1755.] FLIGHT OF DUNBAR. 205 camp became a scene of confusion. All the ammunition, stores, and artillery were destroyed, to prevent, it was said, their falling into the hands of the enemy; but, as it was afterwards alleged, to relieve the terrorstricken commander from all incumbrances, and furnish him with more horses in his flight toward the settlements.* At Cumberland his forces amounted to fifteen hundred effective men; enough for a brave stand to protect the frontier, and recover some of the lost honor; but he merely paused to leave the sick and wounded under care of two Virginia and Maryland companies, and some of the train, and then continued his hasty march, or rather flight, through the country, not thinking himself safe, as was sneeringly intimated, until he arrived in Philadelphia, where the inhabitants could protect him. Among the wounded survivors of the defeat, who found their way to Fort Cumberland, was Washington's friend and neighbor, Dr. Hugh Mercer. He had received a severe wound in the shoulder, and being unable to keep up with the fugitives, concealed himself behind a fallen tree. Thence he was a sad witness of a demoniac scene, which followed the defeat. The field was strewed with the dead and dying, and among them several gallant officers. White man and red man vied with each other in stripping and plundering them; those who were still alive were despatched by the merciless tomahawk, and all were scalped. When the plunder and massacre were finished, the victors set out * Franklin's Autobiography. for the fort, laden with booty, the savages bearing aloft the scalps as trophies, and making the forest ring with their yells of triumph. Mercer then set out on a lonely struggle through the wilderness, guiding himself by the stars and the course of the streams, and arrived at Fort Cumberland, almost exhausted by sickness, famine, and fatigue. We shall have to speak hereafter of his services when under the standard of Washington, and his heroic death on a more successful field of action. The true reason why the enemy did not pursue the retreating army was not known until some time afterwards, and added to the disgrace of the defeat. They were not the main force of the French, but a mere detachment of 72 regulars, 146 Canadians, and 637 Indians, 855 in all, led by Captain de Beaujeu. De Contrecœur, the commander of Fort Duquesne, had received information, through his scouts, that the English, three thousand strong, were within six leagues of his fort. Despairing of making an effectual defence against such a superior force, he was balancing in his mind whether to abandon his fort without awaiting their arrival, or to capitulate on honorable terms. In this dilemma Beaujeu prevailed on him to let him sally forth with a detachment to form an ambush, and give check to the enemy. De Beaujeu was to have taken post at the river, and disputed the passage at the ford. For that purpose he was hurrying forward when discovered by the pioneers of Gage's advance party. He was a gallant officer, and fell at the beginning of the fight. The whole number of killed and wounded of French and Indians, did not exceed seventy. Such was the scanty force which the imagination 1755.] TRIUMPH OF THE VICTORS. 207 of the panic-stricken army had magnified into a great host, and from which they had fled in breathless terror, abandoning the whole frontier. No one could be more surprised than the French commander himself, when the ambuscading party returned in triumph with a long train of packhorses laden with booty, the savages uncouthly clad in the garments of the slain, grenadier caps, officers' gold-laced coats, and glittering epaulettes; flourishing swords and sabres, or firing off muskets, and uttering fiendlike yells of victory. But when De Contrecœur was informed of the utter rout and destruction of the much dreaded British army, his joy was complete. He ordered the guns of the fort to be fired in triumph, and sent out troops in pursuit of the fugitives. The affair of Braddock remains a memorable event in American history, and has been characterized as "the most extraordinary victory ever obtained, and the farthest flight ever made." It struck a fatal blow to the deference for British prowess, which once amounted almost to bigotry, throughout the provinces. "This whole transaction," observes Franklin, in his autobiography, "gave us the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regular troops had not been well founded." CHAPTER XVIII. COSTS OF CAMPAIGNING-MEASURES FOR PUBLIC SAFETY-WASHINGTON IN COMMAND-HEAD-QUARTERS AT WINCHESTER-LORD FAIRFAX AND HIS TROOP OF HORSE-INDIAN RAVAGES-PANIO AT WINCHESTERCAUSE OF THE ALARM-OPERATIONS ELSEWHERE-SHIRLEY AGAINST NIAGARA-JOHNSON AGAINST CROWN POINT-AFFAIR AT LAKE GEORGE -DEATH OF DIESKAU. WASHINGTON arived at Mount Vernon on the 26th of July, still in feeble condition from his long illness. His campaigning, thus far, had trenched upon his private fortune, and impaired one of the best of constitutions. In a letter to his brother Augustine, then a member of Assembly at Williamsburg, he casts up the result of his frontier experience. "I was employed," writes he, "to go a journey in the winter, when I believe few or none would have undertaken it, and what did I get by it ?-my expenses borne! I was then appointed, with trifling pay, to conduct a handful of men to the Ohio. What did I get by that? Why, after putting myself to a considerable expense in equipping and providing necessaries for the campaign, I 1755.] MEASURES FOR PUBLIC SAFETY. 209 went out, was soundly beaten, and lost all! Came in, and had my commission taken from me; or, in other words, my command reduced, under pretence of an order from home (England). I then went out a volunteer with General Braddock, and lost all my horses, and many other things. But this being a voluntary act, I ought not to have mentioned it; nor should I have done it, were it not to show that I have been on the losing order ever since I entered the service, which is now nearly two years.' What a striking lesson is furnished by this brief summary! How little was he aware of the vast advantages he was acquiring in this school of bitter experience! "In the hand of heaven he stood," to be shaped and trained for its great purpose; and every trial and vicissitude of his early life, but fitted him to cope with one or other of the varied and multifarious duties of his future destiny. But though, under the saddening influence of debility and defeat, he might count the cost of his campaigning, the martial spirit still burned within him. His connection with the army, it is true, had ceased at the death of Braddock, but his military duties continued as adjutant-general of the northern division of the province, and he immediately issued orders for the county lieutenants to hold the militia in readiness for parade and exercise, foreseeing that in the present defenceless state of the frontier, there would be need of their services. Tidings of the rout and retreat of the army had circulated far and near, and spread consternation throughout the country. Immediate incursions both VOL. I.-14 |