Braddock's Defeat: Washington

When the three hundred under Gage came near the head of the ravines, a heavy discharge of musketry was poured in upon their front, and immediately after another upon their left flank. This was the first notice which they had of the presence of an enemy. Braddock was completely surprised. Gage ordered his men to fire, and though no enemy was visible, yet they poured such a discharge upon the spot where the smoke of the first fire was still to be seen, that the Indians, believing that it proceeded from artillery, were upon the point of retreating. Their indecision was but for an instant, for the advance, falling back upon the main body, threw them into confusion; and instead of following the example of the Indians and taking to the trees, or opening upon their invisible foe a discharge of grape, they were ordered by Braddock to maintain their ranks and advance. Captain de Beaujeu was killed by the first discharge of Gage's men, and Captain Dumas, who succeeded him in the command, immediately rallied the Indians, and, sending them down the ravines, ordered them to attack the enemy on each flank, while he, with the French and Canadians, maintained his position in front. Then commenced a terrible carnage. The British, panic-struck and bewildered, huddled together in squads, heeded not the commands of their officers, who were riding about madly urging them to advance, but they only fled from one side of the field to be met by the fire of an invisible foe on the other side; and then they would gather in small parties as if they hoped to shield themselves behind the bodies of their friends, firing without aim, oftener shooting down their own officers and men than Indians. Their only hope would now have been to separate, rush behind the trees, and fight man to man with their assailants; but Braddock insisted on forming them into platoons and columns, in order to make regular discharges, which struck only the trees or tore up the ground in front. The Virginians alone seemed to retain their senses. Notwithstanding the prohibition of the general, they no sooner knew the enemy with whom they had to deal, than they adopted the Indian mode of fighting, and each for himself, behind a tree, manifested bravery worthy of a better fate.

Meanwhile the French and Indians, secure behind their natural breastworks, aimed deliberately first at the officers on horseback, and then at others, each shot bringing down a man. The leaders, selected by unerring aim, fell first. Captains Orme and Morris, two of the three aides-de-camp, were wounded early in the action, and Washington was the only person left to distribute the general's orders, which he was scarcely able to do, as he was not more than half recovered from his illness. Notwithstanding the neglect with which his warnings had been treated, he still aided the general with his mental as well as his physical powers; though the troops lay thick around him in slaughtered heaps, he still gave the aid of salutary counsel to his ill-fated chief, and urged it with all the grace of eloquence and all the force of conviction. Riding in every direction, his manly form drew the attention of the savages, and they doomed him to destruction. The murdering rifles were levelled, the quick bullets flew winged with death, and pierced his garments; but, obedient to the Sovereign will, they dared not shed his blood. One chieftain especially singled Washington out as a conspicuous mark, fired his rifle at him many times, and ordered his young warriors to do the same, until they became convinced that he was under the special protection of the Great Spirit, and would never die in battle, when they desisted. Although four balls passed through Washington's coat, and two horses were shot under him, he escaped unhurt.

Washington's conduct in the action is described by an eye-witness whose verbal account is thus given by Mr. Paulding: "I saw him take hold of a brass field-piece as if it had been a stick. He looked like a fury; he tore the sheet-lead from the touch-hole; he placed one hand on the muzzle, the other on the breach; he pulled with this, and he pushed with that, and wheeled it around as if it had been nothing. It tore the ground like a barshare. The powder-monkey rushed up with the fire, and then the cannon began to bark, I tell you. They fought and they fought, and the Indians began to holla, when the rest of the brass cannon made the bark of the tress fly, and the Indians come down. That place they call Rock Hill, and there they left five hundred men dead on the ground."