From Farm House to the White House - 912 Freedom Library

Farm House to the White House, by William M. Thayer 99
Scarooyadi reported to the governor and Council of Pennsylvania, after Braddock's defeat: "It was owing to
the pride and arrogance of that great general who came from England. He is now dead, but he was a bad man
when he was alive. He looked upon us as dogs, and would never hear anything that was said to him. We often
endeavored to advise him, and tell him of the danger he was in with his soldiers; but he never appeared
pleased with us, and that was the reason a great many of our warriors left him." He proposed to take up the
hatchet again with the English, and said:
"Let us unite our strength; you are numerous, and all the English governors along your seashore can raise men
enough; but don't let those that come from over the great seas be concerned any more. They are unfit to fight
in the woods. Let us go ourselves, we that came out of this ground."
Three or four o'clock on that ninth day of July, as the advance of the army was ascending a rise of ground, a
volley of musketry suddenly arrested their progress. From a ravine, concealed by dense foliage, a deadly fire
was poured into their faces. Before they had recovered from their surprise, another volley was fired into them
from the other side. These volleys mowed them down like grass. Yet the enemy could not be seen. The
English directed their fire towards the smoke of battle, though but for a moment. For the torrent of lead, shot
into their faces, forced the advance back upon the main column, and confusion followed. General Braddock
bravely sought to rally them, to move forward in orderly columns, as on European battlefields, but his efforts
were abortive; for six hundred Indians, painted and armed for battle and thirsting for blood, burst from their
ambuscade, followed by three hundred French and Canadians, sure of victory; and the work of carnage grew
terrific.
Early in the conflict two of Braddock's aides-de-camp, Captains Orme and Morris, fell, and Washington alone
remained to carry the general's orders here and there. Without the least regard to personal safety, he galloped
over the field, his tall, noble form presenting a rare target for the Indian sharpshooters, who took special pains
to bring him down. Two horses were shot under him, and four balls pierced his clothes; still he was
conspicuous everywhere that he could be of service, and for three hours distributed his commander's orders,
with the deadly missiles flying around him like hailstones. Dr. Craik said:
"I expected to see him fall every moment. He dashed over the field, reckless of death, when the bullets
whistled about him on every side. Why he was not killed I cannot divine, unless a watchful Providence was
preserving him for more important work."
One of the principal Indian warriors fired at him again and again; and, at his bidding, a score of young braves
did the same, without so much as grazing his skin, keeping up their fire until convinced that the Great Spirit
had given to him a charmed life that he might not be shot in battle.
Mr. Paulding gives the description of an eye-witness thus:
"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 round as if it had been nothing. It tore the ground like a plough. 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 yelled when the rest of the brass cannon made the bark of the trees fly, and the Indians
came down. That place they call Rock Hill, and there they left five hundred men dead on the ground."
A bullet struck Washington's gold watch-seal, and knocked it from his chain. Eighty years after the battle that
seal was found by a visitor to the battle ground, and it is now preserved among the relics of the Washington
family.
The English officers behaved heroically, and won Washington's admiration by their bravery; but the English
soldiers acted like cowards. Panic-stricken in the first place, they did not recover from their consternation