fortunes of the day
might yet have been retrieved, for the Virginians could have checked
the Indians until the English troops were rallied and prepared to meet
the difficulty; but, to Braddock, the idea of men fighting behind trees
was at once cowardly and opposed to all military discipline, and he
dashed forward on his horse, and with fierce oaths ordered the
Virginians to form line. A body of them, however, under Captain
Waggoner, made a dash for a huge fallen tree, far out towards the
lurking places of the Indians, and, crouching behind it, opened fire
upon them; but the regulars, seeing the smoke among the bushes, took
them for the enemy and, firing, killed many and forced the rest to
return.

A few of the soldiers tried to imitate the Indians, and fight behind
the trees, but Braddock beat them back with the flat of his sword, and
forced them to stand with the others, who were now huddled in a mass,
forming a target for the enemy's bullets. Lieutenant Colonel Burton led
100 of them towards a knoll from which the puffs came thickest, but he
fell wounded, and his men, on whom the enemy instantly concentrated
their fire, fell back. The soldiers, powerless against the unseen foe,
for afterwards some of the officers and men who escaped declared that,
throughout the whole fight, they had not seen a single Indian,
discharged their guns aimlessly among the trees.

They were half stupefied now with the terror and confusion of the
scene, the rain of bullets, the wild yells which burst ceaselessly from
their 600 savage foemen; while the horses, wild with terror and wounds,
added to the confusion by dashing madly hither and thither. Braddock
behaved with furious intrepidity. He dashed hither and thither,
shouting and storming at the men, and striving to get them in order,
and to lead them to attack the enemy. Four horses were, one after the
other, shot under him. His officers behaved with equal courage and self
devotion, and in vain attempted to lead on the men, sometimes advancing
in parties towards the Indians, in hopes that the soldiers would follow
them. Sir Peter Halket was killed, Horne and Morris, the two
aides-de-camp, Sinclair the quartermaster general, Gates, Gage, and
Gladwin were wounded. Of 86 officers, 63 were killed or disabled, while
of non-commissioned officers and privates only 459 came off unharmed.

James Walsham had been riding by the side of Washington when the fight
began, and followed him closely as