Source:Fleming-morgan/content
MORGAN street, Pittsburgh, extends from Allequippa street to Bedford avenue in the Minersville section of the city, the old Thirteenth Ward, now the Fifth. This street comes out on Center avenue, at the Minersville School, but does not cross, though laid out on the maps as crossing. The name commemorates a frontier fighter and a general in the Revolution, who made two trips as a soldier to the region about Pittsburgh, both times on account of [⸻] trouble; his second visit less harrowing than his first. This man was Daniel Morgan. He was a wagoner under Braddock in 1755 and came back in 1794 as commander of the Virginia troops in Gen. Henry Lee's army, sent by Washington to put down the whisky insurrection. Presley Neville, only son of Gen. John Neville, married the eldest daughter of Daniel Morgan. Hence the Morgan descendants in Pittsburgh.
Morgan Neville, son of Presley, was a grandson and namesake of Gen. Morgan. Morgan Neville was once editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette. He was a cousin of Neville B. Craig, later editor.
Gen. Presley Neville, soldier of the Revolution, with his father, came with his wife to Pittsburgh in 1792 and remained until 1816. Daniel Morgan, two years after his daughter came to Pittsburgh, had an opportunity to visit her.
The Nevilles were Virginians living on the Occoquan River, old-time neighbors of Washington. Morgan was a Virginian, too, but by adoption, having been born in New Jersey. All three served with distinction in the War of the Revolution, and Morgan made pages of history. Morgantowns and Morgan counties in his honor are plenty.
Although famous as a general and revered in name, Daniel Morgan in early life was what is called in twentieth century metaphor "a tough proposition." Once he suffered severely for an outburst of temper, and his hatred of British rule and British officers may be said to have been beaten into him.
When Virginia, claiming the territory about the forks of the Ohio, determined to wrest this section from the French and Gen. John [sic] Braddock landed at Alexandria, Daniel Morgan was living in Berkeley county, now West Virginia, of which Martinsburg is the county seat. The next county west is Morgan county, of which Berkeley Springs is the county seat. It appears Daniel Morgan has some home commemoration.
When Braddock came along on his march to the Monongahela his route lay through Virginia via Winchester, crossing the Potomac at the mouth of the Little Cacapon, and following the north bank of the Potomac to Fort Cumberland, now Cumberland, Md.
Here Braddock halted his army, having little or any means of transportation for his stores and munitions. At Cumberland Dr. Benjamin Franklin came to his rescue. Through his efforts 150 wagons and teams were collected in York, Lancaster and Cumberland counties, Pennsylvania. Franklin at the time was postmaster general of the provinces.
Whether Franklin gathered in Morgan and his team or whether Morgan joined of his own accord, we are not informed. He went along from Cumberland and thus first came into the history of the United States.
Neville B. Craig, grand-nephew of Gen. Morgan, nephew of Presley Neville, has told of these incidents of Braddock's outfitting and much other matter regarding that ill-fated expedition. Jared Sparks in his "Life of Franklin," and Winthrop Sargeant in his history of the "expedition," have given us all the known facts. We can consider Daniel morgan en route and what happened when across the Monongahela July 9, 1755.
Previous to joining Braddock's army as a teamster Morgan had been working as an overseer in Virginia. His biographers say he was but a youth of 19, some say 17. Men matured early in those days. Outdoor life counted greatly, and the struggle for a living took youths away from home early. Then there was largely a spirit of adventure abroad in those years. Our pioneers, young and old, were men of brawn and action. Daniel Morgan was a typical youth of the times.
If we are to believe Sargeant, Morgan was a dissipated character, even for a youth—expected to sew [sic] a few acres of wild oats before rounding to and living uprightly ever after. Sargeant even goes as far as to characterize Morgan as lawless. Blake and other old-time biographers are silent on this point. Sargeant, however, says Morgan was born in Pennsylvania, but in this he is wrong.
