“With chaos all around him, Washington realized there would be a massacre of biblical proportions if they were unable to disengage and withdraw back across the Monongahela before dark. He brought up the two light cannons and directed them to fire grapeshot at their attackers and ordered your father to take his militia company to fight their way uphill to protect the left flank of the column all the way back to the crossing point at the river.

“In the time it took Washington to attempt organizing anything close to an orderly retrograde, he had two horses shot from under him and musket balls perforated his coat in four places without wounding him. I can assure you Colonel Washington believes in Divine intervention in the affairs of mankind.

“So too, does your father. He was wounded in his right shoulder by a ball fired by one of the pursuing savages as he and his company were guarding the ford over the river. They were the last to cross over, well after dark. Though thoroughly exhausted, they brought with them their three dead and seven wounded. Had they failed in their mission, there might well have been an even greater catastrophe.

“It took more than two and a half days for the remnants of the shattered column to traverse the forty-five miles back to Great Meadow. Along the way, your father and another militia company fought off bands of savages intent on killing wounded stragglers and scalping and looting the dead.

“As the long column made its painful way east, Washington dispatched messengers to alert Colonel Dunbar to the exigencies of their situation and asked that fresh troops be sent to assist their beleaguered comrades. But the requested help never came.

“Late on the night of 11–12 July, when General Braddock’s grenadier escort arrived at Dunbar’s encampment just west of the ruins of Fort Necessity, their grievously wounded commander’s litter was lashed to an artillery caisson. Word quickly spread and by dawn of the 12th, panic ensued in the ranks of the British Regulars, the militiamen—and especially among drivers in the wagon train.

“Dunbar and his officers, fearing mass desertion, appealed to Morgan—the civilian they flogged just weeks before—to quell a mutiny among the 200 or so wagon drivers who began dumping their cargoes in preparation for fleeing back to Fort Cumberland.

“Morgan, from his experience a year earlier, realized many wagons would be needed to carry the wounded and dead. Armed with his long-rifle, a pistol, and a tomahawk in his belt, he climbed atop the cargo in his own wagon and bellowed out, ‘Gather ’round me all you wagoneers! Now!’