Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 5).djvu/138

134 But now, in 1758, as colonel of an important branch of the army General Forbes was throwing across the Alleghenies, Washington came forward conspicuously as a champion of a certain route to be pursued by an army of five thousand men. Frankly, what did he know of the needs of five thousand men on a march of two hundred miles from their base of supplies? His correspondence on this point is not satisfactory. He had never passed over the Pennsylvania Road, and, though he understood better than anyone what it meant to cut a new road, he does not answer the argument that the Braddock Road failed to offer as much pasturage for horses and cattle as the Pennsylvania route. He confines himself largely to the matter of celerity: and the situation, as we have explained, did not demand haste. Forbes had the best of reasons for moving slowly. From a commissary's standpoint Washington's argument could have had no weight whatever.

Washington was strongly prejudiced in favor of the Virginia route; and no man could have had better reasons for prejudice, as will be shown. He argued conspicuously