o lead on the men, the havoc
among them was frightful. Sir Peter Halket was shot dead. His son, a
lieutenant in his regiment, stooping to raise the body of his father,
was shot dead in turn. Young Shirley, Braddock's secretary, was pierced
through the brain. Orme and Morris, his aides-de-camp, Sinclair, the
quartermaster-general, Gates and Gage, both afterwards conspicuous on
opposite sides in the War of the Revolution, and Gladwin, who, eight
years later, defended Detroit against Pontiac, were all wounded. Of
eighty-six officers, sixty-three were killed or disabled;[226] while out
of thirteen hundred and seventy-three noncommissioned officers and
privates, only four hundred and fifty-nine came off unharmed.[227]

[Footnote 226: _A List of the Officers who were present, and of those
killed and wounded, in the Action on the Banks of the Monongahela, 9
July, 1755_ (Public Record Office, _America and West Indies_, LXXXII).]

[Footnote 227: Statement of the engineer, Mackellar. By another account,
out of a total, officers and men, of 1,460, the number of all ranks who
escaped was 583. Braddock's force, originally 1,200, was increased, a
few days before the battle, by detachments from Dunbar.]

Braddock saw that all was lost. To save the wreck of his force from
annihilation, he at last commanded a retreat; and as he and such of his
officers as were left strove to withdraw the half-frenzied crew in some
semblance of order, a bullet struck him down. The gallant bulldog fell
from his horse, shot through the arm into the lungs. It is said, though
on evidence of no weight, that the bullet came from one of his own men.
Be this as it may, there he lay among the bushes, bleeding, gasping,
unable even to curse. He demanded to be left where he was. Captain
Stewart and another provincial bore him between them to the rear.

It was about this time that the mob of soldiers, having been three hours
under fire, and having spent their ammunition, broke away in a blind
frenzy, rushed back towards the ford, "and when," says Washington, "we
endeavored to rally them, it was with as much success as if we had
attempted to stop the wild bears of the mountains." They dashed across,
helter-skelter, plunging through the water to the farther bank, leaving
wounded comrades, cannon, baggage, the military chest, and the General's
papers, a prey to the Indians. About fifty of these followed to the edge
of the river. Dumas and Ligneris, who had now only a