A number of these wagons met the retreating army on July
11, at Gist's Plantation; then, after wounds were dressed, they returned
to Dunbar's Camp. There most of the wagons were gathered with the stores
and burned in order to keep them from the hands of the enemy. The
survivors continued their retreat, accompanied by a few of the wagons
loaded with wounded comrades.

The number of Pennsylvania wagons that arrived back at Wills Creek has
not been definitely established. For the service of their wagons, 30
owners received payment for a period greater than the 51 days, but of
these, only 10 were paid for services beyond what appears to be July
20.[43] Only the wagon of William Douglas, out of 146 wagons involved,
seems to have survived the campaign intact.[44] Inasmuch as the other
owners were reimbursed for the loss of their wagons, it is likely that
those few that arrived back at Fort Cumberland were so badly damaged as
to render them unserviceable, and therefore not worth driving back to
eastern Pennsylvania.

Seven criticisms were made of Braddock's advance to the forks of the
Ohio. Of these seven, six, in varying degrees, concern transportation.[45]
In choosing Alexandria to land his troops he put himself more distant
from the needed wagons; his horses were too few and too weak to bear the
burden of all the supplies on the entire march, without depots having
first been established at the various camps along the line of march; his
troops were delayed by the progress of the wagons and by the necessity of
their having to help with the wagons; the roads were inadequate in many
places for the excessively heavy artillery and the wagons; the pack horses
were weakened by the extra service they were required to perform; and due
to his lack of horses, Dunbar had been left too far behind.[46] While
other factors contributed to the outcome of the expedition, many of the
officers learned, as had Washington in 1754, the importance of proper
transportation.

_THE CONESTOGA WAGON AND THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER_

_Styles in farm equipment change slowly, and it is probable that the
farm-type Conestoga wagon of about 1850 shown in figure 7 is similar in
many respects to the Pennsylvania wagons used by Braddock a century
earlier. The prairie schooner, too, bore many of the characteristics of
these early farm wagons. It was about the same length as the Conestoga
wagon, but the lines of the bed were straight rather than curved and the
bow