CHAPTER XX
BRADDOCK PAYS THE PRICE
It was the morning of Sunday, July 13, that this shameful flight began. Its arrant cowardice weighed on many of the officers who were left alive, and even on some of the men, especially, I am glad to say, on many of the Virginians. Whose fault was it? Well, Colonel Dunbar was in command, since the general was no longer conscious, and must take the blame.
Colonel Washington had asked me to remain near him, if possible. He had secured me a horse, and together with Captain Orme, who was no less depressed, we formed the escort to the litter whereon lay the dying man. Doctor Craik came to us from time to time, but the general was far beyond human aid. I had never respected him so much as in this hour, for of his downright valor I had had every proof. If only his pride had been a little less, that his valor might have counted! It was while I was riding thus, absorbed in melancholy thought, that a horse cantered up beside me, and looking up, I saw Lieutenant Allen.
"Confess I was a true prophet, Lieutenant Stewart," he remarked, with a sorry attempt at a smile, "though damme if I could have foretold that act of folly back yonder! You see, I know our new commander better than do you."
"So it seems," I answered, and at that moment caught Colonel Washington's astonished eyes fixed upon us. Allen followed my glance, and smiled as he saw the expression of Washington's face.
"He cannot understand our friendliness," he laughed. "He is doubtless wondering if we are arranging the preliminaries for the desperate encounter for which we were booked. Let me explain the situation to him," and he spurred to Washington's side. "I had occasion to say to Lieutenant Stewart a few evenings ago," he said, "that I had been grievously mistaken in my estimate of his courage, and that of the Virginia companies, and that I was truly sorry that I had ever questioned them. In the light of to-day's event, I am still more sorry, and I wish to add to you, Colonel Washington, that I regret the words I used to you, and that I sincerely ask your pardon."
"'Tis granted with all my heart!" cried Washington, his face illumined with that fine smile which always lighted it before any deed of courage or gentleness, and the two shook hands warmly. "'Twas granted before you asked it. I am not such a fire-eater as Tom, back there. I have regretted that foolish quarrel many times, and had determined that it should not lead to another meeting between you, which would have been mere folly. Come here, sir," he called to me. "I wish to tell you how pleased I am that this quarrel has been adjusted."
"No more pleased than I, I assure you, colonel," I laughed. "Lieutenant Allen gave me a sample of his swordsmanship I shall not soon forget. I should have been as helpless before him as a lamb in the jaws of a tiger."
"Now you are mocking me!" cried Allen, and as I related to Colonel Washington the story of his little bout with Langlade, we rode on laughing, the best of friends.
"But, believe me, Lieutenant Stewart," he said, when I had finished, "it was not self-complacency which urged me to take up the foils that day. I merely wished to show you that you had need to keep in practice, and so prevent you from becoming over-sure."
"'T was well done," said Washington heartily. "I appreciate your conduct,
Lieutenant Allen."
"And I certainly took the lesson to heart," I laughed. "Just before you came, I had conceived a most exalted opinion of my own abilities. I shall not make the mistake a second time."
Presently Allen fell back to rejoin the rear-guard, with which he had been stationed, and we rode on beside the general's litter. He was delirious most of the time, and was fighting the battle of the Monongahela over and over again, giving orders and threshing from side to side of his couch in his agony. In one of his intervals of consciousness, he called my companion to him.
"Colonel Washington," he said in a low tone, "I feel that I have done you great injustice. Had I followed your advice, this catastrophe might not have happened. But my eyes were not opened until too late. Had I lived, I should not have forgot you. I am sure you cannot withhold your pardon from a dying man."
Washington's lips were trembling as he bent over the litter.
"If there is anything to pardon, general," he said softly, "be sure I pardon you with all my heart. You have the love of all your officers, sir, who revere you as a brave and gallant man."
"Ay, but a proud and stubborn one," and he smiled sadly. "Would God I had had the grace to see it while it was yet time. Colonel Washington," he added, "I wish you to have my charger, Bruce, and my body servant, Bishop. These two gentlemen are witnesses that I give them to you."
Orme and I bowed our assent, and Washington thanked him with a trembling voice. He was soon wandering again, this time, apparently, among the scenes of his earlier manhood.
"Messieurs de la Garde Française," he cried, "tirez, s'il vous plait!"
"Ah," murmured Orme, "he is at Fontenoy."
And again,—
"Poor Fanny, I always thought she would play till she would be forced to tuck herself up."
"She was his sister," said Orme, answering our questioning glances. "She ruined herself at cards and then hanged herself. It was a sad story."
And yet again,—
"No, I'll not take your purse!" he cried; and then after a moment, "nor ask my life at your hands. Do what you will."
I could bear no more, and rode forward out of earshot. To see this gallant man lying there, slowly dying, bereft at one stroke of life and that far dearer to him than life, his military reputation, moved me as few things had ever done. He had another lucid interval toward the middle of the afternoon, and warmly praised the conduct of his officers.
