-c tjispCAL (IaS^C RttDlNCS BRADDOCK'S MtVEAT. With introduction. k^r* ::^^^£:^^£^£:i£ C> CN o i^u-»K^ir»ir> £^f:::i£:ii^S-£ii^j£^-£^-^ l/-»ir»i/^I^ NEW YORK: ^^^ FFINGHAM MATNAED & Co., PuBLISHEES, 771 Broadway Airb 67 & 69 Ninth Strebt. mtt maki .^^^^^ tiamiM KELLOGG'S EDITIONS. SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. Bacb plaB In ©ne IDolume. Text Oarefiilly Ezpiirgated for Use in Mixed Classes. With Portrait, JVotes, Introduction to STidkespeare's Qrammar, Examination Papers^ and Plan of Study. (SKLXOTKO.) By BRAINERD KELLOGG, A.M., Professor of the English Langnage and Literature in the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and author of a " Teat-Book on Rhetoric,'^ a " Text-Book on English Literature,''^ and one of the authors of Beed di '^ Kellogg'' 9 *' Lessons in English.*^ The notes have be^n especially i)repared and selected, to meet the requirements of School and College Students, from editions by emi- nent English scholars. "We are confident that teachers who examine these editions will pro- neunce them better adapted to the wants of the class-room than any others published. These are tlie only American Editions of these Plays that have been carefully expurgated for use in mixed classes. Printed from large type, attractively bound In cloth, and sold at nearly one half the price of other School Editions of Shakespeare. The following Plays, each in one volume, are now ready: MERCHANT OF VENICE. JULIUS CiESAR. MACBETH. TEMPEST. HAMLET. KING HENRY V. KING LEAR. KING HENRY IV., Part I. KING HENRY VIII. AS YOU LIKE IT. KING RICHARD III. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S PREAM. A. WINTER'S TALE, Mailing price, 30 eenU per copy. Special JPriee to Teachers. Full Descriptive Catalogue sent on application. HISTOBICAL CLASSIC READINGS-No. 7. BRADDOOK'S DEFEAT. 1755. The French and English in America. By FRANCIS PARKMAN. GENERAL BRADDOCK. NEW YORK : Effingham Maynaed & Co., Publishers, 771 Broapway AxND 67 & 69 Ninth Stkeet. \ Parkmans H^orks. Libiwy Ed if ion. The Works of Francis Parkman, as follows : France and England in North America. A Series of His TORiCAL Narratives. 7 vols. Comprising : Pioneers of France in the New World. 1 vol. The Jesuits in North America. 1 vol. La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. 1 vol. The Old llogime in Canada under Louis XIV. 1 vol. Count Froutcnac and New France under Louis XIV. 1 vol. Montcalm and Wolfe. 2 vols. The Conspiracy of Pontiac, and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada. 2 vols. The Oregon Tkail : Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Moun- tain Life. 1 vol. In all, 10 vols. 8vo. With Portraits and Maps. Cloth, $25.00. Parkman s IVorks. Popular Edition. The above, in 10 vols. 12mo, cloth, in a very attractive style, with maps, portraits, etc. $15.00. This new edition of Francis Parkman's fascinating Histories, printed from the same large type as the octavo edition, has proved very success- ful, several large editions having been sold. With the exception of " Montcalm and Wolfe," Mr. Parkman's new work, the Popular Edition can be supplied only in sets, volumes of the octavo edition alone being furnished separately. Little, Bro^^, - f^ Ft. K . V^ ^ 1^ ^' V Sclienecta^ , Cherry Tal.p' fQf JbenningtcJn Portsmouth aXewTburyport Sale I :^i^. V '"< "^^^ -^ r7 \ (WJl-MINGTO "'i><^> ^. r'^o,,^ /\ -^. BAUTll ALEXANDRIA' \ ^-tPc. May / G Da, I i'adit \ ■^vu^^»'' Lt»^ &.iTvt]i),\\;n. 'fesN NORT 3Cu '.^- vpens o \ CataN C A t , SCOIAJMBIA ' VILMINQTON >C. fear I IV JEutaw Springd ^ charlest) <$- n-i'^ Vi\.:MmLltii» y V-! kNNAH 4 \ > V/)' 4 , // Cape! Breton cph Epw^ici) I. y ^^ lo'uisb/rq t \>y IKTPwODUCTlOK, It is the nature of great events to obscure the great events that came before them. The Seven Years War' in Europe is seen but dimly through revohitionary convulsions and Napoleonic tempests ; and the same contest in America is half lost to sight behind the storm-cloud of the War of Independence. Few at this day see the momentous issues involved in it, or the great- ness of the danger that it averted. The strife that armed all the civilized world began here. ** Such was the complication of political interests/^ says Voltaire, ^^ that a cannon-shot fired in America could give the signal that set Europe in a blaze." Not quite. It was not a cannon-shot, but a volley from the hunting- pieces of a few backwoodsmen, commanded by a Virginian youth, George Washington.'^ To us of this day, the result of the American part of the war seems a foregone conclusion. It was far from being so ; and very far from being so regarded by our forefathers. The numerical superiority^ of the British colonies was offset by organic w^eak- nesses fatal to vigorous and united action. Nor at the outset did they, or the mother-country, aim at conquei'ing Canada, but l.^The Seven Years' War. — " The ing this struggle France lost Canada treaty of Aix-la Chapelle gave a brief rest to Europe, which was broken by the Seven Years' War in 1756, brought on by a coalition of France and several of the other European states, against Frederick the Great of Prussia. Great Britain and France quarreled about their colonial pos- sessions in North America, and dur- and some of her West Indian posses- sions." — Anderson's New General History. 2. See page 27. 3. At this time there were sixty thousand French settlers proposing to imprison on the sea-coast more than a million Englishmen. 8 INTRODUCTION. only at pushing back lier boundaries. Canada — using the name in its restricted sense — was a position of great strength ; and even when her dependencies were overcome, she could hold her own against forces far superior. Armies could reach her only by three routes, — the Lower St. Lawrence on the east, the Upper St. Lawrence on the west, and Lake Champlain on the south. The first access was guarded by a fortress almost impregnable by nature, and the second by a long chain of dangerous rapids ;' while the third offered a series of points easy to defend. The French claimed all America, from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and from Mexico and Florida to the North Pole, except only the ill-defined possessions of the English on the borders of Hudson Bay; and to these vast regions, with adjacent islands, they gave the general name of New France. They controlled the highways of the continent, for they held its two great rivers. First, they had seized the St. Lawrence, and then planted themselves at the mouth of the Mississippi. Canada at the north, and Louisiana at the south, were the keys of a bound- less interior, rich with incalculable possibilities. The English colonies, ranged along the Atlantic coast, had no royal road to the great inland, and were, in a manner, shut between the mount- ains and the sea. The possession of Canada was a question of diplomacy as well as of war. If England conquered her, she might restore her, as she had lately restored Cape Breton.^ She had an interest in keeping France alive on the American conti- nent. More than one clear eye saw, at the middle of the last century, that the subjection of Canada would lead to a revolt of 4. Quebec. Rapids of Lachine and others. Crown Point and Ti- conderoga. 5. Cape Breton.— In 1713,England, in tlie reign of Queen Anne, waged war against Louis XIV. By the treaty of Utrecht England possessed herself of Acadia. Cape Breton, an island adjoining Acadia, was suf- fered to remain a French possession; and here France hastened, at vast expense, to build and fortify Louis- burg for the pr ction of her Amer- ican trade. ''It^ was called "The Gibraltar of America." In 1758 it was permanently occupied by the British. TMTATP SHOWING THE LOCATION - or SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE FRENCH 8t INDIAN WAR Xorfc 20 40 60 SO 100 10 INTRODUCTION. the British colonies. So long as an active and enterprising enemy threatened their borders, they could not break with the mother-country, because they needed her help. And if the arms of France had prospered in the other hemisphere ; if she had gained in Europe or Asia territories with which to buy back what she had lost in America, — then, in all likelihood, Canada would have passed again into her hands. The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this continent was : Shall France remain here, or shall she not ? If, by diplomacy or war, she had preserved but the half, or less than the half, of her American possessions, then a barrier would have been set to the spread of the English- speaking races ; there would have been no Revolutionary War ; and for a long time, at least, no independence. It was not a question of scanty populations strung along the banks of the St. Lawrence ; it was — or under a government of any worth it would have been — a question of the armies and generals of France. The Seven Years' War made England what she is. It crippled the commerce of her rival, ruined France in two continents, and blighted her as a colonial power. It gave England the con- trol of the seas and the mastery of North America and India, made her the first of commercial nations, and prepared that vast colonial system that has planted new Englands in every qiiarter of the globe. And while it made England what she is, it supplied to the United States the indispensable condition of their greatness, if not of their national existence. The following account of Braddock's Defeat has been selected from Montcalm and Wolfe (short connecting passages being taken from The Conspiracy of Pontine), with the full permission of its distinguished author. The size of this book compels the occasional omission of what may be considered not strictly essential to the narrative. In giving this choice extract from Mr. Parkman's writings, it is ex- pected to create in the mind of the young reader no more than an appetite for the author's complete works, which are so conspicuous among the writ- ings of our foremost historians, and whicli should have a place in every school library. 'Braddock's Defeat, CHAPTER I. The America:?^ Combatai^ts. 1700—1755. French America had two heads, — one among the snows of Canada, and one among the canebrakes of Louisiana ; one communicating with the world through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other through the Gulf of Mexico. These vital points were feebly connected by a chain of military posts, — slender, and often interrupted, — circling through the wilderness nearly three thousand miles. Midway between Canada and Louisiana lay the valley of the Ohio. If the English should seize it, they would sever the chain of posts, and cut French America asunder. If the French held it, and entrenched themselves well along its eastern limits, they would shut their rivals between the Allegha- nies and the sea, control all the tribes of the West, and turn them, in case of war, against the English borders, — a frightful and insupportable scourge. Canada lay ensconced behind rocks and forests. All along her southern boundaries, between her and her English foes, lay a broad tract of wilderness, shaggy with primeval woods. Innumerable streams gurgled beneath their shadows ; innumer- able lakes gleamed in the fiery sunsets ; innumerable mountains bared their rocky foreheads to the wind. These wastes were ranged by her savage allies ; and no enemy could steal upon her unawares. Through the midst of them stretched Lake Cham- I plain, pointing straight to the heart of the British settlements,— 12 BRADD OCR'S DEFEAT. a Avatery thoroughfare of mutual attack, and the only approach by which, without a long detour by wilderness or sea, a hostile army could come within striking distance of the colony. The French advanced post of Fort Frederic, called Crown Point' by the Eng- lish, barred the narrows of the lake, which thence spread north- ward to the portals of Canada guarded by Fort St. Jean (mn- jttfi).'' Southwestward, some fourteen hundred miles as a bird flies, and twice as far by the practicable routes of travel, was Louisiana, the second of the two heads of New France ; while be- tween lay the realms of solitude where the Mississippi rolled its sullen' tide, and the Ohio wound its belt of silver through the verdant woodlands. To whom belonged this world of prairies and forests ? France claimed it by right of discovery and occupation. It was her explorers who, after De Soto,' first set foot on it. The question of right, it is true, mattered little ; for, right or wrong, neither claimant would yield her pretensions so long as she had strength to uphold them ; yet one point is worth a moment's notice. The French had established an excellent system in the distribu- tion of their American lands. Whoever received a grant from the Crown was required to improve it, and this within reasonable time. If he did not, the land ceased to be his, and was given to 1. Crown Point. — A strong fortress on the western shore of Lake Cham- phiin. The scene of many battles between the French and English, and hiter between the English and American forces. See map. 2. Fort St. Jean. — A fortress at the northern extremity of Lake Cham- plain. See map. 3. Sullen Tide —The water of the Mississippi, below the mouth of the Mis.souri, is very muddy. 4. De Soto, tiie Spanish explorer, had served under Pizarjo in Peru. In 1539 he led an expedition through the forests from Florida and discov- ered the Mississippi River. For nearly a century and a half after this time no permanent settle- ment was made there. In 1680, La Salle, a French explorer, "traversed the 3Iississippi from the Illinois River to the Gulf, lie claimed the enormous region from the Allegha- ny ^Mountains to the Pacific, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexi- co, as the possession of the French king." BBADDOCK^S DEFEAT. 13 another more able or industrious. An international extension of lier own principle would have destroyed the pretensions of France to all the countries of the West. She had called them hers for three fourths of a century, and they were still a howling waste, yielding nothing to civilization but beaver-skins, with here and there a fort, trading-post, or mission, and three or four puny hamlets by the Mississip})i and the Detroit. We have seen how she might have made for herself an indisputable title, and peopled the solitudes with a host to maintain it. She would not ; others were at hand who both would and could ; and the late claimant, disinherited and forlorn, would soon be left to count the cost of her bigotry. ' The thirteen British colonies were alike, insomuch as they all had representative governments, and a basis of English law. But the differences among them were great. Some were purely English ; others were made up of various races, though the Anglo Saxon was always predominant. Some had one prevailing religious creed ; others had many creeds. Some had charters, and some had not. In most cases the governor was appointed by the Crown ; in Pennsylvania and Maryland he was appointed by a feudal proprietor," and in Connecticut and Rhode Island he wa^ chosen by the people. The differences of disposition and character were still greater than those of form. The four northern* colonies, known collectively as New Eng- land, were an exception to the general rule of diversity. The smallest, Rhode Island, had features all its own ; but the rest were substantially one in nature and origin. The principal among them, Massachusetts, may serve as the type of all. It 5. Toward the close of her do- minion in Canada, France expended about one million sterling on her unprofitable colony, mainly in build- ing forts along the enormous line from Quebec to Kew Orleans, in order to shut in the English colo- nists. 