11From George Washington to William Peachey, 11 September 1755 (Washington Papers)
...of the 2d Virginia Regiment, Peachey returned to military service. Promoted to major, he served as that regiment’s paymaster during John Forbes’s expedition against Fort Duquesne. After the French and Indian War, Peachey rose to colonel in the militia and eventually secured the adjutancy of Virginia’s Middle District, the area between the James and Rappahannock rivers east of the Blue...
12From George Washington to George Gordon, 15 September 1755 (Washington Papers)
..., f. 17). Ambitious for a regular captaincy, at least, Stewart delayed in reporting to his new regiment and remained with the Virginia forces. Whether he resigned or sold his royal commission is uncertain. After the French and Indian War, Stewart obtained a “civil office in Jamaica,” which he held until the mid-to-late 1770s. In 1785 he was still seeking “recompence for his military services...
The characteristic reflections in this early, but later celebrated, letter had at least two identifiable sources. One was the course of the current French and Indian War, in which the British had recently suffered serious reverses, notably in Braddock’s defeat near Fort Duquesne and in other actions on and around the lakes above the Hudson. Thus,
14From Benjamin Franklin to James Read, 2 November 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Neither letter has been found. Mr. Tea was probably Richard Tea, a deputy surveyor in the Blue Mountains during the French and Indian War and a councilor from Berks Co. during the Revolution.
15To George Washington from Adam Stephen, 26 December 1755 (Washington Papers)
Stephen may be referring to Joseph Beeler, who commanded a company of rangers stationed at Fort Cumberland at one period during the French and Indian War.
16From George Washington to Robert Dinwiddie, 16 April 1756 (Washington Papers)
...in the hand of George Mercer, GW’s aide-de-camp, but GW signed and dated the letter and added the postscript. After the Revolution GW corrected the letter books that he kept during the French and Indian War and had a clerk recopy them. For most of his service as colonel of the Virginia Regiment, including all of 1756, only the corrected (and recopied) letter books survive. See the Preface...
17To George Washington from Beverley Robinson, 23 July 1756 (Washington Papers)
Robert Rogers (1731–1795), one of the more romantic figures of the French and Indian War in America, remained in the thick of things as an officer from the time of his participation in Shirley’s proposed expedition to Nova Scotia in 1755 until his service in the defense of Detroit against Pontiac in 1763....
18From George Washington to Robert Dinwiddie, 10 October 1756 (Washington Papers)
William Preston (1729–1783), another participant in the Sandy Creek campaign, was the nephew and close associate of James Patton. At various times during the French and Indian War, Preston was given a commission by the governor to raise men for a ranger company to serve on the frontier. He was serving under one of these commissions, dated July 1755, when he built the fort on Catawba...
19Draft of a Speech for William Denny, [12 November 1756] (Franklin Papers)
...negotiator for the Indians of whom he dubiously claimed to be “King.” Vain, pompous, sometimes eloquent but more often merely loquacious, and usually drunk, he was a colorful, dominant figure on the Pennsylvania frontier during the French and Indian War. He burned to death in a drunken stupor when his Wyoming house was set on fire, probably by a vengeful Iroquois.
20To George Washington from Alexander Lunan, 14 January 1757 (Washington Papers)
Alexander Lunan, who had a store on the river in Philadelphia, was one of a number of contractors who supplied British and colonial troops during the French and Indian War.