"They were gallant boys, every one," he said. "They did their duty as brave men should. How many of them fell?" he asked suddenly, turning to Orme.
"Sixteen," answered Orme sadly.
"And how many were wounded?"
"Forty-seven."
"Sixty-three,—and there were only eighty-nine," and Braddock sighed heavily. "And how went it with the men?"
Orme hesitated, fearing to disclose the extent of the disaster, but the general's eyes were on his and would take no denial.
"They suffered very heavily," said Orme at last. "Less than five hundred escaped unharmed. All of the wounded who remained on the field were killed by the Indians."
"And we went into battle with near fifteen hundred men," said Braddock. "Why, it was mere slaughter. There has never an army gone into battle which lost such proportion of its numbers. Ah, well, I shall soon join them. And they are happier than I, for they went to their end honored and applauded, whilst I am a broken and ruined man, who will be remembered only to be cursed."
He turned his head away from us, and a great tear rolled down his cheek.
Orme was crying like a child, and made no effort to conceal it, nor were
Washington and I less moved.
"At least," he said at last, turning back to us with a smile, "it were better to have died than to have lived. I am glad I do not have to live."
He soon lapsed again into delirium, and seemed to be living over a second time a meeting with some woman.
"Dear Pop," he said, "we are sent like sacrifices to the altar. They have given me a handful of men and expect me to conquer whole nations. I know that I shall never see you more. Good-by, Pop, and God bless you."
Orme turned away for a moment to master his emotion.
"'T was his last night in London," he said when he could speak. "He was to set out on the morrow, and he asked Colonel Burton and myself to go with him to visit a very dear protegee of his, George Anne Bellamy, the actress, to whom, I think, he has left all his property. He used to her almost the same words he has just repeated."
"So he had doubts of his success," said Washington musingly. "Well, he was a brave man, for he never permitted them to be seen."
He was fast growing weaker. His voice faltered and failed, and he lay without movement in his litter, continuing so until eight o'clock in the evening. We had halted for the night, and had gathered about his couch, watching him as his breathing grew slowly fainter. At last, when we thought him all but gone, he opened his eyes, and seeing the ring of anxious faces about him, smiled up at them.
"It is the end," he said quietly. "You will better know how to deal with them next time;" and turning his head to one side, he closed his eyes.
We buried him at daybreak. The grave was dug in the middle of the road, so that the wagons passing over it might efface all trace of its existence and preserve it inviolate from the hands of the Indians. Our chaplain, Mr. Hughes, had been severely wounded, so it was Colonel Washington who read the burial service. I shall not soon forget that scene,—the open grave in the narrow roadway, the rude coffin draped with a flag, the martial figure within in full uniform, his hands crossed over the sword on his breast, the riderless charger neighing for its master, and the gray light of the morning over it all. The burial service has never sounded more impressively in my ears than it did as read that morning, in Colonel Washington's strong, melodious voice, to that little group of listening men, in the midst of the wide, unbroken, whispering forest. How often have I heard those words of hope and trust in God's promise to His children, and under what varying circumstances!
We lowered him into the grave, and lingered near until the earth was heaped about it. Then the drums beat the march, the wagons rolled over it, and in half an hour no trace of it remained. So to this day, he lies there undisturbed in the heart of the wilderness, in a grave which no man knows. Others have railed at him,—have decried him and slandered him,—but I remember him as he appeared on that last day of all, a brave and loyal gentleman, not afraid of death, but rather welcoming it, and the memory is a sweet and dear one. If he made mistakes, he paid for them the uttermost penalty which any man could pay,—and may he rest in peace.
Of the remainder of that melancholy flight little need be said. We struggled on through the wilderness, bearing our three hundred wounded with us as best we could, and marking our path with their shallow graves, as they succumbed one after another to the hardships of the journey. On the twenty-second day of July we reached Fort Cumberland, and I learned with amazement that Dunbar did not propose to stop here, although he had placed near a hundred and fifty miles between him and the enemy, but to carry his whole army to Philadelphia, leaving Virginia open to Indian and French invasion by the very road which we had made. He alleged that he must go into winter quarters, and that, too, though it was just the height of summer. Colonel Washington ventured to protest against this folly, but was threatened with court-martial, and came out of Dunbar's quarters red with anger and chagrin.
And sure enough, on the second of August, Dunbar marched away with all his effective men, twelve hundred strong, leaving at the fort all his sick and wounded and the Virginia and Maryland troops, over whom he attempted to exercise no control. I bade good-by to Orme and Allen and such other of the officers as I had met. Colonel Burton took occasion to come to me the night before he marched, and presented me with a very handsome sword in token of his gratitude, as he said, for saving his life,—an exploit, as I pointed out to him, small enough beside a hundred others that were done that day.
The sword he gave me hangs above my desk as I write. I am free to confess that I have performed no great exploits with it, and when I took it down from its hook the other day to look at it, I found that it had rusted in its scabbard.