Braddock's defeat occurred, as stated, on July 9, 1755. It was a slaughter, rather than a battle. Colonel Dunbar, the British officer who succeeded to the command on the death of Braddock, retreated, or rather fled, with the remnant of the army to Winchester; and fearing for his safety even there, retired with the regulars to winter quarters in Philadelphia. Washington and other Virginians who escaped the massacre, returned to their homes deeply mortified and indignant at the inefficiency of the leaders of the expedition.
The consternation was universal, and many of the settlers on the western frontier fled across the Blue Ridge, and even to North Carolina. Among the refugees to that province was the Rev. Alexander Craighead, with a portion of his congregation. Mr. Craighead came from Pennsylvania and settled on the Cowpasture river, near Windy Cove (now Bath county), in 1749. It is said he had a double motive for leaving Virginia—to escape the savages, and also the disabilities imposed here upon Dissenting ministers. He was a man of ardent temper, and could not brook the idea of holding the frontier and protecting the people of Eastern Virginia from savage inroads, while not permitted to celebrate the rite of marriage according to the ceremonies of his own church. He died in North Carolina in 1766.
The alarm about Staunton is described by the Rev. John Craig in his narrative. He says: "When General Braddock was defeated and killed, our country was laid open to the enemy, our people were in dreadful confusion, and discouraged to the highest degree. Some of the richer sort that could take some money with them to live upon were for flying to a safer part of the country. My advice was then called for, which I gave, opposing that scheme as a scandal to our nation, falling below our brave ancestors, making ourselves a reproach among Virginians, a dishonor to our friends at home, an evidence of cowardice, want of faith and a noble Christian dependence on God, as able to save and deliver from the heathen; it would be a lasting blot to our posterity." Mr. Craig urged the building of forts, one of which was to be the church. He says: "They required me to go before them in the work, which I did cheerfully, though it cost me one-third of my estate. The people readily followed, and my congregation in less than two months was well fortified."—[See Foote's Sketches, page 32.]
