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NEW YORK CITY AND ITS INTERESTING FEATURES.

average New Yorker is never at home anywhere else. The lower end is a perfect whirl in the daily grind of the wholesale business district. Farther north the retail district, with its stupendous stores of every description, where merchandise is displayed in a most seductive manner, is a blaze of color and activity. Theaters and hotels dot the streets everywhere from Twentythird to Ninetieth streets. The surface cars rush up and down in an almost endless chain; underneath the Subway; overhead here and there the elevated. New York is ever interesting in and out of season.

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It boasts of summer amusements which can be found nowhere else. It has its Coney Island, with its thousand and one ways to spend your money. You can take a boat to almost anywhere if you want to get out of town. But wherever you go, you are never alone, always someone who is doing the same thing.

There's one feature of New York that is bewildering to the visitor. It is the "eating" habit which prevails among all classes. Day or night, summer or winter, one can find a greater variety of cafes and restaurants than anywhere else probably in the world.

ART MUSEUM-CENTRAL PARK.

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THE BURIAL OF BRADDOCK.

BY CHARLES L. SHIPLEY.

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NE hundred and fifty years ago the 9th of July, 1755-a century and a half-marks the date of the defeat of the ill-fated expedition against Fort Du Quesne-when "Ned Braddock of Fontenoy" marched over the "mountain wall."

Every student of American history should be familiar with this, one of the most tragic events of our colonial history, the prelude to the great French and Indian War that for eight years-1755 to 1763-deluged our frontiers in a sea of blood and tears.

It is not within the scope of this article to describe in detail the history of this expedition and its tragic sequel. This, the historian of that and future periods has fully delineated its cause and effect, and sufficient it is relate that the defeat of Braddock spread dismay far and wide through the length and breadth of the English colonies that ever memorable summer of the year 1755.

The fight was desperate and bloody. Braddock had five horses shot under him, but he was still too stubborn and proud to retreat before his red-skinned foe. It was while on horseback standing beneath a large tree that stood between the heads of the northermost ravines, and while in the act of giving an order, that Braddock received his mortal wound—a musket ball through the lungs. Falling from his horse, he lay helpless on the ground, surrounded by the dead and dying. 'What is to be done?" he faintly asked Col. George Washington, one of his aides. "We must retreat, 99 was the answer"the regulars will not fight, and the rangers are nearly all killed.

The order was given. Frightened and deaf alike to commands and threats, the regulars broke from their ranks and disgracefully fled, leaving their stores and artillery and even the private papers of their general in the hands of their enemy. "They ran," says Washington, "like frightened sheep pursued by wolves." Never was a route more disastrous. Out of 86 officers, 26 were killed and 37 wounded. The killed and wounded of the privates were 714. One-half of these

were supposed to be killed and were stripped and scalped by the Indians.

Not one of his "trained regulars on whom he could rely so implicitly," and "who had served with the Duke,' could

be prevailed upon to stay his headlong flight and help bear his wounded commander from the field. Colonel Orme endeavored to tempt them with a purse of sixty guineas, but even gold could not stay their fright, and they rushed unheeding on.

Disgusted with such cowardice, and his heart swelling with despair, Braddock refused to be moved, and bade his faithful friends who lingered by his side to save themselves. He declared that he would leave his body on the field; the scene that had witnessed his dishonor should bury his shame. With manly affection, Orme disregarded his commands, and Captain Stewart, of Virginia (the commander of the Light Horse attached to the General's person), with another American officer, hastening to Orme's aid, his body was first placed in a tumbril and afterwards upon a fresh horse and borne along in the midst of the fugitives. Braddock still essayed to procure an orderly retreat, but the demoralized condition of the army now rendered this well nigh impossible.

With great difficulty, a hundred men, after running about a mile, were persuaded to stop at a favorable spot where Braddock proposed to remain until Dunbar should arrive, to whose camp Washington had been sent with suitable orders. By his direction Colonel Burton posted sentries here and endeavored to form a nucleus around which to gather the remains of the shattered troops, and where the wounded might be treated. But all was in vain. In an hour's time almost every soldier had stolen away, leaving their officers deserted.

Those making the best of their way off were joined beyond the other ford by Lieutenant Colonel Gage, who had rallied some eighty men, and this was all that remained of that gallant army which scarce six hours before was, by friend and foe alike, deemed invincible. With little interruption the march was continued through that night and the ensuing day till 10 p. m., on the 10th of July they came to Gist's

THE BURIAL OF BRADDOCK.

plantation, where early on the 11th some wagons and hospital stores arrived from Dunbar for their relief.

