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

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

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

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

He was not to have any more dealings with them. As he drew near Great Meadows, the scene of Wash

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

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

XXVII.

THE END OF THE STRUGGLE.

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

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

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

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

These horrors will account for the old border sentiment toward the Indians. Intense hatred burned in every breast, and the war of the races was a war to the death. Under the pressure of the incessant peril the characters of the froutiersmen developed the rugged strength which is so noticeable a feature of the times; and the millions of Americans who are descended from them have in their blood still the manhood resulting from these bitter trials.

When Washington repaired to Winchester he found the place full of refugees, and he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie: "The supplicating tears of the women and moving petitions of the men melt me into such deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people's ease." It was hard to reduce the chaos to order, but the work was performed; and soon the frontier was in a state of defense. A fort was built in the suburbs of the town, named Fort Loudoun from the English commander; and this was mounted with twenty-four cannon, and had barracks for four hundred and fifty men. his quarters above the gateway, Washington overlooked the tumultuous crowd of borderers, and his orders at

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