124 Braddock's defeat and death. [1755 decided to push on with 1400 of the best troops. The catastrophe which overwhelmed this advancing force within nine miles of the French fort is one of the most dramatic tragedies in our military annals. 600 Indians and 200 French and Canadians awaited the British at a spot well adapted to forest warfare, and virtually destroyed an army nearly twice their strength, of better discipline and equal courage. The story has been often told. The enemy, lurking behind trees and bushy ridges, themselves invisible, poured in a fire so rapid and so deadly that the redcoats, massed together, fell in heaps. For a time discipline to some extent prevailed, and crashing volleys were fired in futile fashion into the woods whence came the pitiless leaden hail. But when the slaughter increased and no enemy could be seen, confusion seized upon the troops, who, huddled together in small knots, fired wildly in all directions, killing more of their comrades than of their enemy. Officers showed the noblest devotion, vainly endeavouring to lead parties of their men against the hidden foe but invariably falling in the very act, picked off by the marksman's bullet. Braddock performed prodigies of valour and had five horses killed under him. Washington in like fashion was twice unhorsed and his coat riddled with balls. After two hours of slaughter and confusion, a general panic set in, and the survivors fled back along the road they had so laboriously made and traversed, not halting till they reached Dunbar's camp sixty miles away. Braddock was shot in the lungs, and being borne along with the fugitives was buried four days later under forest leaves. Out of 1460 of all ranks who went into action 863 were killed or wounded. Out of 87 officers only 26 came off unscathed. Yet there was no serious attempt at pursuit. This catastrophe caused a painful shock in England and spread consternation in the colonies. Its immediate effect was enormously to increase, among the Indians, the prestige that the French by their activity had already been acquiring, and to hurl on the defenceless frontiers of the middle and southern colonies a horde of savages, thirsting for scalps and eager for blood. Two expeditions of less import were undertaken this year in the North. War had not yet been formally declared between France and England ; but, when Braddock's corps was despatched from Cork, France answered the challenge by sending 3000 soldiers to Canada. Now Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts, was a man of energy and ability, and profoundly convinced of the urgency of the French question. He had brought 6000 provincials, mostly New Englanders, into the field. They were commanded by Johnson, an Irish gentleman of large possessions on the Indian frontier and of great influence with the friendly Indians of the Five Nations. The object was to operate from Albany and oppose the French forces which were massing on Lake Champlain, and which threatened to seize and hold the water-connexion flanking the New England colonies and leading direct from Canada to New York. The
