Four days after the battle General Braddock died, and the remnant of the army being now led by a Colonel Dunbar, hurried back to the eastern settlements.
Of all the men who took part in that unfortunate expedition against the French, there was only one who gained any renown therefrom, and that one was Colonel George Washington.
He went back to Mount Vernon, wishing never to be sent to the Ohio
Country again.
The people of Virginia were so fearful lest the French and Indians should follow up their victory and attack the settlements, that they quickly raised a regiment of a thousand men to defend their colony. And so highly did they esteem Colonel Washington that they made him commander of all the forces of the colony, to do with them as he might deem best.
The war with the French for the possession of the Ohio Country and the valley of the Mississippi, had now fairly begun. It would be more than seven years before it came to an end.
But most of the fighting was done at the north—in New York and Canada; and so Washington and his Virginian soldiers did not distinguish themselves in any very great enterprise.
It was for them to keep watch of the western frontier of the colony lest the Indians should cross the mountains and attack the settlements.
Once, near the middle of the war, Washington led a company into the very country where he had once traveled on foot with Christopher Gist.
The French had built a fort at the place where the Ohio River has its beginning, and they had named it Fort Duquesne. When they heard that Washington was coming they set fire to the fort and fled down the river in boats.
The English built a new fort at the same place, and called it Fort Pitt; and there the city of Pittsburg has since grown up.