Faced with Indian raids that depopulated whole settlements, Dinwiddie issued orders calling up the militia in western counties, and Washington suddenly found himself at the head of a thousand temporary recruits who bridled at their treatment by highborn officers. Reflecting this resentment, the Virginia Gazette blasted Washington’s officers as “rank novices, rakes, spendthrifts, and bankrupts” who “browbeat and discouraged” the militia and gave them “an example of all manner of debauchery, vice, and idleness.”
