Copies of the whole
are before me.]
The Sir John mentioned by Forbes was the quartermaster-general, Sir John
Sinclair, who had gone forward with Virginians and other troops from the
camp of Bouquet to make the road over the main range of the Alleghanies,
whence he sent back the following memorandum of his requirements:
"Pickaxes, crows, and shovels; likewise more whiskey. Send me the
newspapers, and tell my black to send me a candlestick and half a loaf
of sugar." He was extremely inefficient; and Forbes, out of all patience
with him, wrote confidentially to Bouquet that his only talent was for
throwing everything into confusion. Yet he found fault with everybody
else, and would discharge volleys of oaths at all who met his
disapproval. From this cause or some other, Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen,
of the Virginians, told him that he would break his sword rather than be
longer under his orders. "As I had not sufficient strength," says
Sinclair, "to take him by the neck from among his own men, I was obliged
to let him have his own way, that I might not be the occasion of
bloodshed." He succeeded at last in arresting him, and Major Lewis, of
the same regiment, took his place.
The aid of Indians as scouts and skirmishers was of the last importance
to an army so weak in the arts of woodcraft, and efforts were made to
engage the services of the friendly Cherokees and Catawbas, many of whom
came to the camp, where their caprice, insolence, and rapacity tried to
the utmost the patience of the commanders.
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