6. Feudal Proprietor — One hold- ing the title to large territories of land in his own right. 14 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. was a mosaic of little village republics, firmly cemented together, and formed into a single body politic through representatives sent to the *^ General Court " * at Boston. Yet there were no distinct class-lines, and popular power, like popular education, was widely diffused. Practically Massachusetts was almost indepen'^ent of the mother-country. Its people were purely Eng- lish, of sound yeoman stock, with an abundant leaven drawn from the best of the Puritan gentry; but their original character had been somewhat modified by changed conditions of life. A harsh and exacting creed, with its stiff formalism and its prohibi- tion of wholesome recreation ; excess in the pursuit of gain ; — the struggle for existence on a hard and barren soil ; and the isolation of a narrow village life, — joined to produce, in the meaner sort, qualities which were unpleasant, and sometimes repulsive. Puritanism was not an unmixed blessing. Its view of human nature was dark, and its attitude towards it one of repression. It strove to crush out not only what is evil, but much that is innocent and salutary. The New England colonies abounded in high examples of public and private virtue, though not always under the most prepossessing forms. They were conspicuous, moreover, for intellectual activity, and were by no means without intellectual eminence. Massachu- setts had produced at least two men whose fame had crossed tlie sea, — Edwards,^ who out of the grim theology of Calvin mounted to sublime heights of mystical speculation ; and Franklin,*' famous already by his discoveries in electricity. On the other hand. 7. Jonathan Edwards, the most eminent divine of bis time, achieved a European reputation, and his powerful reasoning ^^as renowned wherever the doctrines of Calvin were revered. 8. Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790. —The most eminent man of his time. Philosopher, scientist, states- man, pliilanthropist. " Of the four greatest men that this country has produced he stands first in the order of time — Franklin, Washington, Webster, Lincoln." * General Court — The legislature : so called from having had, in colo- nial days, judicial power. "The General Court of Massachusetts " is a name yet given to the legislature. BR ADD OCR'S Dl^PEAT. 15 there were few genuine New Englanders who, however personally modest, could divest themselves of the notion that they belonged to a people in an especial manner the object of divine approval ; and this self-righteousness, along with certain other traits, failed to commend the Puritan colonies to the favor of their fellows. Then, as now. New England was best known to her neighbors by her worst side. In one point, however, she found general applause. She was regarded as the most military among the British colonies. This reputation was well founded, and is easily explained. More than all the rest, she lay open to attack. The long waving line of the New England border, with its lonely hamlets and scattered farms, extended from the Kennebec to beyond the Connecticut, and was everywhere vulnerable to the guns and tomahawks of the neighboring French and their savage allies. The colonies towards the south had thus far been safe from danger. New York alone was within striking distance of the Canadian war- parties. That province then consisted of a line of settlements up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and was little exposed to attack except at its northern iend, which was guarded by the fortified town of Albany, with its outlying posts, and by the friendly and warlike Mohawks, whose "castles'^'' were close at hand. Thus New England had borne the heaviest brunt of the preced- ing wars, not only by the forest, but also by the sea; for the French of Acadia and Cape Breton confronted her coast, and she was often at blows with them. Fighting had been a necessity with her, and she had met the emergency after a method extremely defective, but the best that circumstances would permit. Having no trained officers and no disciplined soldiers, and being too poor to maintain either, she borrowed her warriors from the workshop and the plow, and officered them with lawyers, merchants, mechanics, or farmers. To Compare them with good regular troops would be folly ; but they did, on the whole, better than 9. Castles.— Indian towns, and possibly referring to some of the Indian fortifications discovered in this vicinity. 16 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. could have been expected, and in the last war achieved the brill- iant success of the capture of Louisburg/" This exploit, due partly to native hardihood and partly to good luck, greatly enhanced the military repute of New England, or rather was one of the chief sources of it. The great colony of Virginia stood in strong contrast to New England. In both the population was English ; but the one was Puritan with Roundhead' ' traditions, and the other, so far as concerned its governing class, Anglican with Cavalier*'' tradi- tions. In the one, every man, woman, and child could read and write ; in the other. Sir AVilliam Berkeley'^ once thanked God that there were no free schools, and no prospect of any for a century. The hope had found fruition. The lower classes of Virginia were as untaught as the warmest friend of popular ig- norance could wish. New England had a native literature more than respectable under the circumstances, while Virginia had none ; numerous industi ies, while Virginia was all agriculture, with but a single crop'*; a homogeneous society and a democratic 10. Louisburg. — In 1744 France and England went to war again, and the colonists were drawn into it. Gov. Shirley of Mass. formed an extensive plan for the capture of the great stronghold of Louisburg, in Cape Breton, by NewEngland, aided by the English fleet, and this was accomplished. At. the close of the war (1748), Louisburg was returned to the French, and it remained in her possession for ten years more and then passed finally away from her, along with all the rest of her American territory. 11. Roundhead. — A derisive name given to the Puritans because of their custom of wearing their hair cropped short. 13. Cavalier or royalist. — This class included the greater part of the nobility, clergy, and landed gentry. 13. Sir Wm. Berkeley was first ap- pointed governor of Va. in 1641. He was a strong supporter of Charles I. in the civil war, and maintained the royal authority in Va. until the death of the king. In 1659 he, a second time, became governor of Va. lie died in England in 1677. 14. Tobacco — There has never been a community, probably, in which any one great staple has played such a part as in Virginia. Tobacco founded the colony and gave it wealth. It was the currency of Virginia. The clergy were paid and taxes were levied by the bur- gesses in tobacco. BRADDOCK'H DEFEAT. 17 spirit, while her rival was an aristocracy. Virginian society was distinctly stratified. On the lowest level were the negro slaves, nearly as numerous as ail the rest together ; next, the indented servants and the poor whites, of low origin, good-humored, but boisterous, and sometimes vicious ; next, the small and despised class of tradesmen and mechanics ; next, the farmers and lesser planters, who were mainly of good English stock, and who merged insensibly into the ruling class of the great landowners. It was these last who represented the colony and made the laws. They may be described as English country squires transplanted to a warm climate and turned slave-masters. They sustained their position by entails'', and constantly undermined it by the reckless profusion which ruined them at last. Many of them were well born, with an immense pride of descent, increased by the habit of domination. Indolent and energetic by turns; rich in natural gifts, and often poor in book-learning, though some, in the lack of good teaching at home, had been bred in the English universities ; high-spirited, generous to a fault ; keeping open house in their capacious mansions, among vast tobacco-fields and toiling negroes, and living in a rude pomp where the fash- ions of St. James'^ were somewhat oddly grafted on the rough- ness of the plantation, — what they wanted in schooling was sup- plied by an education which books alone would have been impo- tent to give, the education which came with the possession and exercise of political power, and the sense of a position to main- tain, joined to a bold spirit of independence and a patriotic attachment to the Old Dominion. They were few in number ; they raced, gambled, drank, and swore ; they did everything that in Puritan eyes was most reprehensible ; and in the day of 15. Entails. — To settle the descent of an estate so that it cannot be be- queathed at pleasure. This system formed the surest foundation of a strong and permanent aristocracy. It fell duriuff the Revolutiou be- neath the attacks headed by Jeffer- son. 16. St. James. — The Court of St. James, the royal residence. In this connection the term signifies "the fashions of the English nobility." 18 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. need they gave the United Colonies a body of statesmen and ora- tors which had no equal on the continent. '^ The essential antagonism of Virginia and New England was afterwards to become, and to remain for a century, an element of the first influence in American history. Each might have learned much from the other ; but neither did so till, at last, the strife of their contending principles shook the continent. Pennsyl- vania differed widely from both. She was a conglomerate of creeds and races, — English, Irish, Germans, Dutch and Swedes ; Quakers, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Eomanists, Moravians, and a variety of nondescript sects. The Quakers prevailed in the eastern districts ; quiet, industrious, virtuous, and serenely ob- stinate. Virginia and New England had each a strong distinct- ive character. Pennsylvania, with her heterogeneous popula- tion, had none but that which she owed to the sober neutral tints of Quaker existence. A more tln-iving colony there was not on the continent. Life, if monotonous, was smooth and con- tented. Trade and the arts grew. Philadelphia, next to Bos- ton, was the largest town in British America ; and was, more- over, the intellectual center of the middle and southern colonies. New York had not as yet reached the relative promi- nence which her geographical position and inherent strength afterwards gave her. The English, joined to the Dutch, the original settlers, were the dominant population ; but a half-score of other languages were spoken in the province, the chief among them being that of the Huguenot French in the southern parts, and that of Germans on the Mohawk. In religion, the province was divided between the Anglican Church, with government sup- port and popular dislike, and numerous dissenting sects, chiefly Lutlierans, Independents, Presbyterians, and members of the Dutch Iteformed Church. The little city of New York, like its great successor, was the most cosmopolitan place on the conti- nent, and probably the gayest. It had, in abundance, balls, con- certs, theatricals, and evening clubs, with plentiful dances and 17. In one generation Virginia produced George Washington, John Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and James Madison. BRADD OCR'S DEFEAT. 19 other amusements for the poorer classes. Thither in the winter months came the great hereditary proprietors'' on the Hudson. Pennsylvania was feudal in form, and not in spirit ; Virginia in spirit, and not in form ; New Engand in neither ; and New York largely in both. This social crystallization had, it is true, many opponents. In politics, as in religion, there were sliarp antagonisms and frequent quarrels. They centered in the city ; for in the well-stocked dwellings of the Dutch farmers along the Hudson there reigned a tranquil and prosperous routine ; and the Dutch border town of Albany had not its like in Amer- ica for unruffled conversatism and quaint picturesqueness. Of the other colonies, the briefest mention will suffice : New Jersey, with its Avholesome population of farmers ; tobacco-grow- ing Maryland, which, but for its proprietary government and numerous Roman Catholics, might pass for another Virginia, inferior in growth, and less decisive in features; Delaware, a modest appendage of Pennsylvania; wild and rude North Caro- lina ; and, farther on. South Carolina and Georgia, too remote from the seat of war to take a noteworthy part in it. The atti- tude of these various colonies towards each other is hardly conceivable to an American of the present time. They had no political tie except a common allegiance to the British Crown. Communication between them was difficult and slow, by rough roads traced often through primeval forests/' Between some of them there was less of sympathy than of jealousy kindled by conflicting interests or perpetual disputes concerning boundaries. The patriotism of the colonist was bounded by the lines of his government, except in the compact and kindred colonies of New England, which were socially united, though politically distinct. The country of the New Yorker was New York, and the country of the Virginian was Virginia. The New England colonies had once confederated ; but, kindred as they were, they had loug ago dropped apart. At rare intervals, under the pressure of an 18. Hereditary Proprietors.— The descendauts of the proprietors to whom had been ceded portions of the territory along the Hudson River. 19. Primeval Forests —-S/mwm^r.? 20 BRADDOOK'S DEFEAT. emergency, some of them would try to act in concert ; and, except in New England, the results had been most discouraging. Nor was it this segregation' ° only that unfitted them for war. They were all subject to popular legislatures, through whom alone money and men could be raised ; and these elective bodies were sometimes factious and selfish, and not always either far-sighted or reasonable. Moreover, they were in a state of ceaseless fric- tion with their governors, who represented the king, or, what was worse, the feudal proprietary. These disputes, though varying in intensity, were found everywhere except in the two small colonies which chose their own governors ; and they were premonitions of the movement towards independence which ended in the war of Revolution. The occasion of difference mattered little. Ac- tive or latent, the quarrel was always present. In New York it turned on a question of the governor's salary ; in Pennsylvania on the taxation of the proprietary estates ; in Virginia on a fee exacted for the issue of land patents. It was sure to arise whenever some public crisis gave the representatives of the people an opportunity of extorting concessions from the representative of the Crown, or gave the representative of the Crown an opportunity to gain a point for prerogative. That is to say, the time when action was most needed was the time chosen for obstructing it. In Canada there was no popular legislature to embarrass the central power. The people, like an army, obeyed the word of command, — a military advantage beyond all price. Divided in government ; divided in origin, feelings, and principles ; jealous of each other, jealous of the Crown ; tlie people at war with the executive, and, by the fermentation of internal politics, blinded to an outward danger that seemed remote and vague, — such were the conditions under which the British colonies drifted into a war that was to decide the fate of the continent. 