George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[190] twenty-six were killed,—among them, Sir Peter Hal-

chap. VIII.} 1755.

ket,—and thirty-seven were wounded, including Gage 1755 and other field-officers. Of the men, one half were killed or wounded. Braddock braved every danger. His secretary was shot dead; both his English aids were disabled early in the engagement¹ leaving the American alone to distribute his orders. ‘I expected every moment,’ said one whose eye was on Washing ton, ‘to see him fall.’² ‘Nothing but the superin tending care of Providence could have saved him.’ An Indian chief—I suppose a Shawnee—singled him out with his rifle; and bade others of his warriors do the same. Two horses were killed under him; four balls penetrated his coat. ‘Some potent Manitou guards his life,’ exclaimed the savage.³ ‘Death,’ wrote Washington, ‘was levelling my companions on every side of me; but, by the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected.’⁴ ‘To the public,’ said Davies, a learned divine, in the following month, ‘I point out that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.’ ‘Who is Mr. Washington?’ asked Lord Halifax a few months later. ‘I know nothing of him’ he added, ‘but that they say he behaved in Braddock's action as bravely as if he really loved the whistling of bullets.’⁵ The Virginia troops showed great valor, and were nearly all massacred. Of three companies, scarcely thirty men were