night and the next day. Braddock continued for two
days to give orders; and it was in compliance with them that the greater
part of the artillery, ammunition, and other stores were destroyed. It
was not until the thirteenth that the general uttered a word, except for
military directions. He then bestowed the warmest praise on his gallant
officers, and bequeathed, as is said, his charger, and his body-servant,
Bishop, to Washington.[480:C] The dying Braddock ejaculated in reference
to the defeat, "Who would have thought it?" Turning to Orme he remarked,
"We shall better know how to deal with them another time;" and in a few
moments expired, at eight o'clock, in the evening of Sunday, the 13th of
July, 1755, at the Great Meadows. On the next morning he was buried in
the road, near Fort Necessity, Washington, in the absence of the
chaplain, who was wounded, reading the funeral service. Washington
retired to Mount Vernon, oppressed with the sad retrospect of the recent
disaster. But his reputation was greatly elevated by his signal
gallantry on this occasion. Such dreary portals open the road of fame.

The green and bosky scene of battle was strewn with the wounded and the
dead. Toward evening the forest resounded with the exulting cries and
war-whoop of the returning French and Indians, the firing of small arms,
and the responsive roar of the cannon at the fort. A lonely American
prisoner confined there listened during this anxious day to the various
sounds, and with peering eye explored the scene. Presently he saw the
greater part of the savages, painted and blood-stained, bringing scalps,
and rejoicing in the possession of grenadiers' caps, and the laced hats
and splendid regimentals of the English officers. Next succeeded the
French, escorting a long train of pack-horses laden with plunder. Last
of all, just before sunset, appeared a party of Indians conducting
twelve British regulars, naked, their faces blackened, their hands tied
behind them. In a short while they were burned to death on the opposite
bank of the Ohio, with every circumstance of studied barbarity and
inhuman torture, the French garrison crowding the ramparts of the fort
to witness the spectacle.

The remains of the defeated detachment retreated to the rear division in
precipitate disorder, leaving the road behind them strewed with signs of
the disaster. Shortly after, Colonel Dunbar marched with the remaining
regulars to Philadelphia. Colonel Washingt