Three or four o'clock on that ninth day of July, as the advance of the army was ascending a rise of ground, a volley of musketry suddenly arrested their progress. From a ravine, concealed by dense foliage, a deadly fire was poured into their faces. Before they had recovered from their surprise, another volley was fired into them from the other side. These volleys mowed them down like grass. Yet the enemy could not be seen. The English directed their fire towards the smoke of battle, though but for a moment. For the torrent of lead, shot into their faces, forced the advance back upon the main column, and confusion followed. General Braddock bravely sought to rally them, to move forward in orderly columns, as on European battlefields, but his efforts were abortive; for six hundred Indians, painted and armed for battle and thirsting for blood, burst from their ambuscade, followed by three hundred French and Canadians, sure of victory; and the work of carnage grew terrific. Early in the conflict two of Braddock's aides-de-camp, Captains Orme and Morris, fell, and Washington alone remained to carry the general's orders here and there. Without the least regard to personal safety, he galloped over the field, his tall, noble form presenting a rare target for the Indian sharpshooters, who took special pains to bring him down. Two horses were shot under him, and four balls pierced his clothes; still he was conspicuous everywhere that he could be of service, and for three hours distributed his commander's orders, with the deadly missiles flying around him like hailstones. Dr. Craik said: "I expected to see him fall every moment. He dashed over the field, reckless of death, when the bullets whistled about him on every side. Why he was not killed I cannot divine, unless a watchful Providence was preserving him for more important work." One of the principal Indian warriors fired at him again and again; and, at his bidding, a score of young braves did the same, without so much as grazing his skin, keeping up their fire until convinced that the Great Spirit had given to him a charmed life that he might not be shot in battle. Mr. Paulding gives the description of an eye-witness thus: "I saw him take hold of a brass field-piece as if it had been a stick. He looked like a fury; he tore the sheet-lead from the touch-hole, he placed one hand on the muzzle, the other on the breach; he pulled with this and he pushed with that, and wheeled it round as if it had been nothing. It tore the ground like a plough. The powder monkey rushed up with the fire, and then the cannon began to bark, I tell you. They fought and they fought, and the Indians yelled when the rest of the brass cannon made the bark of the trees fly, and the Indians came down. That place they call Rock Hill, and there they left five hundred men dead on the ground."