Robert Orme to Governor Sharpe, Fort Cumberland, July 18th 1755.

 

My Dear Sir
I am so extremely ill in bed with the wound I have reciev'd in my thigh that I am under the necessity of employing my
friend Cap t Dobson to write for me. I conclude you have had some account of the action near the Banks of the Monongahela about seven miles from the French Fort, as the reports spread are very imperfect what you have heard must consequently be so to. You should have had more 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 9 th 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 Provision 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 i8 th Ins t Poor Shirley was shot thro' the head, Cap t Morris wounded, M r 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. S r Peter Halket was killed upon the spot Coll Burton and S r 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 relatedand 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. As our number of horses were so much reduced and those extremely weak, and many carriages being wanted for the
wounded men, occasion'd our destroying the amunition and superfluous part of the provision left in Coll Dunbars Convoy to prevent its falling into the hands of the Enemy. As the whole of the Artilery is lost and the troops are so
extremely weakened by Deaths, Wounds and Sickness it was judged impossible to make any further Attempts, therefore Coll Dunbar is returning to Fort Cumberland with every thing he is able to bring with him I propose remaining here till my wound will suffer me to remove to Philadelphia from thence shall make all possible despatch to England, whatever commands you may have for me you will do me the favour to direct to me here I am with the greatest Sincerely Your most obedient and most

Humble Servant
or

Rob t Orme