He was still struggling to bring the men off in some kind of order when he fell from his horse, the fifth that the Indians' fire had compelled him to mount on that day, pierced by a bullet through arm and lungs. The unwounded remnant of his troops instantly broke loose and fled away. In vain Washington and others strove to rally them at the ford; they might as well have tried to stop the wild bears of the mountains.[261] They splashed through the river exhausted though they were, and ran on with the whoops of the Indians still ringing in their ears. Gage succeeded in rallying about eighty at the second ford; but the rest were not to be stayed. Braddock, stricken to the death, begged to be left on the battlefield, but some officers lifted him and carried him away, for not a man of the soldiers would put a hand to him. Weak as he was, and racked with the pain of his wound and the anguish of his defeat, the gallant man still kept command and still gave his orders. On passing the Monongahela he bade his bearers halt, and sending Washington away to Dunbar for provisions and transport he passed the night among the handful of men that had been rallied by Gage. [Sidenote: July 9.] [Sidenote: July 10.] On the next morning some order was restored, and the retreat was continued. Meanwhile stragglers had already reached Dunbar's camp with wild tidings of disaster and defeat, and many of the teamsters had already taken to their heels. After one more day of torture Braddock himself was carried into the camp. On the march he had issued directions for the collection and relief of stragglers, and now he gave, or is said to have given, his last order, for the destruction of all waggons and stores that could not be carried back to Fort Cumberland. Accordingly scores of waggons were burned, the provisions were destroyed, and guns and ammunition, not easily to be replaced in the colonies, were blown up or spoiled. Then the relics of the army set out in shame and confusion for the return march of sixty miles to Fort Cumberland. Braddock travelled but a little distance with it. His faithful aide-de-camp, Captain Orme, though himself badly wounded, remained with him to the end and has recorded his last words; but there was little speech now left in the rough, bullying martinet, whose mouth had once been so full of oaths, and whose voice had been the terror of every soldier. It was not only that his lungs were shot through and through, but that his heart was broken. Throughout the first day's march he lay white and silent, with his life's blood bubbling up through his lips, nor was it till evening that his misery found vent in the almost feminine ejaculation, "Who would have thought it"? Again through the following day he remained silent, until towards sunset, as if to sum up repentance for past failure and good hope for the future, he murmured gently, "Another time we shall know better how to deal with them." And so having learned his lesson he lay still, and a