Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 4).djvu/62

58 might have been saved to the nation, which was expended in making a waggon road, through the woods and mountains, the way he went." Yet Cumberland's orders were distinct to go to Niagara by way of Virginia and Fort Duquesne.

Horace Walpole's characterization of Braddock is particularly graphic and undoubtedly just—"desperate in his fortune, brutal in his behavior, obstinate in his sentiments, intrepid and capable." The troops given him for the American expedition were well suited to bring out every defect in his character; these were the fragments of the 44th and 48th regiments, then stationed in Ireland. Being deficient (even in time of peace), both had to be recruited up to five hundred men each. The campaign was unpopular and the recruits secured were of the worst type—"who, had they not been in the army, would probably have been in Bridewell [prison]." Walpole wrote, "the troops allotted to him most ill-chosen, being draughts of the most worthless in some Irish regiments, and