Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 4).djvu/118

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114
BRADDOCK'S ROAD

similar circumstances. At least the Virginian had nothing to do with Captain Jack's renowned company the year before. To other border fighters Braddock gave a warm reception; Gist and Croghan, the two best known men on the frontier, held important offices in the army. It is as easy as common to lay at the door of a defeated and dead commander all the misfortunes of a campaign; whatever Braddock's errors, the fact remains that the colonies failed absolutely to make the least move to provide an Indian army for Braddock's use. Nothing could have more surely promised defeat and disgrace.

The flying column flew like a partridge with a broken wing. "We set out," wrote Washington who started with it but was compelled to stop, "with less than thirty carriages, including those that transported the ammunition for the howitzers, and six-pounders, and all of them strongly horsed; which was a prospect that conveyed infinite delight to my mind, though I was excessively ill at the time. But this prospect was soon clouded, and my hopes brought very low indeed, when I found, that,