In my account of this battle, as well as all the others that will come
thundering in upon us from time to time in the course of our story, I
have thought it would suit our purpose best to touch upon those facts
only that are likeliest to leave the most lasting pictures of such
events on your minds; using the while no more words than may actually
be needed to give clearness and completeness to the same. And now,
Daniel, my young Herodotus, and Ned, my young Hannibal, bring in
another Christmas log, that we may have a more cheerful blaze; for our
story will be doleful enough for the next half-hour, without these
goblin shadows dodging and flitting about the room to make it more so.
At mid-day, Braddock's army came to the lower ford, where a halt was
called to allow of a few minutes' rest. Far in front, across the
river, the ringing of a hundred axes, followed at short intervals by
the crash of falling trees, could be distinctly heard; telling that
the pioneers were there, working might and main to clear a passage for
those behind. The road just opened, after leaving the ford, ran
across a heavily wooded bottom that skirted the river; and thence, for
a few hundred yards, up a rocky slope to the foot of a high range of
hills, about a mile distant, where it entered a narrow, bushy defile,
and went no further. The country, for miles and miles around, as far
as the eye could reach, was thickly wooded, save the rocky slope just
mentioned, and the neighboring ravines, which were overgrown with
long, coarse grass and whortleberry-bushes, so high as to sweep the
horses' bellies; with here and there a few scattering trees of some
size. It was the very place, of all others, that the wily Indian would
be most likely to choose for his ambuscade.
By two o'clock, the whole army had regained the northern bank of the
river. They were now within ten miles of Fort Duquesne, and a lucky
end to their present campaign seemed near at hand. In a few minutes,
artillery and baggage, foot and horse, regulars and rangers, formed
into separate and distinct columns, stood ready to move as soon as the
word should be given. Just at the moment, however, when they were
listening to hear the order, "Forward, march!" drop from their
general's lips, they were startled by a sudden and heavy firing among
the hills, which put a sudden stop to the hundred axes, and told but
too plainly that the road-cutters and their guard of regulars had been
drawn into an ambuscade. Washington knew at once, and too well, that
the evil he dreaded from the beginning, had, on the very eve of
success, come upon them; and with it also came the painful reflection,
that it would never have so befallen them, had the rangers been
suffered to scour the woods, and beat up the enemy, as had been
recommended by him but a few hours before. Braddock forthwith ordered
two companies to hurry on to the relief of the pioneers; and, at his
bidding, one of his aides spurred forward to learn further of the
matter, and bring him word. The firing grew heavier and heavier, and
seemed to be coming nearer and nearer. The lonely hills and woods
around rang with the whoops and yells of the unseen savages. Not able
to restrain his impatience till his aide came back, Braddock ordered
his main division to come up at double-quick; and, taking with him his
two remaining aides and a small guard of light-horse, galloped up to
the scene of action. Here what was his rage and mortification to find
his doughty regulars, of whom he had boasted so much, changed, as it
were in the whistling of a bullet, into a mere disorderly rabble of
red-coats,--confused, bewildered, to a degree that he could never have
dreamed possible! Crowded and huddled together in the narrow road, he
saw them dropping down under the Indian bullets, helpless as a herd of
frightened deer beset by a band of unseen hunters.
By this time, the Indians, still hid from view by the grass and
bushes, had stretched their lines along either side of the road, from
the hollows among the hills to some distance down the rocky slope, and
were pouring in a murderous fire upon the affrighted English; yelling
and whooping the while like a legion of devils at some infernal
frolic. Two bayonet charges had been made to drive them from their
hiding-places, but in vain. The regulars, notwithstanding their
officers' orders to the contrary, kept up a hurried but random firing,
which had little or no effect upon the enemy, as nothing could be seen
of him but the puffs of rifle-smoke that rose and hovered in little
blue clouds over his place of ambush. The English, it is said, were
less appalled by the whistling bullet; of the unseen savages than by
their unearthly yells,--a sound that none of them had ever heard
before, and many a poor fellow of them never heard again. The Indian
war-whoop has been described as a sound so wild and terrible, that,
when once heard in battle, it rings in the listener's ears for weeks
thereafter, and is never forgotten even to his dying day.
