ed in little
blue clouds over his place of ambush. The English, it is said, were
less appalled by the whistling bullet; of the unseen savages than by
their unearthly yells,--a sound that none of them had ever heard
before, and many a poor fellow of them never heard again. The Indian
war-whoop has been described as a sound so wild and terrible, that,
when once heard in battle, it rings in the listener's ears for weeks
thereafter, and is never forgotten even to his dying day.

But the English officers, on the contrary, behaved themselves with a
gallantry that filled Washington with astonishment and admiration.
Heretofore he had seen them only in camp or on the line of march,
where their habits of ease and self-indulgence had led him to doubt
their having the courage and firmness to face, without shrinking,
danger in such appalling forms. Unmindful of the bullets that whistled
continually about their heads, they galloped up and down the broken
and bleeding lines, in the vain endeavor to rally their men, and bring
them again to something like order. Mounted on fine horses, and
dressed in rich uniforms, they offered a tempting mark to the unseen
rifles that were levelled at them from behind every tree and bush, and
tuft of grass; and, ere the work of death was finished, many a gallant
steed, with dangling reins and bloody saddle, dashed riderless about
the field. And, as if this were not enough, many of them must needs
fall victims to the unsoldierly conduct of their own men, who,
forgetful of all discipline, and quite beside themselves with terror
and bewilderment, loaded their pieces hurriedly, and fired them off at
random, killing friends as well as foes. Nor did this most shameful
part of the bloody scene end here: many of the Virginia rangers, who
had already taken to the trees and bushes, and were doing good service
by fighting the Indians in their own fashion, were shot down by the
blundering regulars, who fired into the woods wherever they saw a puff
of smoke, unable to distinguish whether it rose from a red or a white
man's rifle. Upon these brave rangers the brunt of the battle fell;
and indeed, had it not been for their firmness and presence of mind,
their skill and address in the arts and strategems of Indian warfare,
which enabled them for a time to hold the enemy in check, hardly a
remnant of Braddock's fine army would have survived to behold the
going-down of that summer's sun.

At the very commencement of t