Note 19 — Front matter

The writer has interviewed many of the reliable and trustworthy citizens of Cumberland on this point. To Robert Shriver and J. L. Griffith, respectively president and cashier of the First National Bank of Cumberland, and to the late Robert H. Gordon, one of the leading attorneys of the town, he owes special thanks for their painstaking interest, given at the expense of much valuable time, in aiding him in his attempt to discover the route of the army out of Cumberland. Mr. Shriver, who has made an extensive study of the course of the road from Fort Cumberland to the Narrows, thinks that the weight of evidence favors a route from Fort Cumberland along the gradually sloping ground northwestward to a point on Wills Creek about where the cement mill now stands. From here the road would have been easy, comparatively short, and almost level for the greater part of the distance to the eastern end of the gap, where there would evidently have been a favorable opportunity to ford Wills Creek near the mouth of one of its tributaries. Much might be said in favor of this contention; but, unfortunately, it has thus far failed to yield any results that look toward a definite and authoritative identification of Braddock’s line of march.