r with another American officer, hastening to Orme's
relief, brought off Braddock, at first on a small tumbrel, then on a
horse, lastly by the soldiers.

According to Washington's account, in a letter written to Dinwiddie:
"They were struck with such an inconceivable panic, that nothing but
confusion and disobedience of orders prevailed among them. The officers
in general behaved with incomparable bravery, for which they greatly
suffered, there being upwards of sixty killed and wounded, a large
proportion out of what we had. The Virginia companies behaved like men
and died like soldiers; for, I believe, out of three companies on the
ground that day, scarcely thirty men were left alive. Captain Peyrouny,
a Frenchman by birth, and all his officers down to a corporal, were
killed. Captain Poulson had almost as hard a fate, for only one of his
escaped. In short, the dastardly behavior of the regular troops (so
called) exposed those who were inclined to do their duty to almost
certain death; and, at length, in spite of every effort to the contrary,
they broke and ran like sheep before hounds, leaving the artillery,
ammunition, provisions, baggage, and, in short, everything a prey to the
enemy; and when we endeavored 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."

Braddock was brave and accomplished in European tactics; but not an
officer of that comprehensive genius which knows how to bend and
accommodate himself to circumstances. Burke says that a wise statesman
knows how to be governed by circumstances: the maxim applies as well to
a military commander. Braddock, headstrong, passionate, irritated, not
without just grounds, against the provinces, and pursuing the policy of
the British government to rely mainly on the forces sent over, and to
treat the colonial troops as inferior and only secondary, rejected the
proposal of Washington to lead in advance the provincials, who,
accustomed to border warfare, knew better how to cope with a savage
foe.[480:A] Braddock, however, showed that although he could not
retrieve these errors, nor reclaim a degenerate soldiery, he could at
any rate fall like a soldier.[480:B]

Although no further pursued, the remainder of the army continued their
flight during the