lso tried in their clumsy way to fight behind trees; but
Braddock beat them with his sword, and compelled them to stand with the
rest, an open mark for the Indians. The panic increased; the soldiers
crowded together, and the bullets spent themselves in a mass of human
bodies. Commands, entreaties, and threats were lost upon them. "We would
fight," some of them answered, "if we could see anybody to fight with."
Nothing was visible but puffs of smoke. Officers and men who had stood
all the afternoon under fire afterwards declared that they could not be
sure they had seen a single Indian. Braddock ordered Lieutenant-Colonel
Burton to attack the hill where the puffs of smoke were thickest, and
the bullets most deadly. With infinite difficulty that brave officer
induced a hundred men to follow him; but he was soon disabled by a
wound, and they all faced about. The artillerymen stood for some time by
their guns, which did great damage to the trees and little to the enemy.
The mob of soldiers, stupefied with terror, stood panting, their
foreheads beaded with sweat, loading and firing mechanically, sometimes
into the air, sometimes among their own comrades, many of whom they
killed. The ground, strewn with dead and wounded men, the bounding of
maddened horses, the clatter and roar of musketry and cannon, mixed with
the spiteful report of rifles and the yells that rose from the
indefatigable throats of six hundred unseen savages, formed a chaos of
anguish and terror scarcely paralleled even in Indian war. "I cannot
describe the horrors of that scene," one of Braddock's officers wrote
three weeks after; "no pen could do it. The yell of the Indians is fresh
on my ear, and the terrific sound will haunt me till the hour of my
dissolution."[225]

[Footnote 225: _Leslie to a Merchant of Philadelphia, 30 July, 1755_, in
_Hazard's Pennsylvania Register_, V. 191. Leslie was a lieutenant of the
Forty-fourth.]

Braddock showed a furious intrepidity. Mounted on horseback, he dashed
to and fro, storming like a madman. Four horses were shot under him, and
he mounted a fifth. Washington seconded his chief with equal courage; he
too no doubt using strong language, for he did not measure words when
the fit was on him. He escaped as by miracle. Two horses were killed
under him, and four bullets tore his clothes. The conduct of the British
officers was above praise. Nothing could surpass their undaunted
self-devotion; and in their vain attempts t