Sir John St. Clair, a Scotchman and British regular, was sent to America in 1754 as deputy quartermaster general for all the forces in America. With little delay he proceeded to Virginia and accompanied Braddock in the capacity of chief quartermaster. He was of a violent, impetuous nature. On more than one occasion he had threatened to dragoon the people of Virginia and Pennsylvania into activity. Franklin used the terror of his name to scare the Germans of Southern Pennsylvania to furnish the few horses and wagons he procured for Braddock.
Such a man with like subordinates boded ill for Daniel Morgan. On one occasion Morgan, behind time with his wagon, was sharply reprimanded by a young lieutenant. The intrepid and fiery youth replied with insolence, whereupon the officer drew his sword upon the offender. Morgan with his whip knocked the sword from the lieutenant's hand, fell on him and beat him severely. Had a private soldier done this the punishment would have been death.
Morgan was not an enlisted man and the commanding officer could afford to be somewhat lenient; so he sentenced Morgan to receive 500 lashes on the bare back. This was too many for even the sturdy youth. He fainted at the 450th and the 50 remaining were remitted. Wagons were scarce and very necessary. Hence his life was saved.
Morgan's biographers are all disposed to treat him right in this matter, and state on Morgan's authority that his adversary, the defied and beaten officer, subsequently perceived that the original fault was his own and made the amende honorable to the obscure wagoner. All of which reads and sounds very well and may be doubted. Officers, and British officers especially, in those days, were not given to apologies.
Still there may be grounds for belief that the outraged officer, considering that 450 lashes with the cat, well laid on, were aplenty, said to the poor devil: "I say, old top, that was pretty tough on you, don't yer know."
There is no doubt that Morgan got the flogging, and no doubt of the record that the officer apologized—some histories say publicly.
In the battle on the banks of the Monongahela, Morgan did not join in the wild stampede of the teamsters who escaped to a man, one to die afterward of disease and one found killed by Indians after the battle.
Morgan stayed and fought and came out of the slaughter shot in the back of the neck, the ball passing into his mouth and knocking out some teeth. Being tough, he survived. Oddly enough, Morgan was serving under Horatio Gates, a young English officer at the time in command of the King's New York Independent Company. Morgan was again under Gates at Saratoga; this time a colonel commanding a rifle regiment. The authority for Morgan having been wounded in the battle on the Monongahela is Sargeant.
At this battle on the Monongahela Morgan had another distinguished company. There was Dr. Hugh Mercer, serving as captain of a company of Virginia rangers and there was Maj. George Washington, aide-de-camp. Mercer fell at Princeton, a place yet heard of, and all four, Gates, Morgan, Mercer and Washington, made some history. Gates' history is not as gratifying as the others, and we are reminded that Gates is without local commemoration. Gates was wounded in the battle at Braddock, but not seriously.
Here on our Monongahela first stood, side by side, four men whose names have lived. They stood in marshaled array, and "on that day's dark torrent of blood," says Sargeant, "was tempered the steel which was to sever the colonies from the parent stem."
This phase of our history has had frequent notice. The contempt for the redcoats of George the Third kept growing for 20 years and then the Colonials under Washington, Gates, Morgan and Mercer and other gallant officers, with no one to keep them out of war, went into war, and when it was over a nation was born. Braddock's defeat, slaughter that it was, had a marked influence upon the Colonials. It stirred the mother country, too. Within three years we had Forbes, Bouquet and Mercer again; also Washington. Then in November, 1758, Fort Pitt and Pittsburgh.
And it was slaughter on the Monongahela on that fateful July day. Of Braddock's forces, about 1,500 men in action or near the action in some capacity, 456 were killed, 421 wounded; 583 were safe.
This tabulation concerns only combatants. The number of women and servants has never been ascertained. They were not entered on any roster—never were. Camp followers take their chances. The same slaughter was apparent at St. Clair's defeat—an ambush likewise. Three servants at Braddock's Field are known to have been spared.
At the first onset the wagoners cut loose their teams; each selected his best horse and all fled with headlong precipitation. Two, as noted, never returned to their homes.
