Thereupon the borderer, shouldering his rifle, turned his back on Braddock and went away with his rangers to their homes on the Juniata, — leaving him to his fate. Even then the old folly went on. They were halting," tVashington afterwards said, " to level every mole-hill and erect bridges over every brook, by which means we were four days in getting twelve miles.' Some friendly Indians went before to scour the woods. Traces of fires were found showing that French scouts were everywhere; but no opposition was made, and at last they halted on the Monongahela, about fifteen miles south of

The grapple was near now ; this night was the last spent by many a brave fellow on earth. Braddock resolved to advance and attack the fort on the next morning. It was only a short march distant, and the English were now on the same side of the river. But to reach

Duquesne it was necessary to make two crossings. A steep bank in front ran down into the water rendering a passage there impossible ; there was, however, a practicable ford, and another five miles below ; and Braddock determined to cross at the two fords and so advance to the attack.

Early on the next morning (July 9, 1755), he moved with his advance of twelve hundred men and ten cannon. The march was made in the most unconcerned manner. True to the last to his disdain of precaution, Braddock advanced with his ' regulars ' in front ; with drums rolling, fifes shrilling, and fiags floating in all the pride and pomp of glorious war. There were a great many people who could have told him that he was tempting his fate ; but talking reason to General Braddock had, for some weeks now, proved a loss of time. So the brave ' regulars " stepped out proudly to the tap of the drum ; the English music sounded ; the English flags flaunted ; and the Virginian and other " provincial " rangers of the woods marched behind, to assist in the improbable event that their services would be required. Washington said afterwards that this was the finest sight he had ever witnessed ; and so the twelve hundred doomed men crossed the ford in triumph ; found no more trouble at the lower crossing ; and were now on the east bank again, not far from Fort Duquesne.

The commandant there was De ContrecoBur, and he had despaired of holding the place ; exaggerated reports of Braddocks force had reached him ; and he was con- Bulting whether to stand fast or evacuate the fort, when De Beaujeu, one of his young captains, offered to take % force and advance to meet the English. To this De Contrecoeur assented. De Beaujeu marched promptly; And the collision followed.

The English had crossed the ford and were marching across a plain in front of which were wooded hills. On each side of the road leading up this slope were ravines, covered with thicket, and here the battle took place. The English had reached the spot, when a commotion in the woods in front attracted their attention. It was De Beaujeu advancing at the head of his two hundred and thirty Canadians, and six hundred and thirty savages, in all 860 men. The young Frenchman bounded forward in a gay hunting-shirt and silver gorget, and waved his hat — the signal for his skirmishers to scatter behind the trees and rocks. At the signal the Indians disappeared to the right and left, leaving the French in the centre; and upon this force the English opened a quick fire which killed about twelve men, among them De Beaujeu, who fell as he was cheering on his troops. But the English good fortune was short-lived; it was the only gleam of success, this first quick fire, during the whole bloody tragedy.

There was no battle, properly speaking; it was a mere slaughter. The English regulars, huddled up like sheep in a narrow road, from which they could not extricate themselves, lost their heads at the merciless fire from the ravines, fired in the air, were seized by mortal panic, and had not even the presence of mind to fiy. The officers, who acted " with incomparable bravery," would not let them take shelter behind trees, and in vain attempted to make them advance. They seemed not to hear the words, or to feel the fiats of the swords striking their backs; the terrible fire, poured into their ranks from the Indians hidden behind the rocks, paralyzed them. Eight and left from the tangled ravines issued fatal volleys ; and at every shot almost, a red-coat fell,

for the Indians aimed deliberately before firing. The Virginia rangers scattered and fought from behind trees as they were accustomed to do. This and the canDon was all that preserved the regulars from a consecutive butchery of each man in turn. They stood there dazed and deprived of reason. Their " dastardly behavior " showed that there was no longer any hope. Their officers and the Virginians and other Provincials did all that men could do, but it was in vain. Washington had ' four bullets through his coat and two horses shot under him." Braddock had three horses killed under him, and two wounded so as to be disabled. He did all that a brave soldier could do ; but he was struggling against what no commander can make headway against — the pusillanimity of his men. The Indian fire utterly destroyed now their remains of courage. They broke and rolled over each other in the wild attempt to escape. At last Braddock fell. A bullet passed through his right arm, entered his breast, and he would have dropped from the saddle had not Captain Stewart of the Virginia Light Horse caught him in his arms. In his agony he groaned aloud and asked to be left to die on the field. His men were now in wild disorder. They threw away their guns, accoutrements, and even their clothes, and rushed into the river. Cannon, infantry, and horse hastened away, and the Virginia rangers were obliged to follow. The army was in wild flight. They had lost more than half their number by tiiat fearful hidden fire. Sir Peter Halket was dead ; Shirley, secretary of Braddock, was shot through the head ; the Virginians were nearly decimated : out of eighty-six officers twenty-six were killed and thirty- Beven wounded. The enemy's loss, all numbered, was

bnt twenty-eight killed and twenty-nine wounded. All that saved the English was the cupidity of the 8av ages. They stopped to gather up the muskets and scarlet coats littering the ground ; and that alone preserved the fugitives from the tomahawk as they rushed over the Monongahela.

