72 The Winning of the West 



which followed he behaved with his usual stately 

 courtesy to those whom he was entertaining, not so 

 much as hinting at what he had heard. But when 

 the last guest had gone, his pent-up wrath broke 

 forth in one of those fits of volcanic fury which 

 sometimes shattered his iron outward calm. Walk- 

 ing up and down the room he burst out in wild regret 

 for the rout and disaster, and bitter invective against 

 St. Clair, reciting how, in that very room, he had 

 wished the unfortunate commander success and 

 honor and had bidden him above all things beware 

 of a surprise. 37 "He went off with that last solemn 

 warning thrown into his ears," spoke Washington, 

 as he strode to and fro, "and yet to suffer that army 

 to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked, 

 by a surprise, the very thing I guarded him against! 

 O God, O God, he's worse than a murderer! How 

 can he answer it to his country!" Then, calming 



37 Tobias Lear, Washington's Private Secretary as quoted 

 by both Custis and Rush. The report of an eye-witness. See 

 also Lodge's "Washington," p. 94. Denny, in his journal, 

 merely mentions that he went at once to the Secretary of 

 War's office on the evening of the igth, and does not speak 

 of seeing Washington until the following morning. On the 

 strength of this omission one or two of St. Glair's apologists 

 have striven to represent the whole account of Washington's 

 wrath as apocryphal ; but the attempt is puerile ; the relation 

 comes from an eye-witness who had no possible motive to dis- 

 tort the facts. The Secretary of War, Knox, was certain to 

 inform Washington of the disaster the very evening he heard 

 of it; and whether he sent Denny, or another messenger, or 

 went himself, is unimportant. Lear might very well have 

 been mistaken as to the messenger who brought the news; 

 but he could not have been mistaken about Washington's 

 speech. 



