The motives which directed the movements of Sir John St. Clair during these months of controversy are quite beyond fathoming. It is easy to believe that the "new light," which Forbes said Sir John had received "at Winchester," made it clear that if he did not send the army over the southern route (Fort Frederick-Fort Cumberland) to Cumberland, it was possible that Forbes would never traverse Braddock's Road at all. It is certain that upon Governor Sharpe's and Washington's arrival upon the scene, Sir John began to shower upon Bouquet letters advising the opening of the Fort Frederick-Fort Cumberland road; "and I believe from thence," Forbes wrote of St. Clair's meeting with Governor Sharpe, "proceeded to the opening the road from Fort Frederick to Fort Cumberland." Indeed, it would be interesting to know whether it was not St. Clair's suddenly raised clamor over the length of the Raystown route to Fort Cumberland (hoping to "drive" Forbes over the Fort Frederick route) that determined Forbes to ignore Fort Cumberland and push out on a new, shorter route to the Ohio. Whatever were St. Clair's reasons for such vacillating plans, it is sure he fell into disgrace in Forbes's eyes. In addition to the upbraiding he received from the general's own lips, Forbes wrote in his letter of July 14 that the wagons were the plague of his life and denied that St. Clair had taken "the smallest pains" or made the "least inquiry" concerning the matters he had been detailed to care for. Again, in Forbes's letter to Bouquet of July 17 he says: "Sir John acknowledges taking some (kettles &c from Pennsylvania troops) and applying them to the use of the Virginians &c which is terrible." In a letter previously quoted Forbes affirms that St. Clair--who was sent in advance of the army to settle the matter of route--"knows nothing of the matter." Forbes's wrath at St. Clair reached a climax before the end of August when he savagely declared that he suspected his "heart as well as the head."[70]