"For reasons not easy to divine, the route across Will's Mountain first adopted for the national road was selected instead of the more favorable one through the narrows of Will's Creek, to which the road has been changed within a few years for the purpose of avoiding that formidable ascent. The traces are very distinct on the east and west slopes, the modern road crossing it frequently. From the western foot, the route continued up Braddock's Run to the forks of the stream, where Clary's tavern now stands, nine miles from Cumberland, when it turned to the left, in order to reach a point on the ridge favorable to an easy descent into the valley of George's Creek. It is surprising that having reached this high ground, the 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 the council of war held at the Little Meadows[51] the next day. To this place, distant only about twenty miles from Cumberland, Sir John Sinclair and Major Chapman had been dispatched on the 27th of May, to build a fort; the army having been seven days in reaching it, it follows as the line of march was upwards of three miles long, the rear was just getting under way when the advance were lighting their evening fires. "Here it may be well enough to clear up an obscurity which enters into many narratives of these early events, from confusing the names of the _Little Meadows_ and _Great Meadows_, _Little Crossings_ and _Great Crossings_, which are all distinct localities. "The _Little Meadows_ have been described as at the foot of Meadow Mountain; it is well to note that the _Great Meadows_ are about thirty-one miles further west, and near the east foot of Laurel Hill. "By the _Little Crossings_ is meant the Ford of Casselman's River, a tributary of the Youghiogheny; and by the _Great Crossings_, the passage of the Youghiogheny itself. The Little Crossing is two miles west of the Little Meadows, and the Great Crossing seventeen miles further west.