The reproach stung the savage breasts. In a moment hundreds of hoarse voices were drowning the long roll of the drums. A mad scene followed; wild with enthusiasm, casks of bullets and flints and powder were rolled to fort gates and their heads knocked out. About these the savages, even while painting themselves for the fray, came in crowds, each one free to help himself as he needed. Then came the race for the ford of the Monongahela. Down the narrow trail burst the horde of warriors, led by the daring Beaujeu dressed in savage costume, an Indian gorget swinging from his neck for good fortune. Behind him poured Delawares, Ojibways, Pottawattamies, Abenakis, Caughnawagas, Iroquois, Ottawas, led by their young King Pontiac; Shawanese, Wyandots, Hurons, led by Athanasius from the mission of Lorette, who gloried in a name “torn from the most famous page of Christian history.” With the six hundred savages ran two hundred Canadians and four score French regulars.
This rabble could not have left Fort Duquesne before high noon; no wonder Beaujeu ran—fearing Braddock had passed the battle-ground he had chosen last night. In that case he despaired of delaying the advance even a single day; yet in one day the expected reinforcements might arrive from the north!
Washington rode with Braddock today, though he rode on a pillow in his saddle. In after life he often recalled the sight of Braddock’s grenadiers marching beside the Monongahela in battle array, a fine picture with the thin red line framed in the fresh green of the forests. With the receipt of Gage’s note, the fear of ambuscade which had been omnipresent since the army left Fort Cumberland, vanished. During that month the Indian guides, flanking squads, and woodchoppers had rushed into camp time and again calling the companies to arms; each alarm had been false. As Fort Duquesne was neared Braddock grew doubly cautious. He even attempted to leave the Indian trail which ran through the “Narrows” and which crossed the Monongahela at the mouth of Turtle Creek. When another course was found impossible for the wagons he turned reluctantly back to the old thoroughfare, but had passed the “Narrows” safely and his advance guards now held the fords. All was well.
By two o’clock Braddock was across the river, bag and baggage. Beyond, the Indian trail wound along to the uplands, skirting the heads of numerous ravines and clinging persistently, like all the trails of the Indians and buffalo, to the high ground between the brook and swamp. The ridge which the trail followed here to the second terrace was twenty rods in width, with the path near the center. On the west a deep ravine, completely hidden in the deep underbrush, lay almost parallel with the trail for a distance of over five hundred feet. On the opposite side smaller ravines also lay nearly parallel with the trail. On the high ground between these hidden ravines, and not more than two hundred feet from them, Braddock’s engineers and woodchoppers widened their road for Gage’s advance guard which was ordered to march on until three o’clock.
As the engineers reached the extremity of the second terrace Beaujeu came bounding into sight, the pack of eight hundred wolves at his heels. Seeing the English, the daring but dismayed Frenchman stopped still in his tracks. He was an hour too late. Attempting to surprise Braddock, Beaujeu was himself surprised. But he waved his hat above his head and the crowd of warriors scattered behind him like a partridge’s brood into the forest leaves.
The French captain knew the ground and Braddock did not, and the ground was admirably formed for a desperate stand against the advancing army. Burton, who was just leaving the river shore, was ordered up to support Gage on the second upland after the first fire. This brought the whole army, save four hundred men, to the second terrace between the unseen ravines on the east and west. Into these ravines poured the Indian rabble. The ravine on the east being shorter than that on the west, many savages ran through it and posted themselves in the dense underbrush on the hillside.
Thus, in a twinkling of an eye, the Indians running southward in the two ravines and the British northward on the high ground between them, the fatal position of the battle was quickly assumed.[40] No encounter has been more incorrectly described and pictured than the Battle of the Monongahela.[41] Braddock was not surprised; his advance guard saw the enemy long before they opened fire; George Croghan affirmed that the grenadiers delivered their first charge when two hundred yards distant from the Indians, completely throwing it away. Nor did Braddock march blindly into a deep ravine; his army was ever on the high ground, caught almost in the vortex of the cross-fire of the savages hidden on the brink of the ravines on either side, or posted on the high ground to the right.[42]
The road was but twelve feet in width. Even as Burton came up, Gage’s grenadiers were frightened and retreating. The meeting of the advancing and retiring troops caused a fatal confusion and delay in the narrow road. The fire from the Indians on the high ground to the right being severe, Braddock attempted to form his bewildered men and charge. It was futile. The companies were in an inextricable tangle. Finally, to reduce things to order, the various standards were advanced in different directions and the officers strove to organize their commands in separate detachments, with a hope of surrounding the savages. This, too, proved futile. The Indians on either side completely hidden in the ravines, the smoke of the rifles hardly visible through the dense underbrush, poured a deadly fire on the swarm of red-coats huddled in the narrow track. Not a rifle ball could miss its mark there. As the standards were advanced here and there, the standard bearers and the officers who followed encouraging their men to form again were shot down both from behind and before.[43] As once and again the paralyzed grenadiers broke into the forest to raid the ravines, in the vain hope of dislodging the enemy, they offered only a surer mark for the thirsty rifles toward which they ran.
The Virginians took to the trees like ducks to water, but the sight enraged Braddock, mad to have the men form in battle line and charge in solid phalanx. In vain Washington pleaded to be allowed to place his men behind the trees; Braddock drove them away with the flat blade of his sword. Yet they came back and fought bravely from the trees as was their habit. But it availed nothing to fight behind trees with the enemy on both flanks; the Virginians were, after all, no safer there than elsewhere, as the death-roll plainly shows. The provincial portion of the army suffered as heavily, if not more heavily, than any other. No army could have stood its ground there and won that battle. The only chance of victory was to advance or retreat out of range of those hidden rifles. The army could not be advanced for every step brought the men nearer the very center of that terrible cross-fire. And the Bull-dog Braddock knew not the word “retreat.” That was the secret of his defeat.[44]
Soon there were not enough officers left to command the men, most of whom were hopelessly bewildered at seeing half the army shot down by a foe they themselves had never seen. Many survivors of the battle affirmed that they never saw above five Indians during the conflict. Braddock was mortally wounded by a ball which pierced his right arm and lung. Sir Peter Halket lay dead, his son’s dead corpse lying across his own. Of twenty-one captains, seven were dead and seven wounded; of thirty-eight lieutenants, fifteen were wounded and eleven were dead; of fourteen second lieutenants or ensigns, five were wounded and three were dead; of fifty-eight sergeants, twenty were wounded and seventeen dead; of sixty-one corporals and bombardiers, twenty-two were wounded and eighteen dead; of eighteen gunners, eight were wounded and six were dead; of twelve hundred privates, three hundred and twenty-eight were wounded and three hundred and eighty-six were dead. Each Frenchman, Canadian, and Indian had hit his man and more than every other one had killed his man. Their own absolutely impregnable position can be realized when it is known that not twenty-five French, Canadians or Indians were killed and wounded. Among the first to fall was the hero of the day, Beaujeu; his Indian gorget could not save his own life, but it delayed the capture of Fort Duquesne—three years.