[Footnote 231:  Bolling to his Son, 13 Aug. 1755.  Bolling was a Virginian gentleman whose son was at school in England.]

Colonel James Innes, commanding at Fort Cumberland, where a crowd of invalids with soldiers’ wives and other women had been left when the expedition marched, heard of the defeat, only two days after it happened, from a wagoner who had fled from the field on horseback.  He at once sent a note of six lines to Lord Fairfax:  “I have this moment received the most melancholy news of the defeat of our troops, the General killed, and numbers of our officers; our whole artillery taken.  In short, the account I have received is so very bad, that as, please God, I intend to make a stand here, ’tis highly necessary to raise the militia everywhere to defend the frontiers.”  A boy whom he sent out on horseback met more fugitives, and came back on the fourteenth with reports as vague and disheartening as the first.  Innes sent them to Dinwiddie.[232] Some days after, Dunbar and his train arrived in miserable disorder, and Fort Cumberland was turned into a hospital for the shattered fragments of a routed and ruined army.

[Footnote 232:  Innes to Dinwiddie, 14 July, 1755.]

On the sixteenth a letter was brought in haste to one Buchanan at
Carlisle, on the Pennsylvanian frontier:—­

Sir,—­I thought it proper to let you know that I was in the battle where we were defeated.  And we had about eleven hundred and fifty private men, besides officers and others.  And we were attacked the ninth day about twelve o’clock, and held till about three in the afternoon, and then we were forced to retreat, when I suppose we might bring off about three hundred whole men, besides a vast many wounded.  Most of our officers were either wounded or killed; General Braddock is wounded, but I hope not mortal; and Sir John Sinclair and many others, but I hope not mortal.  All the train is cut off in a manner.  Sir Peter Halket and his son, Captain Polson, Captain Gethan, Captain Rose, Captain Tatten killed, and many others.  Captain Ord of the train is wounded, but I hope not mortal.  We lost all our artillery entirely, and everything else.

     To Mr. John Smith and Buchannon, and give it to the next post, and
     let him show this to Mr. George Gibson in Lancaster, and Mr.
     Bingham, at the sign of the Ship, and you’ll oblige,

     Yours to command,

     JOHN CAMPBELL, Messenger.[233]

[Footnote 233:  Colonial Records of Pa., VI. 481.]

The evil tidings quickly reached Philadelphia, where such confidence had prevailed that certain over-zealous persons had begun to collect money for fireworks to celebrate the victory.  Two of these, brother physicians named Bond, came to Franklin and asked him to subscribe; but the sage looked doubtful.  “Why, the devil!” said one of them, “you surely don’t suppose the fort will not be taken?” He reminded them that war is always uncertain; and the subscription was deferred.[234]The Governor laid the news of the disaster before his Council, telling them at the same time that his opponents in the Assembly would not believe it, and had insulted him in the street for giving it currency.[235]