The battle was fought on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 9. By 5 a. m. Thursday the foremost in the flight reached Dunbar's camp, near the present town of Dunbar, a reserve force there left behind by Braddock. The first in with the news filled the camp with dismal tidings that the whole army had been destroyed and himself the sole survivor. One by one the teamsters arrived with the same story.
But Morgan, teamster combatant, remained to fight. Hence we have Morgan street, Morgantown and Morgan counties. The names of the other teamsters have not been preserved.
A fascinating though sad story is that of Braddock's expedition; but for only three years did the French enjoy the fruits of their victory. November 25, 1758, Fort Duquesne was no more and the lilies of France came down forever at the forks of the Ohio.
Fort Duquesne continues to live in picture. Bouquet's block house time and again is pictured as old Fort Duquesne. Even local publications and local firms present the old block house as Fort Duquesne. If anyone thus in error will go down to the redoubt of Bouquet the tablets there will tell him its history. A glance at Stobo's plan of Fort Duquesne, if examined, will also show a larger, a more elaborate work—then, too, this work was utterly destroyed November 24, 1758. The first Fort Pitt arose that winter, the garrison, a slender one, under Col. Hugh Mercer, but it was the beginning of Pittsburgh.
So when passing or visiting the old redoubt the story of the birth of our city comes vividly to mind. Tracing it back, we come to Braddock and Washington, Mercer and Morgan—great names in American history. The ambitious Gates has little or no commemoration, none locally. Morgan continued to serve through the French and Indian war, carrying dispatches and attaining the rank of ensign. Some biographers state that it was while in the dangerous role of a dispatch bearer that Morgan was wounded as noted. Winthrop Sargeant, however, states it was with Braddock. Be this as it may, it is certain that Morgan fought on Braddock's field and first came to this region with that general. He was wounded somewhere, and severely, in the cause of the colonies before the Revolution. It is somewhat disheartening to read that so brave a man returned to his brawls and dissipation after the French and Indian war. He also became a gambler. He reformed, however, and his light began to shine. We find him in command of a company during Lord Dunmore's war in 1774.
This was the last war in which the colonies were engaged as subjects of Great Britain. It was wholly a Virginia war. It began on the Ohio below Wheeling with an attack on a canoe laden with goods belonging to William Butler, a trader of Pittsburgh, one of the five fighting Butler brothers, and long after the Revolution a resident of Pittsburgh—his name and that of his brothers commemorated in Butler street, town and county.
The attack was made by some Cherokee renegades on April 16. The goods were destined for the Shawanese towns on the River Sciota. The Cherokees killed one of Butler's three men in the canoe, wounded another, but the third man, Stephens, escaped. The marauders looted the cargo and made off.
Col. Butler, bringing peltry in exchange for Indian goods, was under the necessity of sending other people to bring his peltry up the river, and therefore sent off another canoe from Pittsburgh in charge of two Indians and two white men. When 90 miles down the river the canoe was fired on from the shore, and both Indians killed. This was done by a party of whites under Capt. Michael Cresap. Further down the river Cresap attacked a Shawanese camp. The murder of Indians by Greathouse and his gang at Yellow Creek below Wellsville, the killing of Logan's family and the subsequent happenings of this war are well-known events in our local history.
Morgan, a Virginian, served through the war. Indeed he was on the Sciota and at the treaty where Dunmore concluded the ar and where Logan is said to have made his celebrated speech.
The most authentic account of this speech is by John Gibson, subsequently a resident of Pittsburgh, a colonel in the Revolution, uncle of the great jurist, John Bannister Gibson.
John Gibson died at his son-in-law's home in Braddock in 1822, aged 82. George Wallace owned most of the tract where the brunt of the battle of July 9, 1755 was fought. His wife was the daughter of John Gibson. The Wallace home, transformed somewhat, is still standing next to the Pennsylvania Station, and there LaFayette was entertained in 1825. Mrs. Wallace died in 1864.
The Gibsons, John and George, were traders before the Revolution and in the Virginia service during that war. Pennsylvanians by birth, they were in the Virginia service by reason of Virginia's domination of Fort Pitt and this region. Indeed, the odious Connolly had changed the name of the fort here to Fort Dunmore—a name which did not stick.
