town and plunged westward to the Loyal-hannan, to which point Armstrong and St. Clair pushed the road-building. Washington himself supervised the cutting of Forbes's road westward from Fort Ligonier toward Fort Duquesne. Much as he had wrangled with Bouquet as to the propriety of making a new road he was as good as his word and worked heroically for its success. Never, even in Braddock's death-trap on the Monongahela, did he come nearer giving his life to his country. Forbes's first check came when Grant's command, sent forward from Fort Ligonier to reconnoitre Fort Duquesne, was cut to pieces on Grant's Hill within sight of the French fort. Eight hundred men went on the expedition; two hundred and seventy-three were killed, wounded, or captured. Bouquet reported the disaster to Forbes on the seventeenth of September, upon which the sad man "deeply touched by this reverse," writes Parkman, "yet expressed himself with a moderation that does him honor." "Your letter of the seventeenth I read with no less surprise than concern, as I could not believe that such an attempt
