called Fort Cumberland.) with an army which amounted to somewhat more than two thousand effective men. General Braddock was a strict disciplinarian, and a man of courage; but he was "very haughty, positive, and difficult of access."† These latter qualities contributed in no small degree to bring about the disastrous and fatal defeat which he encountered on this expedition. When his army reached the Little Meadows, about four days' march from Fort Du Quesne, he was informed that the French at that fort expected a reinforcement of five hundred regular troops. On receiving this information Braddock left Colonel Dunbar, with about eight hundred men, to bring up the provisions, stores, and heavy baggage, as fast as the nature of the service would permit; and with the other twelve hundred men, together with ten pieces of cannon and the necessary ammunition, he "marched on with so much expedition that he seldom took time to reconnoitre the woods or the thickets he was to pass through, as if the nearer he approached the enemy the farther he was removed from danger." He pressed forward with his forces, and on the 9th of July re-crossed the Monongahela, at a fording place about eight miles from Fort Du Quesne. Colonel Washington, Sir Peter Halket, and other officers had earnestly entreated General Braddock to proceed with caution, and to employ, as scouting parties, some friendly Indians who had joined him. But his conceit of his abilities as a commander induced him to neglect these counsels; and the Indians, who would have been his safest guards against an ambush or surprise, "were so disgusted by the haughtiness of his behavior that most of them forsook his banners." After crossing the Monongahela on the 9th, the army entered upon "a level plain elevated but a few feet above the surface of the river, and extending northward about half a mile from its margin: then commenced a gradual ascent, at an angle of about three degrees, which terminated in hills of a considerable height at no great distance beyond. The road to Fort About one hundred and five miles south east from Pittsburgh. †Smollett. [Smollett. Du Quesne led over this plain, and up this ascent." Colonel Dunbar was at this time about forty miles behind Braddock. Leaving the English forces in these positions, it is necessary to turn, for a moment, to regard the operations of the French. Early in July, the commandant of Fort Du Quesne received from Indian and French scouts, information which led him to believe that the army under General Braddock amounted to three thousand men. M. Contrecœur was preparing to evacuate the fort, and retreat before a force which he supposed to be so greatly superior to that which was then under his own command: but M. de Beaujeu, a captain in the French service, "proposed to head a detachment of French and Indians, and meet the enemy on their march." The Indians were, in some degree, opposed to this design; but the entreaties of M. de Beaujeu finally induced them to accompany him. He was also joined by Captains M. Dumas, and Liguery. The 7th and 8th days of July were passed in making preparations for the attack; and, on the 9th, a force consisting of about two hundred and fifty French and six hundred Indians lay in ambush, seven miles from Fort Du Quesne, on the borders of the route which Braddock had determined to follow after crossing the Monongahela. The English forces, after crossing the river on the 9th, were formed in three divisions, which was the order of march. The division in advance, led by Colonel Gage, was composed of three hundred men, this was followed by a division of two hundred men, and next came the General with the columns of artillery, the main body of the army, and the baggage. After these divisions passed the plain which extended a few hundred yards from the river, their route lay over an ascending ground covered with trees and high grass. At the commencement of this ascent began a ravine, eight or ten feet deep, which, as it extended up the rising ground, "formed a figure nearly resembling that of a horse-shoe." The first and second divisions under Braddock had passed into this hollow, and the British columns in advance had reached the rising ground, when the French and Indians, from their places of concealment, poured a destructive fire upon the front and the left flank of their enemy. The English columns in front returned a fire so heavy that the Indians, thinking it proceeded from artillery, began to waver. M. Beaujeu was at this moment mortally wounded, and the command devolved on M. Dumas. This officer soon removed the fears of the Indians, and, in their mode of warfare, they kept up an incessant fire upon the right and left flanks of the English, while the French force under Dumas maintained its position on the rising ground near the head of the ravine.