University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XLIII

DINWIDDIE'S ADMINISTRATION—BRADDOCK'S
DEFEAT

Braddock's commission empowered him to assume the
supreme command of all the organized troops in the Colony,
whether regulars or provincials, who should be summoned
to the field. The only sensible step which this brave and
conscientious but imprudent officer seems to have taken in the
course of the terrible campaign upon which he was now
entering, was to appoint Colonel Washington to a position on
his staff—a step, no doubt, most earnestly advised by Dinwiddie,
with whom he had consulted at Williamsburg before
setting out for Alexandria, where some of the detachments
which he was to lead against Fort Duquesne were already
encamped. Here, on his arrival, he was received by the governors
of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland,
all of whom were in a high degree interested in the
demolition of the different French posts situated south of
Lake Erie.

The troops under Braddock's command were composed of
disciplined regulars from England, seasoned infantry men
from Virginia and Maryland, and a small body of light horse
recruited from the former colony. There was also a little
band of Indian scouts attached to the army. The only other
soldiers enrolled were two companies which had been furnished
by New York. This was under the orders of Horatio
Gates, an officer destined to win military prominence in the
Revolution. It was estimated that the forces thus brought
into the field numbered two thousand one hundred and fifty
men in all.

The route finally adopted led from Alexandria to Frederick
in Western Maryland, and from Frederick to Winchester in
Virginia, and from Winchester to Fort Cumberland. Thence
the march was to be directed straight for Fort Duquesne, the
real objective. Washington, who had, as a surveyor for Lord
Fairfax, passed over the intervening country, was in favor
of using packhorses as the safest and most convenient means
of transporting the arms, ammunition, provisions, and baggage;
but Braddock determined to employ wagons, and at his
request, Benjamin Franklin procured a large number from the
Pennsylvania farmers—unfortunately on a promise to pay,
which they had afterwards reason to rue. The troops
advanced in a far flung line from Fort Cumberland along a
road which was cut deeper and deeper into the wilderness
from day to day. The stage traversed in every twenty-four
hours did not exceed five miles, and sometimes it fell short
of this distance. So great was the heat that many of the
men were overcome by fever; and among the officers so
stricken was Washington himself, who had to abandon his
horse for a covered wagon. A large detachment lightly
equipped was sent ahead through the roadless woods to
reconnoiter. Some of these men, straggling from the main
body, were cut off by the Indians and French, who, under the
veil of the bushes, lurked unseen on either side of the
column.

It was not until the ninth of July that the two sections
of the advancing army, now united and co-operating, arrived
on the banks of the Monongahela. The point reached was
situated about fifteen miles from the stronghold which was to
be attacked. Up the valley of this stream—after they had
waded across to its western shore—they continued the slow
march in high spirits, under the expectation of an early and
complete triumph over their enemy. Washington had been
so ill that he had, for most of the way, been unable to keep
up with even the rear-guard, but only a few hours before the
forces halted on the banks of the river, he, having partially

recovered, pushed forward and joined their ranks. As the
troops advanced along the floor of the open valley, they
presented a picture which he never forgot. The scene, he
remarked in later years, was the most beautiful that his eye
had ever fallen upon, decorated as it was by the glances of
the brilliant sunlight on the scarlet coats and metal accoutrements
of the regulars, and on the picturesque though soberer
uniforms of the provincial companies—the whole projected
upon the green background of the primæval meadows and
woodlands.

At the end of five miles, the long column forded the river
again to the eastern bank, and after tramping across the lowlands
stretching to the foothills, started to ascend the moderate
height that now rose in front of them. The ground
which the troops were at this moment passing over was rough
and broken, and the thick woods came down to the very edge
of the road. Soon, on either side of the way, long ravines,
overgrown with underbrush, and overshadowed by tall trees
at their back, began to reveal their outlines.

There were three sections in the winding procession of the
advancing army: first, a band of three hundred men, followed
by a second band of two hundred, and then, at a short interval,
came the great body of the troops, accompanied by the wagons
and baggage. The first section had not gone far along the
now shaded road when they were met by a scattered fire from
the enemy, lurking ahead in the hollows and behind the trees
at their further edge. Had all the soldiers present at the
scene been colonials, or had the entire force been under
Washington's sole control, a signal would have been given at
once to those in the van to take to cover, and then to fight
from hand to hand and foot to foot in the manner which
Indian warfare had always followed. This was the history
of the Battle of Point Pleasant, which ended after several
days in a victory for the English.

