Then Captain Bullitt held up a signal for surrender and the firing ceased. The besieged men all came forward. When within eight yards of the Indians waiting to receive their guns, Captain Bullitt gave the order to fire, the guns having all been loaded for that purpose. From this destructive volley at close range, the Indians fled in confusion, and before they could rally, Captain Bullitt got his men and wagons together, so protected as to make good their retreat. General Forbes commended Captain Bullitt’s method of saving his troops as “a matter of great admiration,” and rewarded him with a Major’s commission. There has been much discussion as to whether such methods made the Indians merciless or whether the merciless Indian required such methods. The problem is doubtless as unprofitable now as it is unanswerable, from any partisan point of view. CHAPTER VIII THE BEGINNING SIGNS OF A GREAT REVOLUTION I. MILITARY VICTORY AND A HAPPY MARRIAGE Washington now had charge of the advance on Fort Duquesne. He left Loyal Hannon over the road Major Grant had taken. The whole fifty miles were strewn with the bones of oxen, horses and men. What remained of the bodies of their comrades, they buried. Then they arrived at the scene of Braddock’s defeat, where the same duty was done for the dead, a sad reminder of the folly of arrogance and ambition in commanders. They had expected to have a hard fight for the capture of Fort Duquesne. But the success of the English in Canada, and the fall of Fort Frontenac had left the French at Fort Duquesne without any chance for supplies or reinforcements. The fort was already at the point of being abandoned from necessity. Accordingly, the commander waited until the English were within a day’s march of him, when he withdrew his force of five hundred men, destroyed what he could not take away, set fire to all that would burn, embarked at night in their long, light batteaux, by the flames of their fort, and floated down the Ohio, giving up their hopeless fight for the possession of the Ohio Valley. On the morning of November 5, 1758, Washington with his advanced guard marched in and hoisted the British flag over the ruins. The enemy was gone. The Indians having lost the support of their French friends withdrew into the depths of the forest. Washington rebuilt the place, garrisoned it with two hundred men and named it Fort Pitt in honor of the illustrious British minister, William Pitt. Washington’s military schooling, if we may so term it, in the light of great events to follow, was now ended. He had been engaged for marriage several months with Mrs. Martha Custis, a widow of the noblest womanly character, and considerable wealth. The marriage was accordingly celebrated January 6, 1759, the month before he was twenty-seven years of age. He now settled down, away from war, into the life of a business man, as his mother, herself a business woman, had so fondly desired.