Braddock was borne from the field, and his friends hastened on with their mortally wounded commander. His brave English officers and the Virginians were the only people who remained with him. His own men, mastered by a shameful panic, deserted him. He was placed, according to tradition, in the folds of a large silk sash; the ends were affixed to the saddles of two horses moving abreast ; and in this military fashion the dying officer took his way back toward Virginia, which he was never to reach. The army had vanished, and only the little cavalcade of English officers and Provincials remained with poor Braddock. In these last hours he saw all his errors, and told the Virginians, who were " unremitting in their attentions to him," that he had done them injustice : they were true soldiers, who had acquitted themselves like men. To Washington, who seems to have commanded the little escort, he apologized feelingly for all his ill-humor ; and, as an evidence of his regard, presented him with a favorite riding horse, and his own servant, Bishop. As he went on through the " Shades of Death " he kept groaning and muttering, —

' Who would have thought it ! Who would have thought it ! But we shall know better how to deal with them another time ! "

He was not to have any more dealings with them.

As he drew near Great Meadows, the scene of Wash

ington's capitulatioQ in the year before, his strengtli failed him. He could go no further, and the end 8oon came. Four days after the battle to which he had advanced with the joy of a soldier, Braddock expired (July 13, 1755), and was buried in the wilderness. His grave was dug near old Fort Necessity, and Washington read the burial service, for there was no chaplain. Then the spot was carefully concealed to prevent its discovery by the Indians ; and without even firing a salute over the soldier's grave, the English officers and the Virginians continued their way toward Cumberland

The remnant of the fine army had preceded them — a crowd of disordered fugitives. The campaign which was to capture Duquesne and Niagara and Frontenao before the autumn, had ended in a single month with Braddock cold in hb grave, and the flower of his troops butchered. What was left of his fine army marching proudly to the tap of the drum, was a remnant of shuddering fugitives, crouching down behind the defenses at Fort Cumberland, and listening for the tramp of the French and the yells of the savages.

The bloody ending of Braddock's enterprise exposed the whole western frontier of Virginia to the enemy. She had to look to herself now, for the King's troops and commanders had been tried and found wanting. Washington, the one man who was able to protect the border, had been set aside as a " Provincial," and had returned to Mount Vernon ; but now in the time of pub-

lie distress be was again called upon. In the autumn of 1755, when the shadow of the Duquesne disaster darkened the whole frontier, he was sent to Winchester by the Virginia authorities to defend the valley.

The times demanded the faculties of the organizer and the nerve of the soldier. The region toward the Ohio swarmed with Indians who were inflamed by the disaster to the English arms and were committing merciless outrages on the inhabitants. Of these outrages we find terrible accounts in the border chronicles, of which one or two examples are here given : < An Indian seized Mrs. Scott and ordered her not to move; others stabbed and cut the throats of the three smaller children in their beds, and afterwards lifting them up, dashed them upon the floor near their mother. The eldest, a beautiful girl of eight years old, awoke, escaped out of bed, ran to her parent and cried, 0 mamma, mamma ! Save me I '' The mother with a flood of tears entreated the savages to spare the child, but they tomahawked and stabbed her in her mother's arms." Such events were of frequent occurrence, and even greater enormities were committed. In the Shenandoah Valley a settlers house was attacked by savages, burned to the ground, and four children, torn from their mother, hung to trees and shot to death. ' One boy of 1 twelve or thirteen was taken away prisoner with his father and brother, and his fate is given in the words i' of the border historian : " They first ordered him to col- / lect a quantity of dry wood. The poor little fellow shuddered, burst into tears, and told his father they intended to burn him. His father replied, ' I hope not,' and advised him to obey. When he had collected a sufficient quantity of wood, they cleared and smoothed

a ring around a sapling, to which they tied him by one hand, then formed a trail of wood around the tree, and set it on fire. The poor boy was then compelled to run round in this ring of fire until his rope wound bim up to the sapling, and then hack till he came in contact with theflamcj whilst his infernal tormentors were drinking, singing, and dancing around him. This was continued for several hours, until the poor and helpless boy fell and expired with the most excruciating torments."