decided to raise, by draft if necessary, two companies, of one hundred men each, who were to cross the mountains and assemble at the mouth of Redstone Creek, a branch of the Monongahela, where the Ohio Company had put up a structure, and complete or build a fort there. A road for cannon and wagons must be cut through a dense forest, over two ranges of high mountains and countless hills and streams. Captain William Trent, a business associate of Benjamin Franklin, was to command one company. He was sent forward to enlist his men among the traders and frontier settlers, and begin work at once, and Major Washington was to procure enlistments, superintend the transportation of supplies and cannon from Alexandria, and then proceed to the fort. His instructions contained these brisk words: — " You are to act on the defensive, but in case any attempts are made to obstruct the works or interrupt our settlements by any persons whatsoever, you are to ...