He at
once sent a note of six lines to Lord Fairfax: "I have this moment
received the most melancholy news of the defeat of our troops, the
General killed, and numbers of our officers; our whole artillery taken.
In short, the account I have received is so very bad, that as, please
God, I intend to make a stand here, 'tis highly necessary to raise the
militia everywhere to defend the frontiers." A boy whom he sent out on
horseback met more fugitives, and came back on the fourteenth with
reports as vague and disheartening as the first. Innes sent them to
Dinwiddie.[232] Some days after, Dunbar and his train arrived in
miserable disorder, and Fort Cumberland was turned into a hospital for
the shattered fragments of a routed and ruined army.
[Footnote 232: _Innes to Dinwiddie, 14 July, 1755_.]
On the sixteenth a letter was brought in haste to one Buchanan at
Carlisle, on the Pennsylvanian frontier:--
Sir,--I thought it proper to let you know that I was in the battle
where we were defeated. And we had about eleven hundred and fifty
private men, besides officers and others. And we were attacked the
ninth day about twelve o'clock, and held till about three in the
afternoon, and then we were forced to retreat, when I suppose we
might bring off about three hundred whole men, besides a vast many
wounded. Most of our officers were either wounded or killed;
General Braddock is wounded, but I hope not mortal; and Sir John
Sinclair and many others, but I hope not mortal.
Pages:
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259