But the English officers, on the contrary, behaved themselves with a
gallantry that filled Washington with astonishment and admiration.
Heretofore he had seen them only in camp or on the line of march,
where their habits of ease and self-indulgence had led him to doubt
their having the courage and firmness to face, without shrinking,
danger in such appalling forms. Unmindful of the bullets that whistled
continually about their heads, they galloped up and down the broken
and bleeding lines, in the vain endeavor to rally their men, and bring
them again to something like order. Mounted on fine horses, and
dressed in rich uniforms, they offered a tempting mark to the unseen
rifles that were levelled at them from behind every tree and bush, and
tuft of grass; and, ere the work of death was finished, many a gallant
steed, with dangling reins and bloody saddle, dashed riderless about
the field. And, as if this were not enough, many of them must needs
fall victims to the unsoldierly conduct of their own men, who,
forgetful of all discipline, and quite beside themselves with terror
and bewilderment, loaded their pieces hurriedly, and fired them off at
random, killing friends as well as foes. Nor did this most shameful
part of the bloody scene end here: many of the Virginia rangers, who
had already taken to the trees and bushes, and were doing good service
by fighting the Indians in their own fashion, were shot down by the
blundering regulars, who fired into the woods wherever they saw a puff
of smoke, unable to distinguish whether it rose from a red or a white
man's rifle. Upon these brave rangers the brunt of the battle fell;
and indeed, had it not been for their firmness and presence of mind,
their skill and address in the arts and strategems of Indian warfare,
which enabled them for a time to hold the enemy in check, hardly a
remnant of Braddock's fine army would have survived to behold the
going-down of that summer's sun.
At the very commencement of the battle, a small party of warriors,
cheered on by a French officer in a fancifully trimmed hunting-shirt,
had leaped out from their covert into the road, with the view, it
seemed, of cutting off those in front from the assistance of their
comrades in the rear; but the regulars, who guarded the road-cutters,
having discharged a well-aimed volley of musketry into their very
faces, they had turned, and fled with even more haste than they had
come, leaving behind them several of their number dead on the spot,
and among these their dashing French leader. After that, they had
taken care to keep close under cover of the grass and bushes. Now and
then, however, a tall brave, grim and hideous with war-paint, with a
yell of defiance would leap from his ambush, and, darting into the
road, tomahawk and scalp a wounded officer just fallen; then vanish
again as suddenly as if the earth had opened to swallow him up.
All this while, Col. Washington had borne himself with a firmness,
courage, and presence of mind, that would have done honor to a
forty-years' veteran. His two brother aides-de-camp having been
wounded early in the engagement, the whole duty of carrying the
general's orders had fallen on him; and nobly did he that day
discharge it. Although brave men were falling thick and fast on every
side, yet he shrank from no exposure, however perilous, did his duty
but lead him there. Mounted on horseback, his tall and stately form
was to be seen in every part of the field, the mark of a hundred
rifles, whose deadly muzzles were pointed at him whithersoever he
went. Two horses were shot dead under him, and his coat was pierced
with bullets; but he seemed to bear about him a charmed life, and went
unharmed. His danger was so great, that his friend Dr. Craik, who
watched his movements with anxious interest, looked every moment to
see him fall headlong to the ground; and that he came off alive seemed
to him a miracle. Washington himself, with that piety which ever
marked his character, laid his deliverance from the perils of that
fatal day to the overruling care of a kind and watchful Providence.