But a British general was now in command—an officer as
obstinate and ignorant as he was brave and proud, one who

had never been in America before, and who was serenely of
the conviction that half a dozen British regulars were quite
equal to two dozen Indians and Frenchmen when it came to a
test of courage and endurance. In an open field, this confidence
would possibly have been justified, but the English regular
now found himself face to face with a method of fighting which
he had never before even conceived of, and contending with
swarthy foes who plumed themselves on their atrocities in
battle—atrocities that were made more hideous to the imagination
by the skulking way in which the blows were struck.

SEAL OF VIRGINIA DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.

The number of Indians enrolled in the French ranks was
about six hundred and thirty in all, while the number of
French and Canadians hardly exceeded two hundred and
thirty. All, however—Indians, French, and Canadians—
aware of the strength of the English force in men and arms
from the reports of their scouts, who had hung unseen on the
column's flank all the way from Fort Cumberland, were quick
to perceive that the only chance of success lay in shooting
from the darkness of the woods. Under the command of
De Beaujeu, they had been placed singly or in little bands
at the points most protected by nature. Washington had foreseen
this maneuvre, and in order to warn the infatuated
Braddock in time had hurried to the front before he had completely

recovered from his sickness. But his advice was not
heeded, and the unfortunate army marched forward, like an
unwary animal, into the jaws of the trap which had been
set for it.

Some execution was done by the first fire of the troops in
the van, for De Beaujeu and twelve of his men were instantly
killed, owing to the momentary exposure of their persons. A
cannon was brought into play to shell the ravines and the
woods beyond, and the Indians, startled by the uproar, began
stealing away from their hiding places on the flanks; but
Beaujeu's successor, a brave and resolute officer, persuaded
them to return and renew their running shots. There was no
proof of the exact places which they occupied except the slight
puffs among the bushes from the muzzles of their rifles. No
target was presented to the British, who still remained in
formal military ranks in the road, thus offering to the keen
eyes of the savages behind the screen of leaves a solid target
for their bullets. Not one of these, perhaps, failed to reach
its mark; and disheartened by their own rapidly increasing
losses, and by the absence of any sign that their random shots
had hit the bodies of their enemies, the soldiers in front, who
were those most exposed, began to fall into confusion. Nor
was this lessened by the hurrying up of reinforcements, for
these too were soon overtaken with the same fear, and only
added to the growing panic. Braddock rushed forward in
person to check the disintegration of the regiments by forcing
them to rally around their respective flags. But still the
withering fire from the woods went on, and man after man in
the open road continued to throw up his hands and topple to
the ground.

Suddenly the situation grew worse from the sound of firing
coming from the baggage train at the back. A band of Indians
had stolen around from the flanks, and had, by wild shouts
and a shower of bullets, put the drivers to flight; but the
soldiers in charge of a cannon which had been left for the
protection of the rear were able for a time to keep the wolfish

savages at bay. The other cannon, which had been exploding
in front, no longer terrified the Indians, for its shot flew wild
among the trees; nor was enough spirit remaining in the
troops to prompt them to charge into the underbrush with
bayonets set. The demoralization had now risen to such a
pitch that the officers found it impossible to bring off their
men in military formation. They were, in fact, huddled up
in the road in a state of such consternation that they were
incapable of receiving or obeying an order, and all this dismay
was caused by an enemy, who, it was afterwards said, had,
from the beginning, remained invisible to the eyes of the great
majority of the English troops.

There was one division of the army which, in the midst of
the terrible din and sweeping fatalities, had not lost its
steadiness or its wits. The Virginians, being accustomed to
the Indian method of warfare, had leaped into the woods as
the fire grew more deadly, and from behind trees and decaying
logs endeavored to arrest the tide of defeat, now so plainly
impending. They had acted thus in opposition to the orders
of Braddock, who went about commanding the reforming of
the now hopelessly broken ranks. In vain, Washington remonstrated;
in vain, also, Colonel Halket, of the staff, protested.
Braddock replied by passionately sticking with his sword the
men nearest to him who started for the shelter of the underbrush
in which to renew their firing. So completely had panic
blinded the vision of the regulars that they, unaware of their
mistake, turned their guns on a party of eighty Virginians,
who, from behind a breast-work of fallen trees, were effectively
returning the shots of the Indians lurking in the ravines.
Fifty of the heroic little band were killed by the fusillade.
This was only a single instance of the English soldiers, in a
sort of frenzy, interfering with the provincials in a successful
resistance to the enemy by the adoption of the enemy's own
maneuvre.

