Braddock advanced carefully through the dense and silent forest, when suddenly this silence was broken by the war-whoop of the savages, of whom not one was visible. Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line and fired; and at first the English seemed to carry everything before them, for the Canadians were seized by a panic and fled; but the scarlet coats of the English furnished good targets for their invisible enemies. The Indians, yelling their war-cries, swarmed in the forest, but were so completely hidden in gullies and ravines, behind trees and bushes and fallen trunks, that only the trees were struck by the volley after volley fired by the English, who at last broke ranks and huddled together in a bewildered mass. Both men and officers were ignorant of this mode of warfare. The Virginians alone were equal to the emergency and might have held the enemy in check, but when Braddock found them hiding behind trees and bushes, as the Indians, he became so furious at this seeming want of courage and discipline, that he ordered them with oaths, to join the line, even beating them with his sword, they replying to his threats and commands that they would fight if they could see any one to fight with. The ground was strewn with the dead and dying, maddened horses were plunging about, the roar of musketry and cannon, and above all the yells that came from the throats of six hundred invisible savages, formed a chaos of anguish and terror indescribable. Braddock saw that all was lost and ordered a retreat, but had scarcely done so when a bullet pierced his lungs. It is alleged that the shot was fired by one of his own men, but this statement is without proof. The retreat soon turned into a rout, and all who remained dashed pell-mell through the river to the opposite shore, abandoning the wounded, the cannon, and all the baggage and papers to the mercy of the Indians. Beaujeu had fallen early in the conflict. Dumas and Ligneris did not pursue the flying enemy, but retired to the Fort, abandoning the field to the savages, which soon became a pandemonium of pillage and murder. Of the eighty-six English officers all but twenty-three were killed or disabled, and but a remnant of the soldiers escaped. When the Indians returned to the Fort, they brought with them twelve or fourteen prisoners, their bodies blackened and their hands tied behind their backs. These were all burned to death on the bank of the Allegheny, opposite the Fort. The loss of the French was slight; of the regulars there were but four killed or wounded, and all the Canadians returned to the Fort unhurt except five.