* When the attack commenced, Braddock began to move rapidly forward to the support of the divisions in front; but before this movement could be effected, the columns in front gave way, and "fell back upon the artillery and the other columns of the army, causing extreme confusion, and striking the whole mass with such a panic that no order could be restored." † Notwithstanding the orders of the General to the contrary, the three companies of Virginia troops took positions behind trees and other coverts, and fought in the Indian manner. These troops "showed a good deal of bravery, and were nearly all killed; out of three companies that were there, scarcely thirty men were left alive. Captain Peyrouny, and all his officers down to a corporal, were killed. Captain Polson had nearly as hard a fate, for only one of his was left." Many of the Indians, gaining confidence by the confusion of the British regulars, rushed from their coverts and carried on the carnage with their tomahawks. In the midst of the slaughter, Braddock himself, who was unwisely brave, struggled in vain to form his men in platoons and columns. In the meantime nearly all his officers were killed or wounded. The whole number of officers in the engagement was eighty-six, of whom twenty-six were killed and thirty-seven wounded. Sir Peter Halket fell by the first fire, at the head of his division. Col. The distance from the bead of the ravine to the ford where the troops crossed the Monongahela, was about one hundred and eighty-eight perches. In a letter to Governor Dinwiddie, Washington wrote as follows: "It is conjectu red, I believe with much truth, that two-thirds of both killed and wounded, received their shot from our own cowardly regulars, who gathered themselves into a body contrary to orders ten or twelve deep, would then level, fire, and shoot down the men before them." Washington. Washington, who was one of the aids of General Braddock, escaped without a wound, though four bullets passed through his coat, and two horses were shot under him.* Braddock had three horses shot under him; but his obstinacy seemed to increase with the danger,† and he continued his efforts to maintain the conflict, until at last he received a mortal wound from a musket ball which passed through his right arm and lungs. He was immediately carried from the field, and the remnant of the army then retreated in a very disorderly manner across the Monongahela. The Indians, being attracted by the plunder which they found on the field, did not pursue the retreating forces, who continued their flight until they arrived at the camp of Colonel Dunbar, where the unfortunate Braddock died, on the 13th of July. All the stores except those necessary for immediate use were then destroyed; the provincial troops returned to their homes; and the British regulars were marched to Philadelphia, where they went into quarters. In this conflict the loss of English private soldiers, killed and wounded, amounted to seven hundred and fourteen. Of this number about one half were killed. The artillery, ammunition and baggage of the defeated army, together with a number of letters of instruction to General Braddock, fell into the hands of the French. The loss on the side of the French was, in the words of an imperfect return, "three officers killed, and four wounded; about thirty soldiers and Indians killed, and as many wounded." France and Great Britain, soon after the defeat of General Braddock, began to send strong reinforcements from Europe to their respective colonies in America; but during a period of three years succeeding that defeat, the French remained undisturbed in possession of Fort Du Quesne. Meanwhile the settlements on the western frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, were destructively assailed by the Indians, and were generally broken up. By an act, of August, 1755, the General Assembly of Virginia offered a reward of ten *Letter from Washington to his mother, dated July 18, 1755. pounds sterling for every scalp of a hostile Indian above twelve years of age.* In the autumn of the year 1758, the French at Fort Du Quesne, having been informed of the approach of seven thousand English troops under the command of General Forbes,t dismantled the fort in the latter part of November, and, "to the number of about five hundred men," retreated to different French posts. A considerable number went to Venango, some continued their retreat to Presq'Isle, and others moved in boats, down the river Ohio. The fortifications were hastily repaired by the English, and garrisoned by four hundred and fifty men, chiefly provincial troops from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland, under the command of Col. Mercer. The name of the post was then changed to Fort Pitt. The retreat of the French from Fort Du Quesne gave the English possession of the country on the borders of the Ohio, and at the same time produced an important change in the disposition of the Indian tribes of that region. It had on many occasions been the practice of war parties to assemble at Fort Du Quesne, for the purpose of making their destructive attacks on the frontiers of the English colonies; but, finding the current of success to be running against the French, the Indians during the years 1760, 1761, and 1762, seemed to be willing to reconcile themselves to their powerful and persevering enemies; and before the close of the year 1764, nearly all the tribes that occupied the country between the Ohio and the northern lakes concluded treaties of peace and friendship with the English. In the month of September, 1759, Quebec, the strong hold *Hening's Stat. vi, 551. †Before the army under General Forbes was put in motion, Major Grant was detached from the advanced post at Lyal-Henning, with about eight hundred men to reconnoitre Fort Du Quesne and the adjacent country. He imprudently invited an attack from the French and their Indian allies; and the result was that upwards of three hundred of the English detachment were killed and wounded, and Major Grant himself was made a prisoner. The remnant of the detachment, which was, probably, saved by the bravery and good conduct of Captain Bullitt, retreated to the main army.—[Vide Marshall's Col. His. 322. Washington's writings, ii, 320. ||Gordon's His. Pennsylvania, 368, |