20. Segregation. — Separation from others. BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 21 CHAPTER II. Collision of the Rival CoLOi^iES. The people of the northern English colonies had learned to regard their Canadian neighbors with the bitterest enmity. To the sons of the Puritans, their enemy was doubly odious. They hated him as a Frenchman, and they hated him as a Papist. Hitherto he had waged his murderous warfare from a distance, wasting their settlements with rapid onsets, fierce and transient as a summer storm ; but now, with enterprising audacity, he was intrenching himself on their very borders. The English hunter, in the lonely wilderness of Vermont, as by the warm glow of sun- set he piled the spruce boughs for his woodland bed, started as a deep, low sound struck faintly on his ear, the evening gun of Fort Frederic, booming over lake and forests. The erection of this fort, better known among the English as Crown Point, was a piece of daring encroachment which justly kindled resentment in the northern colonies. But it was not here that the immediate occasion of a final rupture was to arise. By an article of the treaty of Utrecht' confirmed by that of Aix la Chapelle'^ {aJces-laU-slia-jjeV) , Acadia had been ceded to Eng- land; but scarcely was the latter treaty signed, when debates sprang up touching the limits of the ceded province. Commissioners were named on either side to adjust the disjDuted boundary ; but the claims of the rival powers proved utterly irreconcilable, and 1. Treaty of Utrecht. (April 11, 1713.) — By this treaty France ceded to England important possessions in the New World, consisting chietiy of Acadia, now Nova Scotia. 2. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. — A treaty of peace between England and Frnnce (Oct. 7, 1748). By the articles of this treaty Cape Breton was given up to the French in a compromise for restoring the French conquests in the Low Coun- tries to the Queen of Hungary. 22 BRADUOCK'ti DEFEAT. all negotiation was fruitless. Meantime, the French and Eng- lish forces in Acadia began to assume a belligerent attitude, and indulge their ill blood in mutual aggression and reprisal. ' But while this game was played on the coasts on the Atlantic, interests of far greater moment were at stake in the west. The people of the middle' colonies, placed by their local position beyond reach of the French, had heard with great composure of the sufferings of their New England brethren, and felt little concern at a danger so doubtful and remote. There were those among them, however, who with greater foresight had been quick to perceive the ambitious projects of the rival nation ; and, as early as 1716, Spotswood,^ governor of Virginia, had urged the expediency of securing the valley of the Ohio by a series of forts and settlements. His proposal was coldly received, and his plan 'fell to the ground. The time at length was come when the danger was approaching too near to be slighted longer. In 1748, an association, called the Ohio Company, was formed with the view of making settlements in the region beyond the Allegha- nies ; and two years later, Gist, the company's surveyor, to the great disgust of the Indians, carried chain and compass down the Ohio as far as the falls at Louisville. But so dilatory were the English, that before any effectual steps were taken, their agile enemies appeared upon the scene. In the spring of 1753, the middle provinces were startled at the tidings that French troops had crossed Lake Erie, fortified themselves at the point of Presqu'-Isle," (presk-eel) and pushed forward to the northern branches of the Ohio. Upon this. Governor Dinwiddle,^ of Virginia, resolved to dispatch a mes- sage requiring their removal from territories which he claimed 3. Reprisal. — That which is re- prised or retaken ; especially that which is taken from an enemy by way of retaliation or indem- nity. 4. Middle Colonies. — Pennsylva- nia, Maryland, Virginia. 5. Alexander Spottswood. — Gov- ernor, 1710-1722. 6. Presqu' Isle. — A strong fort was built here on Lake Erie, where the city of Erie, Pa., now stands. 7. Robert Dinwiddle. — Governor, 1753-1758. BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 23 as belonging to the British crown ; and looking about him for the person best qualified to act as messenger, he made choice of George Washington, a young man twenty-one years of age, adjutant general of the Virginian militia. Washington set out for the trading station of the Ohio Com- pany on WilFs Creek ; and thence, at the middle of November, struck into the wilderness with Christopher Gist as a guide, Vanbraam, a Dutchman, as French interpreter, Davison, a trader, as Indian interpreter, and four woodsmen as servants. They went to the forks of the Ohio, and then down the river to Logstown.^ There Washington had various parleys with the Indians ; and thence, after vexatious delays, he continued his journey towards Fort Le Boeuf,^ {le berf) accompanied by the friendly chief called the Half-King and by three of his tribesmen. For several days they followed the traders' path, pelted with unceasing rain and snow, and came at last to the old Indian town of Venango, where French Creek enters the Alleghany. Here there was an English trading-house; but the French had seized it, raised their flag over it, and. turned it into a military outpost. Joncaire'" {zhon-caire) was in command, with two subalterns ; and nothing could exceed their civility. They invited the strangers to supper ; and, says Washington, ^nhe wine, as they dosed themselves pretty plentifully with it, soon banished the restraint which at first appeared in their con- versation, and gave a license to their tongues to reveal their sen- timents more freely. They told me that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and they would do it ; for that although they were sensible the English could raise two men for their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking of theirs.^' '' 8. log-stown. — A small settle- ment (in Ohio) on the Ohio River not far from Fort Duqnesne, 9. Fort Le Boeuf and Venang-o.— - Locate them on the map. 10. Joncaire. — The French com- mandant at Venango. Here was the advanced post of the French. 11. "They pretend to have an undoubted right to the river, from 24 BBADDOCK'S DEFEAT. With all their civility, the French officers did their best to entice away Washington^'s Indians ; and it was with extreme difficulty that he could persuade them to go with him. Through marshes and swamps, forests choked with snow, and drenched with incessant rain, they toiled on for four days more, till the wooden walls of Fort Le Boeuf ap2:)eared at last, surrounded by fields studded thick with stumps, and half-encircled by the chill current of French Creek, along the banks of which lay more than two hundred canoes, ready to carry troops in the spring. Washington describes Legardeur de Saiiit-Pierre {san-peaire) as '^an elderly gentleman with much the air of a soldier/^ The letter sent him by Dinwiddle expressed astonishment that his troops should build forts upon lands " so notoriously known to be the i3roperty of the Crown of Great Britain."^ ^'^I must de- sire you,^' continued the letter, ^^to acquaint me by whose authority and instructions you have lately marched from Canada with an armed force, and invaded the King of Great Britain's territories. It becomes my duty to require your peaceable de- parture ; and that you would forbear prosecuting a purpose so interruptive of the harmony and good understanding which His Majesty'^ is desirous to continue and cultivate with the Most Christian King.'^ I persuade myself you will i-eceive and enter- tain Major Washington with the candor and politeness natural to your nation ; and it will give me the greatest satisfaction if you return him with an answer suitable to my wishes for a very long and lasting peace between us."'' Saint- Pierre took three days to frame the answer. In it he said that he should send Dinwiddle's letter to the Marquis Du- quesne and wait his orders ; and that meanwhile he should re- main at his post, according to the commands of his general. a discovery made by one La Salle, sixty years ago ; and the rise of this expedition is to prevent our settling on the river or waters of it. " — Wash- in(jton's Journal, 12. His Majesty. — George II. 13. Most Christian King. — Louis XV. BRADDOCK^S DEFEAT. 25 '' I made it my particular care/^ so the letter closed, "to receive Mr. AVashington with a distinction suitable to your dignity as well as his own quality and great merit." No form of courtesy had, in fact, been wanting. •'^He appeared to be extremely complaisant/'' says Washington, "though he was exerting every artifice to set our Indians at variance with us. I saw that every stratagem was practiced to win the Half-King to their interest." Neither gifts nor brandy v/ere spared ; and it was only by the utmost pains that Washington could prevent his red allies from staying at the fort, conquered by French blandishments. After leaving Venango on his return, he found the horses so weak that, to arrive the sooner, he left them and their drivers in charge of Vanbraam and pushed forward on foot, accompanied by Gist alone. Each was wrapped to the throat in an Indian " matchcoat," ^* with a gun in his hand and a pack at his back. Passing an old Indian hamlet called Murdering Town, they had an adventure which threatened to make good the name. A French Indian, whom they met in the forest, fired at them, pretending that his gun had gone off by chance. They caught him, and Gist would have killed him ; but Washington interposed, and they let him go. Then, to escape pursuit from his tribesmen, they walked all night and all the next day. This brought them to the banks of the Alleghany. They hoped to have found it dead frozen ; but it was all alive and turbulent, filled with ice sweeping down the current. They made a raft, shoved out into the stream, and were soon caught hopelessly in the drifting ice. Wash- ington, pushing hard with his setting-pole, was jerked into the freezing river ; but caught a log of the raft, and dragged himself out. By no efforts could they reach the farther bank, or regain that which they had left ; but they were driven against an island, where they landed, and left the raft to its fate. The night was excessively cold, and Gist^s feet and hands were badly frost-bitten. In the morning, the ice had set, and the river was 14. Matchcoat. — A coat made of a coarse kind of woolen cloth. 2(3 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. a solid floor. They crossed it, and succeeded in reaching the house of a trader, on the Monongahehi. It was the middle of January when Washington arrived at Williamsburg and made his report to Dinwiddle. CHAPTER III. The AVar in Europe and America. With the first opening of spring (1754), a newly raised com- pany of Virginian backwoodsmen, under Captain Trent, has- tened across the mountains, and began to build a fort at the confluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany, where Pittsburg now stands ; when suddenly they found themselves invested by a host of Erench and Indians, who, with sixty bateaux^ and three hundred canoes, had descended from Le Boeuf and Ve- nango. The English were ordered to evacuate the spot ; and, being quite niuible to resist, they obeyed the summons, and withdrew in great discomfiture towards Virginia. Meanwhile Washington, with another party of backwoodsmen, was advanc- ing from the borders ; aiul, hearing of Trent's disaster, he re- solved to fortify himself on the Monongahela, and hold his ground, if possible, until fresh troops could arrive to support him. The French sent out a scouting party under M. Jumon- ville'^ (zhu-mon-vill), with the design, probably, of watching his 1. Bateaux.— A light boat, long ill proportion to its broadtli, and wider iu the middle than at the ends. 2. Jumonville. — "The death of Jumonville is one of the tritiing events in history which gain from accidental circumstances a startling dramatic eilect. It reveals AVash- ington as the leading figure in a petty aifray which was the signal for a world-wide coutlict, which, opening in a Massachusetts village, rolled on for ncarh' half a century, involving all civilized nati(ms, and closed at last upon the plains of WH\or]oo."— Lodge. BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 27 movements ; but, on a dark and stormy night, Washington sur- prised them, as they lay lurking in a rocky glen not far from his camp, killed the officer, and captured the whole detachment. Coolness of Judgment, a profound sense of public duty, and a strong self-control, were even then the characteristics of Wash- ington ; but he was scarcely twenty-two, was full of military ardor, and was vehement and fiery by nature. Yet it is far from certain that, even when age and experience had ripened him, he would have forborne to act as he did, for there was every reason for believing that the designs of the French were hostile ; and though by passively waiting the event he would have thrown upon them the responsibility of striking the first blow, he would have exposed his small party to capture or de- struction by giving them time to gain re-enforcements from Fort Duquesne {du kane). It was inevitable that the killing of Jumonville should be greeted in France by an outcry of real or assumed horror ; but the Chevalier de Levis {Ld'vi), second in command to Montcalm, probably expresses the true opinion of Frenchmen best fitted to judge when he calls it *'a pretended assassination." Judge it as we may, this obscure skirmish began the war that set the world on fire. Learning that the French, enraged by this reverse, were about to attack him in great force, he thought it prudent to fall back, and retired ac- cordingly to a spot called the Great Meadows," where he had before thrown up a slight intrenchment. Here he found him- self assailed by nine hundred French and Indians. From eleven in the morning till eight at night, the backwoodsmen, who were half famished from the failure of their stores, maintained a stubborn defense, some fighting within the intrenchment, and some on the plain without. In the evening, the French sounded a parley,' and offered terms. They were accepted, and on the 3. Great Meadows, — Wide plains not far from the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany riv- ers. The slight intrenchment was named Fort Necessity, from the famine that had prevailed during its construction. 