No one can read this voluminous correspondence and believe for one moment that General Forbes was prejudiced in favor of a Pennsylvania route by Pennsylvania intriguers, as has been frequently asserted;[1] nor that the brave Swiss Bouquet was at any time determined to guide the army whose van he bravely led by any but the most expeditious and practicable thoroughfare. That both men knew of the bitter factional fight which was waging, this correspondence makes very clear; that both were made doubly proof against factional arguments, because of this knowledge, is equally plain.
Before entering upon a consideration of the Forbes-Bouquet-St. Clair correspondence, it must be always remembered that General Forbes had originally planned to make the campaign by the old Braddock Road from Virginia and had issued orders for the assembling of both provincial and regular troops at "Conegochieque" (Conococheague), on the road built by Governor Sharpe from Alexandria to Fort Frederick in 1754, over which Dunbar's column
- ↑ By Hildreth and others.
