23.[Aug. 1772]—Preached at the request of Major Hamilton,
in the Fort [Pitt], to the Garrison
about 200, who were paraded under arms, during divine service, & to the
inhabitants of the Village. The greater part of the soldiers had lately arrived
from Fort Chartres on the Mississippi, & had not heard a sermon for 4
years. In the afternoon Mr. Frisbie preached in the Village. A great part of
the people here make the Sabbath a day of recreation, drinking & profanity…
28.—Rode with McCallaster to Joseph Hunter's, near the Yohio Geni [Yohogany] River. In the evening arrived Dr. John Connolly,
voluntier [sic] in the british
service. He had lately come from Fort Chartres. Says the climate there is
unhealthy, the people subject to fevers, supposed occasioned by stagnated
waters on the flat & low lands of that country. There is a french
settlement at the Fort, subject to the english governm. 1
Having been to the historic site of Ft. de Chartres on a
number of occasions, I found it interesting to hear that the British troops
stationed there were so cut off from the rest of civilization that they hadn’t
heard a sermon preached in 4 years! What
must that have been like for the British soldiers stationed there, living in
essentially a foreign land, since the local residents were French? And then, as if the separation from
civilization weren’t bad enough, the soldiers had to fight disease as well as
boredom! The British couldn’t have been
too sorry when flood waters compromised the walls of the fort and they were
forced to evacuate the post in 1772.
30.—Sunday returned to
Mr. Hunter's, 3 miles, where I preached, two sermons to a serious &
attentive audience. Some of the settlers here had not heard a sermon for 14
years. There was no settled minister or church organized in all the country
westward of the Appalachian Mountains. The people are generally presbyterians.
A few illiterate preachers of the baptist persuasion, have preached about,
zealous to make proselytes. Baptized 2 childn [sic] John & Jane Mitchel. A number of families here talk of removing to
the Natchez on the Missisipi [sic]. 2
Again… imagine going 14 years without hearing a sermon! How often do we take attending services on
the Lord’s Day for granted? How often do
we “skip church” for the lamest of excuses?
As these settlers were most likely Scots or Scots-Irish, they probably
hadn’t attended a worship service since leaving Ireland or Scotland. How isolated they must have felt, living in a
wild country with little of the comforts they were used to back home.
Monday rode to
Braddock's field. This memorable spot is about 11 miles above Pittsburgh on the
bank of the Monongehala. It is a gradual ascent from the bank to the top of a
hill, extending about 1/4 of a mile. Up & down this Ascent the army
consisting of about 1400 chosen troops were paraded, rank & file, three
deep in platoons, with intervals for field pieces. They were a fatal mark for
the Indians, who lay on the ground, concealed by the trees. About 1000 of the
army fell; & it was not known that a single Indian was hurt. The trees in
front of the army were wounded with grape shot about five feet from the ground.
I got a handful of the shot from one of the trees. It was a melancholy
spectacle to see the bones of men strewed over the ground, left to this day,
without the solemn rite of sepulture. The fact is a disgrace to the british
commanders at Fort Pitt. The bones had been gnawed by wolves, the vestiges of
their teeth appearing on them. Many hundreds of skulls lay on the ground. I
examined several, & found the mark of the scalping knife on all. I put one,
& a jaw bone, in my portmantau, which I afterwards presented to Mr. Stewart's
Museum in Hartford. The harness of the horses remained unconsumed on the
ground. A man who lives near the field of battle, & whose corn field takes
in a part of it, had humanely collected a great number of the bones & laid
them in small heaps. I departed from the place with serious & solemn
reflections on the vanity of life, & the deep depravity of our fallen
nature, the dreadful source of fighting & war, & all the miseries that man
delights to inflict on man. "Oh!
why will men forget that they are brethren !" 3
I think McClure makes a good point here. It is hard to understand why, after 17 years
have elapsed, that the British commanders at nearby Ft. Pitt had made no effort
to inter the remains of the fallen. It
could be for no other reason than just plain indifference to the fate of the
remains of those who died to help secure the very ground those British
commanders held. It’s no wonder at all
that such a scene would make a man, especially a Christian man, reflect on the
brevity of life. How many of those proud
soldiers under Braddock’s command in 1755 expected to leave their corpses to
rot for years on that ground? Very few,
if any, to be sure. How many of us also
presume that today and tomorrow we will do this or that, forgetting that our
very breath comes as a gift from the hand of God and that He may, as our
Creator, choose to withhold it as and when He pleases? How deep is our depravity? God only knows! In man’s quest to exalt himself he sets about
to put others down. As James says in his
epistle, these wars and fightings we engage in come about from our own
lusts. McClure’s heart was one that,
by God’s grace, was open to reflect on the lessons to be learned from this grotesque
scene. Let us pray that God would be so
gracious as to give us hearts that would be always contemplating and his great
and abundant mercy!
Christ, not man, is King!
Dale
1)
Franklin B. Dexter, ed., Diary of David McClure
(New York, NY: Knickerbocker Press, 1899), p. 46-7.
2)
Ibid., p. 47-8.
3)
Ibid., p. 48-9.
1
No comments:
Post a Comment