4, Parley. — A conference be- og BR ADD OCR'S DEFEAT. following day Washington and his men retired across the moun- tains, leuving the disputed territory in the hands of the French. While the rival nations were beginning to quarrel for a prize which belonged to neither of them, the unhappy Indians saAV, with alarm and amazement, their lands becoming a bone of con- tention between rapacious strangers. The first appearance of the French on the Ohio excited the wildest fears in the tribes of that quarter, among whom were those who, disgusted by the encroachments of the Pennsylvanians, had fled to these remote retreats to escape the intrusions of the white men Scarcely was their fancied asylum gained, when they saw themselves in- vaded by a host of armed men from Canada. Thus placed be- tween tw^o fires, they knew not which way to turn. There was no union in their counsels, and they seemed like a mob of bewildered children. Their native jealousy was roused to its utmost pitch. Many of them thought that the two white na- tions had conspired to destroy them, and then divide their lands. " You and the French," said one of them, a few years afterwards, to an English emissary, '^ are like the two edges of a pair of shears, and we are the cloth which is cut to pieces be- tween them." The French labored hard to conciliate them, plying them with gifts and flatteries, and proclaiming themselves their champions against the English. At first, these acts seemed in vain, but their effect soon began to declare itself ; and this effect was greatly increased by a singular piece of infatuation on the part of the proprietors of Pennsylvania. During the summer of 1754, delegates of the several provinces met at Albany, to con- cert measures of defense in the war which now seemed inevi- table. It was at this meeting that the memorable plan of a union' of the colonies was brought forward ; a plan, the fate of w^hich was curious and significant, for the crown rejected it as tween enemies ; a hasty and in- formal treating between parties pre- pared for fight. 5. This plan of union was drawn up by Franklin. BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 29 giving too much power to the people^ and the people as giving too much power to the crown. A council was also held with the Iroquois ^ (ero-quah), and though they were fouud but luke- warm in their attachment to the English, a treaty of friendship and alliance was concluded with their deputies. It would have been well if the matter had ended here ; but, with ill-timed rapacity, the proprietary^ agents of Pennsylvania took advantage of this great assemblage of sachems to procure from them the grant of extensive tracts, including the lands inhabited by the very tribes whom the French were at that moment striving to seduce. When they heard that, without their consent, their conquerors and tyrants, the Iroquois, had sold the soil from be- neath their feet, their indignation was extreme ; and, convinced that there was no limit to English encroachment, many of them from that hour became fast allies of the French. The courts of London and Versailles still maintained a diplomatic intercourse, both protesting their earnest wish that their conflicting claims might be adjusted by friendly negotia- tion ; but while each disclaimed the intention of hostility, both were hastening to prepare for war. Early in 1755, an English fleet sailed from Cork, having on board two regiments destined for Virginia, and commanded by Greneral Braddock ; and soon after, a French fleet put to sea from the port of Brest,® freighted with munitions of war and a strong body of troops under Baron Dieskau," (de-esko). The English fleet gained its destination. 6. Iroquois. — The most powerful combination of Indian nations, and so named by the French. power of the original proprietor was continued to his descendants. This form of proprietary government 7. Proprietary Government. — i caused much dissatisfaction among William Peun received from Charles II., in 1681, a tract of land named in his honor Pennsylvania. By the terms of the grant Penn was made the people. 8. Brest. — In France. Locate it. 9. Baron Dieskau. — A distin- propi'ietoi', or governor, and was guished French commander. In given power to appoint a deputy governor to act in his stead. The 1755 Dieskau was sent in command of four thousand troops from Brest, 30 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. and landed its troops in safety. The Frencli were less fortunate. Two of their ships became involved in the fogs of the banks of Newfoundland ; and when the weather cleared, they found themselves under the guns of a superior British force, sent out for the express purpose of intercepting them. " Are we at peace or war T' demanded the French commander. A broad- side from the Englishman soon solved his doubts, and after a stout resistance the French struck their colors. Thus began that memorable war which, kindling among the forests of America, scattered its fires over the kingdoms of Europe, and the sultry empire of the Great Mogul ;'" the war made glorious by the heroic death of Wolfe/' the victories of Frederic,''' and the exploits of Olive ;'^ the war which controlled the destinies of America, and was first in the chain of events which led on to her Revolution with all its vast and undeveloped consequences. On the old battle-ground of Europe, the contest bore the same familiar features of violence and horror which had marked the strife of former generations — fields plowed by the cannon ball, and walls shattered by the exploding mine, sacked towns, and blazing suburbs. But in America, war as- sumed a new and striking aspect. A wilderness was its sublime arena. Army met army under the shadows of primeval woods ; their cannon resounded over wastes unknown to civilized man. And before the hostile powers could join in battle, endless for- France. An English fleet under Boscawen was sent out to intercept them oir Newfoundland. Dieskau landed most of his troops at Louis- burg, and later commanded an ex- pedition against the British near Lake Georii:e. In the battle that followed he was mortally wound- ed. 10. Great Mogul. — The rulers of India after the 16th century were called Moguls. The most famous one, Aurungzebe, was called the Great Mosrul, 11. Wolfe, commander of Brit- ish, killed at the capture of Quebec, Sept. 13, 1759. 13. Frederick the Great, king of Prussia. 13. Clive. — Lord Clive won a series of splendid victories over the French in India, achieving the con- quest of Bengal. BRADD CK 'S DEFEA T. 31 ests must be traversed, and morasses passed, and everywhere the ax of the pioneer must hew a path for the bayonet of the sokiier. Before the declaration of war, and before the breaking off of negotiations between the courts of France and England, the English ministry formed the plan of assailing the French in America on all sides at once, and repelling them, by one bold push, from all their encroachments. A provincial army w^as to advance upon Acadia, a second was to attack Crown Point, and a third Niagara ; while the two regiments which had lately ar- rived in Virginia under General Braddock, aided by a strong body of provincials, were to dislodge the French from their newly-built fort of Du Quesne/^ To Braddock was assigned the chief command of all the British forces in America ; and a person worse fitted for the office couli scarcely have been found. His experience had been ample, and none could doubt his cour- age ; but he was profligate, arrogant, perverse, and r bigot to militar}^ rules. On his first arrival in Virginia, he called to- gether the governors of the several provinces, in order to ex- plain his instructions and adjust the details of the projected operations. 14. Du Quesne, the governor of Canada. The fort was built by the Ohio Company ; was captured by the French and Indians and com- pleted Recaptured later by the English, and named Fort Pitt. In time it grew to be a town, and is now the city of Pittsburg. 32 BUADDOCK'S DEFEAT. CHAPTER IV. Braddock. 1755. "I HAVE tlie pleasure to aeqiuiint you that General Brad- dock came to my house last Sunday night," writes Dinwiddie, at the end of February, to Governor Dobbs' of North Carolina. Braddock had landed at Hampton' from the ship ^'Centurion/' along with young Commodore Keppel, who commanded the American squadron. "I am mighty glad/' again writes Din- widdie, '^that the General is arrived, wliich I hope will give me some ease ; for these twelve months past I have been a perfect slave." He conceived golden opinions of his guest. ^^He is, I think, a very fine officer, and a sensible, considerate gentleman. He and I live in great harmony." Had he known him better, he might have praised him less. AVilliam Shirley, son of the Governor of Massachusetts, was Brad- dock's secretary ; and after an acquaintance of some months wrote to his friend Governor Morris : '* AYe have a general most judiciously chosen for being disqualified for the service lie is em- ployed in in almost every respect. He may be brave for aught 1 know, and he is honest in pecuniary matters." The astute Frankliji. who also had good opportunity of knowing him, says: ^' This general was, I think, a brave man, and might probably have made a good figure in some European war. But he had too much self-confidence ; too high an opinion of the validity of reg- 1. Arthur Dobbs, Governor of 3. Hampton, Virgiuia, BR ADD OK 'S DEFEA T. 33 ular troops; too mean a one of both Americans and In- dians. " * Whatever were his failings, he feared notliing, and his fidel- ity and honor in the discharge of public trnsts were never ques- tioned. ^^ Desperate in his fortune, brutal in his behavior, obstinate in his sentiments," writes Walpole,^ ^Mie was still intrepid and capable." He was a veteran iu years and in service, having entered the Coldstream Guards as ensign* in 1710. The transports bringing the two regiments from Ireland all fF arrived safely at Hampton, and were ordered to proceed up the Potomac to Alexandria,' where a camp was to be formed. Thither, towards the end of March, went Braddock himself, along with Keppel and Dinwiddle, in the Governor's coach ; while his aide-de-camp, Orme, his secretary, Shirley, and the servants of the party followed on horseback. Braddock had sent for the elder Shirley and other provincial governors to meet him in council ; and on the fourteenth of April they assembled in a tent of the newly formed encampment. Here was Dinwiddle, who tliought his troubles at an end, and saw in the red-coated soldiery the near fruition of his hopes. Here, too was his friend and allv, Dobbs of North Carolina; with Morris of Pennsylvania ; Sharpe of Maryland, who, having once been a soldier, had been made a sort of provisional commander-in-chief before the arrival of Braddock ; and the ambitious Delancey of New York, who had lately led the opposition against the Gov- 3. Walpole. — Horace Walpole, 1717-1797, a writer of some distinc- tion. 4. Ensign. — An officer who formerly carried tlie ensign or flag of a company or regi- ment. 5. Alexandria, Virginia, on tlie Potomac Kiver, a few miles from Mount Vernon. * " Washington soon appreciated Braddock's character. He found him stately and somewhat haughty, exact in matters of military etiquette and discipline, positive in giving an opinion, and obstinate in mamtaunng it; but of an honorable and generous, though somewhat irrUable nature. - Irving s Life of Washington, 34 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. eriior of that province, and now filled the office himself, — a position that needed all his manifold adroitness. But, next to Braddock, the most noteworthy man present was Sliirley," gov- ernor of ^lassachusetts. Now, when more than sixty years old, he thirsted for military honors, and delighted in contriving opera- tions of war. lie was one of a very few in the colonies who at this time entertained the idea of expelling the French from the continent, lie and Lawrence, governor of Nova Scotia, had concerted an attack on the French fort of Beausejour"; and, jointly with others in New England, he had planned the caj^ture of Crown Point, the key of Lake Champlain. By these two strokes and by fortifying the portage® between the Kennebec and the Chaudiere" (sho-de'-air), he thought that the northern colonies would be saved from invasion, and placed in a position to become themselves invaders. Then, by driving the en- emy from Niagara, securing that important pass, and thus cutting off thecomnumication between Canada and her interior dependen- cies, all the French posts in the West would die of inanition.*" In order to commend these schemes to the Home Government, he had painted in gloomy colors the dangers that beset the British colonies. The plans against Crown Point and Beausejour had already found the approval of the Home Government and the energetic 6. Shirley. — The most distiu- guisbod of ]\I;issachiisetts colonial governors (1741-1757); was made commander-iu-chief of all the forces in 1756, and commanded the expe- dition ac^ainst Fort Niagara. 7. Beausejour, — A French fort at the head of the Bay of Fund}', captured by British in 1755. The Acadians were dispersed among the British colonies. (Head "Evange- line.") 8. Portage. — A narrow tract of land between two bodies of naviga- ble water, over which merchandise and boats are carried. 9. Kennebec River, flowing south through (.Maine) Mass. territory into the Atlantic ; and the Chau- dicre River, flowing north through Canada into the St. Lawrence River. Tlie head waters of these two rivers were but a few miles apart. IQ. Inanition. Starvation. BRADDOCICS DEFEAT. 