Despite the intensity of his agonies, Braddock still persisted in the exercise of his authority and the fulfillment of his duties. From Gist's plantation he detailed a party to return towards the Monongahela with a supply of provisions to be left on the road for the benefit of stragglers yet behind, and Dunbar was commanded to send to him the only two remaining old companies of the FortyEighth and Forty-Fourth, with more wagons to bring off the wounded, and on Friday, the 11th, he arrived at Dunbar's camp. Through this and the preceding day, men half famished, without arms, and bewildered with terror, had been joining Dunbar; his camp was in the utmost confusion, and his soldiers were deserting without ceremony.

Braddock's strength was now fast ebbing away. Informed of the disorganized condition of his remaining troops he abandoned all hope of a successful termination to the expedition. He saw that not only death, but utter defeat was inevitable. But conscious of the odium the latter would excite, he nobly resolved that the sole responsibility of the measure should rest on himself, and consulted with no one upon the course he pursued. He merely issued his orders and insisted that they should be obeyed. Thus, after destroying the stores to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy (of whose pursuit he did not doubt), the march was resumed Saturday, the 12th of July, towards Will's Creek.

Ill-judged as were these orders, they met with but too ready execution at the hands of Dunbar, whose advice was neither asked nor given on this occasion. Thus the great mass of stores which had been brought hither was destroyed. Of the artillery but two six-pounders were saved, the cohorns were broken or buried, and the shells bursted. One hundred and fifty wagons were burned; the powder casks were stove in and their contents to the amount of 50,000 pounds cast into a large spring, and the provisions were scattered abroad upon the ground or thrown into the water. Nothing was saved beyond the actual necessities for a flying march, and when a party of the enemy appeared some time after on the scene they completed the work of destruction. It was not until Sun

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day, July 13th, that all of this was finished and the army commenced again its retreat.

Ever since the flight began, Braddock had preserved a steadfast silence, unbroken, save when he issued the necessary commands. That his wound was mortal he knew, but he also knew that his fame had received a not less fatal stab-that his military reputation, dearer than his own life to a veteran, was gone forever. These reflections embittered his dying hours, nor were there any means of diverting the current of his thoughts or ministering to the comfort of his body, for even the chaplain of the army was among the wounded. He praised in the warmest terms the conduct of his officers, and seems to have entertained some compunction at not having paid more attention to the advice of Washington; and we find him singling out his Virginia aid as his legatee, bequeathing to him his favorite charger and his body servant, Bishop, so well known in after years as the faithful attendant of the patriot chief.

The only allusion he made to the fate of the battle was to softly repeat once or twice to himself "Who would have thought it?" Turning to Orme-"We shall know better how to deal with them the next time." But Braddock had already done with all future time, and was already entering that calm world where the sound of battles never disturb.

The litter on which he had been borne was set down, and his remaining officers gathered sadly around it and watched the last death struggles of their ill-fated commander. A brief farewell-a faint gasp— a weak struggle, and Braddock lay a corpse in the forest. Thus at about 1 o'clock in the morning of Monday, July 14th, honorably died a brave old soldier, who, if wanting in temper and discretion, was an accomplished officer according to the school he was drilled in. The uttermost penalty that humanity could expect he paid for his errors, and if his misfortune brought death and woe upon his country it was with no shrinking upon his part from what he conceived to be his duty. He shared the lot of the humblest man that fell by his side.

A grave was hastily dug in the center of the road to conceal it from the Indians, into which, with his sword laid across his breast, he was lowered. Washington read the Episcopal burial service by torchlight over him, the deep tones of his voice interrupted only by the solemn amen of the

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THE BURIAL OF BRADDOCK.

surrounding officers. The motionless torchbearers; the encircling forest, with its dimly lighted corridors; the long line of receding bayonets flashing in the dim light; the uncovered officers; the open grave, beside it the pale face of the sleeper, combined to form a scene at once picturesque and solemn, and never to be soon effaced from the memory of those who witnessed it.

A mark was left to designate the spot, and the army again defiled through the forest. An order was given to pass the troops and the army train over the place of his interment, in order to efface any marks by which hostile hands might be enabled to disinter and insult his remains.

Alone the defeated warrior lay in his rude grave, safe from the mortification and anguish that awaited him in the settlements and in the army. Tradition says that in his dying hours Braddock could not bear the sight of a red coat, and that with his last breath he deplored his insults to the Virginia militia, who, under Washington, had covered his retreat and lost nearly their whole number. The place of his interment can still be seen, a few yards north of the present National Road, between the fifty-third and fifty-fourth mile from Cumberland, and about a mile west of the site of Fort Necessity at the Great Meadows.

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