Twenty-three he was then, tall
and spare and hardbodied from a life spent largely in the open.
When Braddock fell, this Washington appeared. Reckless of the
enemy's bullets, which spanged about him and pierced his clothes,
he dashed up and down the lines in an effort to rally the
panic-stricken redcoats. He was too late to save the day, but not
to save a remnant of the army and bring out his own Virginians in
good order. Whether among the stay-at-homes and voters of credits
there were some who would have ascribed Washington's conduct on
that day to the fact that his brothers were large shareholders in
the Ohio Company and that Fort Duquesne was their personal
property or "private interest," history does not say. We may
suppose so.
North Carolina, the one colony which had not "amus'd" the
Governor of Virginia "with Expectations that proved fruitless,"
had voted 12,000 pounds for the war and had raised two companies
of troops. One of these, under Edward Brice Dobbs, son of
Governor Dobbs, marched with Braddock; and in that company as
wagoner went Daniel Boone, then in his twenty-second year. Of
Boone's part in Braddock's campaign nothing more is recorded save
that on the march he made friends with John Findlay, the trader,
his future guide into Kentucky; and that, on the day of the
defeat, when his wagons were surrounded, he escaped by slashing
the harness, leaping on the back of one of his horses, and
dashing into the forest.
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