From George Washington to Robert Orme, 28 July 1755
To Robert Orme
[Mount Vernon, 28 July 1755]
To Robert Orme Esqr.Philadelphia1
My Dear Orme
I arrived at Home the day before yesterday, without meeting with an Egachee,2 or any other remarkable event. I calld at Belhaven3 on purposely to acquaint Majr Carlyle with your desire, who will use all possible means to procure a Vessel though I fear it will be somewhat difficult to do it at present, as the Shipping have are most of them employ’d, in transporting the Tobo from the difft Warehouses.4 to Europe.
It is impossible to relate the difft accts that was were given of our late unhappy Engagemt; but all all of which tendd, greatly to the disadvantage of the poor deceasd Genl, who is censur’d on all hands.5 As I have no certn conveyance for this Letter I shall only add my sincere compts to Morris, Burton, Gage & Dobson6 and shall take annother oppertunity of writg to you at Philidelphia, and of being more particular, I am my Dear Orme Your truely Affe
G——W——n
Mount Vernon July 28th 1755
I shoud take it particularly kind if Morris woud get the Order’s copied from the 16th of June to the 9th of July, and send them to me by the first safe conveyance.7
LB (original), DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.
1. Orme remained at Fort Cumberland until sometime in August, waiting for his wounds to heal sufficiently to permit him to travel to Philadelphia. From there, after a short stay, he intended to return to England by way of New York and Boston.
2. “Egachee” may be a corruption of an Indian word.
3. A marginal notation in another hand reads: “now Alexandria.”
4. Orme apparently wished John Carlyle to ship to Philadelphia the extra baggage that Orme had left at Carlyle’s house in April when he had set out from Alexandria with Braddock for Fort Cumberland. See Orme to GW, 10 Nov. 1755.
5. Among the severest of Braddock’s critics was John Carlyle. In a letter of 15 Aug. 1755 to his brother George Carlyle in Scotland, he described the general as “a man . . . of week understanding, positive, & very indolent, Slave to his passions, women & wine, as great an Epicure as could be in his eating, tho a brave man. See into what hands so great an affair as the Settling the Boundary in N. America was put” (transcript, ViAlCH).
6. Robert Dobson, senior captain of the 48th Regiment and a friend of Robert Orme, acted as an aide-de-camp to Braddock in place of Orme after Orme was wounded at the Battle of the Monongahela. Following the general’s death on 13 July, Dobson asked for permission to sell his commission to a lieutenant and made plans to return to England.
7. GW began copying Braddock’s orders in a small notebook sometime during the spring, apparently not as part of his official duties, but in order to have a personal transcript for his own instruction and reference. Starting with the orders that the general gave at Williamsburg on 26 Feb. 1755, GW recorded all issued through 14 June, filling 107 pages in his first notebook and several in a second one, before the onset of his illness on 14 June interrupted his efforts. He missed the orders for 15 and 16 June, copied those issued at Little Meadows on 17 June, and then stopped altogether, being too sick to continue. After his separation from Braddock on 23 June, he had no further access to the general’s orders. He intended to catch up when he rejoined Braddock, but he arrived at headquarters too late, and too weak, to do so before the battle. Because Morris did not supply the missing orders (see Morris to GW, 3 Nov. 1755), GW’s second notebook, now with the first one in DLC:GW, remained incomplete. Both notebooks were later transcribed by GW’s clerk into a section of the recopied 1755 letter book.