35 support of all the New England Colonies. Prepai-ation for them was iu full activity ; and it was Avith great difficulty that Shirley had disengaged himself from these cares to attend the council at Alexandria. He and Dinwiddle stood in the front of opposition to French designs. As they both defended the royal prerog- ative and were strong advocates of taxation by Parliament, they have found scant justice from American writers. Yet the Brit- ish colonies owed them a debt of gratitude, and the American States owe it still. Braddock laid his instructions before the Council, and Shirley found them entirely to his mind ; while the General, on his part, fully approved the schemes of the Governor. The plan of the campaign was settled. The French were to be attacked at four points at once. Tiie two British regiments lately arrived were to advance on Fort Duquesne ; two new regiments, known as Shirley's and PepperelFs, just raised in the provinces, and taken into the King's pay, were to reduce N'iagara ; a body of provin- cials, from New England, New York, and New Jersey was to seize Crown Point ; and another body of New England men to capture Beausejour and bring Acadia to complete subjection. Braddock himself was to lead the expedition against Fort Du- quesne. He asked Shirley, who, though a soldier only in the- ory, had held the ranK: of colonel since the last war, to charge himself with that against Niagara ; and Shirley eagerly assented. The movement on Crown Point was entrusted to Colonel AYilliam Johnson,'^ by reason of his influence over the Indians and his reputation for energy, capacity, and faithfulness. Lastly, the Acadian enterprise was assigned to Lieutenant-Colonel Monck- ton, a regular officer of merit. To strike this fourfold blow in time of peace was a scheme 11. William Johnson. — Boru iu Ireland, cnme to this country at the age of nineteen, (1734) settled in the valley of the Mohawk, anel car- ried on a prosperous traffic with the Indians. He attained the most powerful influence over the Indians, and was placed in command over the colonial troops at the battle of Lake George. He died in 1774, 36 BRA I)D OCK'S DEFEA T. worthy of Newcastle'' and of Cumberland '^ The pretext was that the positions to be attacked were all on British soil ; that in occupying them the French had been guilty of invasion ; and that to expel the invaders would be an act of self-defense. Yet in regard to two of these positions^ the French, if they had no other right, might at least claim one of prescription.'" Crown Point had been twenty-four years in their undisturbed posses- sion, while it was three quarters of a century since they first occu- pied Niagara ; and, though New York claimed the ground, no serious attempt had been made to dislodge them. Other matters had now engaged the Council. Braddock, in accordance with his instructions, asked the governors to urge upon their several assemblies the establishment of a general fund for the service of the campaign ; but the governors were all of opinion that the assemblies would refuse, — each being resolved to keep the control of its money in its own hands ; and all present, witli one voice, advised that the colonies should be com- pelled by Act of Parliament to contribute in due proportion to the support of the war. Braddock next asked if, in the judg- ment of the Council, it would not be well to send Colonel John- son with full powers to treat with the Five Nations,'^ who had been driven to the verge of an outbreak by the misconduct of the Dutch Indian commissioners at Albany. The measure was cordially approved, as was also another suggestion of the Gen- eral, that vessels should be built at Oswego to command Lake Ontario. The Council then dissolved. 12. Newcastle. — A prominent member of the British Government. Was made Duke of Newcastle in 1716. 13. Cumberland. — He was the son of (ieorge 11. Had a famous mili- tary career. lie defeated the Scotch Highlanders at the battle of C'ullo- den, and for his cruelty there gained the name of The Butcher, 14. Prescription. — A custom long continued till it has the force of law. 15. Five Nations. — The Mohawks, Oneidas, Unondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. These combined nations were called by the French the Iro- quois. BHADD CK \S DEFEA T. 37 Shirley hastened back to New England, burdened with the preparation for three expeditions and the command of one of them. Johnson, who had been in the camp, though not in the Council, went back to Albany, provided wath a commission as sole superintendent of Indian affairs, and charged, besides, with the enterprise against Crown Point ; while an express was dispatched to Monckton at Halifax, with orders to set at once to his work of capturing Beausejour. In regard to Braddock^s part of the campaign, there had been a serious error. If, instead of landing in Virginia and moving on Fort Duquesne by the long and circuitous route of Will's Creek the two regiments had disembarked at Philadelphia and marched westward, the way would have been shortened, and would have lain through one of the richest and most populous districts on the continent, filled with supplies of every kind. In Virginia, on the other hand, and in the adjoining province of Maryland, wagons, horses, and forage were scarce. The enemies of the Administration ascribed this blunder to the influence of the Quaker merchant, John Hanbury, whom the Duke of New- castle had consulted as a person familiar with American affairs. Hanbury, who was a prominent stockholder in the Ohio Com- pany, and who traded largely in Virginia, saw it for his interest that the troops should pass that way ; and is said to have brought the Duke to this opinion. A writer of the time thinks that if they had landed in Pennsylvania, forty thousand pounds would have been saved in money, and six weeks in time. Not only were supplies scarce, but the people showed such un- willingness to furnish them, and such apathy in aiding the ex- pedition, that even Washington was provoked to declare that " they ought to be chastised.'' Many of them thought that the alarm about French encroachment was a device of desi^ninff politicians ; and they did not awake to a full consciousness of the peril till it was forced upon them by a deluge of calamities, pro- duced by the purblind folly of their own representatives, who instead of frankly promoting the expedition, displayed a per- verse and exasperating narrowness which chafed Braddock to 38 BHADiJ O VK 'S DEFEA T. fury. He praises the New England colonies, and echoes Din- widdle's declaration that they have shown a "^^JS-ne martial spirit," and he commends Virginia as having done far better than her neighbors; but for Pennsylvania he finds no words to express his wrath. He knew nothing of the intestine ^^ war be- tween proprietaries and people, and hence could see no palliation for a conduct which threatened to ruin both the expedition and the colony. Everything depended on speed, and speed was impossible ; for stores and provisions were not ready, though notice to furnish them had been given months before. Contracts broken or dis- avowed, want of horses, want of wagons, want of forage, want of wholesome food, or sufficient food of any kind, caused such de- lay that the report of it reached England, and drew from Wal- pole the comment that Braddock was in no hurry to be scalped. In reality he was maddened with impatience and vexation. CHAPTER V. The Service of Franklij^. The March through the Forest. A powerful ally presently came to his aid in the shape of Benjamin Franklin, then postmaster-general of Pennsylvania. That sagacious personage, — the sublime of common-sense, about equal in his instincts and motives of character to the respectable 16. Intestine War. — There was much complaint in Pennsylvania because of the proprietary form of government. Part of the land had been reserved to Wm. Penn's sons and as the colony grew older the people became more and more dis- contented with the payment of rents. There were many disputes between the proprietors and the people, and during the Kevolution the State abolished the rents, pay- ing the proprietors $650,000 for them. SRADDOOK'S I) WE AT. 3d average of the New England that produced him, but gifted with a versatile power of brain rarely matched on earth, — was then divided between his strong desire to repel a danger of which he saw the imminence, and his equally strong antagonism to the selfish claims of the Penns, proprietaries of Pennsylvania. This last motive had determined his attitude towards their representa- tive, the Governor, and led him into an opposition as injurious to the militciry good name of the province as it was favorable to its political longings. In the present case there was no such conflict of in- clinations ; he could help Braddock without hurting Penn- sylvania. He and his son had visited the camp, and found the General waiting restlessly for the report of the agents whom he had sent to collect wagons. *^ I stayed with him,^^ says Frank- lin, '^several days, and dined with him daily. When I was about to depart, the returns of wagons to be obtained were brought in, by which it appeared that they amounted only to twenty-five, and not all of these were in serviceable condition." On this the General and his officers declared that the expedition was at an end, and denounced the Ministry for sending them into a country void of the means of transportation. Franklin re- marked that it was a pity they had not landed in Pennsylvania, where almost every farmer had his wagon. Braddock caught eagerly at his words, and begged that he would use his influence to enable the troops to move. Franklin went back to Pennsyl- vania, issued an address to the farmers appealing to their interest and their fears, and in a fortnight procured a hundred and fifty wagons, with a large number of horses. Braddock, grateful to his benefactor, and enraged at everybody else, pronounced him "Almost the only instance of ability and honesty I have known in these provinces." More wagons and more horses gradually arrived, and jit the eleventh hour the march began. On the tenth of May Braddock reached Will's Creek,' where 1. Will's Creek — A small stream running into the Potomac River on the banks of which was erected the Fort Cumberland, a former trading station. 40 BH ADD OCR'S DEFEAT. the whole force was now gathered, liaving marched thither by de- tachments along the banks of the Potomac. Tliis old trading- station of the Ohio Company had been transformed into a mili- tary post and named Fort Cumberland. During the past winter the independent companies which had failed Washington in his need had been at work here to prepare a base of operations for Braddock. Their axes had been of more avail than their mus- kets. A broad wound had been cut in the bosom of the forest, and the murdered oaks and chestnuts turned into rampart, barracks, and magazines. Fort Cumberland was an inclosure of logs set upright in the ground, pierced with loopholes, and armed with ten small cannon. It stood on a rising gi'ound near the point where Will's Creek joined the Potomac, and the forest girded it like a mighty hedge, or rather like a paling of gaunt brown stems upholding a canopy of green. All around spread illimitable woods, wrapping hill, valley, and mountain. The spot was an oasis in a desert of leaves, — if the name oasis can be given to anything so rude and harsh. In this rugged area, or *^ clearing, '^ all Braddock's force was now assembled, amounting, regulars, provincials, and sailors, to about twonty-two hundred men. The two regiments, Halket's and Dun- bar's, had been completed by enlistment in Virginia to seven hun- dred men each. Of Virginians there were nine companies of fifty men, who found no favor in the eyes of Braddock or his officers. To Ensign Allen of Halket's regiment was assigned the duty of ** mak- ing them as much like soldiers as possible," — that is, of drilling them like regulars. The General had little hope of them, and in- formed Sir Thomas Robinson that ^Hheir slothful and languid dis- position renders them very unfit for military service," — a point on wdiich he lived to change liis mind. Thirty sailors, whom Commo- dore Keppel had lent him, were more to his liking, and were in fact of value in many ways. He had now about six hundred baggage- horses, besides those of the artillery, all weakening daily on their diet of leaves ; for no grass was to be found. There was great show of discipline, and little real order. Braddock's executive capacity seems to have been moderate, and his dogged, imperious BR ADD OCR'S tfEFEAT. 41 temper, rasped by disappointments, was in constant irritation. *^He looks upon tlie country, I believe," writes Washington, ''^ as void of honor or honesty. AVe have frequent disputes on this head, which are maintained with warmth on both sides, especially on his, as he is incapable of arguing without it, or giving up any point he asserts, be it ever so incompatible with reason or common-sense." Braddock's secretary, the younger Shirley, writing to his friend Governor Morris, spoke thus irreverently of his chief: "As the King said of a neighboring governor of yours \_Sliavi)e\ when proposed for the command of the Amer- ican forces about a twelvemonth ago, and recommended as a very honest man, though not remarkably able, ' a little more ability and a little less honesty upon the present occasion might serve our turn better.' It is a joke to suppose that secondary officers can make amends for the defects of the first ; the main- spring must be the mover. As to the others, I don't think we have much to boast ; some are insolent and ignorant, others capable, but rather aiming at showing their own abilities than making a proper use of them. I have a very great love for my friend Orme, and think it uncommonly fortunate for our leader that he is under the influence of so honest and capable a man ; but I wish for the sake of the public he had some more experi- ence of business, particularly in America. I am greatly dis- gusted at seeing an expedition, so ill-concerted originally in Eng- land, so improperly conducted since in America." Captain Eobert Orme, of whom Shirley speaks, was aide-de- camp to Braddock, and author of a copious and excellent Journal of the expedition, now in the British Museum. His portrait, painted at full length by Sir Joshua Reynolds,'' hangs in the Na- tional Gallery at London. He stands by his horse, a gallant young figure, with a face pale, yet rather handsome, booted to the knee, his scarlet coat, ample waistcoat, and small three-cor- 2. Sir Joshua Reynolds, generally placed at the head of the English school of painting, was born in England in 1723. His portraits were of unsurpassed merit. He died in 1784. 42 BR ADD OCR'S DEFEA T. nered hat all heavy with gold lace. The General had two other aides-de-camp. Captain Koger Morris and Colonel George Wash- ington, whom he had invited, in terms that do him honor, to become one of his military family.* It has been said that Bi-addock despised not only provincials, bnt Indians. Nevertheless he took some pains to secure their aid, and complained that Indian affairs had been so ill-conducted by. the provinces that it was hard to gain their confidence. This was true ; the tribes had been alienated by gross neglect. Had they been protected from injustice and soothed by attentions and presents, the Five Nations, DelaAvares, and Shawanoes would have been retained as friends. But their complaints had been slighted, and every gift begrudged. The trader Croghan brought, however, about fifty warriors, with as many women and children, to the camp at Fort Cum- berland. They were objects of great curiosity to the soldiers, who gazed with astonishment on their faces, painted red, yellow, and black, their ears slit and hung with pendants, and their heads close shaved, except the feathered scalp-lock at the crown. * " The dill and stir of warlike preparations disturbed the quiet of Mount Vernon. Washington looked down from his rural retreat upon the ships of war and transports, as they passed up the Potomac, with the array of arms gleaming along their decks. The booming of cannon echoed among his groves. Alexandria was but a few miles distant. Occasionally he mounted his horse and rode to that place; it was like a garrisoned town, teeming with troops, and resounding with the drum and tife. A brilliant campaign was about to open under the auspices of an experienced general, and witli all the means and appurtenances of European warfare. How different from the starveling expeditions he had hitherto been doomed to conduct ! What an opportunity to efface the memory of his recent disaster ! All his thoughts of rural life were put to tiight. The military part of his character was again in the ascendant; his great desire was to join the expedition as a volunteer. " It was reported to General Braddock. The latter was apprised by Gov- ernor Dinwiddle and others, of Washington's personal merits, his knowledge of the country, and his experience in frontier service. The consequence was a letter from one of Braddock 's aides-de-camp, inviting Washington to join his ?