But the fire of the French and the savages was increasing in volume and accuracy.  The bullets and cannon balls of the English and Americans fired almost at random were passing over their heads, but the great column of scarlet and blue on the trail formed a target which the leaden missiles could not miss.  Continually shouting the war whoop, exultant now with the joy of expected triumph, the savages hovered on either flank of Braddock’s army like a swarm of bees, but with a sting far more deadly.  The brave and wily Beaujeu had been killed in the first minute of the battle, but St. Luc, Dumas and Ligneris, equally brave and wily, directed the onset, and the huge Tandakora raged before his warriors.

The head of the British column was destroyed, and the three crept back toward Gage’s regulars, but the fire of the enemy was now spreading along both flanks of the column to its full length.  Robert remembered the warning words of St. Luc.  Every twig and leaf in the forest was spouting death.  Gage’s regulars, raked by a terrible fire, and in danger of complete destruction, were compelled to retreat upon the main body, and, to their infinite mortification, abandon two cannon, which the savages seized with fierce shouts of joy and dragged into the woods.

“It goes ill,” said Willet, as the terrible forest, raining death from every side, seemed to close in on them like the shadow of doom.  Braddock, hearing the tremendous fire ahead, rushed forward his own immediate troops as fast as possible, and meeting Gage’s retreating men, the two bodies became a great mass of scarlet in the forest, upon which French and Indian bullets, that could not miss, beat like a storm of hail.  The shouts and cheers of the regulars ceased.  In an appalling situation, the like of which they had never known before, hemmed in on every side by an unseen death, they fell into confusion, but they did not lose courage.  The savage ring now enclosed the whole army, and to stand and to retreat alike meant death.

The British charged with the bayonet into the thickets.  The Indians melted away before them, and, when the exhausted regulars came back into the trail, the Indians rushed after them, still pouring in a murderous fire, and making the forest ring with the ferocious war whoop.  The Virginians, knowing the warfare of the wilderness, began to take to the shelter of the trees, from which they could fire at the enemy.  The brave though mistaken Braddock fiercely ordered them out again.  A score lying behind a fallen trunk and, matching the savages at their own game, were mistaken by the regulars for the foe, and were fired upon with deadly effect.  Other regulars who tried to imitate the hostile tactics were set upon by Braddock himself who beat them with the flat of his sword and drove them back into the open trail, where the rain of bullets fell directly upon them.