George Washington Papers
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To George Washington from Henry Bouquet, 1 July 1758

From Henry Bouquet

Camp near Reas Town 1st July 1758

Sir

General Forbes having ordered a Communication to be opened from Fort Frederic to Cumberland; I must desire that you will order three Hundert men (Including the Maryland Troops under your Command) to begin to cut on your Side the Said Road already blazed towards Fort Frederic, and to proceed until they meet the 500 men employed to cut from Ft Frederic: They must have Waggons to carry their Tools, Rum, and Provisions.1

If you want Tools, Please to apply to Sir John St Clair, or to Governor Sharpe.

Besides that Detatchment, you will garrison Fort Cumberland, and with the remainder of your Troops, open the Road to Reas Town,2 where I hope to have Soon the Pleasure to See you, and Col. Byrd. I am with the highest regard Sir Your most obedient and most hble servant

Henry Bouquet

ALS, DLC:GW; ADfS, British Museum: Add. MSS 21641 (Bouquet Papers).

1When Bouquet, Horatio Sharpe, St. Clair, and GW met at Conococheague on 13 June, the Maryland governor suggested that a road be opened on the Maryland side of the Potomac between Fort Frederick and Fort Cumberland. Bouquet, who at this time was not altogether certain that the road from Fort Lyttelton to Raystown in Pennsylvania could be made suitably passable for Forbes’s army coming from Philadelphia, saw the advantage of having a new road to Fort Cumberland which would connect at Fort Frederick with the existing good road to Carlisle. Forbes gave Bouquet his approval of Sharpe’s project on 19 June, and on 27 June St. Clair reported to Bouquet that Sharpe’s investigations had confirmed that the proposed Maryland road was practicable. For GW’s response to Bouquet’s instructions about the road given here, see GW’s letters to Bouquet, 3, 7 July. Although the Marylanders continued to work on the road until after the middle of July from both the Fort Cumberland end and the Fort Frederick end, Bouquet, and GW, evinced no further interest in the road after Bouquet received Forbes’s letter of 6 July saying that he did not know “to what purpose [we] make the road from Fort Frederick to Cumberland, as most Certainly wee shall now all go by Raes town” (Stevens, Bouquet Papers description begins Donald H. Kent et al., eds. The Papers of Henry Bouquet. 6 vols. Harrisburg, Pa., 1951-94. description ends , 2:163–65).

2For Bouquet’s initial instructions to GW about the Raystown—Cumberland road, see Bouquet to GW, 27 June.

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