t with loss of blood, he faintly said to Washington:

"Well, colonel, what's to be done now?"

"Retreat, retreat by all means," answered Washington. "The regulars
won't fight and the rangers are nearly all killed."

"Poor fellows! poor fellows!" weakly replied the dying general. "Do as
you will, colonel, the command is on you."

"More than half of the army are dead and wounded," continued Washington,
"and retreat is all that is left us. The surviving rangers can cover the
retreat of the remnant."

"Pardon me, colonel for rejecting your counsel, which I now deeply
regret," the general frankly confessed. "I see it now, but it is all
over."

The command of the army reverted to Colonel Dunbar after the fall of
Braddock; but he was several miles away, on the other side of the
Monongahela, when the disaster occurred, in charge of the rear division
and supplies. Hence the authority of Washington for the time being.

When the retreating army recrossed the river and reached Colonel Dunbar,
and he learned the extent of the disaster, the wildest confusion
followed. Colonel Dunbar proved himself unfit for his position, by
losing his self-control, ordering the heavy baggage and supplies to be
burned, and hastening the retreat to Fort Necessity.

General Braddock died soon after the shattered army reached Fort
Necessity. Tradition says that he died in the arms of Washington, to
whom he gave his favorite servant, Bishop, expressing regrets again and
again that he had not treated his youthful aid-de-camp with more
consideration.

Washington conducted the funeral services over the remains of the
British general, and made it a very impressive ceremony. His voice
trembled with emotion when he read the Episcopal service, and tears
stood in his eyes as he thought of the victory that might have been,
instead of the terrible defeat that was.

Subsequent information received by Washington proved that the French at
Fort Duquesne celebrated their victory by a drunken carousal, and that
they treated their prisoners with great barbarity. Colonel Smith, who
was a prisoner there, and an eye-witness, subsequently bore the
following testimony, after speaking of the victorious savages returning
with the spoils of war, such as grenadiers' caps, canteens, muskets,
swords, bayonets, rich uniforms, and dripping scalps:

"Those that were coming in and those who had arrived kept up a constant
firing of small arms, and also of the great guns in t