>\di1S.."— Irving' s Life of Washington. BRAD DOCK'S DEFEAT. 43 ^^In the day," says an officer, " they are in our camp, and in the night they go into their own, where they dance and make a most horrible noise." Braddock received them several times in his tent, ordered the guard to salute them, made them speeches, caused cannon to be fired and drums and fifes to play in their honor, regaled them with rum, and gave them a bullock for a feast ; whereupon, being much pleased, they danced a war-dance, described by one spectator as ^^ droll and odd, showing how they scalp and fight ;" after which, says another, ''^they set up the most horrid song or cry tliat ever I heard." These warriors, with a few others, prom- ised the General to join him on the march ; but he apparently grew tired of them, for a famous chief, called Scarroyaddy, after- wards complained: '^^He looked upon us as dogs, and would never hear anything that we said to him." Only eight of them ^- remained with him to the end. Another ally appeared at the camp. This was a personage long known in Western fireside story as Captain Jack, the Black Hunter, or the Black Rifle. It was said of him that, having been a settler on the farthest frontier, in the Valley of the Juniata, he returned one evening to his cabin and found it burned to the ground by Indians, and the bodies of his wife and children lying among the ruins. He vowed undying vengeance, raised a band of kindred spirits, dressed and painted like Indians, and became the scourge of the red man and the champion of the white. But he and his wild crew, useful as they might have been, shocked Braddock^s sense of military fitness ; and he received them so coldly that they left him. It was the tenth of June before the army was well on its march. Three hundred axmen led the way, to cut and clear the road ; and the long train of packhorses, wagons, and cannon toiled on behind, over the stumps, roots, and stones of the nar- row track, the regulars and provincials marching in the foi'est close on either side. Squads of men were thrown out on the flanks, and scouts ranged the woods to guard against surprise ; 44 BRADD O CK 'S DEFEA T. for, vviili nil liis scorn of Indians and Canadians, Braddock did not neglect reasonable precautions. Thus, foot by foot, they advanced into the waste of lonely mountains that divided the streams flowing to the Atlantic from those flowing to the Gulf of Mexico, —a realm of forests ancient as the world. The road was but twelve feet wide, and the line of march often extended four miles. It was like a thin, long party-colored snake, red, blue, and brown, trailing slowly through the depth of leaves, creeping round inaccessible heights, crawling over ridges, moving always in dampness and shadow, by rivulets and waterfalls, crags and chasms, gorges and shaggy steeps. In glimpses only, through jagged boughs and flickering leaves, did this wild primeval world reveal itself, with its dark green mount- ains, flecked with the morning mist, and its distant summits penciled in dreamy blue. The army passed the main Alleghany, Meadow Mountain, and Great Savage Mountain, and traversed the funereal pine-forest afterwards called the Shades of Death. No attempt was made to interrupt their march, though the commandant of Fort Duquesne had sent out parties for that purpose. A few French and Indians hovered about them, now and then scalping a strag- gler or inscribing filthy insults on trees ; while others fell upon the border settlements which the advance of the troops had left defenceless. Here they were more successful, butchering about thirty persons, chiefly women and children. BR ADD OK 'S B EFEA T. 45 CHAPTER VI. Fort Duquesj^e. The Crisis Near. It was the eighteenth of June before the army reached a place called the Little Meadows, less than thirty miles from Fort Cumberland. Fever and dysentery among the men, and the weakness and worthlessness of many of the horses, joined to the extreme difficulty of the road, so retarded them that they could move scarcely more than three miles a day. Braddock consulted with Washington, who advised him to leave the heavy baggage to follow as it could, and push forward with a body of chosen troops. This counsel was given in view of a report that five hundred regulars were on the way to re-enforce Fort Duquesne. It was adopted. Colonel Dunbar was left to command the rear division, whose powers of movement were now reduced to the lowest point. The advance corps, consisting of about twelve hundred soldiers, besides officers and drivers, began its march on the nine- teenth with such artillery as was thought indispensable, thirty wagons, and a large number of packhorses. *^The prospect,'' writes Washington to his brother, ''conveyed infinite delight to my mind, though I was excessively ill at the time. But this prospect was soon clouded, and my hopes brought very low in- deed when I found that, instead of pushing on with vigor with- out regarding a little rough road, they were halting to level every mole-hill, and to erect bridges over every brook, by which means we were four days in getting twelve miles. " It was not till the seventh of July th^it they neared the mouth of Turtle Creek, a stream entering the Monongahela ' about eight miles from the French fort. The way was direct and short, but would lead 1, Monongahela. — Locate this river on the map. 46 BRADBOCK'S D E FEAT. through a difficult country and a defile so peiilous that Braddock resolved to ford the Monongahela to avoid this danger, and then ford it agahi to reach his destination. Fort Duquesne stood on the point of land . where the Alleghany and the Monongahela join to form the Ohio, and where now stands Pittsburg, with its swarming population, its restless industries, the clang of its forges, and chimneys vomiting foul smoke into the face of heaven. At that early day a white flag fluttering over a cluster of palisades and embankments be- tokened the first intrusion of civilized men upon a scene which, a few months before, breathed the repose of a virgin wilderness, voiceless but for the lapping of waves upon the pebbles, or the note of some lonely bird. But now the sleep of ages was broken, and bugle and drum told the astonished forest that its doom was pronounced and its days numbered. The fort was a compact little work, solidly built and strong, compared with others on the continent. It was a square of four bastions,^ with the water close on two sides, and the other two protected by ravelins,^ ditch, glacis," and covered way. The ramparts^ on these sides were of squared logs, filled in with earth, and ten feet or more thick. The two water sides were inclosed by a massive stockade" of upright logs, twelve feet high, mortised together and loopholed. The armament consisted of a number of small cannon mounted on the bastions. A gate and drawbridge on the east side gave access to the area within, which was surrounded by barracks for the soldiers, officers' quarters, the lodgings of the commandant, a guard- house, and a storehouse, all built partly of logs and partly of 2. Bastions ~A portion of a for- 5. Ramparts— The entire mound tress projecting from the main fort. 3. Ravelins. — A rampart, wall. A detached work with two embank- ments, 4. Glacis. — A mass of earth '; rier. A slight fortitication. which serves as a parapet to the covered way in a fortress. or wall which surrounds a fortified place. 6. Stockade.— A line of posts or stakes set in the ground as a bar- BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 47 boards. There were no casemates/ and the place was commanded by a high woody hill beyond the Monongahela. The forest had been cleared away to the distance of more than a musket shot from the ramparts, and the stumps were hacked level with the ground. Here, just outside the ditch, bark cabins had been built for such of the troops and Canadians as could not find room within ; and the rest of the open space was covered with Indian corn and other crops. The garrison consisted of a few companies of the regular troops stationed permanently in the colony, and to these were added a considerable number of Canadians. Besides the troops and Canadians, eight hundred Indian warriors, mustered from far and near, had built their wigwams and camp-sheds on the open ground, or under the edge of the neighboring woods, — very little to the advantage of the young corn. Some were baptized savages settled in Canada. The rest were unmitigated heathen. The law of the survival of the fittest had wrought on this heterogeneous crew through countless generations ; and with the primitive Indian, the fittest was the hardiest, fiercest, most adroit, and most wily. Baptized and heathen alike, they had just enjoyed a diversion greatly to their taste. A young Pennsyl- vanian named James Smith, a spirited and intelligent boy of eighteen, had been waylaid by three Indians on the western borders of the province and led captive to the fort. When the party came to the edge of the clearing, his captors, who had shot and scalped his companion, raised the scalp-yell ; whereupon a din of responsive whoops and firing of guns rose from all the Indian camps, and their inmates swarmed out like bees, while the French in the fort shot off muskets and cannon to honor the occasion. The unfortunate boy, the object of tliis obstreperous rejoicing, presently saw a multitude of savages, naked, hideously bedaubed with red, blue, black, and brown, and armed with sticks or clubs, ranging themselves in two long parallel lines, 7. Casemates. — Bomb-proof chambers, usually of masonry in -which cannon may be placed. 48 BUADD O CK'S DEFEAT. between which he was told tliat he must run, the faster the better, as tliey would beat hirn all the way. He ran with his best speed, under a shower of blows, and had nearly reached the end of the course, when he was knocked down. He tried to rise, but was blinded by a handful of sand thrown into his face ; and then they beat him till he swooned. On coming to his senses he found himself in the fort, with the surgeon opening a vein in his arm and a crowd of French and Indians looking on. In a few days he was able to walk with the help of a stick ; and, coming out from his quarters one morning, he saw a memorable scene. Three days before, an Indian had brought the report that the Englisli were approaching ; the French were in great excitement and alarm ; it was determined to meet the enemy on the march, and ambuscade them if possible at the crossing of the Monon- gahela, or some other favorable spot. Beaujeu' proposed the plan to the Indians, and offered them the war-hatchet ;® but they would not take it. ^' Do you want to die, my father, and sacrifice us besides T' That night they held a council, and in the morning again refused to go. Beaujeu did not despair. '' I am determined/^ he exclaimed, *^ to meet the English. What! will you let your father go alone ?" The greater part caught fire at his words, promised to follow him, and put on their war-paint. Beaujeu received the communion, then dressed himself like a savage, and joined the clamorous throng. Open barrels of gunpowder and bullets were set before the gate of the fort, and James Smith, painfully climb- ing the rampart with the help of his stick, looked down on the warrior rabble as, huddling together, wild with excitement, they scooped up the contents to fill their pow- der-horns and pouches. Then, band after band, they filed off along the forest track that led to the ford of the Monongahela. 8. Beaujeu.— One of the French commanders of Fort Dii Quesne. 9. War hatchet. — The tomahawk used by the American Indians. It was originally made of stone, but afterwards of iron. Used as a sym- bol for declaration of war. BR AD DOCK'S DEFEAT. 49 They numbered six hundred and thirty-seven ; and with them went thirty-six French officers and cadets, seventy-two regular soldiers, and a hundred and forty-six Canadians, or about nine hundred in all. At eight o^clock the tumult was over. The broad clearing lay lonely and still, and Contrecoeur, with what was left of his garrison, waited in suspense for the issue. It was near one o'clock when Braddock crossed the Monon- gahela for the second time. If the French made a stand any- where, it would be, he thought, at the fording-place ; but Lieutenant-Colonel Gage, whom he sent across with a strong advance-party, found no enemy, and quietly took possession of the farther shore. Then the main body followed. To impose on the imagination of the French scouts, who were doubtless on the watch, the movement was made with studied regularity and order. The sun was cloudless, and the men were inspirited by the pros- pect of near triumph. Washington afterwards spoke with ad- miration of the spectacle. The music, the banners, the mounted officers, the troop of light cavalry, the naval detachment, the red-coated regulars, the blue-coated Virginians, the wagons and tumbrils,'" cannon, howitzers," and coehorns,'^ the train of pack- horses, and the droves of cattle, passed in long procession through the rippling shallows, and slowly entered the bordering forest. Here, when all were over, a short halt was ordered for rest and refreshment. Why had not Beaujeu defended the ford ? This was his intention in the morning ; but he had been met by obstacles, the nature of which is not wholly clear. His Indians, it seems, had proved refractory. Three hundred of them left him, went oif in another direction, and did not rejoin him till the English had crossed the river. Hence perhaps it was that, having left Fort Duquesne at eight o'clock, he spent half the day in marching 10. Tumbrils. — Rough wagons for conveying cartridges, and the like. 11. Howitzers. — A short, light cannon. 4 12. Coehorns. — A small bronze mortar, so named from its inventor, Baron Coehoru. 50 bhaddock's defeat. seven miles, and was more than a mile from the fording-place when the British reached the eastern shore. The delay, from whatever cause arising, cost him the opportunity of laying an ambush either at the ford or in the gullies and ravines that channeled the forest through which Braddock was now on the point of marching. Not far from the bank of the river, and close by the British line of march, there was a clearing and a deserted house that had once belonged to a trader. Washington remembered it well. It was here that he found rest and shelter on the winter journey homeward from his mission to Fort Le Boeuf.