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History of Cambria County, V.1

26 HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
chief of the army. General Lee was known as "Light-Horse Harry," of Revolutionary war fame, and was the father of General Robert E. Lee, the famous Southern hero of the recent Civil war.
     On October 19, 1794, President George Washington, Secretary Alexander Hamilton and General Henry Knox, Secretary of War, visited General Lee at Bedford, and remained two or three days before returning to Washington City.
     The right wing of the army left Carlisle on October 22d, and marching through Bedford and Quemahoning township arrived at Mount Pleasant, where it encamped on the 29th. This wing was composed of Pennsylvania troops, commanded by Governor Mifflin. The left wing moved from Fort Cumberland on October 22d, and marching over the route taken by General Braddock in 1755, also passed through Quemahoning township and reached Uniontown, where General Lee and the right wing arrived and went into camp on October 31st. The dissenters, seeing the uselessness of further resistance, ceased their warfares, and Washington granted amnesty to all who had been concerned in it, excepting those who had committed crime and were then in actual custody. General Lee moved his headquarters to Pittsburg on November 17th, 1794, and the army was then disbanded.

THE FORBES ROAD.

     King George III desired to capture Fort Duquesne, which was then held by the French, and which General Braddock had attempted to do in 1755, when he met with death and disaster.
     In December, 1757, the King commissioned Colonel John Forbes, "Brigadier General in America to command his Majesty's forces in the southern provinces." General Forbes immediately began to organize an army for that purpose, and early in the summer of 1758 he had a force of 5,850 soldiers and one thousand wagoners. The place of rendezvous was at Baystown (or Bedford, as it is known), which General Forbes did not reach until the middle of September. Prior to this Colonel Boquet had taken about 2,000 Pennsylvanians and opened a road from Bedford to the Loyalhanna river, at Fort Ligonier. Excepting the military road of General Braddock in 1755, this was the first road used by wagons or artillery across the Allegheny mountains, and passed through what was subsequently known as Brothers Valley township, and later as Quemahon-


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Created: 29 Jan 2006, Last Updated:
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Lynne Canterbury, Diann Olsen and contributors