Col. Washington, still leading the advance, was the first to enter; and, with his own hand planting the British banner on the still smouldering heaps, took formal possession thereof in the name of his Britannic majesty, King George the Second. And thus this stronghold of French power in the Ohio Valley, so long the pest and terror of the border, fell without a blow. Under the name of Fort Pitt, it was soon rebuilt, and garrisoned with two hundred of Washington's men; and, from that time to the war of the Revolution, it was held by the English, chiefly as a trading-post; and hence the dingy, smoky, noisy, thriving, fast young city of Pittsburg.
They now had leisure to pay the last sad duty to the dead who had fallen in the two defeats of Braddock and Grant. For three long years, the bodies of Braddock's slaughtered men had lain without Christian burial, bleaching in the sun of as many summers, and shrouded in the snows of as many winters. Mingled with the bones of oxen and horses, or half hidden in heaps of autumn leaves, they lay scattered about the stony hillsides,—a spectacle ghastly indeed, and most melancholy to behold. With many a sigh of pity for the hapless dead, and many a shudder of dark remembrance on the part of those who had been present at the scenes of rout and massacre, they gathered together the blackened corpses of Grant's men and the whitened bones of Braddock's men, and, digging a huge pit, buried them in one common grave. In this pious duty all took part alike, from the general down to the common soldier.
With the fall of Fort Duquesne, ended, as Washington had years ago foreseen, the troubles of the Western and Southern frontiers, and with it the power so long held by the French in the Ohio Valley. The Indians, with that fickleness of mind peculiar to savage races, now hastened to offer terms of amity and peace to the party whom the fortunes of war had left uppermost.
Having done his part, and so large a part, towards the restoration of quiet and security to his native province, the cherished object of his heart, for which he had so faithfully and manfully struggled, Washington resolved to bring his career as a soldier to a close. In his very soul, he was sick and weary of strife, and longed for peace. The scenes of violence and bloodshed had become loathing and painful to him beyond the power of words to tell; and, now that his country had no longer need of his services, he felt that he could, without reproach, retire to the tranquil shades of private life he loved so much, and had looked forward to with such earnest longings. He therefore, at the end of the year, gave up his commission, and left the service, followed by the admiration and affection of his soldiers, and the applause and gratitude of his fellow-countrymen.
With the fall of Quebec in the course of the following year (1759), this long and eventful Old French War was brought to a close, and French empire in America was at an end.
XXII.
WASHINGTON AT HOME.
Having done all that a brave and prudent man could for his country's welfare, Col. Washington now lost no time, you may depend upon it, in doing what every wise and prudent man should for his own: by which you are to understand, that on the sixth day of January, 1759, when he wanted but a few weeks of completing his twenty-seventh year, he was joined in the holy bonds of marriage with Mrs. Martha Custis, the blooming and lovely young widow, and mother of the two interesting little children,—to all of whom you had a slight introduction a short time ago.