From George Washington to Nathaniel Milner, 4 May 1756
To Nathaniel Milner
[Winchester, 4 May 1756]
To Ensign Milner.
You are hereby ordered to proceed to Cunningham-Fort, and there to use your utmost endeavours to engage one or two good woodsmen to serve as pilots to the Detachment under Captain Woodward.1 I have been told that a Son of Colonel Morgan,2 now at that place, will answer the intention full well; him you are to endeavour to get—If they insist upon certain pay before they stir, you must engage it to them: and are to Order that they meet the party on Back-Creek. Given at Winchester, May 4th 1756.
G:W.
LB, DLC:GW.
Nathaniel Milner, an ensign in Thomas Waggener’s company, left the Virginia Regiment in 1757 and died shortly thereafter.
1. GW ordered Capt. Henry Woodward with 6 subalterns, 6 sergeants, and 100 men to march to Back Creek from Winchester and then down the Potomac to Conococheague (Maidstone), on this date.
2. David Morgan (1721–1813), a woodsman and Indian fighter who later moved to Pennsylvania, received 12s. on 8 May for acting as guide for four days to the scouts under Woodward. His father, Morgan ap Morgan, a Welshman and early settler in the Shenandoah Valley, was lieutenant colonel in the Frederick County militia and a justice of the peace. He lived on Mill Creek, a western tributary of Opequon Creek.