* He was in no less need of rest at this moment ; for recent fever had so weakened him that he could hardly sit his horse. From the trader's house to Fort Duquesne the distance was eight miles by a rough path, along which the troops were now beginning to move after their halt. It ran inland for a little ; then curved to the left, and followed a course parallel to the river along the base of a line of steep hills that here bordered the valley. These and all the country were buried in dense and heavy forest, choked with bushes and the carcasses of fallen trees. SH ADDOCK'S DHPK4.T. 5t CHAPTER VIL The Battle. The Retreat. Braddock has been charged with marching blindly into an ambuscade ; but it was not so. There was no ambuscade ; and had there been one, he would have found it. It is true that he did not reconnoitre the woods very far in advance of the head of the column ; yet, with this exception, he made elaborate dispositions to prevent surprise. Several guides, with six Virginian light horsemen, led the way. Tlien, a musket-shot behind, came the vanguard; then three hundred soldiers under Gage; then a large body of axmen, under Sir John Sinclair, to open the road ; then two cannon with tumbrils and tool- wagons ; and lastly the rear- guard, closing the line, while flan king-parties ranged the woods on both sides. Tliis was the advance-column. The main body followed with little or no interval. The artillery and wagons moved along the road, and the troops filed through the woods close on either hand. Numerous flanking- parties were thrown out a hundred yards and more to right and left ; while, in the space between them and the marching column, the pack horses and cattle, with their drivers, m^de their way painfully among the trees and thickets ; since, had they been al- lowed to follow the road, the line of march would have been too long for mutual support. A body of regulars and provincials brought up the rear. Gage, with his advance-column, had just passed a wide and bushy ravine that crossed, their path, and the van of the main column was on the point of entering it, when the guides and light horsemen in the front suddenly fell back ; and the engineer, Gordon, then engaged in marking out the road, saw a man, dressed like an Indian, but wearing the gorget' of an officer. 1. Gorget. — A pendent, metallic ornament, worn by otlicers when on duty. 52 :bra dd CK 'S defea t. bounding forward along the path. He stopped when he dis- covered the head of the cokimn, turned, and waved his hat. The forest behind was swarming with French and savages. At tlie signal of the officer, who was probably Beaujeu, they yelled the war-whoop, sj)read themselves to right and left, and opened a sharjD fire under cover of the trees. Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line, and tired several volleys with great steadi- ness against the now invisible assailants. Few of them were hurt ; the trees caught the shot, but the noise was deafening under the dense arches of the forest. The greater part of the Canadians "fled shamefully, crying ^ Sauve qui pent !' '' ^ Volley followed volley, and at the third Beaujeu dropped dead. Gage's two cannon were now brought to bear, on which the Indians, like the Canadians, gave way in confusion, but did not, like them, abandon the field. The close scarlet ranks of the English were plainly to be seen through the trees and the smoke ; they were moving forward, cheering lustily, and shouting " God save the King \" Dumas, now chief in command, thought that all was lost. "I advanced," he says, ^^with the assurance that comes from despair, exciting by voice and gesture the few soldiers that remained. The fire of my platoon was so sharp that the enemy seemed astonished.'' The Indians, encouraged, began to rally. The French offi- cers who commanded them showed admirable courage and ad- dress ; and while Dumas and Ligneris, with the regulars and what was left of the Canadians, held the ground in front, the savage warriors, screeching their war cries, swarmed through the forest along both flanks of the English, hid behind trees, bushes, and fallen trunks, or crouched in gullies and ravines, and opened a deadly fire on the helpless soldiery, who, them- selves completely visible, could see no enemy, and wasted volley after volley on the impassive trees. The most destructive fire came from a hill on the English right, where the Indians lay in multitudes, firing from their lurking-places on the living target 2. Sauve qui peut — "Save himself who can." BR ADD CK 'S DEFEA T. 53 below. But the invisible death was everywhere, in front, flank, and rear. The British cheer was heard no more. The troops broke their ranks and huddled together in a bewildered mass, shrinking from the bullets that cut them down by scores. When Braddock heard the firing in the front, he pushed forward with the main body to the support of Gage, leaving four hundred men in the rear, under Sir Peter Halket, to guard the baggage. At the moment of his arrival Gage^s soldiers had abandoned their two cannon, and were falling back to escape the concentrated fire of the Indians. Meeting the advancing troops, they tried to find cover behind them. This threw the whole into confusion. The men of the two regiments became mixed together ; and in a short time the entire force, except the Virginians and the troops left with Halket, were massed in several dense bodies within a small space of ground, facing some one way and some another, and all alike exposed without shelter to the bullets that pelted them like hail. Both men and officers were new to this blind and frightful warfare of the savage in his native woods. To charge the Indians in their hiding-places would have been useless. They would have eluded pursuit with the agility of wildcats, and swarmed back, like angry hornets, the moment that it ceased. The Virginians -alone were equal to the emer- gency. Fighting behind trees like the Indians themselves, they might have held the enemy in check till order could be restored, had not Braddock, furious at a proceeding that shocked all his /y ideas of courage and discipline, ordered them, with oaths, to form into line. A body of them under Captain Waggoner made a dash for a fallen tree lying in the woods, far out towards the lurking-places of the Indians, and, crouching behind the huge trunk, opened fire ; but the regulars, seeing the smoke among the bushes, mistook their best friends for the enemy, shot at them from behind, killed many, and forced the rest to return. A few of the regulars also tried in their clumsy way to fight behind trees ; but Braddock beat them with his sword, and 54 BRADD CK 'S DEFEA T. compelled them to stand with the rest, an open mark for the Indians. The panic increased ; the soldiers crowded together, and the bullets spent themselves in a mass of human bodies. Com- mands, entreaties, and threats were lost upon them. ^' We would fight," some of them answered, *'if we could see any- body to fight with." Nothing was visible but puffs of smoke. Officers and men who had stood all the afternoon under fire afterwards declared that they could not be sure they had seen a single Indian. Braddock ordered Lieutenant Colonel Burton to attack the hill where the puffs of smoke were thickest, and the bullets most deadly. With infinite difficulty that brave officer induced a hundred men to follow him ; but he was soon disabled by a wound, and they all faced about. The artillerymen stood for some time by their guns, which did great damage to the trees and little to the enemy. The mob of soldiers, stupefied with terror, stood panting, their foreheads beaded with sweat, loading and firing mechanic- ally, sometimes into the air, sometimes among their own com- rades, many of whom they killed. The ground, strewn with dead and wounded men, the bounding of maddened horses, the clatter and roar of musketry and cannon, mixed with the spite- ful report of rifles and the yells that rose from the indefatigable throats of six hundred unseen savages, formed a chaos of an- guish and terror scarcely paralleled even in Indian war. *• I can- not describe the horrors of that scene," one of Braddock's officers wrote three weeks after; *^^no pen could do it. The yell of the Indians is fresh on my ear, and the terrific sound will haunt me till the hour of my dissolution." Braddock showed a furious intrepidity. Mounted on horse- back, he dashed to and fro, storming like a madman. Four horses were sliot under him, and he mounted a fifth. W^ashing- ton seconded his chief with equal courage ; he too no doubt using strong language, for he did not measure words when the fit was on him. He escaped as by miracle. Two horses were BR ADD GK \S DEFEA T. 55 iilled under him, and four bullets tore his clothes. The con- iuct of the British officers was above praise. Nothing could surpass their undaunted self-devotion ; and in their vain at- tempts to lead on the men, the havoc among them was fright- ful. Sir Peter Halket was shot dead. His son, a lieutenant in lis regiment, stooping to raise the body of his father, was shot lead in turn. Young Shirley, Braddock^s secretary, was pierced through the brain. Orme and Morris, his aides-de-camp, Sin- 3lair, the quartermaster-general. Gates and Gage, both after- ^ fvards conspicuous on opposite sides in the War of the Revolu- tion, and Gladwin, who, eight years later, defended Detroit igainst Pontiac, were all wounded. Of eighty-six officers, sixty- bhree were killed or disabled ; while out of thirteen hundred md seventy-three non-commissioned officers and privates, only [our hundred and fifty-nine came off unharmed. Braddock saw that all was lost. To save the wreck of his force from annihilation, he at last commanded a retreat ; and as he and such of his officers as were left strove to withdraw the half -frenzied crew in some semblance of order, a bullet struck him down. The gallant bulldog fell from his horse, shot through the arm into the lungs. It is said, though on evidence 3f no weight, that the bullet came from one of his own men. Be this as it may, there he lay among the bushes, bleeding, gasping, unable even to curse. He demanded to be left where he was. Captain Stewart and another provincial bore him be- tween them to the rear. It was about this time that the mob of soldiers, having been three hours under fire, and having spent their ammunition, broke away in a blind frenzy, rushed back towards the ford, " and when/^ says Washington, " we endeavored to rally them, it was with as much success as if we had attempted to stop the wild bears of the mountains.^' They dashed across, helter-skel- ter, plunging through the water to the farther bank, leaving wounded comrades, cannon, baggage, the military chest, and the GeneraPs papers, a prey to the Indians. About fifty of these followed to the edge of the river. Dumas and Ligneris, 56 BRABDOCK'S DEFEAT. who had now only about twenty Frenchmen with them, made no attempt to pursue, and went back to the fort, because, says Contrecoeur, so many of the Canadians had '^retired at the first firCo'''' The field, abandoned to the savages, was a pandemonium of pillage and murder. James Smith, the young prisoner at Fort Diiquesne, had passed a day of suspense, waiting the result. " In the afternoon I again observed a great noise and commotion in the fort, and, though at that time I could not understand French, I found it was the voice of joy and triumph, and feared that they had re- ceived what I called bad news. I had observed some of the old- country soldiers speak Dutch; as I spoke Dutch, I went to one of them and asked him what was the news. He told me that a runner had just arrived who said that Braddock would cer- tainly be defeated; that the Indians and French had surrounded him, and were concealed behind trees and in gullies, and kept a constant fire upon the English; and that they saw the English falling in heaps ; and if they did not take the river, which was the only gap, and make their escape, there would not be one man left alive before sundown. ^* Some time after this, I heard a number of scalp-halloos, and saw a company of Indians and French coming in. I observed they had a great number of bloody scalps, grenadiers^ caps, British canteens, bayonets, etc., with them. They brought the news that Braddock was defeated. After that another company came in, which appeared to be about one hundred, and chiefly Indians; and it seemed to me that almost every one of this com- pany was carrying scalps. After this came another company with a number of wagon-horses, and also a great many scalps. Those that were coming in and those that had arrived kept up a constant firing of small-arms, and also the great guns in the fort, which were accompanied with the most hideous shouts and yells from all quarters, so that it aj)peared to me as though the in- fernal regions had broke loose. " About sundown I beheld a small party coming in with about a dozen prisoners, stripped naked, with their hands tied behind BRADDOOK'S DEFSAT. 57 their backs and their faces and part of their bodies blacked; these prisoners they burned to death on the bank of the Alle- ghany River, opposite the fort. I stood on the fort wall until I beheld them begin to burn one of these men; they had him tied to a stake, and kept touching him with firebrands, red- hot irons, etc., and he screaming in a most doleful manner, the Indians in the meantime yelling like infernal spirits. As this scene appeared too shocking for me to behold, I retired to my lodging, both sore and sorry. When I came into my lodgings I saw RusseFs Seven SeDiwns, which they had brought from the field of battle, which a Frenchman made a present of to me.''