The next year, Washington, in charge of the Virginia troops, went with General Braddock, commanding the English forces, to attack the French and take Fort Du Quesne. Braddock was brave but stubborn and ignorant of the methods of Indian warfare. Washington wished the Virginia rangers to march in front in order to guard the army against surprise. “What!” said Braddock, “a Virginia colonel teach a British general how to fight!” Off he marched with flags flying, drums beating, and men in close ranks. Before they reached Fort Du Quesne, the French and Indians attacked them and inflicted a terrible defeat. Braddock paid the penalty of his folly with his life. Washington made a gallant effort to redeem the day. He said, “I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho’ death was levelling my companions on every side of me.” On him devolved the difficult task of leading the shattered remnant of the army back home, protecting it against the unfriendly Indians and the hostile French. After this campaign he was tendered a vote of thanks in the House of Burgesses. When he rose to reply, he blushed and faltered so that the Speaker said, “Sit down, Colonel Washington, sit down. Your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess.” Two years later, as commander of the troops raised in Virginia to defend the frontier he marched against Fort Du Quesne. The French, unable to hold it, set fire to it and retreated; on the spot, the English built a new fort which they called Fort Pitt in honor of an English statesman, and on the site of this fort stands now the city of Pittsburg. The English were victors now and as most of the fighting was in New York and Canada instead of the Ohio country, Washington resigned his commission and went home to Virginia. In January, 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a widow with a fine estate and two children. Washington had no children of his own and his step-children, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis, were like his own children. In the lists of goods he ordered from England we find such items as “One fashionable dress Doll to cost a guinea” and “A box of Gingerbread Toys and Sugar Images or Comfits.” “Patsy,” as the little girl was called, died in early girlhood, but the boy lived to become a man and married, leaving at his death four children of whom two, George Washington Parke Custis and Eleanor Parke Custis, made their home at Mount Vernon as Washington’s adopted children.