had been taught a series of fresh and valuable
lessons. Before his eyes had been displayed the most brilliant
European discipline, both in camp and on the march. He had studied
and absorbed it all, talking with veterans and hearing from them many
things that he could have acquired nowhere else. Once more had he
been taught, in a way not to be forgotten, that it is never well to
underrate one's opponent. He had looked deeper, too, and had seen what
the whole continent soon understood, that English troops were not
invincible, that they could be beaten by Indians, and that they were
after all much like other men. This was the knowledge, fatal in
after days to British supremacy, which Braddock's defeat brought to
Washington and to the colonists, and which was never forgotten. Could
he have looked into the future, he would have seen also in this
ill-fated expedition an epitome of much future history. The expedition
began with stupid contempt toward America and all things American, and
ended in ruin and defeat. It was a bitter experience, much heeded by
the colonists, but disregarded by England, whose indifference was paid
for at a heavy cost.

After the hasty retreat, Colonel Dunbar, stricken with panic, fled
onward to Philadelphia, abandoning everything, and Virginia was left
naturally in a state of great alarm. The assembly came together, and
at last, thoroughly frightened, voted abundant money, and ordered a
regiment of a thousand men to be raised. Washington, who had returned
to Mount Vernon ill and worn-out, was urged to solicit the command,
but it was not his way to solicit, and he declined to do so now.
August 14, he wrote to his mother: "If it is in my power to avoid
going to the Ohio again, I shall; but if the command is pressed upon
me by the general voice of the country, and offered upon such terms as
cannot be objected against, it would reflect dishonor on me to refuse
it." The same day he was offered the command of all the Virginian
forces on his own terms, and accepted. Virginia believed in
Washington, and he was ready to obey her call.

He at once assumed command and betook himself to Winchester, a general
without an army, but still able to check by his presence the existing
panic, and ready to enter upon the trying, dreary, and fruitless work
that lay before him. In April, 1757, he wrote: "I have been posted
then, for more than twenty months past, upon our cold and barren
frontiers, to perform, I think I m