shower upon Bouquet letters advising the opening of the Fort Frederick–Fort Cumberland road; "and I believe from thence," Forbes wrote of St. Clair's meeting with Governor Sharpe, "proceeded to the opening the road from Fort Frederick to Fort Cumberland." Indeed, it would be interesting to know whether it was not St. Clair's suddenly raised clamor over the length of the Raystown route to Fort Cumberland (hoping to "drive" Forbes over the Fort Frederick route) that determined Forbes to ignore Fort Cumberland and push out on a new, shorter route to the Ohio.
Whatever were St. Clair's reasons for such vacillating plans, it is sure he fell into disgrace in Forbes's eyes. In addition to the upbraiding he received from the general's own lips, Forbes wrote in his letter of July 14 that the wagons were the plague of his life and denied that St. Clair had taken "the smallest pains" or made the "least inquiry" concerning the matters he had been detailed to care for. Again, in Forbes's letter to Bouquet of July 17 he says: "Sir John acknowledges taking some (kettles &c from Pennsylvania troops)
