ARRIVAL AT FORT CUMBERLAND--LETTERS OF WASHINGTON TO HIS FAMILY--PANIC OF
DUNBAR--FORTUNES OF DR. HUGH MERCER--TRIUMPH OF THE FRENCH.
The obsequies of the unfortunate Braddock being finished, the escort
continued its retreat with the sick and wounded. Washington, assisted by
Dr. Craik, watched with assiduity over his comrades, Orme and Morris. As
the horses which bore their litters were nearly knocked up, he despatched
messengers to the commander of Fort Cumberland requesting that others might
be sent on, and that comfortable quarters might be prepared for the
reception of those officers.
On the 17th, the sad cavalcade reached the fort, and were relieved from the
incessant apprehension of pursuit. Here, too, flying reports had preceded
them, brought by fugitives from the battle; who, with the disposition usual
in such cases to exaggerate, had represented the whole army as massacred.
Fearing these reports might reach home, and affect his family, Washington
wrote to his mother, and his brother, John Augustine, apprising them of his
safety. "The Virginia troops," says he, in a letter to his mother, "showed
a good deal of bravery, and were nearly all killed. ... The dastardly
behavior of those they called regulars exposed all others, that were
ordered to do their duty, to almost certain death; and, at last, in despite
of all the efforts of the officers to the contrary, they ran, as sheep
pursued by dogs, and it was impossible to rally them."
To his brother, he writes: "As I have heard, since my arrival at this
place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this
early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you that I
have not composed the latter. But, by the all-powerful dispensations of
Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability, or
expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot
under me, yet escaped unhurt, though death was levelling my companions on
every side of me!
"We have been most scandalously beaten by a trifling body of men, but
fatigue and want of time prevent me from giving you any of the details,
until I have the happiness of seeing you at Mount Vernon, which I now most
earnestly wish for, since we are driven in thus far. A feeble state of
health obliges me to halt here for two or three days to recover a little
strength, that I may thereby be enabled to proceed homeward with more
ease."
Dunbar arrived shortly afterward with the remainder of the army. No one
seems to have shared more largely in the panic of the vulgar than that
officer. From the moment he received tidings of the defeat, his camp became
a scene of confusion. All the ammunition, stores, and artillery were
destroyed, to prevent, it was said, their falling into the hands of the
enemy; but, as it was afterwards alleged, to relieve the terror-stricken
commander from all incumbrances, and furnish him with more horses in his
flight toward the settlements. [Footnote: Franklin's Autobiography.]
At Cumberland his forces amounted to fifteen hundred effective men; enough
for a brave stand to protect the frontier, and recover some of the lost
honor; but he merely paused to leave the sick and wounded under care of two
Virginia and Maryland companies, and some of the train, and then continued
his hasty march, or rather flight, through the country, not thinking
himself safe, as was sneeringly intimated, until he arrived in
Philadelphia, where the inhabitants could protect him.
The true reason why the enemy did not pursue the retreating army was not
known until some time afterwards, and added to the disgrace of the defeat.
They were not the main force of the French, but a mere detachment of 72
regulars, 146 Canadians, and 637 Indians, 855 in all, led by Captain de
Beaujeu. De Contrecoeur, the commander of Fort Duquesne, had received
information, through his scouts, that the English, three thousand strong,
were within six leagues of his fort. Despairing of making an effectual
defence against such a superior force, he was balancing in his mind whether
to abandon his fort without awaiting their arrival, or to capitulate on
honorable terms. In this dilemma Beaujeu prevailed on him to let him sally
forth with a detachment to form an ambush, and give check to the enemy. De
Beaujeu was to have taken post at the river, and disputed the passage at
the ford. For that purpose he was hurrying forward when discovered by the
pioneers of Gage's advance party. He was a gallant officer, and fell at the
beginning of the fight. The whole number of killed and wounded of French
and Indians, did not exceed seventy.
Such was the scanty force which the imagination of the panic-stricken army
had magnified into a great host, and from which they had fled in breathless
terror, abandoning the whole frontier. No one could be more surprised than
the French commander himself, when the ambuscading party returned in
triumph with a long train of packhorses laden with booty, the savages
uncouthly clad in the garments of the slain, grenadier caps, officers'
gold-laced coats, and glittering epaulettes; flourishing swords and sabres,
or firing off muskets, and uttering fiendlike yells of victory. But when De
Contrecoeur was informed of the utter rout and destruction of the much
dreaded British army, his joy was complete. He ordered the guns of the fort
to be fired in triumph, and sent out troops in pursuit of the fugitives.
The affair of Braddock remains a memorable event in American history, and
has been characterized as "the most extraordinary victory ever obtained,
and the farthest flight ever made." It struck a fatal blow to the deference
for British prowess, which once amounted almost to bigotry, throughout the
provinces. "This whole transaction," observes Franklin, in his
autobiography, "gave us the first suspicion, that our exalted ideas of the
prowess of British regular troops had not been well founded."