What a march was that! The darkness was intense. The path, Washington wrote, was “scarce broad enough for one man.” Now and then it was lost completely and a quarter of an hour was wasted in finding it. Stones and roots impeded the way, and were made trebly treacherous by the torrents of rain which fell. The men struck the trees. They fell over each other. They slipped from the narrow track and slid downward through the soaking leafy carpet of the forests. Enthusiastic tourists make the journey today from Great Meadows to the summit of Laurel Hill on the track over which Washington and his hundred men floundered and stumbled that wet May night a century and a half ago. It is a hard walk but exceedingly fruitful to one of imaginative vision. From Great Meadows the trail holds fast to the height of ground until Braddock’s Run is crossed near “Braddock’s Grave.” Picture that little group of men floundering down into this mountain stream, swollen by the heavy rain, in the utter darkness of that night! From Braddock’s Run the trail begins its long climb on the sides of the foot-hills, by picturesque Peddler’s Rocks, to the top of Laurel Hill, two thousand feet above. Washington left Great Meadows about eight o’clock. It was not until sunrise that Half-King’s sentries at “Washington’s Spring,” saw the van-guard file out on the narrow ridge, which, dividing the headwaters of Great Meadow Run and Cheat River, made an easy ascent to the summit of the mountain. The march of five miles had been accomplished, with great difficulty, in a little less than two hours--or at the rate of _one mile in two hours_. Forgetting all else for the moment, consider the young leader of this floundering, stumbling army. There is not another episode in all Washington’s long, eventful, life that shows more clearly his strength of personal determination and daring. Beside this all-night march from Great Meadows to Washington’s Spring, Wolf’s ascent to the Plains of Abraham at Quebec, was a past-time. The climb up from Wolf’s Cove (all romantic accounts and pictures to the contrary notwithstanding) was an exceedingly easy march up a valley that hardly deserved to be called steep. A child can run along Wolfe’s path at any point from top to bottom. A man in full daylight today, can walk over Washington’s five mile course to Laurel Hill in half the time the little army needed on that black night. If a more difficult ten-hour night march has been made in the history of warfare in America, who led it and where was it made? No feature of the campaign shows more clearly the unmatched, irresistible energy of this twenty-two-year-old boy. For those to whom Washington, the man, is “unknown,” there are lessons in this little briery path today of value far beyond their cost. [Illustration: MAP OF FORT NECESSITY IN LOWDERMILK’S “HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND”, FROM FREEMAN LEWIS’ SURVEY.]