Only a small proportion of the men enrolled in the Virginia

companies outlived that terrible day.[1] The officers of one of
these companies were all killed; and of a second, only a single
officer survived. Washington, who was still weak from his
illness, had two horses shot under him and his coat riddled
by four bullets, as he rode backwards and forwards carrying
the orders of the commanding general.

The officers of the British regulars—who displayed both
coolness and bravery in the midst of these terrible scenes, in
which they were the most conspicuous targets from their
seats on horseback—were soon decimated. More of the British
force were killed or wounded—eight hundred and seventy-seven
in all—than the French and Indians had been able to
muster for the defense of Fort Duquesne. Only twenty-eight
of the enemy perished; and of these, only three were officers.
Of the eighty-six officers of the British—their full complement
—twenty-six were killed and thirty-seven were wounded.

When the final flight began, the troops in the utmost disorder
abandoned their artillery, ammunition, and baggage, and
ran at the top of their speed to the river. "They ran," said
Washington long afterwards, in recalling the scene, "like
sheep pursued by dogs." "An attempt to rally them," he
added, "was as unsuccessful as if we had tried to stop the
wild bears of the mountains, or the rivulets, with our feet, for
they would break by in spite of every effort to prevent it."

Braddock, who had, like Washington, several horses shot
under him, and had, at last been fatally wounded,[2] had been
left behind to be captured or scalped by the exultant foe. He
was reserved from this fate by the courage and devotion of
Colonel Orme of his staff, who remained at his side while the
fugitives rushed by, so overwhelmed with the sense of their
personal peril that not one of them was willing to accept that

faithful soldier's offer of a reward for assistance in removing
his stricken chief from the scene; and it was not until several
officers of the American line—prominently among them Captain
Stewart of the Virginia troops—came to his aid that he
was able to carry the general away to a place of safety.

The flight of the British continued throughout that day
and the succeeding night, and far into the next day. Braddock
accompanied the retreat in a jolting conveyance that increased
the agonizing pain of his wound. He seemed to be lost in a
stupor, in which it was difficult to decide whether regret or
astonishment predominated. Thirteen days after the battle,
he, for the first time, commented, with pathetic emphasis, on
the loss of his gallant officers; and in his last hours he was
heard to murmur mournfully, "Who would have thought it,
who would have thought it!" And then after a pause, he
said, as if to himself, "Another time we shall know how better
to deal with them." Washington lingered with him until he
drew his last breath, and when the body was interred in a
grave dug by the roadside, read the solemn Anglican burial
service over the remains, and then hurried away to his home
at Mt. Vernon.

When the flying British deserted the scene of the battle, the
Indians, now in the wildest and most ferocious state of exultation,
rushed from their coverts to the highway, all strewn,
like a shambles, with the bodies of the dead and wounded, and
with the debris of guns, dirks, ammunition, and military
coats, which had been thrown off to hasten and ease the
flight. The wounded were soon put to the tomahawk and all
the dead robbed of their scalps. A great procession was then
formed by the savage warriors, painted and bloodstained as
they were, and the march of the shrieking throng to the fort
began. Many of the Indians had clapped on their heads the
caps of the grenadiers, or the laced hats of the officers; and
some had donned the glittering regimentals of the latter.
Behind this mass of frenzied savages came the French soldiers,
who were driving the pack-horses loaded down with an

almost incredible amount of plunder of all sorts. In the rear
were seen twelve British regulars, with their hands and arms
securely tied behind their backs, and an Indian guard keeping
a watchful eye upon their movements. It was not many hours
before they were bound to the stake and their lives extinguished
with every refinement of torture which their ferocious
captors could employ. In the meanwhile, the French commander
and his troops are said to have looked on from the
ramparts of the fort at this horrifying scene with eyes that
expressed only satisfaction at the inhuman spectacle. Whether
this report was correct or not, certainly no attempt was made
by them to put an end to this fiendish barbarity.