ng quartered in that place and the neighborhood until they
marched for Will's Creek. On the thirteenth of April the governors of
Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, met
General Braddock at Alexandria, to concert a plan of operations.
Washington was courteously received by the governors, especially by
Shirley, with whose manners and character he was quite fascinated.
Overtaking Braddock (who marched from Alexandria on the twentieth) at
Frederictown, Maryland, he accompanied him to Winchester, and thence to
Fort Cumberland. Early in May Washington was made an aid-de-camp to the
general. Being dispatched to Williamsburg to convey money for the
army-chest, he returned to the camp with it on the thirtieth.

The army consisted of the two regiments of British regulars, together
originally one thousand men, and augmented by Virginia and Maryland
levies to fourteen hundred. The Virginia captains were Waggener, Cock,
Hogg, Stephen, Poulson, Peyrouny, Mercer, and Stuart. The provincials
included the fragments of two independent companies from New York, one
of which was commanded by Captain Horatio Gates, afterwards a
major-general in the revolutionary war. Of the remaining provincials one
hundred were pioneers and guides, called Hatchetmen: there were besides
a troop of Virginia light-horse, and a few Indians. Thirty sailors were
detached by Commodore Keppel, commander of the fleet that brought
over the forces. The total effective force was about two thousand one
hundred and fifty, and they were accompanied by the usual number of
non-combatants. The army was detained by the difficulty of procuring
provisions and conveyances. The apathy of the legislatures and the bad
faith of the contractors, so irritated Braddock that he indulged in
sweeping denunciations against the colonies. These led to frequent
disputes between him and Washington, who found the exasperated general
deaf to his arguments on that subject. The plan suggested by him of
employing pack-horses for transportation, instead of wagons, was
afterwards in some measure adopted.

Benjamin Franklin, deputy postmaster-general of the colonies, who, at
Governor Shirley's instance, had accompanied him to the congress at
Alexandria, visited Braddock at Frederictown, for the purpose of opening
a post-route between Will's Creek and Philadelphia. Learning the
general's embarrassment, he undertook to procure the requisite number of
wagons and horses from th