So many are the versions of the story of the building of Forbes's Road through Pennsylvania that it was with utmost interest that the present writer took up the task of examining the only sources of reliable information: the correspondence of General Forbes, Colonel Bouquet, and Sir John St. Clair, as preserved in the Bouquet Papers at the British Museum, and at the British Public Records Office. While these letters were supplemented by frequent personal interviews which have never been recorded, yet the testimony given by them is overwhelming that, until the very last, both men, Forbes and Bouquet, were quite undecided what route to Fort Duquesne was most practicable; both were open to conviction, and were equally disinterested parties, thinking only of the good of the cause to which both soon gave their lives. No one can read this voluminous correspondence and believe for one moment that General Forbes was prejudiced in favor of a Pennsylvania route by Pennsylvania intriguers, as has been frequently asserted;[59] nor that the brave Swiss Bouquet was at any time determined to guide the army whose van he bravely led by any but the most expeditious and practicable thoroughfare. That both men knew of the bitter factional fight which was waging, this correspondence makes very clear; that both were made doubly proof against factional arguments, because of this knowledge, is equally plain. Before entering upon a consideration of the Forbes-Bouquet-St. Clair correspondence, it must be always remembered that General Forbes had originally planned to make the campaign by the old Braddock Road from Virginia and had issued orders for the assembling of both provincial and regular troops at "Conegochieque" (Conococheague), on the road built by Governor Sharpe from Alexandria to Fort Frederick in 1754, over which Dunbar's column marched.[60] It was undoubtedly his purpose to march south from Philadelphia over the old Monoccasy road to the Potomac and then westward over the Braddock routes which converged upon Fort Cumberland. From there the main track of Braddock's army offered an open way toward Fort Duquesne. As previously suggested it was the advice of Sir John St. Clair, his quartermaster-general, that influenced Forbes to alter his plan and march straight westward from Philadelphia toward Lancaster and the Pennsylvania frontier. Whatever may have induced St. Clair to give this advice, it is sure he had learned some lessons from the disastrous campaign of 1755 when he led Braddock through a country quite devoid of carriages, horses, and produce; Pennsylvania, on the other hand, was the granary of America;[61] and, if a road was lacking, horses and wagons were not, and it was better to lack what could be provided than to lack that which could not possibly be obtained.