And now Braddock's dark, last hour had come. Brooding and silent
he lay in his litter. This awful defeat was something he could not
grasp. "Who would have thought it?" he murmured. "Who would have
thought it?" But his stubborn spirit was yet unbroken. "We will
know better how to do it another time," he sighed. A few minutes
later he died.
His men buried him in the middle of the road, Washington reading
over him the prayers for the dead. Then lest the Indians should
find and desecrate his last resting-place the whole army passed
over his grave.
__________
Chapter 49 - The End of the French Rule in America
Braddock's campaign was a complete disaster. The French had
triumphed, and even those Indians who up till now had been willing
to side with the British were anxious to make friends with the
French. For were they not the stronger? Surely it seemed to them
the White Father of the St. Lawrence was more powerful than the
White Father of the Hudson.
"If the English will not suffer the branches of the Great Tree of
Peace to hide us from the French," they said, "we will go farther
off. We will lie down and warm ourselves by the war fires of the
French. We love to hear the sound of the war whoop. We delight
in the war yell. It flies from hill to hill, from heart to heart.
It makes the old heart young, it makes the young heart dance.
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