Although brought thus suddenly face to face with new and untried
dangers, Braddock bore himself throughout the day like the valiant man
that he really was. The bullets and yells of the invisible foe he
scarcely noticed, as he galloped hither and thither about the field,
giving his orders through a speaking-trumpet, whose brazen voice rose
loud and hoarse above the din of battle. Under the mistaken notion
that a savage enemy, hid in a thicket, was to be dealt with as a
civilized one in an open plain, he sought to recover his lost ground
by forming his men into companies and battalions; which, however, he
had no sooner done, than they were mowed down by the murderous fire
from the ambush, that had never ceased. "My soldiers," said he, "would
fight, could they but see their enemy; but it is vain to shoot at
trees and bushes." Whereupon Washington urgently besought him to let
his regulars fight the Indians in their own fashion, which would the
better enable them to pick off the lurking foe with less danger to
their own safety. But Braddock's only answer to this was a sneer; and
some of his regulars, who were already acting upon the suggestion, he
angrily ordered back into the ranks, calling them cowards, and even
striking them with the flat of his sword. He then caused the colors of
the two regiments to be advanced in different parts of the field, that
the soldiers might rally around their separate standards. It was all
in vain. In his excitement, he cheered, he entreated, he swore, he
stormed: it was only a waste of breath; for the poor fellows were too
disheartened and broken, too overcome by mortal fear, to rally again.
Col. Washington, seeing that the day was on the point of being lost,
galloped down to the rear to see if nothing could be done with the
artillery; but he found the gunners in a most disorderly plight,
benumbed with terror, and utterly unable to manage their guns. What
Washington did on this occasion, I had better tell you in the words of
an old Pennsylvania soldier, who was there at the time, and survived
the battle for half a hundred years or more; and used often, for the
entertainment of your Uncle Juvinell and other little boys, to fight
his battles over again as he sat smoking in his chimney corner.
"I saw Col. Washington," he would say, "spring from his panting
horse, and seize a brass field-piece as if it had been a stick.
His look was terrible. He put his right hand on the muzzle, his
left hand on the breech; he pulled with this, he pushed with
that, and wheeled it round, as if it had been a plaything: it
furrowed the ground like a ploughshare. He tore the sheet-lead
from the touch-hole; then the powder-monkey rushed up with the
fire, when the cannon went off, making the bark fly from the
trees, and many an Indian send up his last yell and bite the
dust."
This, however, gave the savages but a momentary check, as he could not
follow it up; there being no one by ready and willing to lend him a
helping hand. The Virginia rangers and other provincial troops, who
had done the only good fighting of the day, were thinned out to
one-fourth their number; and the few that remained were too weary and
faint to hold out longer against such fearful odds. Between the
well-aimed firing of the enemy and the random shooting of the
regulars, the slaughter of the English officers had been frightful:
out of the eighty-six who went into the battle, only twenty-four came
off unhurt. Gen. Braddock had five horses killed under him. By this
time, he had given up all hope of regaining the day; and, galling as
it must have been to his proud spirit, was at last forced to think of
retreating as their only chance of safety. Just as he was on the
point, however, of giving orders to this effect, a bullet--said by
some to have been a random shot from one of his own soldiers--passed
through his arm, and, lodging itself in his lungs, brought him to the
ground, mortally wounded. His officers placed him in a tumbrel, or
pioneer's cart, and bore him from the field, where, in his despair, he
prayed them to leave him to die.
Seeing their leader fall, a fresh panic seized the army. And now
followed a wild and disorderly rout, the like of which was never known
before, and has never since been known, in our border-wars. The
soldiers in front fell back on those in the centre; those in the
centre fell back on those in the rear: till foot and horse, artillery
and baggage, were jammed and jumbled together, making a scene of
dismay and confusion it would be vain for me to attempt to describe.
To add wings to their speed, the Indians, with a long, loud yell of
fiendish triumph, now rushed from their ambush, and, brandishing aloft
their murderous tomahawks, began to press hard on the heels of the
terrified fugitives. The better to elude their savage pursuers, the
regulars threw away their arms, the gunners abandoned their guns, and
the teamsters cut their horses from the traces, and, mounting them,
fled, never halting until they reached Col. Dunbar's camp,--a gallop
of forty miles. A few fell under the tomahawk before the farther bank
of the river could be gained. Here, luckily for the survivors, the
Indians gave over the pursuit, in their eagerness to plunder the
slain, and gather what else of booty might be found on the field.
