fronted the army was, how to reach Fort Duquesne from this point. From Raystown to Fort Cumberland was thirty-four miles; here the road which Braddock had constructed three years before could be taken. Colonel Washington, who commanded the troops furnished by Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, which were assembling at Winchester, Virginia, strongly advocated this route. Forbes, before coming to Pennsylvania, in a letter written from New York to Governor Denny, had also favored going this way. Now being on the ground, he consulted with Boquet and Armstrong, and both favored a new route through Pennsylvania. But Forbes did not decide at once; his sole aim, he declared, was "the good of the service," without regard to "provincial interests, jealousies or suspicions." He directed Boquet to advise with Washington and obtain his opinion, which was unhesitatingly given in favor of Braddock's road.
General Forbes was a man of great comprehensiveness of mind. With Boquet and Armstrong, he realized that at Fort Duquesne was the gateway leading to the western country. Beyond the French fortress lay a vast empire, ripe for English civilization. He determined to win it for all time. But to do so, a road must be built through a country into which immigration would be tempted, and where provisions and forage and cattle could be readily obtained. The south was not such a country and did not furnish such a route. So he commenced work on a new road through Pennsylvania, and on the first of August, seventeen hundred of Boquet's men were employed in constructing it through the forests and underbrush, across the mountains.
Early in July, Forbes marched out of Philadelphia with the remainder of the army, but was detained for three weeks at Carlisle by illness. Sometimes the illness would yield to treatment, when he would begin the journey again, then a relapse would occur and he would be compelled to stop anew. His mind, however, was always at the front, advising with and directing Boquet by messenger and letter. On the 9th of September, with the troops and supplies, he reached Raystown and ordered the southern troops to march from Cumberland, where they had gone from Winchester, to join him at Raystown. His force, with the Cherokee, Catawba and Tuscarora Indians, who came with the southern force, now consisted of about six thousand men, not including the wagoners and laborers. Two days before, the road had been completed through the wilderness, a distance of forty-five miles to a point just beyond Laurel Hill on Loyalhanna Creek, where Boquet had proceeded to construct
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