loud and hoarse above the din of battle. Under the mistaken notion
that a savage enemy, hid in a thicket, was to be dealt with as a
civilized one in an open plain, he sought to recover his lost ground
by forming his men into companies and battalions; which, however, he
had no sooner done, than they were mowed down by the murderous fire
from the ambush, that had never ceased. "My soldiers," said he, "would
fight, could they but see their enemy; but it is vain to shoot at
trees and bushes." Whereupon Washington urgently besought him to let
his regulars fight the Indians in their own fashion, which would the
better enable them to pick off the lurking foe with less danger to
their own safety. But Braddock's only answer to this was a sneer; and
some of his regulars, who were already acting upon the suggestion, he
angrily ordered back into the ranks, calling them cowards, and even
striking them with the flat of his sword. He then caused the colors of
the two regiments to be advanced in different parts of the field, that
the soldiers might rally around their separate standards. It was all
in vain. In his excitement, he cheered, he entreated, he swore, he
stormed: it was only a waste of breath; for the poor fellows were too
disheartened and broken, too overcome by mortal fear, to rally again.

Col. Washington, seeing that the day was on the point of being lost,
galloped down to the rear to see if nothing could be done with the
artillery; but he found the gunners in a most disorderly plight,
benumbed with terror, and utterly unable to manage their guns. What
Washington did on this occasion, I had better tell you in the words of
an old Pennsylvania soldier, who was there at the time, and survived
the battle for half a hundred years or more; and used often, for the
entertainment of your Uncle Juvinell and other little boys, to fight
his battles over again as he sat smoking in his chimney corner.

"I saw Col. Washington," he would say, "spring from his panting
horse, and seize a brass field-piece as if it had been a stick.
His look was terrible. He put his right hand on the muzzle, his
left hand on the breech; he pulled with this, he pushed with
that, and wheeled it round, as if it had been a plaything: it
furrowed the ground like a ploughshare. He tore the sheet-lead
from the touch-hole; then the powder-monkey rushed up with the
fire, when the cannon went off, making the bark fly from the