That Daniel Morgan knew the Gibsons and was familiar as a trader with this region and the Ohio country thoroughly is presumed. That he reformed and became a man of means is well authenticated.
John Gibson was at the treaty in the Sciota and there Logan told him the sad story of his bereavement. Gibson took a prominent part in that treaty. John Gibson was early at Pittsburgh having been a soldier under Forbes in 1758.
Morgan was likely at the treaty in his capacity of a captain of rangers. John Gibson was the representative of Virginia at Fort Pitt before the Revolution. He recruited his company of 100 men here which became part of the Thirteenth Virginia Regiment.
With the affair at Lexington, April 19, 1775, the Revolution is said to have begun. It took some time for the news to reach Fort Pitt and we know the people here were loyal.
Morgan was early in the field. In less than a week after receiving the news of Lexington he had a rifle company of 96 men ready for warfare—the nucleus of his celebrated rifle corps. He marched immediately to Boston with his company. He accompanied Benedict Arnold on the expedition to Quebec that year, commanding three companies of riflemen. Morgan was made a prisoner with numerous others, but was fortunate enough to be exchanged, and next appears under Gates at Saratoga in command of a rifle regiment.
Arnold and Morgan were the ruling spirits at Saratoga. Gen. Fraser, the directing soul of British forces, was conspicuous upon a splendid iron-gray horse, resplendent in his full uniform as a field officer. Braddock was likewise conspicuous. Both easy marks.
It was evident at Saratoga that the fate of the battle depended upon Frazer; the keen eye and judgment of Morgan saw this. Then, too, his training told him. The Indians whom he had previously fought, made it their prime object to kill off the officers of their foes, and leave the men without leaders.
Morgan at Saratoga called a file of his men about him and said: "That gallant officer is Gen. Fraser. I admire and honor him. It is necessary he should die. Victory for our enemy depends upon him. Take your stations in yonder clumps of bushes and do your duty."
Within five minutes Fraser fell, mortally wounded, and was carried to his camp by two of his men. Twice before he fell his horse had been hit. His aide noticed this and remarked: "It is evident, General, that you have been marked out for particular aim; would it not be prudent for you to retire from this particular spot?"
Fraser replied: "My duty forbids me to fly from danger." The next moment he fell.
Braddock over again, it is. True to the traditions of that British army they. Brave men these fighting generals of old. It is a pleasure to read of them. It thrills even in these "piping times of peace"—in America.
At Saratoga Pittsburgh was represented by subsequent citizens. Maj. Isaac Craig was there and met Burgoyne, an Irishman like himself. The Butlers were there—Richard and Thomas, in Morgan's command, Lieut. Col. Stephen Bayard also, and these shared in the glory of that important victory. Craig's wife was sister-in-law of Mrs. Presley Neville.
The record of Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan in the Revolution is written in the histroy [sic] of his country. It is not rare history, it is only the history of a fighting man and a patriot.
The history of the Western Insurrection is voluminous. Alexander Hamilton, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Henry M. Brackenridge, William Findley, Neville B. Craig and others have written of it. Local authors also; R. T. Wiley of Elizabeth in "Sim Greene," a novel, and we have also Henry C. McCook's long story, "The Latimers," a novel.
Morgan came, a subordinate under his governor, Gen. Henry Lee. New Jersey, sent troops under her governor, Howell. Pennsylvania's governor, Thomas Mifflin, awakened to his responsibility and came, too, in command of state troops, these two forming the right wing of Lee's army, the left under Morgan and his Virginians and Gov. Smith of Maryland with his troops.
Some claim even to this day that this array was not needed, and that the unpleasantness hereabouts in 1794 was trifling and justifiable. Others claim it was treason. Washington started in person for the scene of trouble. Why? The insurrectionists surrendered. The first obstruction to democracy in the new nation was rolled away. Daniel Morgan helped roll it away.
After this service Morgan served two terms in Congress from Virginia, 1795–1799. He died in Winchester, Va., July 6, 1822. We justly honor him.
