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Correspondence of Governor Sharpe. 253
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early accounts of it but every officer whose business it was to
have informed you was either killed or wounded, and our
destressfull situation put it out of our powers to attend to it so
much as we would otherwise have done.
The 9th Instant we passed and repass'd the Monongahela by
advancing first a party of 300 men which was immediately
follow'd by another of 200, the General with the Column of
Artilery, Baggage and the main Body of the Army passed the
river the last time about one o'clock; As soon as the whole
had got on the Fort side of the Monongahela we heard a very
heavy and quick fire in our front, we immediately advanced
in order to sustain them, but the Detatchment of the 200 and
300 men gave way and fell back upon us which caused such
confusion and struck so great a Pannick among our men that
afterwards no military expedient could be made use of that had
any effect upon them; the men were so extremely deaf to
the exhortations of the General and the officers that they fired
way in the most irregular manner all their amunition and
then run off leaving to the Enemy the Artilery amunition Pro-
- vision and Baggage nor could they be perswaded to stop till
they got as far as Guust Plantation, nor these only in part
many of them proceeding even as far as Coll Dunbars party
who lay six miles on this side; The officers were absolutely
sacrafised by their unparalel'd good behaviour, advancing some-
times in bodys & sometimes seperately hoping by such example
to engage the Soldiers to follow them, but to no purpose.
The General had five horses shot under him and at last
receiv'd a wound through his right arm into his Lungs of which
he died the i8th Inst Poor Shirley was shot thro' the head,
Capt Morris wounded, Mr Washington had two horses shot
under him and his cloaths shot thro in several places behaving
the whole time with the greatest courage and resolution. Sr
Peter Halket was killed upon the spot Coll Burton and Sr John
St Clair wounded, & Inclosed I have sent you a list of the
Killed and wounded according to as exact an account as we
are yet able to get.
Upon our proceeding with the whole convoy to the Little
Meadows it was found impracticable to advance in that manner,
the General therefore advanced with twelve hundred men with
the necessary Artilery amunition & provision leaving the
main body of the convoy under the Command of Coll Dunbar
with orders to joyn him as soon as possible, in this manner
we proceeded with' safety and expedition till the fatal day I
have just related and happy it was that this disposition was
made otherwise the whole must have either starved or fallen
into the hands of the Enemy as numbers would have been of
no service to us, and our provision was all lost.
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