In this disastrous campaign, fraught with woe to so many once happy homes, twenty-one officers and two hundred and seventy-three privates were either killed or taken captive. There was something in the dignity, thoughtfulness, and heroism of Washington’s character which caused, notwithstanding the incessant attacks to which he was exposed, his reputation to be continually on the advance. The weary weeks still lingered slowly away, and but little was accomplished. The Indians were ravaging the frontiers, almost unopposed. Life had become a burden in hundreds of woe-stricken homes. In many a lonely log-cabin, the widowed mother gathered her orphan children around her, and in terror awaited the war-whoop of the savage. Washington was given the command of a detachment of American troops to do what he could for the protection of these homes where anguish dwelt. If there be pestilence, famine, earthquake, God is responsible for the consequences; for He sends the scourge. But for these woes, these terrific woes, caused simply by ambitious warfare between the courts of England and France, God is not responsible. They were the work of man. The responsibility rests upon human hearts. Who will be held, by God, accountable for them in the day of judgment? There are some persons who must have cause to tremble. It was not until the 5th of November, that the whole army was assembled at Loyal Hannan. Dreary winter was at hand. Snow capped the summits, and ice filled the gorges of the mountains. Freezing blasts moaned through the forests and swept the plains. Fifty miles of rugged mountain ranges were to be traversed, through which no road had yet been opened. The march was commenced, without tents or baggage, and with but a light train of artillery, in consequence of the ruggedness of the way. Washington was in the advance. His route led along the path by which the fugitives of Grant’s army had retreated. It was a melancholy march. The road presented continued traces of the awful defeat. It was strewed with human bones, picked clean by the wolves. These were the remains of beloved sons, husbands, fathers. Some had been cut down and scalped by the Indians. Some had thrown themselves on the ground, to die alone of exhaustion and hunger. Their panic-stricken companions could not remain, in their desperate flight, to nurse the sick or to bury the dead. As the troops drew near Fort Duquesne the more numerous these mementoes of the awful past appeared. Washington advanced with the greatest caution, until he arrived within sight of the fort. He had anticipated a vigorous defence. But the signal successes of the British armies in Canada had prevented any reinforcement or supplies from being sent to Fort Duquesne. The intelligent officers saw, consequently, that they were in no condition to repel the very formidable army which Great Britain was marching against them.