the baggage trains.  At the same time some Chickasaw auxiliaries, with the true rat instinct, deserted and went home.  Nevertheless St. Clair kept on, and finally reached what proved to be his last camp, with about fourteen hundred men.  The militia were on one side of the stream, the regulars on the other.  At sunrise the next day the Indians surprised the militia, drove them back on the other camp, and shattered the first line of the regulars.  The second line stood their ground, and a desperate fight ensued; but it was all in vain.  The Indians charged up to the guns, and, though they were repulsed by the bayonet, St. Clair, who was ill in his tent, was at last forced to order a retreat.  The retreat soon became a rout, and the broken army, leaving their artillery and throwing away their arms, fled back to Fort Jefferson, where they left their wounded, and hurried on to their starting-point at Fort Washington.  It was Braddock over again.  General Butler, the second in command, was killed on the field, while the total loss reached nine hundred men and fifty-nine officers, and of these six hundred were killed.  The Indians do not appear to have numbered much more than a thousand.  No excuse for such a disaster and such murderous slaughter is possible, for nothing but the grossest carelessness could have permitted a surprise of that nature upon an established camp.  The troops, too, were not only surprised, but apparently utterly unprepared to fight, and the battle was merely a wild struggle for life.

Washington was above all things a soldier, and his heart was always with his armies whenever he had one in the field.  In this case particularly he hoped much, for he looked to this powerful expedition to settle the Indian troubles for a time, and give room for that great western movement which always was in his thoughts.  He therefore awaited reports from St. Clair with keen anxiety, but in this case the ill tidings did not attain their proverbial speed.  The battle was fought on November 4, and it was not until the close of a December day that the officer carrying dispatches from the frontier reached Philadelphia.  He rode at once to the President’s house, and Washington was called out from dinner, where he had company.  He remained away some time, and on returning to the table said nothing as to what he had heard, talked with every one at Mrs. Washington’s reception afterwards, and gave no sign.  Through all the weary evening he was as calm and courteous as ever.  When the last guest had gone he walked up and down the room for a few minutes and then suddenly broke out:  “It’s all over—­St. Clair’s defeated—­routed; the officers nearly all killed, the men by wholesale; the rout complete—­too shocking to think of—­and a surprise into the bargain.”  He paused and strode up and down the room; stopped again and burst forth in a torrent of indignant wrath:  “Here on this very spot I took leave of him; I wished him success and honor; ‘You have your