wo horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho'
death was levelling my companions on every side of me!" Not content with
such an experience, in the second march on Fort Duquesne he "prayed" the
interest of a friend to have his regiment part of the "light troops" that
were to push forward in advance of the main army.

The same carelessness of personal danger was shown all through the
Revolution. At the battle of Brooklyn, on New York Island, at Trenton,
Germantown, and Monmouth, he exposed himself to the enemy's fire, and at
the siege of Yorktown an eyewitness relates that "during the assault, the
British kept up an incessant firing of cannon and musketry from their
whole line. His Excellency General Washington, Generals Lincoln and Knox
with their aids, having dismounted, were standing in an exposed situation
waiting the result. Colonel Cobb, one of General Washington's aids,
solicitous for his safety, said to his Excellency, 'Sir, you are too much
exposed here, had you not better step back a little?' 'Colonel Cobb,'
replied his Excellency, 'if you are afraid, you have liberty to step
back.'" It is no cause for wonder that an officer wrote, "our army love
their General very much, but they have one thing against him, which is the
little care he takes of himself in any action. His personal bravery, and
the desire he has of animating his troops by example, make him fearless of
danger. This occasions us much uneasiness."

[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S TRANSCRIPT OF THE RULES OF CIVILITY, CIRCA
1744]

This fearlessness was equally shown by his hatred and, indeed,
non-comprehension of cowardice. In his first battle, upon the French
surrendering, he wrote to the governor, "if the whole Detach't of the
French behave with no more Resolution than this chosen Party did, I
flatter myself we shall have no g't trouble in driving them to the d---."
At Braddock's defeat, though the regiment he had commanded "behaved like
men and died like soldiers," he could hardly find words to express his
contempt for the conduct of the British "cowardly regulars," writing of
their "dastardly behavior" when they "broke and ran as sheep before
hounds," and raging over being "most scandalously" and "shamefully
beaten." When the British first landed on New York Island, and two New
England brigades ran away from "a small party of the enemy," numbering
about fifty, without firing a shot, he completely lost his self-control at
their "dastardly beha