His obsequies were performed before break of day. The chaplain having
been wounded, Washington read the funeral service. All was done in
sadness, and without parade, so as not to attract the attention of
lurking savages, who might discover and outrage his grave. It is
doubtful even whether a volley was fired over it, that last military
honor which he had recently paid to the remains of an Indian warrior.
The place of his sepulture, however, is still known, and pointed out.
Reproach spared him not, even when in his grave. The failure of the
expedition was attributed both in England and America, to his obstinacy,
his technical pedantry, and his military conceit. He had been
continually warned to be on his guard against ambush and surprise, but
without avail. Had he taken the advice urged on him by Washington and
others, to employ scouting parties of Indians and rangers, he would
never have been so signally surprised and defeated.
Still his dauntless conduct on the field of battle shows him to have
been a man of fearless spirit; and he was universally allowed to be an
accomplished disciplinarian. His melancholy end, too, disarms censure
of its asperity. Whatever may have been his faults and errors, he in a
manner expiated them by the hardest lot that can befall a brave soldier,
ambitious of renown--an unhonored grave in a strange land: a memory
clouded by misfortune, and a name for ever coupled with defeat.
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