^ The loss of the French was slight, but fell chiefly on the officers, three of whom were killed, and four wounded. Of the regular soldiers, all but four escaped untouched. The Cana- dians suffered still less, in proportion to their numbers, only five of them being hurt. The Indians, who won the victory, bore the principal loss. Of those from Canada, twenty-seven were killed and wounded; while the casualties among the Western tribes are not reported. All of these last went off the next morning with their plunder and scalps, leaving Contrecoeur in great auxiety lest the remnant of Braddock's troops, re-enforced by the division under Dunbar, should attack him again. His doubts would have vanished had he known the condition of his defeated enemy. CHAPTER VIII. The Death of Braddock. The In^diak War. Ii^ the pain and languor of a mortal wound, Braddock showed unflinching resolution. His bearers stopped with him at a fa- vorable spot beyond the Monongahela; and here he hoped to 5$ BUADD CK 'S DEFEA T. maintain his position till the arrival of Dunbar.' By the efforts of the officers about a hundred men were collected around him; but to keep them there was impossible. Within an hour they abandoned him, and fled like the rest. Gage, however, suc- ceeded in rallying about eighty beyond the other fording-place; and Washington, on an order from Braddock, spurred his jaded horse towards the camp of Dunbar to demand wagons, provis- ions, and hospital stores. Fright overcame fatigue. The fugitives toiled on all night, pursued by specters of horror and despair; hearing still the war- whoops and the shrieks ; possessed with the one thought of escape from this wilderness of death. In the morning some order was restored. Braddock was placed on a horse; then, the pain being insufferable, he was carried on a litter. Captain Orme having bribed the carriers by the promise of a guinea and a bot- tle of rum apiece. Early in the succeeding night, such as had not fainted on the way reached the deserted farm of Gist. Here they met wagons and provisions, with a detachment of soldiers sent by Dunbar, whose camp was six miles farther on; and Brad- dock ordered them to go to the relief of the stragglers left behind. At noon of that day a number of wagoners and packhorse- drivers had come to Dunbar's camp with wild tidings of rout and ruin. More fugitives followed; and soon after a wounded officer was brought in upon a sheet. The drums beat to arms. The camp was in commotion; and many soldiers and teamsters took to flight, in spite of the sentinels, who tried in vain to stop them. There was a still more disgraceful scene on the next day, after Braddock, with the wreck of his force, had arrived. Orders were given to destroy such of the wagons, stores, and ammunition as could not be carried back at once to Fort Cum- berland. Whether Dunbar or the dying General gave these 1. Dunbar, Thomas, British officer. Joined Braddock's expedition and, when Braddock pressed on to the attack on Fort Du Quesne, was left in cbarj^^e of the residue of the army. After tlie defeat Dunbar destroyed his artillery, burned stores and ba^^gage worth £100,000, and ignominiously retreated. )rders is not clear ; but it is certain that they were executed ^ith shameful alacrit}^ More than a hundred wagons were turned ; cannon, coehorns, and shells were burst or buried ; Darrels of gunpowder were staved, and the contents thrown into I brook ; provisions were scattered through the woods and iwamps. Then the whole command began its retreat over the nountains to Fort Cumberland, sixty miles distant. This pro- ceeding, for which, in view of the condition of Braddock, Dun- jar must be held answerable, excited the utmost indignation iniong the colonists. If he could not advance, they thought, le might at least have fortified himself and held his ground till :he provinces could send him help ; thus covering the frontier, ind holding French war-parties in check. Braddock^s last moment was near. Orme, who, though him- self severely wounded, was with him till his death, told Frank- in that he was totally silent all the first day, and at night said )nly, '^ Yfho would have thought it T^ that all the next day he ivas again silent, till at last he muttered, '^We shall better k:now how to deal with them another time/' and died a few minutes after. He had nevertheless found breath to give orders it Gist's for the succor of the men who had dropped on the road. [t is said, too, that in his last hours ^Mie could not bear the sight of a red coat," but murmured praises of '^ the blues," cr 'Virginians, and said that he hoped he should live to reward ;hem. He died at about eight o'clock in the evening of Sunday, ;he thirteenth. Dunbar had begun his retreat that morning, and vas then encamped near the Great Meadows. On Monday the lead commander was buried in the road ; and men, horses, and ivagons passed over his grave, effacing every sign of it, lest the [ndians should find and mutilate the body.* Colonel James Innes, commanding at Fort Cumberland, ^here a crowd of invalids with soldiers' wives and other women lad been left when the expedition marched, heard of the defeat, * " Reproach spared him not, even when in his grave. The failure of the expedition was attributed, both in England and America, to his obstinacy, \y onl}^ two days after it hap2:)ened, from a wagoner who had fled from the field on horseback. He at once sent a note of six lines to Lord Fairfax : '^ ^'^ I have this moment received the most mel- ancholy news of the defeat of our troops, the General killed, and numbers of our officers ; our whole artillery taken. In short, the account I have received is so very bad, that as, please God, I intend to make a stand here, 't is highly necessary to raise the militia everywhere to defend the frontiers.'^ A boy whom he sent out on horseback met more fugitives, and came back on the fourteenth with reports as vague and disheartening as the first. Innes sent them to Dinwiddle. Some days after, Dunbar and his train arrived in miserable disorder, and Fort Cumberland was tui^ned into a hospital for the shattered frag- ments of a routed and ruined army. The evil tidings quickly reached Philadelphia, where such confidence had prevailed that certain over-zealous persons had begun to collect money for fireworks to celebrate the victory. Two of these, brother physicians named Bond, came to Frank- lin and asked him to subscribe ; but the sage looked doubtful. He reminded tliem that war is always uncertain ; and the sub- scription was deferred. The Governor laid the news of the dis- aster before his Council, telling them at the same time that his opponents in the Assembly would not believe it, and had in- sulted him in the street for giving it currency. his techniciil pedantry, and his military conceit He had been contiunally warned to be on his guard. Still his dauntless conduct on the field of bat- tle shows him to have been a man of fearless spirit; and he was universally allowed to be an accomplished disciplinarian. His melancholy end, too, disarms censure of its asperity. Whatever may have been his faults and errors, he in a manner expiated them by the hardest lot that can befall a brave soldier ambitious of renown— an unhonorcd grave in a strange land, a memory clouded by misfortune, and a name forever coupled with de- feat "—Irving's Life of WasMngton. 2. Lord Fairfax had resided in Virginia for a long time, and was one of tlie largest land-owners in that colony. He was very prominent in affairs of state. He was a strong friend to Washington, and did much to forward bis interests when he was a young man. BRABDOCK'S DEFEAT. . 61 Dinwiddie remained tranquil at Williamsburg, sure that all would go well. The brief note of Innes, forwarded by Lord Fairfax, first disturbed, his dream of triumph ; but on second thought he took comfort. ^^ I am willing to think that account was from a deserter who, in a great panic, represented what his fears suggested. I wait with impatience for another express from Fort Cumberland, which I expect will greatly contradict the former/^ The news got abroad, and the slaves showed signs of excitement. "The villiany of the negroes on any emergency is what I always feared," continues the Governor. " An example of one or two at first may prevent these creatures entering into combinations and wicked designs." And he wrote to Lord Hali- fax :^ *^The negro slaves have been very audacious on the news of defeat on the Ohio. These poor creatures imagine the French will give them their freedom. We have too many here ; but I hope we shall be able to keep them in proper subjection." Suspense grew intolerable. *^ It^s monstrous they should be so tardy and dilatory in sending down any farther account." He sent Major Colin Campbell for news ; when, a day or two later, a courier brought him two letters, one from Orme, and the other from Washington, both written at Fort Cumberland on the eighteenth. The letter of Orme began thus : ^^ My dear Governor, I am so extremely ill in bed with the wound I have received that I am under the necessity of employing my friend Captain Dobson as my scribe." Then he told the wretched story of defeat and humiliation. '^The officers were absolutely sacrificed by their unparalleled good behavior ; advancing before their men sometimes in bodies, and sometimes separately, hoping by such an example to engage the soldiers to follow them; but to no purpose. Poor Shirley was shot through the head. Captain Morris very much wounded. Mr. Washington had two horses shot under him, and his clothes shot through in several places ; behaving the whole time with the greatest courage and resolution." 3. Lord Halifax came from England with Braddock, and was one of the under officers in his command. 62 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. Washington wrote more briefly, saying that, as Orme was giving a full account of the affair, it was needless for him to repeat it. Like many others in the fight, he greatly underrated the force of the enemy, which he placed at three hundred, or about a third of the actual number, — a natural error, as most of the assailants were invisible. " Our poor Virginians behaved like men, and died like soldiers ; for I believe that out of three companies that were there that day, scarce thirty were left alive. Captain Peronney and all his officers down to a corporal were killed. Captain Poison shared almost as hard a fate, for only one of his escaped. In short, the dastardly behavior of the English soldiers exposed all those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death. It is imagined ( I believe with great justice too ) that two thirds of both killed and wounded received their shots from our own cowardly dogs of soldiers, who gathered themselves into a body, contrary to orders, ten and twelve deep, would then level, fire, and shoot down the men before them.^^ To Orme, Dinwiddle replied : ''^I read your letter with tears in my eyes ; but it gave me much pleasure to see your name at the bottom, and more so when I observed by the postscript that your wound is not dangerous. But pray, dear sir, is it not possible by a second attempt to retrieve the great loss we have sustained ? I presume the GeneraFs chariot is at the fort. In it you may come here, and my house is heartily at your command. Pray take care of your valuable health ; keep your spirits up, and I doubt not of your recovery. My wife and girls join me in most sincere respects and joy at your being so well, and I always am, with great truth, dear friend, your affectionate, humble servant." To Washington he is less effusive, though he had known him much longer. He begins, it is true, ^' Dear Washington," and congratulates him on his escape ; but soon grows formal and asks : ''Pray, sir, with the number of them remaining, is there no possibility of doing something on the other side of the mountains before the winter months ? Surely you must mistake, Colonel BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 63 Dunbar will not march to winter-quarters in the middle of summer, and leave the frontiers exposed to the invasions of the enemy ! No ; he is a better officer, and I have a different opinion of him. I sincerely wish you health and happiness, and am, with great respect, sir, your obedient, humble servant/^ Washington's letter had contained the astonishing announce- ment that Dunbar meant to abandon the frontier and march to Philadelphia. Dinwiddle, much disturbed, at once wrote to that officer, though without betraying any knowledge of his intention. *' Sir, the melancholy account of the defeat of our forces gave me a sensible and real concern"— on which he enlarges for a while ; then suddenly changes style : ^' Dear Colonel, is there no method left to retrieve the dishonor done to the British arms ? As you now command all the forces that remain, are you not able, after a proper refreshment of your men, to make a second attempt ? You have four months now to come of the best weather of the year for such an expedition. What a fine field for honor will Colonel Dunbar have to confirm and establish his character as a brave officer. '^ Then, after suggesting plans of operation, and entering into much detail, the fervid Governor concludes : ''It gives me great pleasure that under our great loss and misfortunes the command • devolves on an officer of so great military judg- ment and established character. With my sincere respect and hearty wishes for success to all your proceedings, I am, worthy sir, your most obedient, humble servant. '^ Exhortation and flattery were lost on Dunbar. Dinwiddie received from him in reply a short, dry note, dated on the first of August, and acquainting him that he should march for Phila- delphia on the second. This, in fact, he did, leaving the fort to be defended by invalids and a few Virginians. " I acknowledge," says Dinwiddie, ''I was not brought up to arms ; but I think common sense would have prevailed not to leave the frontiers exposed after having opened a road over the mountains to the Ohio, by which the enemy can the more easily invade us. . . . Your great colonel," he writes to Orme, ''is gone to a peaceful colony, and left our frontiers open. . . . The whole conduct of 64 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. Colonel Dunbar appears to me monstrous. ... To march off all the regulars, and leave the fort and frontiers to be defended by four hundred sick and wounded, and the poor remains of our provincial forces, appears to me absurd.^' He found some comfort from the burgesses,* who gave him forty thousand pounds, and would, he thinks, have given a hundred thousand if another attempt against Fort Duquesne had been set afoot. Shirley, too, whom the death of Braddock had made commander-in-chief, approved the Governor's plan of renewing offensive operations, and instructed Dunbar to that effect ; ordering him, however, should' they j^rove impracticable, to march for Albany in aid of the Niagara expedition. The order found him safe in Philadelphia. Here he lingered for a while ; then marched to join the northern army, moving at a pace which made it certain that he could not arrive in time to be of the least use. The calamities of this disgraceful rout did not cease with the loss of a few hundred soldiers on the field of battle; for it brought upon the provinces all the miseries of an Indian war. Those among the tribes who had thus far stood neutral, waver- ing between the French and English, now hesitated no longer. Many of them had been disgusted by the contemptuous beha- vior of Braddock. All had learned to despise the courage of the English, and to regard their own prowess with unbounded complacency. It is not in Indian nature to stand quiet in the midst of war ; and the defeat of Braddock was a signal for the western savages to snatch their tomahawks and assail the Eng- lish settlements with one accord, murdering and pillaging with ruthless fury, and turning the frontier of Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia into one wide scene of havoc and desolation. " General Braddock being mortally wounded at the battle of Mononga- hela, died on the third uiglit. He was buried in his cloak Ihe same night iu the road, to elude the search of the Indians. Washiugton, on the testi- mony of an old soldier, read the funeral service over his remains, by the light of a torch. Faithful to his commauder while he lived, he would not suffer him to want the customary rites of religion when dead." 4. Burgesses.— A member representing a corporate town in Virginia was formcM-ly called a burgess, and the whole assembly was known as the English classic Series, FOi: Classes in Englisli Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author^a Life^ Prefatory and Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. 1 2 3 4 6 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 37 28 29 30 Byron's Prophecy of Dante. (Cantos I. and II.) Milton's L.' Allegro, and II Pen- seroso. liord Bacon's Essays, Civil and Moral. (Selected.) Byron's Prisoner of Chillon, Moore's Fire Worshippers. (Lalla Rookh. Selected.) 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