With a commendable discretion--the utmost, perhaps, that he was capable of--Braddock had concluded his arrangements for passing what he regarded as the only perilous place between his army and the fort, which he designed to reach early on the 10th. Had the proposition, started and abandoned by St. Clair, to push forward that very night a strong detachment to invest it before morning, been actually made to him, it is very probable he would have discountenanced it. As in all human likelihood it would have been crowned with success, it is as well for the general's reputation that the suggestion aborted. What precautionary steps his education and capacity could suggest were here taken by Braddock. Before three o'clock on the morning of the 9th Gage was sent forth with a chosen band to secure both crossings of the river, and to hold the farther shore of the second ford till the rest of the army should come up. At four, St. Clair, with a working party, followed to make the roads. At 6 A.M. the general set out, and, having advantageously posted about four hundred men upon the adjacent heights, made, with all the wagons and baggage, the first crossing of the Monongahela. Marching thence in order of battle toward the second ford, he received intelligence that Gage had occupied the shore, according to orders, and that the route was clear. The only enemy he had seen was a score of savages, who fled without awaiting his approach. By eleven o'clock the army reached the second ford; but it was not until after one that the declivities of the banks were made ready for the artillery and wagons, when the whole array, by a little before two o'clock, was safely passed over. Not doubting that from some point on the stream the enemy's scouts were observing his operations, Braddock was resolved to strongly impress them with the numbers and condition of his forces; and accordingly the troops were ordered to appear as for a dress-parade. In after-life Washington was accustomed to observe that he had never seen elsewhere so beautiful a sight as was exhibited during this passage of the Monongahela. Every man was attired in his best uniform; the burnished arms shone bright as silver in the glistening rays of the noonday sun, as, with colors waving proudly above their heads, and amid inspiring bursts of martial music, the steady files, with disciplined precision, and glittering in scarlet and gold, advanced to their position. While the rear was yet on the other side, and the van was falling into its ordained course, the bulk of the army was drawn up in battle array on the western shore, hard by the spot where one Frazier, a German blacksmith in the interest of the English, had lately had his home. Two or three hundred yards above the spot where it now stood was the mouth of Turtle Creek--the "Tulpewi Sipu" of the Lenape--which, flowing in a southwestwardly course to the Monongahela, that here has a northwestward direction, embraces, in an obtuse angle of about one