Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 4).djvu/188

184 favorable spur by which the National Road accomplishes the ascent of the Great Savage Mountain, did not strike the attention of the engineers, as the labor requisite to surmount the barrier from the deep valley of George's Creek, must have contributed greatly to those bitter complaints which Braddock made against the Colonial Governments for their failure to assist him more effectively in the transportation department.

"Passing then a mile to the south of Frostburg, the road approaches the east foot of Savage Mountain, which it crosses about one mile south of the National Road, and thence by very favorable ground through the dense forests of white pine peculiar to this region, it got to the north of the National Road, near the gloomy tract called the Shades of Death. This was the 15th of June, when the dense gloom of the summer woods and the favorable shelter which those enormous pines would give an Indian enemy, must have made a most sensible impression on all minds, of the insecurity of their mode of advance.

"This doubtless had a share in causing