[Illustration: THE FALL OF BRADDOCK. (From a painting by C. Schuessele, published in 1859.)]
In contrast to Braddock's unbounded assurance, Halkett seems to have had a strong premonition of the impending disaster and his own tragic fate. Lowdermilk, in his excellent _History of Cumberland_, describes his dejection the night before the battle:
"Sir Peter Halkett was low spirited and depressed; he comprehended the importance of meeting the wily red skins with their own tactics, and while he urged the General to beat the bushes over every foot of ground from the camp to the Fort, he had little hope of seeing his advice put into effect; when he wrapped his mantle about him that night as he lay upon his soldier's bed his soul was filled with the darkest forebodings for the morrow, which he felt would close his own career as well as that of many another gallant soldier, a presentiment which was sadly realized."
Upon the following day, the 9th of July, the advance party of British, now making better progress, pressed on to a point five or six miles from Fort DuQuesne where they encountered the awaiting French and Indians. Against such British strength of numbers and equipment the French had one chance and well they knew it lay in meeting the attacking force in the forest before it could bring its artillery to play on their fortification. The mass of the scarlet-coated British troops were in close formation in the open; the French and Indians hid themselves behind the surrounding trees. As the first bullets poured into their ranks the British could see no foe and Braddock, deaf to the entreaties of the Virginians, insisted that his troops hold their ranks in the unprotected and open clearing. The provincials scattered and fought the foe in its own manner from behind every tree and mound they could find to shelter them; but Braddock, wholly immune to fear or reason himself, continued to hold his regulars together, in his anger beating back with his sword into the ranks those seeking cover. Even so the situation, impossible though it were rapidly becoming, might have been saved by the desperate and determined efforts of the provincials who had found a small ravine or ditch from which they were able to deliver an effective flanking fire against the French; but as the latter began to waver and the Americans left their protection to charge, the panic-stricken regulars fired upon them, killing and wounding a great number. It was the end. Braddock, who throughout the fighting had shewn the most reckless and obstinate courage and had had his horses killed from under him again and again, now received a mortal wound and the surviving English broke into a wild and disorderly retreat. Had the French and their allies pressed their advantage, hardly one of their foe would have escaped death or capture; but the Indian allies of the French, when the British fled, addressed themselves to killing the wounded and robbing and scalping the dead, thus giving the English their chance of flight, disorderly and panic-stricken, back over the road they had come. Braddock, crushed with the completeness of his defeat, died on the fourth day of the retreat and was buried in the roadway to protect his body from the Indian savages. How overwhelming was the French victory is shewn by the English record that of the 1,386 men who were under Braddock in the fight, only 459 escaped. That the British regulars stood their ground bravely in the face of most difficult conditions and stupid leadership there seems no question. But the greater praise went to the Americans who inflicted far more damage on the foe; and particularly to their leader Washington who with cool courage was everywhere encouraging his men in the fight and though his clothing was pierced repeatedly with rifle balls, he escaped wholly unwounded.