Boys Book of Famous Soldiers | Page 6

the preparations with keenest interest. He
could not help contrasting this splendid equipment with the scanty
packs which his own men had carried.
Much to his delight, he was invited by General Braddock to join his
staff as an aide-de-camp, a post which Washington joyfully accepted.
Braddock had heard something of the Virginia colonel even before
leaving England; and was not so much honoring this colonial officer, as
immeasurably strengthening his own good right arm--if he had only
had the discernment to know it. As results showed, Braddock did not
need his heavy cannon nearly so much as he needed an insight into
wilderness ways.
Just before Braddock started west on his ill-fated expedition, he
conferred at Fredericktown, Maryland, with the Postmaster General of
Pennsylvania, a strong, practical man, who was to obtain some
greatly-needed horses and wagons for his artillery and supplies. This
man, a middle-aged and rather plain sort of fellow--and the youthful
Virginia colonel whom he may have met then for the first
time--possibly attracted very little attention in the gaudy military array.
But American history could ill have spared either Benjamin Franklin or
George Washington.
We will not narrate again in detail here the oft-told story of Braddock's
Defeat--how he insisted on marching across the mountains and valleys
of Pennsylvania, as though on parade--with banners flying, fifes
shrilling, and drums beating. It was a brave display, and such as the old
General was accustomed to, in Europe. It would undoubtedly put the
French and their skulking allies to instant flight!
Against such a method of warfare Washington raised his voice of
counsel, but in vain. The grizzled veteran brushed him aside.
Washington was for rapid marching, with scouting troops deployed on
ahead.
"But this prospect," he writes, "was soon clouded, and my hopes

brought very low indeed, when I found that, instead of pushing on with
vigor, without regarding a little rough road, they were halting to level
every molehill, and to erect bridges over every brook, by which means
we were four days in getting twelve miles."
A few days before Braddock reached the vicinity of Fort Duquesne,
Washington had fallen sick of a fever, and had barely recovered
strength enough to rejoin the command. But the slow progress to which
he refers, enabled him to do so before the attack--though he was still far
from well.
As he rode up to meet the general, he could not help but admire the
beauty of the scene. The troops had crossed a ford on the Monongahela,
about fifteen miles from the fort, and now marched in close formation
along its winding bank, as though on dress parade. But his admiration
of the display only intensified his sense of danger--the sixth sense of
every woodsman. He begged his general to scatter his forces somewhat,
or at least send scouts ahead. But Braddock rebuked him angrily for
presuming to teach English regulars how to fight.
Suddenly the sound of firing was heard at the front, although no
attacking party could be seen. The soldiers had marched straight into an
ambush, as Washington had feared. With whoops and yells the Indians
commanded by a few French were firing from behind every rock and
tree. The regulars were thrown into confusion. This type of warfare was
new to them. They did not know how to answer it. The front ranks
recoiled upon the others, throwing all into wild turmoil.
Washington at once threw himself into the fight--counselling,
persuading, commanding. A company of Virginians, previously
sneered at as "raw militia," spread themselves out as a protecting party
of skirmishers. The English officers, also, be it said, displayed the
utmost bravery in trying to rally their men. The general, as though to
atone for his headstrong folly, seemed everywhere at once. He had two
horses shot from under him, before receiving wounds in his own body,
which were to prove mortal.
It was all over in a comparatively short time. The troops which had so

proudly marched, with arms glittering in the sun, were put to rout by an
unseen foe. That they were not almost annihilated was due to the
presence of Washington and the Virginians. They fought the enemy in
kind, and protected the fugitives until some sort of order could be
restored.
Washington it was who collected the troops and rescued the dying
general. He it was who led them back to meet the reinforcements under
Dunbar. And he it was who laid the remains of Braddock in the grave,
four days later, and read the burial service above him.
Again had the young soldier to taste the bitter dregs of defeat--but it
was salutary, and a part of the iron discipline which was making him
into the future leader.
That he had not lost any prestige by this experience, but