Thus ended this bloody battle, or rather slaughter; for in truth it
could be called nothing else. Of the sixteen hundred valiant men who
had that morning, in all the bright array of gleaming arms and waving
banners, marched along the banks of that beautiful river, nearly
one-half, ere the sun went down, had fallen on Braddock's Hill. What
made this disaster more shameful still was the weakness of the enemy's
force, which did not exceed eight hundred, of whom only a fourth were
French; and, of all this number, scarcely forty fell in the fight.
Col. Washington was now ordered to ride back with all speed to
Dunbar's camp, to fetch horses, wagons, and hospital-stores for the
relief of the wounded. Although still quite weak from his ten days'
fever, which indeed had left him with no more strength than should
have sufficed for the fatigues of that trying day, yet he set out on
the instant, and, taking with him a guard of grenadiers, travelled the
livelong night. What with those terrible sights and sounds still
ringing in his ears, and flashing before his eyes; what with the
thought of the many dead and dying that lay on the lonely hillside far
behind, with their ghastly upturned faces, more ghastly still in the
light of the moon; and what with the bitter, bitter reflection, that
all this would never have been but for the pride and folly of a single
man,--that ride through the dark and silent woods must have been a
melancholy one indeed. He pushed on, without leaving the saddle, till
late in the afternoon of the following day, when he reached Dunbar's
camp; and gathering together, without loss of time, the necessaries
for which he had been sent, started on his return that same night,
scarcely allowing himself and men an hour for food and rest. Early
next morning, he met the main division at Mr. Gist's plantation,
whither they had dragged their shattered lines the evening before.
From thence they all went on together to the Great Meadows, where they
arrived that same day, and halted.
For the four and twenty hours following the battle, Braddock had
remained sad and silent; never speaking except to say, "Who would have
thought it?" The second day, he seemed more cheerful; for he said, "We
shall better know how to deal with them another time." He spoke in
high praise of the skill and courage shown by the Virginia rangers and
other provincial troops during the whole engagement. He now saw, but
too late, and to his deep regret, that he had not given these rough
and hardy men half the credit due them as good soldiers; and also that
he had made a fatal mistake in underrating the strength, skill, and
address of the enemy he had been sent there to subdue. To Washington
he made a frank and manly apology for the contempt and impatience with
which he had so often treated his prudent and well-timed counsel. As
if wishing to make still further amends for this, he bequeathed to him
his faithful negro servant, Bishop, and his fine white charger, both
of whom had helped to carry their wounded master from the field. On
the fourth day after the battle, he died; having been kindly and
tenderly cared for by Washington and his other surviving officers.
They dug him a grave by the roadside, not a stone's-throw from Fort
Necessity, in the depths of that lonely wilderness; and there, before
the summer morn had dawned, they buried him. In the absence of the
chaplain, the funeral service was read by Washington, in a low and
solemn voice, by the dim and flickering light of a torch. Fearing lest
the enemy might be lurking near, and, spying out the spot, commit some
outrage on his remains, they fired not a farewell shot over the grave
of their unfortunate general,--that last tribute of respect to a
departed soldier, and one he had himself paid, but a short time
before, to a nameless Indian warrior. So there they laid him; and, to
this day, the great highway leading from Cumberland to Pittsburg goes
by the name of Braddock's Road.
I would, my dear children, have you dwell on these glimpses of a more
manly and generous nature that brightened the closing hours of
Braddock's life; because it is but Christian and just that we should
be willing to honor virtue in whomsoever it may be found. With all his
self-conceit and obstinacy, he had a kindly heart, and was a brave
man; and had it been his lot to deal with a civilized enemy, instead
of a savage one, he would, no doubt, have proved himself a skilful
general. And we should not deal too harshly with the memory of a man,
whose faults, however great they may have been, were more than atoned
for by the inglorious death he died, and by "a name ever coupled with
defeat."