American Rifle - Alexander Rose [17]
Braddock himself was just one of the astounding 997 casualties: since 60 of the 86 officers present were killed or wounded early in the battle, the Indians had clearly been targeting epaulettes. Washington himself had helped the mortally stricken general onto a cart. A little later, worried that those back home presumed him dead, Washington assured a kinsman that “I now exist and appear in the land of the living by the miraculous care of Providence, that protected me beyond all human expectation.” He had escaped unscathed from the slaughter, though “I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me.”117
Raised since birth to worship the professionalism and bravery of the British Army, Washington was disheartened by what he witnessed that terrible day. The redcoats had “behaved with more cowardice than it is possible to conceive,” and their “dastardly” reluctance to stand and fight had condemned the Virginians, who had been “inclined to do their duty, to almost certain death.”118 These provincial troops, in the words of Captain Robert Cholmley’s servant, had kept their heads and, in true frontier style, “fought behind trees and I believe they did the most execution of any.”119 But it was all for naught: while “the Virginian companies,” reported Washington, “behaved like men, and died like soldiers . . . I believe out of the 3 companies that were there that day, scarce 30 [men] were left alive.” The British panic made it inevitable that the Virginians would eventually “br[eak] and run as sheep before the hounds.”120 Even so, Washington’s uncle Joseph Ball assured him that back at home “every body commends the courage of the Virginians” and blamed Braddock’s “rash conduct” for the fiasco.121
Even if Virginians had only praise for Washington’s actions, the aftershocks of Braddock’s defeat put paid to his efforts (which had included lessons in the social sport of fencing) to acquire a much-desired commission in the royal army. Though he was not condemned publicly for the catastrophe, Washington, like the other aides associated too closely with Braddock, was held to be guilty of helping to lose an army. No evidence was ever produced, and no accusations were published, but in London and Boston army commanders began saying his name with a silent question mark after it. The young man’s hitherto meteoric career turned earthward, and he was obliged to console himself with a distinctly provincial appointment as “Colonel of the Virginia Regiment & Commander in Chief of all Forces now raised & to be raised for the Defence of this His Majesty’s Colony.”122 It was a sweet-sounding title, but it was no colonelcy in a smart British regiment of the line. Still, his loss would be America’s gain, for that battle affirmed two of the most important lessons that Washington ever gleaned from his bloody experience on the frontier.
He witnessed at first hand the necessity of discipline and efficient officering to any army. The Virginian companies were brave, but bravery alone did not win victories. And to be perfectly honest, Virginians, like other American militia and provincial troops, could be a slovenly, ill-behaved lot. “If left to themselves,” drolly observed the British general Jeffery Amherst in 1759, the provincials “would eat fried pork and lay in their tents all day.”123
Washington’s first priority was to whip his regiment into shape. For this task, his lack of a king’s commission turned out to be fortunate. Not beholden to the fanatically enforced regulations laid down by the army, and liberated from the brown-nosing and glad-handing that young officers hopeful of preferment had to perform, Washington was able to train his Virginians as