very
effort to the contrary, they broke, and ran as sheep before hounds;
leaving the artillery, ammunition, provisions, baggage, and in short
every thing, a prey to the enemy; and when we endeavoured to rally
them, in hopes of regaining the ground, and what we had left upon it,
it was with as little success as if we had attempted to have stopped
the wild bears of the mountains, or the rivulets with our feet: for
they would break by, in spite of every effort to prevent it."[6]

[Footnote 6: In another letter, he says, "We have been
beaten, shamefully beaten--shamefully beaten by a handful of
men, who only intended to molest and disturb our march!
Victory was their smallest expectation! But see the wondrous
works of Providence, the uncertainty of human things! We,
but a few moments before, believed our numbers almost equal
to the force of Canada; they only expected to annoy us. Yet,
contrary to all expectation and human probability, and even
to the common course of things, we were totally defeated,
and have sustained the loss of every thing."]

[Illustration: Wakefield--the Birthplace of George Washington

_This is from an etching made in idealization of the original house,
situated on the banks of the Potomac, 38 miles from Fredericksburg, in
Westmoreland County, Virginia, where our First President was born,
February 22, 1732. The original house, which was built by Washington's
father, Augustine, was destroyed by fire more than 150 years ago,
before the Declaration of Independence was signed._]

{August.}

[Sidenote: Is appointed to the command of a regiment.]

Colonel Washington had long been the favourite soldier of Virginia;
and his reputation grew with every occasion for exertion. His conduct
in this battle had been universally extolled;[7] and the common
opinion of his countrymen was, that, had his advice been pursued, the
disaster had been avoided. The assembly was in session, when
intelligence was received of this defeat, and of the abandonment of
the colony by Colonel Dunbar. The legislature, perceiving the
necessity of levying troops for the defence of the province,
determined to raise a regiment, to consist of sixteen companies, the
command of which was offered to Colonel Washington; who was also
designated, in his commission, as the Commander-in-chief of all the
forces raised and to be raised in the colony of Virginia. The uncommon
privilege of naming h