their return I will order 'em to blaize back to me."
The news of Braddock's defeat came slowly to the cutters of this historic roadway from central Pennsylvania to the Youghiogheny. On Tuesday night, July 15, a messenger was sent to them from Fort Cumberland, who arrived the night of the day the above letter was written.[1] Dunbar wrote Morris from "near ye great Crossings" on the sixteenth: "I have sent an Express to Captain Hogg, who is covering the People cutting Your New Road, as I can't think his advancing that Way safe, to retire immediately."[2] Burd reported to Morris from Shippensburg July 25, that his party had retreated to Fort Cumberland from the top of Allegheny Mountain July 17; "St Clair told Me," he added, tentatively, "that I had done my Duty." He had left before Dunbar's messenger had arrived.[3]
Such is the first chapter of the story of
